Yeah, we got it. Okay, so... It's a short... It's only a couple of minutes. and and and and you you so Well good morning find out who the hardy ones are Okay, good enough and you may want to hibernate tomorrow, but anyway Let's see, anything extra here on the bulletins you might look that over. We do need... I don't know if there's any snow in the forecast, but as I mentioned, I try to take care of it through the week. But if we could get somebody that's signed up to at least do the walk out front and then underneath the canopy if it does snow. But we could use somebody for next Sunday. So we'll just kind of pass that around. Most of the rest of the stuff signed up. So I'll be in competition with all those delicious smells coming upstairs. All right. Good enough here. Okay, well today is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Actually, it's the 22nd. This is the closest to it. And we'll be observing that. I'll show you a little short little video clip here in a little bit after we get done with our choruses. But, you know, sometimes those are real difficult times for ladies. Making that decision what to do, you know, some it's just automatic, you know, it's maybe gonna keep it other ones are in different circumstances and people through the years have presented that as an option. Not necessarily a good option, but you know, you got people telling you that. And it's a moneymaker for those on the other side. I looked up just for curiosity, And it depends on at what stage you're at, first trimester, second trimester, so on. Each one, it goes up. But Planned Parenthood, I think they said the average is $580 that they get for an abortion. It may be up to $2,000, depending on circumstances. But that's money in the bank for them, and that's why they're able to lobby. get tax funds and all kinds of stuff to keep their work going. So we can pray that the Lord will eventually shut them down. The problem is here in our own state, we've got a law that goes way back into the 1800s that kind of keeps that from happening. But with the liberals that we got on the Supreme Court, It's probably only a matter of time before some case gets brought up to them and they'll want to throw it out. We do have an election coming up here in the spring, and it's our opportunity to put a conservative on there that would keep them from being able to do all the bad stuff they have up their sleeve. So, need to keep that in mind. I think it's April, but we'll let you know before. So, if it's filled in, you probably don't need to keep passing it. Okay, let's get ready to sing. Shelter in the time of storm. You know, we can come to the Lord. We're not all facing abortion, that's not the big question for us, but you've got other storms, other challenges that we face, and we can still come to the Lord for that. I'm sorry, Shelter in the Time of Storm 353, 353. All right, guys, good morning. Let's stand and sing in 353. We'll sing verses one, two, and four. 353. ♪ O night divine, O night when we were young ♪ ♪ Shelt'ring time was gone ♪ ♪ O night divine, O night when we were young ♪ ♪ Shelt'ring time was gone ♪ A weary day, a weary day, A weary day, a weary day, A weary day, a weary day, A weary day, a weary day, A weary day, a weary day, A weary day, a weary day, ♪ The way, the way, the way, the way ♪ All right, so turn over to 354, Leaning on Everlasting Lives. It'll be easy. We'll sing all three verses. ♪ God of fellowship, God of joy ♪ ♪ Within the U.S.A. mountains ♪ ♪ God of excellence, God of destiny ♪ ♪ Within the U.S.A. mountains ♪ ♪ Within the U.S.A. mountains ♪ ♪ We, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we ♪ Be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye, be ye I won't ask for a raise of hands. But this public service announcement, OK? I know sometimes people aren't very fond of going to the doctor. And they resist it every opportunity they can. And it's not to scare you, but just to kind of give you a little nudge. Sometimes people need a little reminder, a little push sometimes. You've got something going on in your life physically, Go to the doctor, okay? Don't just try to treat it on your own and think, oh well, it'll go away and that sort of thing. I think many of you had received the text or whatever that I had sent out about my neighbor. He's been going to work functioning and everything else we hi and goodbye kind of thing and here lately and Ambulance out there in front here on Friday night wonder what world's going on and got talking to his brother a little bit and hadn't heard from him for a couple of days and so they went to check on him and Apparently he'd had a stroke and didn't know what all was going on, but took him to the hospital. Found out the poor guy's been full of cancer. Colon, liver, spine, all kinds of stuff. You wonder, how in the world could he function? But he, you know, he complained of a back hurt and stuff, but didn't want to go to the doctor. Didn't want to go to the doctor. Folks, go to the doctor, OK? I'm not real fond of the dentist, but I go, all right? If your back hurts, don't go to the dentist. But at least go check it out. If it's nothing, you haven't lost anything, OK? And oh, I've got to save a buck. Well, that won't do you a whole lot of good if you're Six foot under, because you don't want to hear that. We all want to hear that good and faithful servant, don't we? We don't want to hear, well, if you'd have come to us sooner, maybe we could have done something. And it's surprising what they can find. I'll pick on Douglas here a minute. He went to go get cataracts. And they've taken blood pressure and stuff and saying, wow, you've got something going on here. You better go get your heart checked out before you will do cataracts. And so he missed out on the cataract, but they found some other problems. Had to take care of the heart first. Then we'll do the cataracts. My father-in-law and some others, going to do an X-ray of your esophagus or something for one reason or another. And they go a little bit lower than maybe they would have otherwise. And, oh, there's a tumor on your kidney. We better deal with that, OK? Some of this stuff doesn't show up unless you get checked out for some. So do it, OK? For your sake and for mine, all right? All right. Let's sing some choruses. And the first one we sing here is a short one. And you know, we've got all kinds of sometimes we get worries and concerns one kind or another and we can chew our fingernails down to nothing Pace the floor and all but a whole lot better solution is to talk to the Lord about it because he's actually somebody that can do something about it Shall we sing this one here together? Let's do that once more. All right, let's stand for this next one here. Be strong in the Lord. When you start in the Lord, you'll be able to turn it, and I believe that there is always a sea. Our God with me is as deep as the sea. When creation and you come under his name, ♪ Courage for He is your God ♪ ♪ Be strong, be strong, be strong, O Lord ♪ ♪ Be rejoiced, for the victory is yours ♪ ♪ For so long, O God, our God ♪ ♪ God has provided and placed your defense ♪ ♪ In His unfailing plan, our trust, man ♪ Be strong, be strong, be strong in the heart, there'll be a new birth for me. For the joys of the new day is nigh. I saw a new day, and we have the courage to fight, and we will vanquish the foe. He's strong, He's strong, He's strong in the Lord. There'll be a quick purge for all the unrighteous. He's strong, He's strong, He's strong in the Lord. And the choice for the victory is yours. Alright I want you to greet those around about you and then we'll look at that little video clip. What are you going to do? I have a question. so Be quick, you never know what's coming on next. That light went out. Is that still working? Is that still working? I was going to say a light went out, so I didn't know if it quit. All right. Well, today is a Sancti Human Life Sunday. We'll be looking at a few different passages. Let's pray as we begin here today. Heavenly Father, we thank you for loving us. Thank you for life. Thank you that our mothers chose life for us. And thank you for the gospel that's able to save our souls and have our sins forgiven and know that we're headed for heaven. not because we were baptized as a baby or anything else that we might do, but because of what Jesus has accomplished there on the cross and having come to that place in our life where we've recognized our sin in need of a savior and trusted him alone for our salvation. Help us as we look at your word here today that we might too see the preciousness of life I'm sure it's something that we all hold dear, but sometimes we need a fresh reminder of what God thinks of it. We pray you'll guide us in our time here now, in Jesus' name, amen. So today we talk about pro-life, pro-choice, pro-abortion, anti-abortion, women's rights, right to life, Pro-death, pro-life, there are a lot of labels floating around out there, probably a few more. All in that battle for abortion, some think, well, roadways, not the law anymore, so we're all okay. Well, no, not really. It's just they kick the can down the road a little bit, so each state makes up their own mind. And you've got some states that have already enacted laws that make abortion legal. And you've got people out there saying, well, you live in a state that doesn't have abortion. We'll provide a ride for you to get to that state that will. And we want to look a little bit beneath the surface here today. And to consider that question, as we look at the human beings, we see there's different stages of life. And we've got at least two sides to all of this. The women thinking about their rights, the right to control their own bodies. And apparently there was a march, I didn't really see much of that on TV here yesterday, but some out there. promoting that. But is there to be a limitation of those rights when another life is involved? Unfortunately, not every Christian has that settled in their own mind. And it needs to be settled in our minds. Some think it's, well, it's just a political thing. Or it's a social matter and really not something that churches ought to get involved in. And there are some out there that don't, you know, because they probably got people on both sides of the issue and their congregation and they don't want to make anybody mad. You know, we need the money coming in to pay for the mortgage or something. But you've got some that, you know, when it comes to, Taking a stand, life chain. I realize it's a long way till the first Sunday in October again, but plan on it, will you? We had a very small handful of people out there this last time. You know, we can talk the talk, but it's probably good to back it up. And who knows, that sign that you hold might change somebody else's heart and mind. That again, adoption is a loving option. Jesus saves and forgives and just a number of different signs. We're not out there holding pictures of aborted babies and such things as that, but it's a time to take a stand. And sometimes, too, we think, well, you know, we can't really expect the unbelievers to take on biblical morality and to believe like we do. And we need to keep in mind, we're talking about a life here, we're not talking about dress codes or something like that, you know, that people have different opinions on, but we're talking about a life, we're talking about a soul at stake here. And that really ought to cause us to set up and take notice. You know, we need to think about when life begins, And it really kind of boils down to what significance does life mean to us, a human life? We're kind of primarily focusing on the pre-born at this beginning stage here, but it works on the other end too, life all the way through. And the thing is, abortion is not a cause, it's a result. of people's actions. And some people view that baby, or they don't even want to call it a baby, they want to call it a fetus, they want to call it something else. Well, that's not really human, you know. To many, it doesn't possess the same kind of value as the mother of that baby does. But abortion is not the cause, it's the effect. And what it does ultimately is to devalue human life. And that's a dangerous thing as we're going to see here today, because when we devalue human life, it doesn't just stop at the babies. But because of the size and the location of that unborn baby in the womb, You know, it's susceptible. You know, it doesn't seem to have any rights. It can't speak up for itself. That's why we need to speak up for it. Somebody said one of the most dangerous places for a baby is in the womb because it's at that point that people can choose life or death. And it's important to all of us because once society declares that one category of humanity is less than fully human, it leaves the door wide open to other areas. Perhaps they want to begin to add the infirm, the feeble-minded, the disabled, the handicapped, the elderly, the terminally ill, You know, we haven't heard too much about that here lately. I think old Jack Kevorkian's probably dead and gone by now, but there'll be somebody else to take his place. We used to hear about death with dignity. And back when Obamacare was coming around, you know, deep within all those pages, you know, they call it, they didn't call it death squads, but where they go around and talk to people in nursing homes and other people saying, you know, you're really kind of a burden to your family. You know, it'd probably be doing your family and everybody else a favor. You're costing the government a lot of money for medical care and stuff if you just kind of end things. I'm kind of jumping ahead here a little bit, but the thing is, at what point is life not worth living? Different people talk again about quality of life. Oh, they don't have much quality of life. I'm still unsure about the circumstances surrounding my own mother's death. And I won't take a lot of time talking about that But you know if somebody were to look at her and say boy, there's not a whole lot going on here You know she's crippled up. Well. She had polio as a kid but Then it got to the point well, you know that one hip was so bad. She couldn't walk so she's in a wheelchair She had glaucoma went blind in one eye so and didn't see too good out of the other one and And, you know, she just feeble, you know, they couldn't fix a lot of stuff because her heart wasn't very strong. But her mind was sharp. Her mind was there. Now, sometimes it's the other way around, you know, the mind's gone, but the body's in great shape. But you know, who of us are to sit there as judge to decide your life's really not worth living? And, you know, we may come to some point in life where we don't, at least in the eyes of some, don't measure up, especially to medical field and whether they decide that, you know, we've spent enough money on you. Now, they'll never come out and say that, but, you know, the insurance company is in charge of a lot of that. But, you know, is life worth living? Are we really prepared to be pro-life? and what it stands for. So we want to talk about this meaning. What does it mean to be pro-life? And so I want to invite you to turn with me to a few scriptures here today. First one being that of Genesis chapter one. That's a good place to start, right? Genesis chapter one and verse 25. And here we see respect to all human life because it's made in the image of God. Margie, when you're doing that, you want to shut that door? There's probably a nice cold draft coming in through there. All right. So Genesis 125 says, God made the beast of the earth after his kind and the cattle after their kind. And I'll Go too far afield on this, but they each came after their kind. They weren't switching kinds. They weren't evolving from one to another. They started out that way. Everything that creepeth on the earth after his kind, and God saw that it was good. And God said, let us make man in our image. Now, do we all look like God? I'm looking out here, I'm seeing a lot of different faces. Was God 5'6", or was he 6'6"? No, it's his character, not his physical appearance, because God the Father is spirit. But he says, let's make man after our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle. and over the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth." They had dominion over it. They weren't one of the animals, okay? They were over the animals. Verse 27, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him and, oh, looky here, male and female. Not two, okay? Not 42. And he didn't just create us and, well, you can decide when you're about seven or eight years old, which way you want to go, no. He equipped us as male or female. He knew what he was doing the first time around, all right? Let's don't try to improve on God's plan. And God blessed them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over ever creeping over every living thing that moves upon the earth. Okay, so God created us in his image. So when we're taking some life, we're messing with God's image. That's not a mistake, okay, that God made. It's a child, it's a baby made in the image of God. It's man, woman, children, we were created in God's image. And he didn't say we would become in God's image at some point in time, like at birth or some other time, but that we started out in the image of God. And again, it's not that we contain the image of God, but we are in the image of God. And we, as I say men, but it's all of us, but man is the image bearer of God. In a sense, we represent God on earth. And it says that we are to have dominion over the animals and over this earth and over nature. We're not some product of evolution somewhere along the line. We're above nature. And verse 28 tells us, it says, we're not like the animals, the birds, the fish, and all the rest of them. They reproduce, we procreate. We're not just an animal, we're above the animals. And as a person, as God, we have intellect, emotion, and will. That makes the difference. That's what separates us from the animals. We are spiritual beings. We are going to live forever, all right? And we have a soul that's going to live for eternity. It's going to be in one of two places, going to be in heaven or hell. And humans are born physically, and we're also a spiritual miracle. Again, we have a spirit and a soul. Parents are involved, God's involved. And he's involved in making that child. You know, we know more about it now than we used to, you know. I don't know what point they decide, you know, they started talking about DNA, you know. We just knew that we had the similar genes to mom and dad or grandma, grandpa, you know, and that resulted in who we are, male or female. But then whether we ended up being tall or as some say, vertically challenged, you know, or what color eyes and hair and everything else that we have about us, our characteristics. But God is involved in that. But we are also a living soul, one that will live forever, but where will we live it? In heaven or hell? And so man is involved in bringing children into this world, but so is the Lord. And life is important to God, and so it ought to be important to us as well. And so we realize that taking of a human life is serious business because of who we are. Look, if you're still there in Genesis, look on to Genesis chapter nine, a few pages ahead here. Genesis chapter nine and verse six. It says, and whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. For in the image of God made he man. And so it's a serious thing because man is made in the image of God and is considered an assault on God to take another life, another human being. We don't assault God without a penalty. And when a human life is taken deliberately, it not only ends that life, but it ends generations and generations and generations. All the potential of that life is lost, as well as any potential for their children or their grandchildren. Think of all the lives that can be affected, all the potential that is lost. And we just pick out some names that you might be familiar with. People like Wesley or Moody or Hudson Taylor or Spurgeon, Billy Graham, Tony Evans, Chuck Swindoll, Charles Stanley, Adrian Rogers, and you keep on going for a while. What if they had never been born? What if their mothers had aborted them? You think of all the thousands of lives who would have never heard the gospel, never heard God's word from the mouths of these men and many women as well. And how many have not heard since 1973 because their lives were taken away from them? And the last I looked, you know, there's a number of changes, but something like 63 million babies have died through abortion that we know of. That's in the United States. It'd really be mind-boggling to know the rest of the world. But that's something like 3,200 a day. 3,200 a day. That one of the greatest tragedies of our nation is abortion, terminating life, terminating that pregnancy, but it also terminates generations. How much better off would our country be in the world, really, if those 63 million people had been allowed to live? Many of them would have been 50 years old and younger. That age group has lost 63 billion. And that's just, again, in our own country. Many of them would have been married, had families. Those children would have filled our schools, our colleges. We probably wouldn't have all this help-wanted stuff stuck on every business out there. because there's a labor shortage. Why is that? 63 million makes a dent in the country. Maybe our country wouldn't be in quite the mess that it's in had those 63 million been alive. Consider the millions again that have died. How much salt and light are not there because of abortion? We have no way of knowing, but out of that 63 million, I'm sure that there would have been some pastors and missionaries and Christian school teachers and moms and dads in there that will be teaching their children about the Lord. It's gone. You can't get it back. Well, being pro-life means too that we take the loss of any human life very seriously. Look, if you would, to another passage here in the Old Testament. Look to Deuteronomy, if you would, please. Deuteronomy chapter 21. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Deuteronomy 21. And beginning in verse 1 through 9, It says, if one be found slain in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it, lying in the field, and it be not known who has slain him. Okay, so somebody's been killed and they don't know who did it. Verse two, and the elders and the judges shall come forth and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain. And it shall be that the city which is next to the slain man, even the elders of that city shall take a heifer which hath not been wrought with and which hath not drawn in the yoke. And the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer into the rough valley. excuse me, which is neither eared nor sown, so they've never plowed the ground or raised crops on it, shall strike off the heifer's neck there in the valley, okay? It becomes a sacrifice. Verse five, and the priests and the sons of the Levite shall come nearer, for the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister unto him and to bless him in the name of the Lord, and by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried. And all the elders of the city that are next to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer that is beheaded in the valley, and they shall answer, saying, Our blood have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Be merciful, O Lord, unto thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto the people of the Israel's charge, and the blood shall be forgiven them. "'So shalt thou put away the guilt of the innocent blood "'from among you, and thou shalt do that which is right "'in the sight of the Lord.'" And so we see here, that was what was, they were commanded to do in the Old Testament when somebody was killed, they found somebody dead, they didn't know who did it. They didn't just, oh, well, that's too bad. No, the host, the closest town to it got involved. They were involved in this, even though they weren't involved in the murder or the killing of this individual, this unsolved murder. So the entire community became involved. Somebody had to pay for that heifer that was killed. Somebody had to pay for that ground. where the sacrifice was given. The death wasn't just forgotten, oh hum, well, that's kind of the way it goes. No, it was a loss for the whole community. They were aware of it. It was a serious matter. And the end result was that, again, the priests were involved, the elders were involved, and they were able to say, we didn't kill this man. We're innocent of his blood. And because of the shedding of that blood, it covered over their sin, and no death, again, was just forgotten about. And the thing is today, we can't claim that we don't know who's doing it. We're not, you know, they didn't know who did it. We know who's doing it, okay? And we can't claim that we don't know how or why that life was taken. We can't claim innocence. if we know the cause of death. Well, there was another side to this. Sometimes death happens accidental, all right? Doesn't give us all the details there, but you're out there chopping wood, you got your friend standing nearby, the axe head falls off, whicks him in the head, he's gone. You didn't mean to do that, but it happened, and somebody's dead as a result. So there's an accident. And we won't take the time here today to read through, but if you look at Numbers 35, it explains a bit more about that. And what they did, they established cities of refuge. where people could go to, they could plead their case, if you will, and tell them, you know, it was an accident. We didn't mean for this to happen. The death is investigated. But again, the person that was innocent of that death, even though it was accidental, they had to stay in that city of refuge. If they were to leave, they could be killed. But they had to stay in that city of refuge until the high priest died. And you're hoping the high priest is up in years, but it didn't always work out that way. And we see clearly even accidental death, it was something that was taken seriously. The loss of any human life there in the Old Testament was a matter of seriousness, and it ought to be the same with us today. There were consequences of it. And there in Numbers 35, 30, again, without going into all the details that the person was found innocent, or rather was found guilty. It says there in 35, 30, whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses. Okay, plural. But one witness shall not testify against any person and cause him to die." So it took more than one witness to say, I saw that, I know what happened or whatever. So somebody couldn't just point the finger at you if they wanted to get rid of you. But again, it was the government. It was the rulers of that day that did that. It wasn't just somebody taking their bow and arrow or whatever else that they might have had and say, I'm going to take them out. Today, you know, it's not up to us to be vigilantes, to sit outside of an abortion doctor's house with your rifle or something and try to take them out, you know. God can deal with them and will, all right? Thing is, what does the Bible tell us about God? He's long suffering, isn't it? You know, I don't have an example here for you this morning of a doctor, but there are nurses that were involved in the abortion industry that got saved and turned around and end up being advocates for the pro-life cause, you know, and God can turn the hearts and lives of doctors around too. And, but there was severe punishment that was taken for those. But again, let God do that. Don't take it upon yourself to think you got to right the wrongs of society. So how should we treat the millions of these unborn babies that have been killed throughout the United States since 1973? And again, we've got to keep things in perspective, but sometimes it's hard to wrap your mind around 63 million, you know. What do we got? We got 63 Milwaukee's out there, you know, and all of them gone. A message that I'm sharing on the radio. I guess it should have been on here today, this morning. But that's like all the people and I don't remember all of them now, but 15 different states. Can you imagine all the people of 15 states being wiped out? That gives you an idea of what 63 million is. Here's some other things that might, and I realize this is going back a little ways, but I think many of you will remember about Desert Storm. And we had an awful lot of people from our country and other countries over there in Saudi Arabia and other places getting ready to go in and straighten things out a little bit. And, but if, you know, we, if all those soldiers had been killed, it would be less than the 1.3 to 1.5 million a year that are aborted. A whole army wiped out. It would be less than what takes place in abortion clinics across our country. And that happens every year for 52 years. Remember 9-11? Some 3,000 people died. Remember, never forget. Don't forget who did it. But that same, that would be like a 9-11 every day for a year times 52 years. That's what it takes to get 63 million. That kind of puts things in perspective. God is vitally interested in life and death. You know, and sometimes we wonder why the country's in such a mess. That's not the only reason, but I'm sure it's a mighty big reason. And yet we want God to be merciful towards us. And we can pray that he will. And pray that things do get turned around, okay? But it took 52 years to get rid of Roe Wade. Will it take another 52 years to make abortion illegal? I don't know. God knows. But do we share God's view of human life? Is life that important to us? To be pro-life means that we need to be willing to deal with the consequences of opposing abortion. Kind of back to that original question, as we prepare to be pro-life and what it stands for, you know, we need to back up our speech with action. We oppose abortion, then we need to be prepared to deal with the pregnancy and the babies that could have been and are saved from abortion. Are we willing to care for those women and for those pregnancies to help save that baby's life? You know, Genesis 16 talks about that account with Abraham and Sarah. And Hagar, Abraham and Sarah got tired of waiting on God to give them that promised baby. So they took matters into their own hands and made a mess out of things. But they had a baby with Hagar and Hagar and Sarah didn't get along and she got kicked out. And what happened? Well, God took care of Hagar and her son. And if God takes care of those, We need to be willing to do so too. Yeah, it's going to cost us something. But would we as individuals, as a church body, would we help care for a woman who... in at least an unwanted, undesired pregnancy, but she decides she's going to keep her baby. And there's going to be needs there. There's doctor bills. There's other kind of bills. And when that baby gets here, you know how it works. Feeding those little ones is really kind of cheap. Wait until they get to be a teenager, and you can't fill them up. and all the clothes and everything else. Would somebody walked in here that was not married, having a baby, and they don't even talk in terms of that anymore because it seems to be so prevalent, but having a baby out of wedlock, they're not married, they're going to have a baby, how would we treat them? Would we treat them like a leper? Would we accept them? Doesn't mean that we approve of their actions, but you know, if we reject them, what's their option? You know, well, nobody wants me. Nobody wants to take care of me and my baby. I guess I better get rid of it. Would we help? Would we be willing to open our home and let them stay with us? Would we be willing to help with the medical bills? What if that baby is born and is somehow handicapped, disabled, other things that could happen there? See, pro-life means we may have to sacrifice something along the way to back up our actions. See, our responsibility doesn't end just because the mom decides to keep her baby. They decide to keep that baby, that's going to cost them a lot of money in the next 18 years. or so. And so we need to keep in mind, how much are we willing to help? You know, that pendulum swings both ways. We've been over here with a preborn, but that pendulum swings to the other end of life too, doesn't it? The elderly. And sometimes we talk about getting old. What's old? It's always older than what we are, right? None of us arrived yet. It's down the road a piece, you know? But yeah, we need to be willing to watch out for the elderly, as they say, because now I are one. That's not right English, but, you know, again, if we're pro-life against abortion, we also need to be pro-life when it comes to the other end of life. And we can't get caught up in this quality of life with one eye on the checkbook or the bank account or whatever and that person. It would sure be cheaper if we just kind of let them die. And you say, boy, that sounds pretty cruel, doesn't it? Well, if we at some point in time end up with government healthcare, Does the government run anything well? No. And they wouldn't run that one well either. And, you know, they promise you the moon, you know, and pretty soon we have to start cutting back because we don't have the money to pay for it all. And we've got to figure out ways to cut. And who's costing them the most money? Us folks, okay? You know, we're young. We never bother going to the doctor. You know, we don't have any doctor bills and everything else. That catches up with us. And sometimes, again, people end up in nursing homes and other care centers, and they don't always get the care that they need. Because, again, sometimes, you know, at least like with my mom, she got, you know, I think she got in, but she didn't have any money anyway. And as a college student, I didn't either. But they took her social security check, and she got $25 a month. that she could spend any way that she wanted. But they were also kind of in charge of the healthcare. And so if they could not spend a lot of money on their end, that worked out to their benefit. But as the quality of life diminishes, does the value of life diminish too? Yeah, again, have loved ones in nursing homes and talk about the quality of life. You're not maybe able to care for them, okay? Maureen and I lived in a mobile home, and we're both in college. It wasn't very easy. It wouldn't have worked for us to try to take my mom and dad in. There wouldn't have been enough room. But what happens when our mind gets kind of fuzzy? You know, and some of you, some of you have been with us, and we went to Alice Care, and it's not just there, but that was the one we went to. But you see some people that are, you know, some are with it, some not. You know, do we, if you're not with it, well, we don't need to work on them too much, spending a lot of money here. No, their value of their life is equal to ours. God brings us into the world, and I'm of a belief that God will take us out when our time's up. We don't need anybody else helping us out, okay? But that's the next step, this death with dignity stuff. And the foot in the door is abortion. And we get used to that, it's widely accepted. they start working on the other end. And keep in mind, again, their life is as valuable as ours is. And it's not just robbing the baby of their life. And again, it opens the door for other evils to creep in. And so pro-life means, There's no such thing as a life not worth living. We may not see the value of it. You know, it was hard for me to go see my dad and they didn't call it dementia or Alzheimer's or whatever then, they called it hardening of the arteries. You weren't getting enough blood flow to your brain, but he didn't know who I was. He didn't know my mom, you know, and it was hard to go see him because he really didn't carry on a conversation or anything. There wasn't a whole lot of joy out of life for him or anything. But God had him there for a reason, you know? And it wasn't up to us just to say, he's not getting much out of life next, you know? But let God be God, you know? And in the meantime that we do our best to try to take care of the babies and the elderly. And again, sometimes they both need somebody else to kind of watch over them. to help with the health care. Because even they may make promises, but they don't always fall through with it. Just as an example, Maureen's mom, she was in a care facility, and they went by how much care you needed. You don't need much care, it doesn't cost as much. I think when she went into this thing, it was $5,000 a month. At the end, it was $10,000 a month. And that was during COVID. And we couldn't get in. So there's no way to kind of check on things. And when she passed away, we went in and all our mails just scattered around on the couch, you know, where she couldn't even get at it. You know, there's dust. in the shower, it hadn't been used. They were supposed to be giving her a shower every week and everything. That wasn't happening. You got a thing of orange juice sitting over here with mold in it, and you're paying $10,000 a month. But the thing is, there are some people who don't have kids or somebody else to check on them. And don't go at the same time. Go Friday, day, night, whatever, because if they, oh, well, they're coming Friday night, we better have things slicked up here, you know? And I'm not saying they're all that way, but just because you're paying a lot of money doesn't mean that they're well taken care of. And so we need to look after them for all life on both ends of the scale. Christ gave us an example to follow. And he said there in Hebrews 13, five, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And we can't do what Christ does, but we ought to never leave our loved ones nor forsake them. Isaiah talked about it in 46, four, where God promises to continue to look after those, the white haired ones. Okay. I don't know if mine will stick around to get white, but he's got, God's going to take care of us. All right. He's going to take care of us through eternity. but he wants us to also be cared for here and now. And so God wants us to do our best, not just when it's convenient, not just when it doesn't cost us much, but to do what we need to do. You know, and maybe there's somebody here today to realize, you know, we've talked a little bit about abortion and babies and older folks, but we're talking about souls. We're talking about life. And folks, as I mentioned to begin with, those souls, all of us are going to live for eternity. Okay. Sure, we're going to die, but that's not the end. There's no period there. After this life, where are we going? We're going to heaven or we're going to hell. There's nothing in between. We don't get to jump from one to the other. The only decisions that we make in this life determine where we're going to spend eternity. And the thing is, I think we probably all want to go to heaven. And to do that, we can't just show up and hope we're going to be accepted, okay? Because we have a sin problem and no amount of good works or anything else that we do is going to somehow get rid of our sin so God will let us in. There's nothing we can do, but he knew that. He knew what, we had a sin problem and he knew we needed a savior. And that's why he sent his own son, the Lord Jesus. God himself came to this earth as God's son and to ultimately live and then to die on the cross. The Bible tells us the wages of sin is death. We all deserve to die because of our sin. We should have been up on that cross. But Jesus Christ came to be our substitute. He came to die in our place. He gave up his life. His blood was shed. That blood, nothing else but the blood, as that song says, will cleanse away our sin. Only the blood of Jesus Christ. And that blood is able to cleanse us of our sin. He promises to give us that gift of eternal life. And if you're here today and have never come to that point in your life, folks, don't put it off. Don't put it off. You know, I'm hesitant to keep using my neighbor, but, you know, we can be waving at people one day and be gone the next. We don't know. You know, you aren't going to get a letter in the mail saying this is the week. You're going to have a stroke. You may not be able to make a decision after this. You better get your act together. Better trust Christ, you know, or car wrecks. I mean, so many different things can happen. The thing is, we need to be ready, because none of us know when our life's going to end. And so we need to be ready whenever that time comes. It may not be 10, 15, 50 years from now. Don't know. God does. But we need to be ready. If you're here and never trusted Christ, let me encourage you to call out to Him today. You know, I'd be love to sit down with you quietly or privately or a lady with a lady and share with from God's word how you can know for sure your sins are forgiven and you're heaven bound. Folks, don't play Russian Lou Rhett. I can't even say it. You know, spin the gun. So yeah, we need to be ready. It'd be different if God didn't give us a plan, but he did. And there's only one way. One way, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me, Jesus said. It's through Jesus. No end runs, no digging under the wall, no climbing over the wall. To get in, it's through Jesus. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for loving us. Thank you for a plan of salvation that we can know for sure our sins are forgiven and we're headed for heaven. And Lord, we pray that we might think about what we are willing to do as individuals, as a family, even as a church. You know, we might be surprised what the Lord kind of drops in our lap. Okay, what are you going to do with this? Maybe it's some friend. Maybe it's somebody we know that's pregnant and don't know what to do. They don't look like they can handle it, but got all kinds of reasons why they should have an abortion. And maybe we need to share with them some truths from God's word that would help them to change their mind. An ultrasound also is helpful to help them to see that, yeah, that's a real live baby there. But are we willing to spend money, to give money, to help with these things? Lord, we thank you for the Alpha Women's Center, but that's just one little building that reaches a certain amount of people in our own area, let alone the whole state or the country. There are many more out there. I believe some 3,000 out there now, but that's still a pretty small number when you consider all the people in this world and still the number keeps mounting up of those who are choosing to abort their babies. Pray you continue to encourage our hearts. Help us to be mindful of this and be willing to participate. Lord, if there be anybody here today that's never trusted Christ alone for salvation, help them to understand this and to Come to know the Lord soon, and we would thank you in Jesus name. Amen Like for us to sing a closing song if you would please number 558 558 gentle Shepherd I Yeah, 458. ♪ I'll be there, I'll be there ♪ ♪ I'll be there, I'll be there ♪ ♪ I'll be there, I'll be there ♪ ♪ I'll be there, I'll be there ♪ ♪ I'll be there, I'll be there ♪ All right, so we want to invite you to come downstairs and eat with us. I forgot all about the pop-up. That's all right. There's always plenty of food. So, plan to join us if you're able to stick around for a few minutes. This should be a pretty straightforward business meeting, but we do have things we want to share with you. We're gonna do it downstairs, so you don't have to come back up here. to see if they have coffee and dessert. Anyway, if you haven't gotten your report out of your mailbox, now's a good time to get that. All right, Lord bless you. Stay warm. Be safe. you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So his goal was to have another three-day session. That's what the guys in the office used to say. I've worked with all men in the hospital. I've worked for six years, seven, in that one area. The two of them at least always tell each other, I'm not just another three-day.