an indictment on all too many churches. Let's turn the word of God to Ezekiel 33 and verse 8. Ezekiel 33 and verse 8. Let's hear the word of the living God as it's found in the prophet Ezekiel chapter 33 and verse 8. When I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die. and you do not speak to warn him. That wicked man shall dine as iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. This is the word of God. This last week we screened the unplanned film. And unplanned is a powerful film on the testimony of Abbie Johnson, the youngest director of a planned parented abortion clinic. who even received Employee of the Year Award from Planned Parenthood National. Abbie's conversion from abortion director to pro-life activist is a stirring and inspiring story. However, Abbie Johnson's story, the unplanned book, which we have in our shop, the dramatic film, Unplanned, which has just come out, they are a stinging indictment on all too many churches. According to the Movie Guide Review, which I've got a copy of on the table here, Abby comes from a very Christian family who are very pro-life. Quote, unquote. Yet she could be recruited by a planned parented representative at a volunteer fair at a university. Despite identifying herself as from a pro-life family and against abortion, She allowed herself to be talked into volunteering to join Planned Parenthood, initially to escort women into the Planned Parenthood abortion, and then progressively further and deeper into this wicked, nefarious organization, counseling women for abortions, promoting abortions, selling abortions, and finally, Director of the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Bryan, Texas, By her own estimation, 22,000 babies were killed in that abortion clinic while she was working there. Romans 2 verse 24 says, For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Abbey reports that while she was working at Planned Parenthood, it was pretty common to see women lying on an abortion table, praying, many holding rosaries. Now you all know that that's what Catholics do, Catholics pray to the rosary. Now Roman Catholics are meant to be seriously pro-life, if you would think. And she said it was common to see women holding the rosaries, praying on the abortion table while their baby was killed. At one point, Abbey tells her husband how she was praying that God would only let her get the job if it was his will. husband questions, but haven't you applied for the position? Abbey responds, yes, so he asked. So you're asking God to intervene in a process that you've already set in motion. The Bible says in Galatians 6 verse 7, God is not mocked what a man sows that shall he also reap. Shockingly when Abby Johnson finally left Planned Parenthood after 18 years and became pro-life, members of the vestry and the minister at the Episcopalian Church asked me not to come back. Here was an abomination that had no problem with having a director of Planned Parenthood amongst their members. At the moment she became a pro-life activist, leave and don't come back. What does this tell us about the state of all too many churches today? Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, Jesus said, hypocrites, for you shut up the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You neither go in yourself, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. When Sean Carney, the campaign director of 40 Days for Life, commented to Abbey that they often wondered if their praying at the fence outside Planned Parenthood achieved anything at all. I mean, they'd been doing this for years. They didn't know if they were succeeding in anything. They were seen to be faithful, but they didn't know if they were successful. Abby Johnson reported it was well known within Planned Parenthood. She said, it's a dirty secret that we don't want anyone outside to know. But she says, whenever there's pro-lifers praying on the sidewalk outside, our no-shows soar up to 75%. They drive past, they drive around the block, pro-life is still there, they disappear, they don't come in, they abandon their appointment. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Proverbs 31 verse 8 says, Open your mouth for the speechless in the cause of all who are appointed to die. We're told in Proverbs 3, 4, verse 11, deliver those who are drawn away to death, hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, surely we did not know this. Does not he who weighs the heart know it? He who keeps his soul, does he not know it? Will he not render to each man according to his deeds? That's a threat. God is saying, I'm the one who holds your life. I'm the one who determines whether you live and when you die and how. If you say, but we did not know it, God knows not only heart and mind and motivations, He knows our past better than we know our future. He knows our future better than we know our past. He knows our motives better than we do. He says, if you say, we did not know it, will He not render to each person according to what he's done? This is a threat actually. Now, praise God for all those who have been faithful, in pro-life prayer rituals, sidewalk counselling, life chains, marches for life, placard protests, 40 days for life initiatives, crisis pregnancy counselling, adoptions and so many other vital aspects of pro-life and abolitionist ministries. Prayers go after them. God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love, which you have shown towards his name, in that you have ministered to the saints and do minister. And we desire that each one of you should show the same diligence and full assurance of hope until the very end. That's in Hebrews 6, 10 to 11. So praise God for those who have been faithful. However, prevention is so much better than cure. If only Abby's family and church had adequately prepared her to see through the lies of Planned Parenthood, better to be called Planned Parenthood, if only her family and her church had prepared her to understand the times and to know what God's people should do, to understand this wicked and defiled, debauched apostate generation, to understand the issues. Imagine how much better it would have been if in some part of every calendar year. Every Christian church invited a pro-life speaker to deal with the issues, explain when life begins. Life begins at conception. What abortion is. Well, abortion is actually murder. It's killing of an innocent life. To understand the different ways how abortion is done. answers to the hard questions so-called, and all the different propaganda that people are deluged with, to be able to deal with what the Bible teaches on a Christian duty to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, rescue those being led away to death, hold back those staggering thoughts also. Imagine how much better it could be if the churches had done their job Imagine if Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders were all diligent in education and discipling young people so that they'd recognize the lies, the traps, the deceptions, and the temptations of Planned Parenthood abortion industry. Woe to you shepherds! This is from Ezekiel 34, from verse 2 on. Woe to the shepherds! The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor have you bound up the broken, nor have you brought back what was driven away, nor have you sought what was lost. So they were scattered, my flock became a prey. Therefore thus says the Lord, behold, I'm against you shepherds. incredible indictment to think that God could say this to any of them. As I live, says the Lord, surely because my flock has become a prey. Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of God. Behold, I'm against you shepherds. I will require my flock at your hand. This is the recurring warning in Ezekiel 3, Ezekiel 33 and here in Ezekiel 34 God requires watchmen and shepherds to be faithful. If we fail to give adequate warning their blood will be upon our head. That's a very serious thing to be said. Now it's bad enough when pagans kill their children But it's a completely outrageous scandal that so many millions of Christians have had abortions. Millions! Even while I was studying at Baptist Theological College, now Baptist Theological Seminary, I came across students whose girlfriends or wives had had abortions. One wife of a student described to me, being invited to their home for supper, and somehow this subject came up, And she described that her family is very high up in the Baptist denomination. Her father's a leader. He's actually a deacon of a Baptist church, but a very prestigious Baptist church. Her brother was going high and far in the Baptist Union. I think he became president of the Baptist Union at one point. And here she is engaged to a young theological student who was destined for great things in the Baptist Union. And so when she got pregnant as a fiancé, not yet married, her father took her to the airport and sent her off to England to have an abortion, because abortion was illegal in South Africa in the 1980s. And she said her father prayed at the airport for God's journeying mercies as he sent me to kill his grandchild. And she said, something died within me. Well, yes. her baby, but more than that, her faith was shattered. To say that we have cowardice and criminal complicity within the Christian Church in the subject would be a gross understatement. I know why so many ministers don't ever preach on the subject. I trained with him. I know what goes on in their hearts and minds and lives. It's not just cowardice. In many cases, it's criminal complicity and an unwillingness to repent. Now, they could repent. They could use their testimony to warn others. But no, these spineless cowards become the kind of people that God has condemned. In Psalm 106, we read the word of the Lord In 106, they even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of pain. And the land was polluted with their blood, and thus they were defiled by their own works, and they played the harlot with their own deeds. Therefore the wrath of the Lord was kindled against his people. so that he abhorred his own inheritance and he gave them over the hands of the gentiles and those who hated over them ruled over them the enemies also oppressed them this is all in psalm 106 verse 37 to 42 do you wonder why our enemies rule over us do you wonder why people who hate us rule over us because when we had religious freedom when blasphemy was illegal, when pornography was illegal, when abortion was illegal. There were South African Christians who traveled across into Baputatswana for Sin City for gambling, into Tronsky for gambling that wasn't legal in South Africa, and they sent their children to England to have abortions. That is what God is saying here. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. They shed innocent blood. It's bad enough to shed innocent blood, but to shed the blood of your own children. Unbelievable. They played the harlot by their own deeds. Hypocrisy. Cowardice. Compromise. The wrath of the Lord was kindled against his own people. He abhorred his own inheritance. He gave them over to the hands of a heathen. those who hated and ruled over them and oppressed them. There are consequences. What a man sows, that he reaps. I tell the people in Zimbabwe, they are not victims. People who vote for evil and corrupt governments are not victims, they are complicit, they are accessories. And people in South Africa who have six times in a row voted for corrupt, communist, mass murdering, baby killing, whoremongering perverts. must not cry when things go bad. They voted for it. They're accessories to all these crimes. It's bad enough that apostate denominations, or should we say abominations, like the PCUSA, the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, the United Methodist Church, whose so-called ministers conduct prayer services at Planned Parenthood abortion clinics. wearing Thank God for Abortion t-shirts, and we've got the pictures and we've shown them in Reformation site meetings. United Methodist Church apostate false ministers have conducted cheerful blessing services outside abortions, calling for their so-called Christians to sprinkle rose petals around the abortion, praying for God's protection on all who come to this women's health facility to make use of its services for reproductive health, You go down to Mary Stokes' laboratory when it was in Bree Street, we saw a big pull-up poster with Arch Heretic Desmond Tutu in his Arch Heretic's outfit. God bless Mary Stokes for the services they provide for women. What? For killing babies? So this is what it's come to, that you can have these apostates who don't believe the Bible is the Word of God, who don't believe Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity, who don't believe in the Trinity, who don't believe even in many cases in life after death, eternal judgment, the Ten Commands, and so many other things, but they do believe in the reproductive health abortions and are willing to put on their fancy dress and deceive other people into thinking that what you're doing here is fine. And so those who've seen the unplanned film or read the book will recall how many of the people involved in the Planned Parenthood clinic would be saying, I know I'm doing God's work here. I prayed and God guided and and my church has no problem with me doing this, people don't realize it's not just the pagans are killing babies. Millions of church-going people who claim to be Christians are involved in abortions and thousands are involved in actually doing abortions, not just going there for that. He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the just, both of them alike on abomination to the Lord, Proverbs 17, in verse 15. But then, if you thought it couldn't get any worse, there are abortionists. I'm talking about the so-called surgeons. I wouldn't dare call an abortionist a doctor. They're not. They're not a medical doctor. They've broken all the Hippocratic Oath. You think of what the Nightingale, the Florence Nightingale Oath is, and what the Hippocratic Oath is. I will give no abortifacient to any pregnant woman. I will do no harm to any patient. And all these different requirements to save life, not to take it. Any doctor or nurse involved in abortion claims is no doctor or nurse at all. Just like any minister who promotes this is no minister of God. It's a false minister, a false shepherd, a false prophet, an apostate. But there are abortionists who are not just members of so-called churches, but even deacons and elders. Take George Tiller, and call him Tiller the Killer. He's an American abortionist from Wichita, Kansas. If I'm not mistaken, he personally performed over 70,000 abortions, if memory serves me right, just off the top of my head. This tiller, the killer from Wichita, Kansas, gained national attention as the medical director of Women's Healthcare Services. How's that for a Nokia's title? Women's Healthcare Services. He was one of only three abortions in the whole of the United States of America to provide late-term abortions, meaning third trimester abortions, viable babies, if they'd been born by a C-section any other way, would be able to live on their own. Killing babies virtue to term. In fact, even it was proven after they were born, killing them. So, Tiller the Killer. He was not just guilty of infanticide, he was a deacon and an usher during Sunday morning worship service at, wait for the name, the Reformation Lutheran Church in Richardton. Reformation Lutheran Church. What would Martin Luther or Philip Melanchthon or any of the great Lutheran leaders of the past say about an apostate abomination that dares to put the name Reformation, Lutheran or Church on such, they might as well call it the First Church of Baal or Asherah. What, or First Church of Satan to that matter, involved in baby killing? Well, Tiller was shot dead in his church 31 May 2009, assassinated in his church. Proverbs 6 verse 16 to 17 says there are six things the Lord hates, seven which an abomination to him, and in the list is hands that shed innocent blood. God hates hands that shed innocent blood. Murderous in a word. What more innocent victim can there be than a pre-born baby who hasn't taken a first breath outside the womb yet? How more despicable can one get? And to think a person like that could be effectively a deacon of a church that dares to put Reformation Lutheran in its name. The United States of America has several abominations which support abortion, including the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Metropolitan Community Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church, so-called, and the United Methodist Church, which is probably the most apostate of the whole bunch. And so we read in Jeremiah 23, For both prophet and priest are profane. Yes, in my house I have found wickedness, says the Lord. They caused my people to err. They strengthened the hands of evildoers so that none turns back from his wickedness. Profaneness has gone out throughout all the land." Jeremiah 23, 11-15. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, like arch-heretic Desmond Tutu daring to endorse the Mary Stokes abortion in the name of his denomination, in the name of the Lord, wearing an archbishop's attire and having a Bible under his arm while blessing this abortion. Can you imagine anything so wicked? Now, shocking as these examples of apostasy are, What can we say about Bible-based churches, evangelicals, Pentecostals, who are so silent on the issue, so derelict in adequately preparing their members to understand the issues, ignoring the World War worldview, ignorant of the battle for the heart, passive in the battle for the mind, forgetting the battle for the family, fleeing from the fight for life, So much so that some of their own members not only are seeking abortions during Christ's pregnancy, but some of their own members are actually working for Planned Parenthood or Mary Stokes in abortion clinics, even performing abortions, even deacons and elders of churches killing babies as so-called surgeons. Isaiah 56 verse 10 His watchmen are blind, they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Reformer John Calvin commented on this passage in Isaiah 56 verse 10 saying, A barkless dog is better than a minister who cannot preach against evil. Even a dog will bark. if he senses danger for his master. A minister of the gospel who cannot preach against evil is worse than a barkless dog. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. We are to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength. We need to love our neighbours as ourselves, and that includes our unborn neighbours, our unseen neighbours. Christ's last command must be our first concern, and his last command is, make disciples of all nations, teach obedience to all things the Lord has commanded, proclaim the Lordship of Christ in all areas of life, applying the Lordship of Christ to every area of life. We are to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Jesus said we are to be like the good Samaritans. go and do likewise. How can so many millions of Christians walk by on the other side of the road while babies are being killed in our city? But if they'd stood in my counsel and caused my people to hear my words, then they would have turned them from the evil ways and from the evil of the genes. Jeremiah 23 is an indictment on every minister who fails to preach the whole counsel of God. If only they'd heard my words, then they would have caused the people to turn from the evil. We're to have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather to expose them. Ephesians 5.11. Who will rise up for me against wicked? Who will make a stand for me against the workers of iniquity? Psalm 94 verse 16. The first time I attended a pro-choice meeting on the life, it was in the suburb, Rondebosch, just down Park Road. Rondebosch Congregational Church. I think it's now called Runderbosch United Church. Dr Marge Dyer, head of the Abortion Rights Action Group, was leading the meeting in the Church Hall. Church Hall, this is 1990, abortion is illegal in this country, and my wife, Lenora, was pregnant with our first child, Andrea, and we went, we heard that there was this pro-choice rally being held in this Church Hall in Runderbosch. They went down Park Road to the Royal Welsh United Congregational Church, and Dr. Marge Dyer, my mother, who is a nurse called Dr. Death, because she knew that she did illegal abortions. My mother was involved always with gynecology most of her nursing life, and so he said Dr. Marge Dyer was despised in the gynecology community. Well, what was shocking for Nora and I sitting there, was the callousness, not just of Marge Dyer towards the pre-born, but one of the most shocking things I've ever heard. There was a woman at the back of the hall who was sitting with her daughter and this woman stood up and said, 21 years ago I was in a crisis pregnancy and I wanted to have an abortion. But the laws in South Africa would not allow me to. And this is my daughter here, 21-year-old sitting next to her. She said, there's not a day that goes by that I don't regret that I wasn't able to abort my daughter. And her daughter sitting next to her nodding her head. And later on I looked at this, and hearing these people all nodding in such sympathy, around there, Marge Dyer, I thought, had we fallen through the looking glass into the Mad Hatter's tea party? in a church hall in Rondebosch. There's not a day that goes by that I don't regret that I wasn't able to abort my daughter and the daughter sitting next to her nodding. When I first read Isaiah 49 verse 15, it seemed impossible. Can a woman forget her nursing child and not have compassion on the son of a woman? Now you'd think that's hypothetical. Nah, it's not possible. I mean, what mother Do you know of any animal who doesn't love their young and fight to protect the young? I don't know of any animal that doesn't love and care for the young. But there are people, by the millions, who gladly abort their babies, and others who regret that they weren't able to. because of some horrible Calvinist abortion laws making it illegal to kill babies. Can you imagine? But anyway, Azafudin 9 verse 15 doesn't end. Can a woman forget a nursing child and not have compassion on the son of a woman? Surely they may forget. But I will not forget you, says the law. So Azafudin 9 verse 15 makes clear, yes, it is possible for a woman to forget her baby. Or not even to love her baby, even to hate her baby. At the same week that my daughter Andrea was born, February 1991, I launched African Christian Action. We often say African Christian Action was born the same time Andrea was, our first child. And since 1991, I have been coordinating and conducting the annual life chains. In fact, the first life chain we ever held was in Newlands, Main Road. and Joe was in my backpack, well, you know, Bailey's backpack, taking part in it as I was handing out leaflets to the people there. And since 1991 we've coordinated the life chains throughout the country and across the border, as far as Zambia and so on, and I must have led well over a hundred pro-life protests, life chains, marches to Parliament, and even more than that, submissions to Parliament on this issue. I remember being in front of Cyril Ramphosa when he was Chairman of the Constitutional Committee, drafting up the new constitution, and it was 1995, And if I'm not mistaken, there were about 50 Members of Parliament there at the time. At the beginning, all these Members of Parliament found it all exciting, and so everyone was there for subcommittees. Now you'll be lucky to get a quorum, because most of them are missing, they're all derelict, they're doing something else. They're not interested now, but at that stage everyone was there, every chair was taken. And while I was presenting the pro-life case in the name of Africa Christian Action against their proposed legalized abortion, which was on the table, there was one colossal African National Congresswoman who said this thing, but what about all the unwanted street children? What about them? So I said, do you want to kill them? No, no, no, no, but must have abortion. So if you have unwanted street children. I said, well, what's the difference? Why don't you just kill them now on the streets? What's the difference, killing them in the womb or something? It's still killing them. Oh, no, we cannot do that. So I said, now, you talk about the unwanted street children. What have any of you done for the unwanted street children? What have you done for the refugees? What have you done for the poor? You talk about the poor. You're willing to vote other people's money for it. But which of you have ever done anything personally with your own money to help the poor, unwanted, the victims of laws that you pass in Parliament, said every day, the Salvation Army, the Docks Mission, Cape Town City Mission, other ministries, are on the streets. I've had drunkards vomiting down my back while I've carried them in, out of the gutter, to a home where they can get cleaned up and so on. We've clothed and cared for, cleaned many a people lying in the street. I've taken many tons of food to refugees pouring across the border from Mozambique, caring for them. What have any of you ever done? You talk about the poor. What have you done? And as I said it, my heart leapt and I had this feeling of, you've overstated your case. I mean, there's more than 40 members of Parliament here. Surely one of them has done something. And I overstated that I should have said most, not all of you. And I'm sort of feeling, argh, I've opened myself up to a reply that'll defeat my purpose. And as I looked around, every one of that 45 would look down. Some were doodling on their notepaper, others were looking at their shoes, scratching the back of their head. Not one looked at me, not one answered. There was an uncomfortable silence in this parliamentary subcommittee room on the health portfolio, including old Cyril, I'm opposed to that thought. Not one of them had a word to say. How shocking is that? I mean, we know that there are a lot of hypocrites in politics, but I would have thought one of them had done something, sometime, maybe. And yet, no, apparently not. Not on that occasion, not that group of people. We have so much hypocrisy in our society. Now, important as the pro-life work has been, I've done far more in trying to prevent it. I must have taken many thousands of meetings dealing with right to life, when life begins, what the Bible teaches concerning our responsibility to fight abortion, all these issues. Many of them, at least over 1,200 just on radio alone, scores on TV programs and in Parliament many a time, preaching and teaching in seminars, services and so on. It could go into the thousands and I've dealt with this in teaching in the church, but important as the work of pro-life protesters, sideboard counsellors, adoption agencies, crisis pregnancy centres, lobbyists are, of far greater importance is the discipleship ministry of the church fulfilling the Great Commission. It is a complete and utter disgrace that any church goes seek abortions and that any church members could be involved in any way in the abortion industry. Another generation grew up, we read, in Judges 2.10. Another generation grew up and knew neither the Lord nor what he had done. How is that possible? And yet you look around South Africa and you see some young people who come from church families, who maybe attended youth groups, and they look as godless as the pagans. There is a failure going on here, far greater than the failure to actually be out there to try and rescue the perishing. Strategically, prevention is better than cure. Every single church should be teaching and discipling people in the law of God, the Ten Commandments. If we were just teaching the Ten Commandments, it would be inconceivable that church members would be involved in abortion. It's bad enough that we have pagans in our society carrying babies. But the fact is, the uncomfortable fact is, many in a pews are complicit. In fact, not just in a pews. There are many in the pulpit who complicit. That is why films like Unplanned are of great importance. We need to see that film. We need to promote Unplanned and Gosnell and other pro-life films. We must see that they are shown in schools, churches, youth groups, camps, on university campuses, especially at medical schools. We've got Stonebush and UCT having medical schools where they are preparing the next generation of doctors amongst whom will be abortionists. We can reach these people now. Why wait till the people are staggering into the abortion clinic from the appointment to kill their baby? We need to be involved in education preventing it to even be thought of so that they wouldn't even be able to find someone willing to work in an abortion clinic. let alone God to this extent. This is not so much a pro-life activist issue, this is a failure of discipleship, a failure to fulfill the Great Commission, a failure to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, a failure to proclaim the Word of God and the Law of God. The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The Law is the schoolmaster to lead us to Christ, that we can be justified by faith. How many of these people, even in our churches, even know the Lord, even have a personal relationship with the Lord? How many in our pulpits don't even know the Lord? What is going on in our theological seminaries is that they become theological cemeteries. Now, even more important, I believe, than all the pro-life work that I've ever been involved in, I run the Biblical World View Seminars and Summits, because we want our people to know what they believe, why they believe it, how to defend an argument, and how to win others to Christ. We want them to understand the times and know what God's people should do. In this world war of worldviews, every one of the ten commands of God are under relentless attack. Every Christian doctrine is being undermined, not just by the universities, not just in Hollywood, not just in the news media, in our theological seminaries they're being undermined. Every family is facing unprecedented pressures. There's a war against the womb. There's a war against children. There is a battle for our minds. There's a battle for our hearts. There's a battle for the family itself, even for the definition of marriage itself is under attack. The family is the basic building block of society. As goes the family, so goes the nation. When our families were strong and intact, the family was strong. But now, families are in disarray. It's more common to get dysfunctional and broken families than it is to get intact families. As goes the family, so goes the nation. But classrooms have become battlegrounds. The philosophy of education in the classroom in this generation will inevitably become the philosophy of governments in the next generation. I remember back in 1991, running a seminar on education. and warning about these things, what's coming for the education. And I remember the fury and the anger of teachers, Christian teachers, standing up and saying, how dare you suggest that we could prostitute our profession, that educational professionals could ever be involved in either promoting atheism or situation ethics or sex education. That will never happen in this country. We would not tolerate it. There was lots of agreement all around the hall. And these teachers were furious as I was just reporting back to them what's happened in America. They're saying we need to be careful that this does not happen here. I wasn't accusing anyone, but they took offense. And yet, forget about the Christian teachers in the government schools. There are Christian teachers in Christian schools, there are Christian lecturers and principals of Bible colleges who argue, oh we've got to do this and we can't do that because of the law and the government. They have become whores for secular humanism. Just like so many of the journalists are now prostitutes. It's now a new term. Press who are prostitutes. They won't deal with the truth. They will deal with what is politically correct. So we have a bunch of teachers who are no longer educators, but they're now indoctrinators. Even in Christian schools and Christian cultures. Spineless, yellow-bellied cowards. Traitors of the highest order. Including in Cape Town. Cornerstone University, which is purported to be a Christian university, refused out of hand to consider Dr Angela Stock, double doctorate, one of the greatest scientific geniuses in this country, a person who is the top student of a year in matric in the whole country. brilliant person who was at that moment being employed by UCT to design textbooks for the schools, but Cornerstone University just ruled her out of court because she is a creation theorist. She believes in literal six-day creation. She believes God created the world. And of course there's thousands of doctoral scientists around the world who hold to intelligent design and creation. Also in Genesis and others have massive amounts of support from the scientific Christian community. But this wasn't a secular university that refused. It's a Christian university that was so scared of taking someone who actually believes what the Bible says and has scientific evidence for it. That's how bad it has gotten. And then there's the culture war. Cinemas are major battlegrounds. Praise God for Christian filmmakers like the Kendrick Brothers. And in South Africa, Frans Kroenig. We need more of them. And praise God for Kerry Solomon and Chuck Konselman, who directed this unplanned film. We need Christians who will be involved in the cultural battle. We need radio presenters, editors of Christian community newspapers and local magazines. We need Sunday school teachers, school teachers, pastors, youth leaders, missionaries and evangelists that all have a vital part to play in evangelism and education. And most importantly, the parents. Every parent must ensure that their children are brought up in a fear of the Lord and thoroughly discipled in all areas of life. This is absolutely vital and essential. This includes discipleship. We will win the war against abortion, not by sidewalk counselling, not by lobbying of government, but by fulfilling the Great Commission, doing thorough evangelism, ensuring that not just the members of our church are saved, but the ministers who have been trained in the seminaries are saved, with the help of the professors who are teaching them are also saved. We are going to a major Bible institute in this country and asking for the missiology professor met him and asking where he had served and it turned out he was teaching missiology at one of the most important premier Bible institutes in this country but he had never done any missions. Missiologists training people for missions who hasn't done any missions. Is that even possible? My mother spoke of nurses coming, already nursing sisters, with all the different bars on their epaulets, showed that they were on all the different training and so on, including maternity, coming to hospital from university, who fainted at the first sign of blood. There were no earthly use as a nurse, but they have all the qualifications. What good is it for people with degrees and doctorates in theology who aren't saved and don't know how to evangelize? What good is it for the missiology professors who've got zero experience in missions? Preach the word. Be prepared in season and out of season. Correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction in reading the word. And so it's A stunning indictment on all too many churches that the subjects of morality and ethics receive very little attention in sermons and Sunday school lessons. You would have thought something as basic as don't kill. don't murder your baby, would be something so inculcated in the Christian head it had nothing to do with it. Bear in mind, Christians were never persecuted in the Roman Empire for worshipping Jesus. The Roman Empire didn't care who you worshipped. You could worship any of who knows how many hundreds of gods out there, as long as you also worshipped Caesar. Christians were thrown to the lions in the arena and burned on stakes because they refused to worship Caesar. So the average Christian today has no fear of being persecuted because the world doesn't care if you worship Jesus as long as you worship the state, as long as you bow before their idols, which includes, of course, abortion. Multicultural idol of idolatry and tolerance of other religions. You've just got to tolerate Islam. The worst thing you can say is that that's wrong. The only thing that's wrong is Christianity. Everything else is to be tolerated. Abbie Johnson says at the beginning of her book, that she was gullible and naive. Now, to ensure that Christians in our families and churches are not gullible and naive, we need to believe it, how to defend the argument, how to win their neighbours and friends and co-workers to Christ. Statistically, over 75% of young people from a Christian home, church-going people, stop going to church within four years of attending a university. It's catastrophic. And by the way, it's not just secular universities that can kill their faith. Christian universities too. Joseph Tson, one of the great names in Romanian work. Bill Bethlen wrote the book that we're working now to bring to print on Reformation and Revival in Romania, which is primarily a whole series of interviews with Joseph Tson. Bill Bethlen worked hard to get his workings, his writings, out to the West to be published during the Cold War, across the Iron Curtain. He interviewed him and made sure his Programs were broadcast on Radio Free Europe and so on, and helped bring them out when the government wanted to kill them. Well, Joseph Zion said, four years in Bucharest's secular Marxist university only strengthened his faith. He knew what was going to come in the Marxist universities and the communist one-party dictatorship. He went in there and he came out of the University of Romania in Bucharest a stronger Christian than he went in. But he said four years in the Baptist Theological Assembly destroyed my faith. I banned the faith and I was an atheist. It was only Richard von Braun's illiteracy that brought me back to Christ. How is that possible? He said, I was prepared to be lied to by the state secular university. I knew it was a communist university, what do you expect? But I never expected to be lied to and have my faith undermined in a theological seminary. And so I wasn't prepared for the insidious undermining of my faith that came in the theological seminary. How many others can say that too? Of those who studied and graduated me, of the 11 people who graduated me in my year from Baptist Theological Seminary, as far as I know, only two of us are still in the ministry. And actually that goes back a long way. Within just a couple of years, nine of the others had all fallen by the wayside in different ways. So it's not just these secular universities. Evidently, most churches are not adequately preparing the young people for the challenging realities and the pressures and the temptations and the threats in the real world. If any army lost 75% of their men, it would not be considered a defeat, it would be considered a catastrophic disaster of the worst proportion. No army is prepared to lose 75% of its people. And yet the Christian church is satisfied, year by year, to keep channeling their kids after entertainment in their youth groups, which are teaching them nothing worthwhile, where the youth group is basically built around, let's have chocolate sundaes and milkshakes in the mall, and no idea about preparing them in most youth groups for anything real in the world. Most of them aren't even saved, forget about knowing how to be an evangelist. And so, praise God for ministries like Answers in Genesis, and Focus on the Family, and The Way of the Master, who are making a difference, who are on a cutting edge of preparing people for the real world. This is why we have been organizing biblical world peace summits since 1991. Our goal is to equip and to encourage and to empower Christians to know what they believe, why they believe it, how to defend our good, how to win others to Christ. But those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings like eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint. That's Isaiah 40 verse 31. And so we go into the schools, wherever we can, across the country and across the continent, presenting traffic-proof, fight-the-new-drug, pro-life presentations at school assemblies. But the fact is, most schools, the vast majority of schools, do not invite pro-life, pro-family speakers to address the school assembly. So how can we reach them? Well, just out of Livingston Fellowship, we produced sermon series that have ended up as books, and audiovisuals, 10 Command series in English and Afrikaans, the New Testament Survey, the Old Testament Survey, Answering Skeptics, Practical Discipleship, and many others. These are just ways of trying to reach you, and these resources are all being made fully freely available both audio and in print PDF form on William Carey Bible Institute web to be available anywhere in the world. But we need to produce so much more materials to help equip and empower Christians to rightly divide the word of truth and be effective in making disciples and teaching obedience. Missionaries in Frontline are averaging about 1,400 meetings a year. But we need to use modern technology as well, and that's why every kind of platform from Vimeo, video, slideshare, podcasts, radio, TV, whatever methods are available with it, video, digital libraries, SD cards, all the way through flash drives being delivered to persecuted churches as far away as Egypt and so on. We want to be sure that we are using every means possible to counter the deluge of disinformation, because there's so much that needs to be done. We're in a world at war. The world's media, the government schools, and the debased Hollywood so-called entertainment industry are pumping out vast tsunamis of disinformation, distortions, and distractions, defiling, degrading, debasing and destroying entire generations. The situation is serious and the needs are urgent. Every Christian needs to recognize we are involved in a world war of worldviews. This cultural clash is more important than all other wars combined. Because this is a fight for the lives and the eternal destinies of billions of people. Not just our generation, but future generations as well. Their lives at stake, their eternal destinies at stake. My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge, we read, Isaiah 4 verse 6. And so we need to start discussions in our workplace, in our school, in church, in family, in home, What can we do to ensure that none of our members or family or friends could ever say, I never knew, no one warned me? What are you doing to fulfill the Great Commission? Can you not do something more for God? Be informed, be interceding, be involved. May God make us more brave and bold for Him for the performance of the Great Commission. Let's pray. Lord God, we are grieved that innocent blood is being shed We pray, Lord God, that you would help us to be more effective in this fight for life, in this battle for hearts and minds, battle for the family, battle for the faith. Help us, Lord God, to know the Word of God, to know the God of the Word. Help us, Lord God, to win others to you. We pray it in Jesus' precious and holy name. Amen.