For more information about our teaching and preaching ministry, you can find us online at cornerstoneorlando.org. The following sermon has been brought to you by Cornerstone Orlando, making disciples for the glory of God. Amen. The title of our sermon this morning is The Sanctity of Life. The Sanctity of Life. And I wanna let you in on a little secret. Whenever somebody is standing up here and they're speaking to you, they are primarily thinking in the categories of law and gospel. That's what you need to hear. That's what I need to hear. Law and gospel. These two things are distinct from one another. The law is not the gospel. Doing good works, in other words, doesn't save you. And the gospel is not the law. In order to be saved, God doesn't tell you to do X, Y, and Z in order to merit that salvation. So the law and the gospel are distinct. They are distinct, and yet they're related. Why? They're related because the law points us to the gospel, points us to our need, which is Jesus Christ. And the law has several different uses. The law has several different uses that theologians throughout the years have considered. How does the Bible use the law? And how can we use it today according to the way that the Bible teaches us? And three different uses of the law have been identified, essentially, that the Bible teaches us. One, the law is used as a rule of life for Christians. So Christians aren't saved by the law, no, but the law does tell us what we need to do in order to please God. That's what we want to do, right? We're thankful to Him for saving us, so we want to do that which is pleasing in His sight. And the law tells us how to do that. You want to love God. You want to love your neighbor as yourself. And that's summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments. So I don't want to be a covetor. I don't want to be a liar. I don't want to be a thief. I don't want to be an adulterer. I don't want to be a murderer. I don't want to disrespect authorities. I don't want to violate the Sabbath day. I don't want to take God's name in vain. I don't want to commit idolatry. I don't want to have other gods. Those are the Ten Commandments from top to bottom. So the law is a rule of life for us as Christians. It tells us how we can express our gratitude to God. not to earn our salvation, but how to obey God. It's a rule of life. The law can also be used for civil purposes, for civil purposes. And we'll get into this particularly in our second sermon this afternoon, which deals with amendment number three, which is coming up and the way that we should think about that in light of what the government should be doing. How does the Bible relate to government? And we'll talk a little bit about that this afternoon. The law does have a civil use. The government is supposed to implement and enforce the second table of the law, love your neighbor as yourself. That's what the government is supposed to do. But the law has a third use, a third use. The law is used for conviction, conviction. The law is a mirror. You look at a mirror, And when you stand before it, you see yourself as you are. All the little specks, all the little dots, all the little wrinkles, whatever they are. The law is a mirror. It shows you what you are like. The law tells you exactly what you are like, and it has a purpose for doing so. It is to point you to a need. It's to point you to somebody who has no spot. or wrinkle or any such thing. The law is meant to convict in order to show us our need that we have for Jesus Christ. That's the third use of the law as I'm talking about it this morning. The order that I have this morning. It's the third use of the law. It's for conviction, to show us our need. Some of you, this is why I'm saying this. Some of you, as you sit here, hear me say, I finish praying and you hear me say, the title of our sermon this morning is The Sanctity of Life. And it fills you with all kinds of feelings, all kinds of feelings, especially if you are guilty, if you're guilty of this sin. And I want you to know that I have been thinking of you. I have been thinking of you. And I wanna start with you. There are some of you here who have had abortions in the past. And maybe you think that God will never forgive you. And what I want you to know is that the Bible has a message for you. Okay? There are some of you who have had an abortion. who have repented and turned from your sin, who don't live that life anymore, you've trusted in Jesus Christ, and yet you still have a nagging guilt and a nagging feeling that God is displeased with you and that his favor has departed from you and that you will never be in the light of God's countenance as other Christians are. And the Bible has a message for you. And there are some of you who have experienced real complications, real complications in your life. and health issues that were related to a pregnancy or a delivery or a miscarriage. And you're not sure exactly what happened or how to think about it. You're very confused and you fear that you may be guilty of a great and monstrous sin. And the Bible has a word for you. And I want you all to know, particularly that audience that I'm talking about right now, the one who feels remorse for what they've done and who is afraid, who is afraid that God will never forgive them or that God has not forgiven them. I wanna start, I wanna start with you, okay? I wanna start with you. As we consider the sanctity of life, as we consider the subject of abortion, and particularly amendment number four in the state of Florida. I have a word for that subject, but before ever getting to the point of addressing that sin and calling it what it is, I need to speak to you. I need to speak to you because the Bible has a message for you. And that is that God is a God of love and that there is pardon in Christ for murderers. There is pardon in Christ even for murderers. Please open up in your Bibles to the book of 2 Samuel. 2 Samuel. We have to call, it's chapter 11, we have to call sin, sin. We must call sin what it is. And the message of the cross, the message of grace, is not justifying sin, but justifying the sinner. We have to call sin, sin. And therefore, this message that I'm about to tell you is that there is pardon in Christ for murderers. Not something like pardon in Christ for those who are confused. But pardon in Christ truly for murderers. We have to call sin, sin. We don't justify sin, but God justifies the sinner. Second Samuel chapter 11. My purpose here is I wanna show you a biblical example of somebody who has committed murder that God forgives. This is an amazing story. Whenever you think of murder, whenever you think of adultery, probably the first character that comes to your mind is David. Second Samuel chapter 11. Look at verse one. Then it happened in the spring at the time when kings go out to battle. There's a certain season that we're being introduced to here. What are kings supposed to be doing right now in 2 Samuel 11? They're supposed to be going out to battle. But what is David doing? David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the sons of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed at Jerusalem. David was not only guilty of adultery and murder, he was also guilty of laziness. Laziness. Verse two. Now when evening came, David arose from his bed. He's lying down all day. When evening came, he got up from his bed. You should not be neglecting your duties and lying in bed all day. That's what David was doing. And walked around on the roof of the king's house. He was bored because of his laziness, right? And from the roof, in the context of committing the sin of laziness, this sluggard, what happens? He is met with temptation. From the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful in appearance." So what does he do? What does he do? So David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? Oh, so she's married. Verse four, David sent messengers and took her. And when she came to him, he lay with her. He committed adultery. And when she had purified herself from all her uncleanness, she returned to her house. And then the story develops. In God's providence, verse five, the woman conceived and she sent and told David and said, I am pregnant. Uh-oh, we have a problem. We have a problem. So not only is David lazy, Not only is David adulterous, but we're gonna see he's also a hypocrite and a liar. He's also a hypocrite and a liar. He's afraid of being exposed now that he's committed the sin. So what does David do? He scratches his chin, right? Because this woman who has a husband is now pregnant with his baby. What's he got to do? He has to convince her husband to come back home because he's out at war where David should be. He has to convince him to come back and to sleep with his wife, essentially, to cover up his sin, to wipe his hands. Verse six, then David sent to Joab saying, send me Uriah, excuse me, send me Uriah the Hittite. So Joab sent Uriah to David. This is her husband. When Uriah came to him, David asked concerning the welfare of Joab and the people in the state of the war. It's all a pretense, all a pretense. He does not care. He's concerned about one thing. Then David said to Uriah, go down to your house and wash your feet. So David essentially, he tries this a couple of times, tries to send Uriah. Uriah is a man of honor. He's a man of virtue. He says, shall all of Israel be out at war in booths and I come to my house and sleep with my wife? No, I won't do it. He's a man of virtue. He's a man of honor. He came at the King's call, but he wasn't going to sleep in his house with his wife while all of his compatriots were out at war. He wasn't gonna do that. And even Yahweh in the tabernacle, he wasn't gonna do it. And so David is in a fix. David's in a fix. Not only is he lazy, not only is he an adulterer, not only is he a liar and a hypocrite, but David is a murderer. He's a murderer, verse 14. Now in the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. His plan failed to cover up his sin, right? Verse 15, he had written in the letter saying, place Uriah in the front line of the fiercest battle and withdraw from him so that he may be struck down and die. Verse 23, a messenger comes back, right? Messenger comes back from war after this happens. And he says to David, The men prevailed against us and came out against us in the field, but we pressed them as far as the entrance of the gate. Moreover, the archers shot at your servants from the wall. So some of the king's servants are dead. And your servant, Uriah the Hittite is also dead. His plan succeeded. Verse 25. Then David said to the messenger, thus you shall say to Joab, don't let this thing displease you. For the sword devours one as well as another. Make your battle against the city stronger and overthrow it. So encourage him. He makes an offhanded remark about the life of his servant, Uriah. whom he murdered. Verse 26. Now, when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband, was dead, she mourned for her husband. When the time of mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house and she became his wife. Then she bore him a son. But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord. David was lazy. David committed adultery. David was a liar and a hypocrite. David was a murderer. David was a murderer. And we can say, and we should say with God to this world, that murder is a thing that is evil in the sight of the Lord. And we must say, we must say that abortion is something that is evil in the sight of the Lord, since it is murderous. That's not the end of the story. That's not the end of the story. And remember, I'm speaking to the one who has had an abortion, who thinks about it probably all the time. who feels remorse and wonders, could God ever forgive me? Nathan comes to David and he tells him what David must hear, which is that what he has done is evil. He must hear it. He has to hear it. Because the message of the gospel is not, your sin wasn't really that bad. That's not the message of the gospel. The message of the gospel is, despite the fact that you were such a wicked sinner and your sin is so evil and heinous in the sight of God, there is a savior, Jesus Christ, and he is sufficient to save you by the love of God. That's the message of the gospel. It is not a watering down of the law. Verse seven, Nathan then said to David, this is chapter 12, verse seven. Nathan then said to David, you are the man, thus says the Lord God of Israel. It is I who anointed you king over Israel. And it's I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. I also gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your care. And I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I would have added many more things like these. Look at all that I've given you and look at what you've done. It was so ungrateful, so ungrateful, David. God doesn't hold back. Verse nine, why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in his sight? You don't only hate me, but you hate my word. You hate my word if you've done this. You hate my word. You despise my word. You think of it contemptuously, like it doesn't speak the truth to you. He tells him the consequences of his sin that he will bring upon his house. And notice David's response. Verse 13, after God rebukes him. Verse 13, then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And that is the person that I'm speaking to. You've heard the message. You know what you have done. And you say with David. I have sinned against the Lord. We see a fuller account of what David actually means in those words in Psalm 32, in Psalm 38, in Psalm 51. In these three places, among others, we see David's penitent heart. We see his remorse. We see that he regrets what he has done. And we see what his life was like while he was hiding in his sin, even. He says, my vitality is drained away as with the fever heat of summer, your hand was pressed hard upon me before I confessed my sin, while I kept quiet about my sin. That's what he says. In Psalm 51, he says, let all the bones which you have broken rejoice. He's talking about the conviction that he felt for what he had done. It was a spiritual conviction, but it had a physical response in his body. It felt like his bones were breaking because of the conviction that he felt over his sin. David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And that may be you, that may be you. Maybe you have had an abortion or you have been complicit in an abortion. And you say, I have sinned against the Lord. Is there hope for me? Look at this great evil that I've done. Is there hope for me? How does God respond? Verse 13, then Nathan said to David, the Lord has also taken away your sin. You shall not die. Listen to me, listen to me. You need to hear these words. God is a God who forgives even murderers. So you must, you would be such a fool. You would be so prideful not to do it, not to do it. You must turn from that sin, turn from your self-righteousness, trying to justify that sin, trying to cover up that sin. You must turn from all of that, admit it, confess what you have done, turn from that and turn to Jesus Christ. Why would you not? It's free. You don't have to do anything to earn it. That's the message of grace. Will you turn? Will you turn to this gracious God who even forgives wicked, abominable sinners like you? Murderers. Here is an example. I'm showing you. This isn't my opinion. This isn't Tyler's opinion. God forgives murderers. Praise God. Praise God or you and I and everybody else in this world would go to hell because we are murderers too. We are murderers too. Praise the Lord for the bounty of his grace. We don't deserve it. You don't deserve it. Turn from your sin. Why will you live in your sin? There is such a gracious God. He will accept you fully. He will welcome you into his arms. No doubt about it. This God is true. He is a true God. He is not a man that he should lie. And he has shown you, he has given you this example right here in the text of scripture, that God is a God who forgives murder. Turn from your sin, turn from your sin, trust in Jesus Christ. He is a sufficient savior. I wanted to speak to you first because those of you who have doubts and you hear me open up with the title of our sermon is the sanctity of life. And we're gonna be talking about amendment number four and what exactly it is and how we should think about it. And your hearts just sink into your stomachs because you know what you've done. And my message for you is that God loves murderers. So why should he not love you? Don't hold on to that sin. Trust in Christ. There is a God, there is a God in heaven who pardons great sin, great monstrous sin. With that said, we have to call sin what it is, and we have to speak truth to situations we can't. cover up sin with lies. That is what the world thinks that the gospel is, and we can't do that. We can't do that. That's why I had to start there with 2 Samuel 11, 12. That's why I had to start there, because you need to know that there is forgiveness, but, but, We have to call sin what it is. This is really, really point number two on your notes. Abortion is murder. I wanna read to you amendment number four in the state of Florida, okay? This is gonna have practical ramifications for you and me, okay? We need to be thinking about the stewardship of our vote. And that's the point of this right now. We need to be thinking about the stewardship of our vote. Now I'm talking rule of life, not conviction. I'm talking rule of life. If we wanna demonstrate our gratitude to God for saving us, we should demonstrate that by being good stewards of the vote that he has given us in our country. And so that's the point that I'm going to bring home to you. And in order to do that, I want to press upon you the fact that abortion is murder. Amendment number four, it's the amendment to limit government interference with abortion, which is an abomination. The government absolutely should interfere with murder. It should. Yes, that is what the government is for. That's why it wields the sword. The government should interfere. It says this, no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion before viability. That's very important language. A baby can be a fetus, an unborn child can be viable after 24 weeks. Before then it may not be viable, but that's not the only restriction. In other words, what it's saying is you can have an abortion before 23 or 24 weeks. That's not the only restriction though. No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient's health as determined by the patient's healthcare provider. I can tell you, my wife was in danger when she was delivering my firstborn son. Why should this law not extend all the way up until the point of delivery? All the way up until the point of delivery. as determined by the patient's health care provider. It's in the hands of doctors whether or not an unborn child will be murdered. What I'm saying to you is you've got to vote no against this. We have to talk about it. We must. We must talk about this. You've got to get out there and vote no against this. We are in a period of holocaust in our country. If people now speak the way they do about those who passively stood by during the Holocaust, do you want people in the future to speak about you that way? Or are you going to stand up and do what is right and take a stand against murder? You must, you have to, you have to. You have to do something about it. Let's talk about the real issue, the real issue here. Now that you know what Amendment 4 is, let's talk about the real issue. Is an unborn baby a person made in the image of God? Any political debate that talks about this subject that doesn't deal with that issue is a red herring. It's a complete red herring and a distraction. The real issue is whether or not a baby, an unborn baby, is a person made in the image of God. That's the real question. A lot of this stuff comes after that question. A lot of debate comes after that question. But we need to deal with the primary issue. Is an unborn baby a human being made in the image of God? We gotta deal with that. Many pro-choice activists say things like, my body, my choice. My body, my choice. That implies what? That that unborn baby isn't a human being. So we gotta deal with that issue, right? Every woman deserves the right to choose what's best for her. Well, again, what does that imply? That that unborn baby isn't a human being that has rights, inherent rights being made in the image of God. No one should impose their beliefs on someone else's body. That is such an amazing statement, right? Such an amazing statement. You Republicans are imposing your beliefs on me and my body. Are you kidding me? You're imposing your beliefs on your unborn baby to the point of murder. What hypocrisy. The government should stay out of private medical decisions. I don't think so. I don't think so. We're talking about the life of a human being. That's what the government is for. Women shouldn't be forced to carry pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Now, even this, even this, it is an important point. It is an important point, but it would be framed correctly if we dealt first with the subject of whether or not that unborn baby is a human being made in the image of God. Even that question could be answered first if we deal with whether or not an unborn baby is a person made in the image of God. So the first thing that we have to realize when we're talking about this is that the real issue, the real issue is whether or not an unborn baby is a person made in the image of God. Anything else is a red herring, a red herring. There was an article many years ago of a woman a pro-choice activist, pro-death, a pro-choice activist who was wanting to have a baby. And so she got pregnant, and she carried this baby for a time, and unfortunately, tragically, she had a miscarriage. And she was a little bit perplexed. Because her friends around her, pro-choice friends around her, could provide no real consolation or comfort for her. She knew it was a baby, inherently. And so she has a miscarriage, which is just absolutely tragic. Because of what it is, it's the death of your child. And she could find no comfort, no comfort, no warmth from her friends. There was an awkwardness. And so she wrote this article to say, you know, I think we've got it wrong. Us liberals, I think we've got it wrong. Really, we should carry out the full implications of the pro-choice movement. And the mothers should decide whether or not this is a human being or not. What she's saying is, it was a human being because I decided it was. I might be able to decide maybe it wasn't a human being. The insanity, the absolute insanity, that, that my friends, if you don't detect it, let me tell you explicitly, that's called a double standard, a double standard. I wanna get what I want. If I wanna murder, I can murder and be immunized. I can be completely safe from any kind of government interference or charge or critical indictment. Or if I want the baby to actually be a baby, I can just choose it to be. That's a double standard. And it reveals the wickedness of abortion. So how do we know, how do we know whether or not an unborn baby is a human being made in the image of God? Really from two places, two places, just like everything else, from two places, from the light of nature, which is what the Bible call, what theologians have called general revelation. We can learn it from the light of nature and then also from the light of scripture. And so we have to look at these two places. What does the Bible say? What does even nature teach us? From the light of nature, what do we learn? We learn scientifically, I'm gonna wax scientific for a second, but scientifically, a baby has a complete, an unborn baby, a fetus has a complete set of 46 human chromosomes, 23 sets. That makes it a distinct organism from the mother, scientifically. An unborn baby has a complete set of 46 human chromosomes. We can also detect both brain activity and a heartbeat by six weeks after conception. Whose brain activity is that? Is it the mother's? Whose heartbeat is that? Is it the mother's? We can also reduce their argument to absurdity. by thinking about what it's like, what it's like for a mother to carry a child. You go to the doctor's office, very soon, very soon after conception, you go to the doctor's office, and she pulls out this piece of equipment called a sonogram. And she puts some stuff on her tummy, and she uses a little piece of machinery, and you can see an image of the baby in the womb. And I have a distinct memory of seeing Fin a couple weeks after he was conceived, like this. It was a little heartbeat. Amazing. But even six months in, three months, four months in, you see body parts. There is a head in there. There are arms and legs and a torso. Whose arms are those? Whose legs are those? Whose head is that? That is not the mother's. Use your common sense. Do you have a modicum of common sense to try to cover up your murderous activity for your own convenience? Do you have a modicum of common sense to see that is an independent human being that depends on the life of the mother and the father? it, to protect it. It's just terrible. We are monsters. We are a failing nation, a wicked nation, a deplorable nation. We are monsters. Not only do we have the light of nature, we also have the light of scripture to tell us that this unborn baby is a human being made in the image of God. Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 139, like we read. And I just wanna point out a couple of things to you, because I wanna go to a couple of different texts. Psalm 139, beginning at verse 13. Psalm 139, verse 13. For you formed my inward parts. When were those inward parts formed? They weren't formed after delivery, right? You get a heart before delivery. When did I get my head? After delivery? It's amazing that we have to talk about this. Amazing. You formed my inward parts. And whose inward parts are they? Mine, David says, mine. And they were mine when you were forming them. You wove me. I had personality even at that time. You wove me in my mother's womb. You didn't weave my mother in my mother's womb. You wove me, I had personality. The scripture reveals to us, the scripture reveals to us that there is even personality that can be attributed to an unborn child, which makes the sin of abortion just an abomination, monstrosity. You see why I had to start with the gospel for some of you, because you needed to hear it, you needed to know, you needed to know that there is a God in heaven who forgives wicked sinners. Exodus chapter 21, please turn there. We can even attribute personality to the unborn child. You wove me in my mother's womb. Exodus chapter 21. Exodus chapter 21. Does this make you want to get out and do something? We live in the era of a Holocaust. You know it. I know it. They know it. Exodus chapter 21. Look at the provision that the judicial law for the state of Israel makes for the unborn child and the unborn child's rights civilly. Exodus 21, beginning at verse 22. If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, Yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. Now, what is verse 22 saying? It's saying you have two people fighting, two parties, two men, they're fighting, and somehow a pregnant woman is around. And one of those men strikes the pregnant woman, strikes her, and strikes her so hard that she gives birth prematurely. Now, notice this interesting phrase here, because we gotta think about this. Who is verse 22 talking about? Yet there is no injury. What do you mean there's no injury? You just said that the woman was struck so hard that she gave birth prematurely. You gotta be struck pretty hard for that to happen. What do you mean there's no injury? Well, the answer is, it's not talking about an injury to the mother. It's talking about an injury to the unborn child and to the baby. Verse 23, but, And I think other translations do this better than the NASB in this case. But if there is any further injury, and what that's saying is it's making contrast between verses 22 and 23. First, if there is no injury to the child. Second, if there is injury, that's the point of that contrast. Verse 23, but if there is an injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. There's an assumption. There's an assumption that's smuggled in here. Why? Why life for life? My life is worth more than that baby's, right? Why eye for eye? My eye is worth more than that unborn child's, right? No, no, not scripturally speaking. Why? Because that child is made in the image of God and you are made in the image of God. So fair is fair. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Your eye worth just as much as that baby's eye. Your rights worth just as much as that baby's rights. We gotta protect those rights. We gotta protect them. The government, the government should do something about it. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. The book of Amos. The book of Amos. And now what I want to show you, this is a minor prophet, okay? Hosea, Joel, Amos. What we've seen from the scripture is from Psalm 139, that there is even personality that can be attributed to the life of an unborn child. You wove me in my mother's womb. We can see from the book of Exodus that the reason why there are judicial provisions for the unborn child and the child born prematurely is because they're both made in the image of God, life for life, your life worth just as much as that baby's life. Now, I wanna show you Amos chapter one, that God has something to say to a nation, to a nation that is guilty of what we as a nation are guilty of. Amos 1, verse 13. And I want you to notice that the way that Amos 1 is structured into chapter 2 is that God is speaking to different nations. Verse 3, for thus says the Lord for three transgressions of Damascus, and for four. Verse 6, thus says the Lord for three transgressions of Gaza, and for four. Verse nine, for three transgressions of Tyre and for four. Verse 11, for three transgressions of Edom and for four. And so God is, he has different messages for different nations. And here's what he says to Ammon, verse 13. Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of the sons of Ammon and for four, I will not revoke its punishment. Why? What is the basis for the punishment that God is going to bring upon this nation? Because they ripped open the pregnant woman of Gilead in order to enlarge their borders. How true is that of our nation? For the sake of personal advantage, we are going to harm a pregnant woman and her baby. This text is speaking about us as well as a nation. They ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead, that is what we do here, folks, in order to enlarge their own borders and not all, Not all, but many times the reason why a woman and her partner will get an abortion is simply out of personal convenience, in order to enlarge their own borders. So how does God respond? Verse 14, therefore, I will kindle a fire on the wall of Rabbah and it will consume her citadels amid war cries on the day of battle and a storm on the day of tempest. What's God gonna bring, verse 14, to that nation there for their sin of abortion? He'll bring them conflagration, fire. He'll bring them war. He'll bring them storms. We've seen all of those things in our country, all of those things. Verse 15, not only will God bring conflagration, not only will He bring war and tempest, but, verse 15, their king will go into exile, he and his princess together, says the Lord. We live in a great nation, a big and a powerful nation, but our nation is not greater than our God. And our God is a just God who can take our king and our princes, our mighty men, and put them into exile. In other words, God was going to bring in another nation to conquer that nation. The United States is not a permanent nation. It is not a permanent nation. Rome that stood for a thousand years was not a permanent empire. That empire fell. After a thousand years, that empire fell. The same is true of us, the same is true of us. What's the point of all of this, of me telling you all of this? The point for some of you is you need to know, you need to be fully aware that God welcomes any and every sinner into his arms. Jesus Christ, he said, the one who comes near to me, I will certainly not cast out. You feel remorse over what you have done. You ask, could God ever forgive me? The answer is yes. Jesus Christ said, I will certainly not cast out anyone who comes near to me. He will welcome you like the prodigal son. He will welcome you. Not only that, we have learned that the real issue of this political debate over abortion is whether or not the life of an unborn child is the life of a human being made in the image of God. And the answer through and through, from the light of nature and from the light of scripture, the answer through and through is yes, an unborn child is a human being made in the image of God. So what should you do about it? I'm applying the rule of life to you right now. What should you do about it? You should get out and vote. Vote no. Vote absolutely not. No way. No way am I going to sit idly by passively and let this thing go through. Not if I have anything to say about it. We gotta vote no against Amendment 4. No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability. I don't think so. The government must interfere. The government must penalize. The government must delay and restrict abortion before viability. Yes, absolutely. Even our current laws that we have in this state are insufficient. You can have an abortion before six weeks in this state. No way. That's unacceptable. But certainly, certainly, we shouldn't allow it to go further. Vote no on amendment number four. Vote no on amendment number four. And know that there is a God in heaven who judges nations that murder their children. There is a God in heaven who judges those who worship Moloch. Let's pray. Oh Lord, you are just and righteous. We thank you. We thank you for the gospel as we recognize and immediately admit and confess, not just those who have had an abortion, but all of us. We confess as a church that we are murderers from the womb. And so we thank you for Jesus Christ who came and who died in the place of murderers so that we would no longer have to bear the condemning power of the law hanging over our shoulders. We pray that anyone who feels remorse over their sin would turn from it, turn to Jesus Christ, and not have a sorrow that results in death and despair. We pray these things in the name of your son. Hello, and thanks for listening. My name is Mark Brashear, and I have the blessed privilege of serving with the saints at Cornerstone Church near Orlando, Florida. We're so grateful that you've connected with us through the sermon that you've just heard. For more information, visit us at cornerstoneorlando.org. Or better yet, come and see us on the Lord's Day at 3370 Snow Hill Road in Oviedo, Florida. We're just east of Orlando and about 15 minutes from the campus at UCF. It would be a joy to have you worship with us.