Well, good evening, everyone. It's good to see all of you here. Let's open up with a word of prayer as we get started tonight. Heavenly Father, we thank you again for this day, for this time that we can gather together as your people on fellowship and study your word. We ask that you would bless this time, we ask that you would be with us, give us wisdom and understanding, and pray especially, Lord, that you would help us to be faithful Christians, testifying and shining a light for Jesus in this world. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So tonight, we're going to be talking about amendment number four, which is on the ballot for the state of Florida. This is the abortion amendment. And part of the reason we're talking about this, one is, of course, this is an important topic, but in particular, as we've been focusing this summer on thinking as a Christian about civil government, the relationship between church and state, and things like this, one of the responsibilities that the church has is the church Let me put it this way. The church does have a voice that needs to speak to political things, particularly to moral issues, those things which God has clearly spoken to. The church, there's many things that God has given power and authority to the government that the church does not have authority on. So for example, we can't dictate what a speed limit should be. But something such as abortion, which is of course an issue of murder. That's something that the church can and must speak to. In particular, as this amendment is something that's voted on by the population of the state, the electorate, the church has a responsibility to speak generally to the people. If this was a bill that only was existing in the legislature or before the governor's desk, then the church could have a responsibility to speak to them. But this is something that's being voted on by the whole state. So this is something the church has to speak to publicly in regards to what the word of God says and how it applies to this particular issue. So that's why we're gonna be talking about this issue. My goal is to talk a little bit about just the amendment itself, explain it, explain some of how the public discourse is going on about it. But more than that, I wanna deal with the abortion question more generally as well, so deal with a number of those issues. That's the plan for this evening. The full text of the amendment, when you're at the polls, they don't necessarily show the full text for all the amendments, at least I don't think they do normally, but they have a summary. The full text itself reads, Limiting Government Interference with Abortion, that's the title, except as provided in Article 10, Section 22, 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 health care provider. So let's talk a little bit about what this amendment actually does. First off, it talks about no law prohibiting, penalizing, delaying, or restricting abortion before viability. Of course, one of the issues you have here is viability is a changing definition, depending on the doctor you talk to, they might have a different definition of what viability means. Generally speaking, you're talking somewhere about 24 weeks or so, but it is theoretically possible, or actually I can't remember the youngest child that's survived. It's not common, but theoretically you can have children living less than 24 weeks. But what this does, this allows a lot of latitude, for abortion. Obviously, Florida right now has a six-week ban on abortion, so any child that lives past six weeks is protected, can't be aborted. Before that, we had a 15-week ban. But theoretically, this amendment, depending on how you define viability, which the amendment does not define, this could allow abortion all the way up to the end. major problem, of course. The Lambda Beta abortion, of course, is an issue, but that's part of what we have going on with this amendment. The other part here is that in addition to that issue just generally of viability, they also have this provision. When necessary to protect the patient's health as determined by the patient's healthcare provider. Notice this language of to protect health not to protect the mother's life. This can be a very broad, we'll talk about this in more detail later on, but this can be a very broad definition that if the pregnancy has any kind of adverse health issues for the mother, and theoretically it could be a whole host of different things, not just physical health, that abortion would be allowed. They also speak very generally about a health care provider, which of course there are all kinds of health care providers. There's no definition in the amendment to define or limit what kind of health care provider could promote an abortion. So some of the people, this is an issue they bring up. You could have almost anybody in the medical field, as long as they can tie it in some sense to an issue with the mother's health, they could therefore, under this amendment, allow. any kind of abortion, even after whatever viability might end up meaning, all the way up to the end of the pregnancy. So that's a serious issue we've got going on there with the amendment. The reference to Article 10, Section 22, that's the section of the Florida Constitution that allows the legislature to require notification of parents' guardians of a minor trying to get an abortion. This is something that's already in the Constitution. So it's referencing that this isn't supposed to conflict with that. But all that section does is it says the legislature may do this. It doesn't mean the legislature is required to have notification of parents or guardians. And also an important thing is the language is notification, not necessarily consent requirement. And so theoretically, depending on how interacts with each other, which I'm not a lawyer, but theoretically one of the concerns is that this would get rid of consent requirements that exist in the states for parents before a minor tried to get an abortion. So in terms of the discourse that's going on, a lot of what you probably have heard is that this amendment is too extreme, and therefore you should vote against it. And obviously, I think all of us would agree that this amendment is too extreme, and that argument is fine. There's a lot of people that, I mean, you compare this to other amendments that have been proposed in other states, and this is definitely one of the broadest amendments that we've seen in the United States. Just a lot of very vague terms, no definitions, allowing potentially a whole host of different things. And so this is an extreme amendment, And that's a fine argument to use. But I do want to say as Christians, it's important to remember our opposition to this amendment is not because of how extreme it is. Our opposition to this amendment is because this amendment conflicts with the law of God. Particularly, this amendment would legalize the murder of unborn children in our state. And as God has told us that we are not to murder, therefore we have to be opposed to this amendment. The reason that's important is because there very well could be a scenario where in November, this amendment does not get the, I think it's a 60% majority that amendments need to become constitutional. It may not get that. But you might have another amendment brought in the future that maybe they make it a little less extreme. Maybe they address some of the concerns that have been raised about notification or definitions of viability in health and healthcare provider and all that. And they bring it back, and, well, our argument's still gonna be the same argument. It may not be as extreme, but that's not the reason we're opposed to it. We're opposed to it because it promotes sin and allows sin in our state, and we can't be part of that. And so I wanna turn a little bit to talking a little bit about how we think about abortion as Christians, and go through some scripture passages and talk about that. But any questions or comments so far on just what I've talked about with the amendment itself? Any questions, thoughts? Where would we stand as Christians if the mother was to die because of the birth? Yes. I don't know if that's possible, but. Yeah, no, that's a very, I'm actually planning to talk about that towards the end. Because that's, I think, one of the, that's probably one of the most difficult aspects of the question. And hopefully, if I don't answer it to your satisfaction, bring that back up, because that's, I think, one of the, that is a really important question. Okay, let's just talk a little bit about what we as Christians believe about abortion. First thing I just wanna, to get out of the way, is that being pro-life, there's this argument that gets raised by people, you know, how can you be pro-life, and yet you could be in favor of capital punishment or killing someone for self-defense and things like that. And the way that we approach that is this. Unjust taking of life is murder. But there are just forms of taking life. Not every death is an unjust taking of life. And so self-defense, when someone's trying to murder you, you have the right to defend yourself. That's a biblical concept. Jesus even told two of his disciples to go and buy two swords. Capital punishment, as we see in Genesis 9. Those are two forms of the just taking of life, which is why Christians are in favor of those things. But we are opposed to all unjust forms of taking life, which is what we call murder. And so our conclusion is abortion falls under that category. Abortion is an unjust taking of life and is therefore murder and is wrong and needs to be opposed. And the way, of course, that we defend that is children in the womb are human beings. There's a lot of debate about this. There's been lots of debates about scientifically, when do you say that the child has become a human being, per se? And there's some people say heartbeat. There's all kinds of things that people try to go to. Generally speaking, we think of it as conception. The reason being, from scripture, there seems to be very clear evidence that God views an unborn child as being a human being. And I think we've got several scripture passages we can look at to demonstrate. First is Psalm 139, verse 13. This, of course, is a very famous verse that David writes. For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. There you have the idea that David's expressing of, he has an identity before he's physically born. God wasn't knitting something together, he was knitting David together. It was him, himself, who was present in the womb, and God's the one who's knitting him, helping him to grow and develop. Now, of course, there's an aspect of poeticness here. It's not that God is immediately, every time you've got a child in the womb, God's the one in there stitching everything together physically, but there is this aspect that God is the one who created this whole process and sovereignly governs and oversees all things. God does oversee every child, every pregnancy. And God does oversee that, help us to grow and develop We talk about the miracle of life, the miracle of birth. It is truly an incredible thing. When you look into kind of all that happens to make a human being, it's really an incredible thing. It's something that as we look at, it gives testimony to God and gives glory to Him. But David here recognizes that even before he was born, God was working on him. There was something going on there and he had an identity, even from that stage. Two other passages I think are very convincing. First is from Genesis 25-23, back when I was preaching through Genesis, we talked about this. But this is the passage where you have Isaac and Rebekah, Rebekah finally gets pregnant after a couple decades, and you've got Jacob and Esau wrestling together in the womb, she's freaking out, and God speaks to her, and comforts her, hears what he says. Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided. The one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger. Notice what's going on there. Rebecca's pregnant, she's got two babies inside her, and God looks at those two babies and says, those are two nations. He obviously knows the future and all, but he's connecting that entire identity of the future and everything that's gonna happen back into back into those two children. They have an identity. One's gonna be stronger than the other. One, of course, is gonna be older, and God has already determined their destinies, even here before they're born. And so God, from his perspective, he's viewing them as having human identity. He's not viewing them as just two random clumps of cells that, oh, let's see what's gonna happen when they come out. No, he already views them as human beings. And Romans 9, I think, confirms this all the more. Romans 9, verses 11 through 13, talks about this same incident, but adds some additional details. Though they were not yet born, and had done nothing, either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of worse, but because of him who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. There you have the Apostle Paul saying, before either of them have been born yet, while they are still babies in the womb, God has loved one, God has hated the other. They haven't been born, they haven't done anything good or evil, they are still inside the womb, and God views them as human beings. He views them as a people. He loves one of them, he hates the other. Of course, that gets into questions of God's sovereignty and election That's beyond our scope for this evening. But it's important to note what God's saying here. Those are children. Those are people. They aren't just random clumps of cells. Another argument in defense of this, we see this in the Old Testament, but we even see it in laws in different areas of our own country. If someone goes out and murders a pregnant woman, what do they get charged with? They get charged with double murder? Why do they get charged with double murder? Because the baby is a human being who's been killed. I mean, there's a great logical inconsistency here where you can have in a state a law that if you kill a pregnant woman, you get charged with the death of the baby, and yet, if you kill that baby inside an abortion bill, it's totally legal. But the scriptures talk about this as well. Our own laws in different states talk about this, that child is a human being. And to kill that child intentionally is an act of murder. We could also point to facts, you know, Jesus was a baby. He's obviously recognized by God as identified as having an identity even before he's born. John the Baptist, very much the same case as well. John the Baptist even leaps in his mother's womb when Mary hears Mary's voice. And so there's personality and identity going on even before birth. And so from all these things, we have to conclude that in the eyes of God, children in the womb are human beings. They are not just clumps of cells, they're not fetuses, or whatever language people try to use to soften the impact, but those are human beings, they are babies, they're children. created in the image of God and having value and worth no matter what. To intentionally destroy the image of God is one of the most terrible crimes that a person can inflict on another human being. So from all those things we conclude abortion is murder and that's why we have to speak on these issues. We're not opposed to amendment before just because it's an extreme amendment, though it is. We are opposed to Amendment 4 because Amendment 4 would allow murder as the law of our state. And that's something that would be very displeasing to God. So I want to turn now and deal with some of the arguments or exceptions that are common. Rape and incest, the life of the mother, talk about those things. Any questions or comments? Anything we've talked about up to this point? Okay, let's talk about some of the difficult questions. So often in public discourse, you'll hear people will be like, well, I'm pro-life, I'm against abortion, except for certain circumstances. And the big three that you hear are rape, incest, and the life of the mother. And I wanna talk about rape and incest and kind of take them together. The reason being, you kind of have the same response to both of them. And to start, it's important to recognize these can be very difficult situations, and obviously there can be times when both of these are occurring at the same time. This is a very rare situation, though, that is important to note. Most of the abortions that happen in our country, when you have these kinds of, these exceptions being brought up, the reality is these three situations make up an extremely, extremely small percentage of abortion in our country. Abortion exists in order to serve the God of self. We don't like being inconvenienced by a child, we want to be able to live life our own way, you know, this, that, and the other thing, and so it's just easier to kill the child and get rid of it and live however we want. It's an incredibly selfish act for the most part. And so it's important to note that as we deal with these exceptions, these are very rare situations. And in the case of rape and incest, they can be very traumatic for a mother, of course. We want to be sensitive that, especially a situation of rape, can be a very terrible, it's a very terrible thing to occur, very damaging and traumatic for the mother. It's very rare for those to end up in pregnancies, but they do sometimes. And because of that trauma and the difficulty of the situation, We can at least perhaps understand why someone might struggle in that circumstance. Perhaps you have a very young lady that's involved. I mean, it's a very terrible and difficult situation. The problem, though, is for allowing exceptions for rape and incest. Again, this goes back to the conclusion we just made. Children are human beings. They're people. They have their own identity. That's separate and distinct from the mother. Yes, they are completely dependent on the mother for their life, but when God's talking to Rebekah, He's talking about two other people. There are people that are inside her, but two other people, Jacob and Esau, are not Rebekah. They are Jacob and they are Esau. In the same case, I mean, that applies for every pregnancy. You have one of these terrible situations that we're results in a child, that is still a human being. A separate human being who's separate from the mother and separate from the offender. And despite how terrible that situation might be, that is not a justification for killing another person. Two wrongs don't make a right. Of course, there could be a whole host of other things that could be done. Obviously, there could be some very difficult situations that people are put in from these things, but adoption is always an issue, or always an option. But to kill a child, it's not their fault. Some people have put it this way, they're as much a victim as the mother is as well, and so I do not view rape and incest as valid exceptions to the question of abortion. Those are still human beings, those are human beings created in the image of God, and their lives do need to be protected, no matter how difficult the circumstances might be in which they are conceived and born into. Are there any questions or comments on that? We're talking about life and death. Yeah, please. Point of interest, several years ago, a movie came out called Rock Roy, Some of us may have seen it, Liam Neeson was in it. It took place probably in 1800s, 1700s, I don't know, long time ago. Anyway, in the movie, his wife is raped, as you can see, and she wants to get rid of the child, and she's expecting that he will too, and his answer was, it's not the baby you've sent, And so it's the judgment and the justice for that sin. You know, when we say exception of rape and incest, we're passing, that's how we're getting, in our work way of thinking, getting justice. It's getting rid of the baby instead of concentrating on the perpetrator who committed the sin. Yeah, the baby didn't do anything. The baby was a product of it, but the baby didn't participate, it didn't act, the baby's innocent, all of that. And one thing to build on that as well, the Bible also talks about, I didn't get into this, but the Bible talks about children as being a blessing from the Lord. And children, even from rape and incest, can be a blessing. Now some people, part of their view is having a child with a person who did such a terrible act to them is just going to constantly re-traumatize them. I'm not saying that's impossible. But it doesn't justify murder, one. But secondly, it doesn't have to be that way. When I was going through Genesis, in Genesis 19, you have Actually, you've got two, well, Genesis 19 in particular, you've got lots of daughters raping. They get drunk and they get pregnant. And one of those daughters becomes the, her child ends up being the forefather of the Moabites, which is where Ruth comes from, which is where she marries Boaz, and that's where David comes from, and that's where Jesus comes from. So there you have an example in the scriptures of the product of rape results in the salvation of the world because that's Jesus's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great Again, that doesn't justify murder, and God can use even those most difficult and terrible circumstances to bring about something incredibly good. And how many times, perhaps, have we destroyed God's turning evil into good by murdering the children or the products of those kinds of circumstances? I think it's a different way to think about it, but I think it's a more biblical way to think about it. I think that changes how we look at it. Yeah, Brandon. You don't happen to know the percentage of rape? I can't remember off the top of my head. It's only about 10%. I mean, we're talking. I mean, I think rape, incest, and life of the mother all together are probably under 5% of total abortions. It was really funny that in the survey, when you're talking to people, they'll ask you, are you opposed to the use of word abortion for rape and incest? Yeah, what we're talking about is very, very low numbers. But I think the fact, like what you're pointing at, Jeff, the fact that these exceptions just get, they're just assumed to now almost. Most people who would describe, I would say probably, A significant portion of people who describe themselves as pro-life would say, oh yeah, I'm fine with all three of those exceptions. And I don't see how you can justify rape and incest exceptions biblically. I don't think it works. And it connected that as well. This isn't something you'll find among pro-lifers as much, but a thing, issue people bring up is some of them will view it as like a mercy abortion if the child is supposed to have some kind of disorder or disease, developmental issues, something like that. The idea is, well, it'd be better for them to just die, to not be born, than to live life with these kind of debilitating issues. And we don't get to make that decision. That goes hand in hand with the euthanasia debate. Life is not dependent, sorry, the value of life is not dependent on the quality of life. And life itself is a good thing for even a lesser, Quality of life, or what we call quality of life, we don't really know what that means sometimes. Sometimes your handicapped person might be happier than us normal people, right? Are we really that normal to begin with? But anyway, a whole different thing. But yeah, that's not justified, biblically. They're valuable because they're made in the image of God. And they can have good, valuable lives, and life just itself is a good thing. off at infancy. It's terrible. Yeah, hi. Just to throw something out, it's kind of weird. Go for it. Why not? Okay, not to use babies as chattel, but people do, essentially. You know, I mean, the abortionists are going to harvest more things, you know, and then people black market babies all the time across the border and so forth for tens or hundreds of thousands, maybe, I don't know. If you offer somebody in that predicament money for their baby, they would see it as a charm. And yet, at the same time, they would say the audacity of somebody to, you know, say, I'm marketing my child. But yet, it's happening anyhow. So I'm just throwing out there, if people were, you know, Right well and There's there's I will say to the way the way abortion is being talked about in our country has gone from It's gone a particularly wicked way where abortion is now celebrated They have parties. I think there was a social media trend, I think it was called Shout Your Abortion. Say it again? Celebrate Your Abortion. Where they're bragging about how many abortions they have. And so the reason I bring that up is because while you would assume that, naturally speaking, a person would carry their child to term if they had a financial incentive. I think that's becoming less and less common, because the hearts of our people are becoming very, very wicked. In fact, you've got plenty of people who are willing to adopt children that are unwanted. And people still go through with their abortions anyway, even though those children could have all. I think if you played with the numbers. I'm sure it would make an impact, absolutely. It would make an impact. But it's scary. the way people are talking about this issue. But the left, the spiraling depravity is getting lower and lower, and that's, yeah. A right, yeah. I mean, that's why you have, I mean, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, for a moment there, it felt like a victory, but the reality is, how many states have now passed even worse amendments enshrining it in our state constitution, so this is allowable, even conservative states. Ohio passed a very terrible abortion amendment. And the polling data for Amendment 4 is very close. It's hovering around 58 to 62%. It needs 60 to pass. And the polling data right now shows it very, very close to passing in Florida. We think of Florida as a really conservative state right now. It might not be as conservative as we think. So let's talk about the life of the mother. This, I think, is one of the most difficult questions to answer. Again, it is a very, very, very low percentage of abortions are for the life or health of the mother. I think here we need to be careful in how we define it. So the way that I would put it, I am not opposed to potential exceptions in extreme cases for the life of the mother. But the key here is you're not intentionally trying to kill the child. You're trying to save life, and you can't save both. And so this is, so when you have a pregnancy, very, very rare, but this gets brought up this kind of discourse. We have a pregnancy where the child, it doesn't attach in the womb, but it attaches in the tubes. Ectopic pregnancy. If that's allowed to go, you're both dying. Because the child, I mean, the child can't grow there without essentially killing the mother. And so at that moment, and most, reason this isn't even a really much of a valid argument that pro-choice people use this, or pro-abortion people use this, is because most laws would allow an exception in that kind of emergency situation. But at that moment, the goal is not to kill the child. The goal is, if this continues, both are going to die, but we can at least save the one. It's not exactly the same, but it's kind of like we have an army medic out and you've got two soldiers with life-threatening injuries brought in, he's only got one set of hands. He's got to operate on one of them. And the guy he operates on is the one that he thinks he has the best chance of saving. Now, it's not exactly the same, because your procedure would effectively end the life of the child. But if you don't do anything, they both die anyway. It would be different if it was a situation where If the child gets to a certain stage, we could try to save the child's life, if they get to that 21, 24 weeks. But again, there the key is, you're not intentionally trying to kill the child, you're trying to save life. I think that's the key thing. Now what this means then, especially so like in the current amendment before Florida, it talks about protective patient's health, and health can mean anything. Pregnancy, I mean, I'm never going to go through it. But from what I've heard and what I've seen and what people have told me, pregnancy takes a great toll on the mother's heart. And I'm sure all the mothers in here would testify that, yeah, it's not easy. It's really hard and a lot of difficulties attached to it. And I'm sure none of those are fun, those kinds of issues. And so to have an exception for just protecting the life of the mother, you need to have some definitions. You can't just say generally health, because just because you've got some potential negative health impacts doesn't mean you then get to kill your child. And some people would cite even mental health issues, which those can be difficult and severe and things like that. But just because you're struggling mentally, again, doesn't mean you then get to go It really, in my opinion, has to be those kinds of serious physical issues that pose real, real serious, you're running a very serious risk of the mother dying, and you don't have a way to save the child. The goal should always be, the goal in medicine should always be to save one. You can't save everyone. We're not God. We never will be. But that should be the next, that's what orients us. It's the saving of life. Again, this gets used as an argument for why just abortion generally needs to be allowed because you have very, very, very, very rare circumstances where perhaps a procedure that does result in the life of the child is necessary to save the mother's life. But that's not a valid argument. you can allow for those exceptions, for those extreme cases, where the intention is not to kill the child. The intention is to save the mother's life, but unfortunately you can't save both. So that's how I approach that issue. And so, if you define it in a narrow sense, I think we can say, yes, there are circumstances where they're extreme, rare, And you're trying to protect the mother's life, that's okay. But you can't just use that as a loophole to push through, I need an abortion because I feel bad today, and so that's having a negative impact on me. Maybe a little absurd, but that's, we need to be careful in the way these exceptions get talked about. This one in particular is one that People will drive a truck if you don't define it narrowly enough. And the Amendment 4 does not define it at all. Necessary to protect the patient's health is determined by the patient's health care provider. That's almost anybody. It can be almost any excuse. And that's not a valid exception. That makes it almost the same as awarding someone because they're inconvenient for you. It's just now you've got to attach a health reason to it. Very convenient for me in some health respect. And that's not good or right. That's amendment four, abortion. Any questions, thoughts, comments, anything we didn't talk about tonight you wanna bring up? Well, I was just gonna say what you just finished talking about. Maybe Sam can help me on here. But in the medical field, when The mother's life is greatly in danger that becomes that goes from an elective procedure to a medical emergency It's a whole different ballgame. Yeah, and the doctors Know that very well. Mm-hmm, and there is standard of care It's just a different thing and right and But the goal here for the pro-abortion crowd is not to speak in those terms or operate in those terms. There's a lot of money. I don't know if you saw one of those, oh, I can't remember the group that did it, but it was one of those undercover groups that filmed a video talking with a number of abortion workers and talking about the selling of baby births that they do and the whole system that they have. And I don't have words to describe how it was. The laughing, the joking, all of that. But that's that. They have an agenda. There's money in this. And so I completely agree. I would say we probably already have those definitions and procedures in place. But that's all going to get thrown out the window if an amendment like this gets passed health of the mother, healthcare provider, and that could be anybody. I can't remember which one can prescribe, psychologist or psychiatrist? Psychiatrist. Psychiatrist, allow for abortion? Under this, it sounds like it can. That's a problem. Yeah, Terry. If it's not such a big deal, then why can't parents help? I mean, and you can connect that with the transgender issues as well. Why is there so much pushback Why is there so much pushback about protecting minors from making life-altering, can't-take-it-back decisions by themselves? And I think there's a concentrated attack to try to destroy young people. If you destroy them young, you destroy them for life, apart from the race of God. Of course, all of it's apart from the race of God, of course, but you know what I mean by that. And so I think that's part of there's a very concentrated effort to destroy young people as early as you can get them. And parents are the safeguard. Parents are the natural, God-given safeguard of their young people, of their children. And Satan hates that. He wants to destroy that relationship. So I think that's part of what's behind. Because it's weird otherwise. It makes no sense. It makes no sense. Why is that such a big deal to not allow the parents to have a say? or all these really, you would say, really serious things. If your agenda is an organized attack on all the foundational building blocks of society, then that makes sense. Yep, yep. And the money issue. The money, oh, money's huge, money's huge. When I was young, you know, when you hear the phrase, always follow the money, I did not appreciate it, but now it's like oh yeah, there's money One thing that often is lost when we talk about abortion Death of the babies and so forth The callousness with which this amendment is put forward is very typical of the whole abortion industry in this fact, that they want it to be like having their wisdom teeth out or something like this. And the women who've had this done, who've experienced abortion, have been told a lie that it's just to clump the cells or whatever afterwards. They are consumed with guilt, and they cannot make this right. They cannot go to that baby and say, you know, that was a mistake. I don't want to hold you now, because it's done. And there's a whole generation of women with this in their background, and they're dealing with depression and grief and sadness. And it's awful. It's a terrible thing. I know that many years ago when we were associated with the Crisis Pregnancy Services, they had a whole support group for women who have had abortions. Because they're people of grief. And it's unrequited. There are answers. They can be forgiven of that, of course. And when we bought this property about 15 years ago, neglected little garden out front, which was a memory garden for, essentially for women who had aborted their children. We took the garden apart because it was a mess. It was just, it was right out front there, to the left of the parking area. Anyway, that's something we need to be thinking about through all this, that those who have aborted children, we don't know who they are. But it's a horrible thing that they live with all their lives. Yeah, there's not the... One of the strongest natural bonds that exists in the world is the relationship between a mother and a child. And they've been lying to you. Abortion, yeah. Abortion strikes at the heart of that. And that's part of why the whole world is trying so hard to normalize it. Like, the way you put it, it's like getting your wisdom teeth taken out. Yeah, it's just, you go in and forget about it. Yeah, I mean, that's just, everyone does that, right? Unless you're like me, you've never had wisdom teeth. Very thankful for that. But everyone does that, and the world's trying to say this is the same, and it's not the same. But it's important to emphasize as well, there is forgiveness for this, because you can't bring back the child now. But Jesus will forgive sinners, and he forgave the apostle Paul, killing Christians, and forgave mother, who was lied to and aborted her child, and he will. Okay? So right before... Yep, yep, yep. They treat animals... Well, animals want people. So I was reading, that's Article 10, Section 22, before everyone came in, And it's a miscellaneous article. So I read the section, I think it was the section right before the one talking about notification. And it was about the inhumane treatment of pregnant pigs. I'm not joking. It came into force in like 2002. I was like, I was shocked. I was not expecting that. We literally have in the Florida Constitution, I'm assuming it's still binding. I mean, I was just reading it earlier. A section about the inhumane treatment of pregnant pigs. You can't enclose them or tie them up in such a way where they can't turn around. And yet, we're debating right now whether or not we're going to also put in a section that allows us to murder. We're just a little bit more evolved But yeah, we're just the same as everyone else. No, we're different. Yes, Violet? I don't know, it's a difficult subject. Yeah? I guess I'd call it idiocy. I want to say stupidity, but I don't like that word. I don't know if that's idiocy either, but I mean, there's so many types of contraception. You know, they're not prescribed. It's like, you get a lot of this stuff on the counter. You know, so what is the big problem? And then, you know, there's the day after bill, there's a diagram, there's, you know, all kinds of things. And so, I guess I just don't get it, you know, like, how people can be that obtuse, you know, that they think that that's the rational thing to do. Oh, let's just go, you know, mindless, get drunk, do whatever. and that, oops, well, we'll just kill us. I mean, I just can't get my head around it. It gets back to the God of self, where we want to live the life we want to live without any consequences, repercussions, or restraints. And children are restraints. The whole process of pregnancy and having children is a restraint on free love, free sex, just go and do whatever you want with whoever you want, and not have to worry about it. Because God designed that to be within a family, and children are to be a natural part of that family, and there's all kinds of things that go along with that. I mean, how many times have you seen a young man who was a little bit immature, and then he got married, matured a little bit more, and then he started having kids, and he's like, man, he matured even further, just because of that natural consequence of he now has responsibilities, and he has to take care of people, and things like that. There's a role that children play in the growth and sanctification of dads and moms. But the world doesn't want that. The world wants to go to school. I mean, even then, Shouldn't be a problem, because they shouldn't be having sex outside of marriage. So let's just stop that right there. We're good, right? But people are going to do what they want to do. And abortion is, the way it's presented, and they're trying to have it, this is the way it's viewed, is this is just part of how you're able to live your life the way you want. It's a lifestyle. I mean, it's being promoted as a lifestyle. That's why you had free abortions outside the DNC this summer. They had it set up. Here we go. There's 20-some-odd people who got abortions during the Democratic National Convention. It's a lifestyle. It's a god. It is, yeah. Trevor. In the old testament, When God and other people are in Egypt, into the promised land, they were told to kill the animals. Man, woman, children, animals, everything. Because they lost the promised land because of their wickedness. Their wickedness was so extreme that God decided to wipe them out. Yep. God will judge. If he does not have mercy, he will judge. Is this the God of Moloch? Mm-hmm. Burn your children in the fire. Yeah, generationally. Yep. You know, because I can see Satan, you know, just I mean, that's what that god was, you know, does it still have power now? You know, that's a whole other thing. I mean, it's not a, you know, while it wasn't a real god, in the sense of, like, a competitive god, but all those talk about idols as worshiping demons. Are demons happy about the murder of children? Absolutely. Right? Well, it comes back to the same old thing. Romans 1.18 and following. Yep, give them over to natural desires Unless God has mercy and brings revival and people repent people If the nation repents God will have mercy then it was an example Jonah goes, all he preaches is judgment, he doesn't even preach the gospel. And the King of Nineveh is like, who knows, maybe God will have mercy, let's repent. They repent, God has mercy, Jonah gets ticked because he knew God would have mercy if they repented, and it's like, that's who God is. Actually. It is hard to repent. That's why I need the Holy Spirit to open our minds, to bring us out of our dead hearts and our sinful graves and bring us to life. Yeah, Trevor. Do you think it's possible? In our society, there are people that live a very sinful life, no respect for God, spiritual things, eternal things. And so God gave them a mind that I mean, God gives people over to wickedness, yeah. Yeah, no, I think a lot of what we're starting to see in our society is that giving over. When people are celebrating their abortions. Yeah, that's God. Judging them by giving them over to their sin. Yeah, he removes his restraining grace so that we just throw ourselves further ahead long into sin. Yeah, absolutely. Anything else? Well, before we pray, I do have some signs in the back, like we have out front. If anybody wants one, feel free to take one. Yep, there's Vote No on 4 in the back. Vote No on 4. Vote No on 4, yes. So, if you're interested, and your HOA allows you to put up signs, free ones out in the markets. Anything else before we pray tonight?