Berean Community Church IVF Abortion Seminar

00:00:00.000 | >> All right, for the sake of time, we're going to get started, and I know that there's

00:00:13.240 | still people kind of strolling in from the parking, but because of time, if you guys

00:00:18.140 | can see the schedule that we have, we've allotted one hour because we're trying to fit in.

00:00:23.480 | Initially, we didn't have Q&A, but we thought that the Q&A would be necessary because of

00:00:30.080 | applicational issues, okay?

00:00:32.400 | So for that reason, it's going to be pretty packed, and for that reason, we are not having

00:00:37.000 | praise in the beginning, so we're going to go straight into the teaching, and then there's

00:00:40.440 | going to be a 10-minute break, and then come back to the second session, and then right

00:00:45.820 | after the second session, we're going to lead into the Q&A, okay?

00:00:49.480 | So depending on how the time works, that's kind of like the rough breakdown, so if we're

00:00:53.480 | off by 5 or 10 minutes, just be patient with us, just to give you what's going on.

00:00:58.840 | So according to the sign-ups, this room should be packed, and because the parking, some people

00:01:03.920 | are still being shuttled back and forth, so if you have seats that you're sitting, and

00:01:09.280 | there's like a large gap in between, if we can ask you to fill that up.

00:01:12.920 | So they might have signed up and not shown up, but either the case on paper, it should

00:01:17.640 | be packed, so if you can do your best to pack the seats in between, that would be helpful.

00:01:26.200 | Before I introduce our speaker, I wanted to give a brief reason behind why we're doing

00:01:31.560 | this, because there was a period in church history, not that long ago, the debate over

00:01:37.680 | abortion was a Christian and non-Christian debate.

00:01:41.640 | There was almost no Christian who fought for abortion rights.

00:01:46.360 | And so as time has gone, and the church has fallen off, you know, where less and less

00:01:54.280 | churches are teaching the Bible, they're more and more illiterate, and I just read this

00:01:58.660 | week that according to a recent poll of professing Christians, only 6% of people who profess

00:02:08.480 | to be Christian has a Christian worldview, meaning the Bible is irrelevant in how they

00:02:13.760 | determine what is right and wrong, right?

00:02:16.000 | This is among people professing to be Christians.

00:02:19.520 | So we've been noticing, as our church grows, that there is more and more people who are

00:02:24.880 | coming in, wanting to debate this issue, and I've made it very clear from the pulpit that

00:02:29.600 | this is not within Christian debate, right?

00:02:34.400 | We wanted to make sure that our church understands biblically where we ought to stand biblically,

00:02:40.880 | not what you think is right, not what politically you should be thinking.

00:02:45.560 | All of these things are relevant, but first and foremost, what should a Christian be thinking

00:02:50.680 | on this issue?

00:02:52.560 | And the reason why this is related to IVF and birth control is because it's almost impossible

00:02:59.680 | to debate about abortion, fight against abortion, until we have a biblical view and how that

00:03:05.900 | affects the way we view IVF, because IVF, the issues with that is related to abortion.

00:03:12.280 | So if we don't deal with that issue, it bleeds into the argument against abortion.

00:03:17.940 | And so that's why these things are connected, and that's why we had Pastor James, he's going

00:03:22.040 | to come and he's going to give us a lecture, a talk, a sermon, but biblically open up the

00:03:27.920 | word for us and help us to see a biblical world perspective on this.

00:03:32.960 | The reason why we chose him, and we wrestled over this for quite a bit, like who should

00:03:38.040 | we ask to come?

00:03:39.080 | Should we do it?

00:03:40.080 | Should we have somebody else do it?

00:03:41.280 | But he gave a really good talk at his church on this issue, and we thought he did an excellent

00:03:47.040 | job on that, and we thought it would be beneficial for us to hear.

00:03:51.120 | His teaching on this is more extensive than what he's going to be teaching today, but

00:03:54.480 | we gave him two hours, so he's kind of condensing, taking some of the stuff out.

00:03:58.520 | But we asked him because I think he would be doing the best job on this particular topic,

00:04:04.000 | so we asked him to come.

00:04:05.440 | So as you guys know, he's one of our go-to speakers at our church if I have to go somewhere

00:04:12.840 | or if we need a guest speaker.

00:04:15.640 | But he's the pastor, he's the founding pastor of Cross Life Bible Church, right?

00:04:24.240 | And so, again, he's a brother of ours, he's very close, I mean, he's the closest to a

00:04:29.480 | sister church that we can have, you know, nearby.

00:04:32.680 | And so I know many of you already know him, but we want to give him as much time as possible.

00:04:37.080 | So let's welcome Pastor James Lee.

00:04:40.040 | All right, good, oh, you can hear me breathing.

00:04:50.880 | All right, let me check, check.

00:04:53.800 | How's that?

00:04:54.800 | All right, I felt really intimate, you guys can hear my breathing.

00:05:02.600 | All right, I think we're good.

00:05:04.520 | Thank you, Pastor Peter, for that gracious introduction.

00:05:07.960 | Thank you for the leadership at Brain Community Church for inviting me to come and to deliver

00:05:12.640 | God's Word and the teaching with regards to this subject on abortion and life of the unborn

00:05:22.040 | and even reproductive technology.

00:05:24.200 | And I hope it is an encouragement to all of you guys.

00:05:28.120 | For the sake of time, let me just open us up with a word of prayer and we'll get right

00:05:30.960 | into it.

00:05:34.000 | God, we know that you are the God of life.

00:05:40.520 | It's because of you that we breathe every single morning.

00:05:45.960 | It's because of your grace that we are alive.

00:05:50.560 | And by your grace, you have also given us new life in union with the resurrection of

00:05:54.640 | Jesus Christ.

00:05:57.240 | And Lord, so we know if there's anybody who should be fighting for life and even proclaiming

00:06:05.280 | and heralding the message of eternal life, it is the Christian.

00:06:10.840 | Grant us much grace to understand the Scriptures, give us clarity of mind, and Father, help

00:06:17.080 | us to be bold and courageous in a world that despises you, hates you, offends you, and

00:06:25.560 | transgresses the commandments of God.

00:06:28.640 | And we be a people who fear God and not man.

00:06:31.960 | Lord, thank you again for this time we have.

00:06:34.880 | Thank you for everyone here who are really willing and longing to learn more about the

00:06:39.760 | Scriptures.

00:06:40.760 | Lord, we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

00:06:44.840 | >> Well, again, it is a joy to be here and to be talking about this subject today.

00:06:50.280 | It's a very important subject to me, the subject of the sanctity of life.

00:06:55.920 | And today, at least for this first sermon, first, I guess, lecture, it's going to be

00:07:02.940 | on when does life in personhood begin.

00:07:06.640 | In order to understand how we are to approach the life within the womb, we need to first

00:07:12.760 | understand that it's a human being.

00:07:17.040 | And so that's what I want to talk about this morning.

00:07:18.920 | But before I do that, I feel like it's important, it's appropriate for me to share some words

00:07:22.320 | about abortion because, obviously, as Pastor Peter talked about, the subject is related.

00:07:28.160 | Abortion, as many of you are aware, is not as straightforward as someone might think

00:07:32.800 | because the solution, when it comes down to abortion, is not just, "Hey, we just got

00:07:36.640 | to save the child's life."

00:07:38.800 | The reason why abortion is an issue is because, you know, the child is unwanted.

00:07:43.640 | The child is unwanted for many reasons, the pressure from parents or from the boyfriend,

00:07:48.840 | the fear of raising the child alone because of the abandonment from the father.

00:07:53.200 | There might be financial uncertainty, absence of financial security, the cultural shame,

00:07:59.960 | right, growing up in a conservative culture.

00:08:03.400 | But the reason why any of these have become a crushing burden and concern is because oftentimes

00:08:07.040 | men and women are casually having sex outside of the protective and provisional and sacred

00:08:11.360 | bonds of marriage so that if a woman finds herself to be pregnant, it's outside of the

00:08:16.240 | place of stability.

00:08:17.760 | It's outside of the place of unconditional love.

00:08:21.520 | But the solution is more than just a matter of addressing the problem of fornication.

00:08:27.600 | It's more than just addressing the problem of sexual immorality but about preaching the

00:08:30.880 | gospel that forgives people of their sins and transforms the soul.

00:08:35.440 | And for those who are suffering from the guilt and shame of abortion, we know from Scripture

00:08:41.280 | that if there is any healing, it's in the gospel.

00:08:45.160 | It's in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

00:08:47.640 | If there's anybody who is fit to administer the hope of the gospel with sympathy and love,

00:08:53.840 | it's a Christian because Christians, we are the ones who know what it means to take an

00:09:01.440 | innocent life, right, because it was our sins that crucified our Savior Jesus Christ.

00:09:07.720 | It was our sins that condemned him upon the cross.

00:09:11.960 | It was our sins that caused him to suffer the damnation of his own father.

00:09:17.320 | But in the providence of God, it is through his death that we are forgiven of our sins.

00:09:21.180 | It's the forgiveness that we proclaim to those who may be suffering from the shame and the

00:09:25.080 | guilt of having taken innocent life.

00:09:28.080 | So of all people, the Christian should understand.

00:09:31.200 | Of all people, we should be the herald of the message of healing and forgiveness.

00:09:36.120 | Now, with that being said, the hope for today is to talk about the sanctity of life within

00:09:48.400 | the womb, the sanctity of life of the unborn child.

00:09:53.680 | And after this first lecture, we're going to be talking about reproductive technology,

00:10:00.440 | specifically IVF, in vitro fertilization.

00:10:03.280 | And I hope to bring some clarity to the subject today and that this would just be maybe a

00:10:08.480 | platform even for you to begin studying the subject even more.

00:10:12.880 | So we're going to be talking about when life and personhood begins.

00:10:17.080 | The reason why I want to talk about the subject of the beginning of human life is because

00:10:20.280 | I've come across some believers who genuinely, genuinely question when human life begins.

00:10:25.200 | And this obviously affects how we think about things like the after-morning pill.

00:10:30.320 | It affects the way that we approach IVF.

00:10:32.840 | For the longest time, I thought the straightforward passages in scripture would be sufficient

00:10:36.100 | to establish the sanctity of the unborn baby's life.

00:10:39.380 | For example, in Psalm 139 verse 13 to 14, it says, "For you formed my inward parts.

00:10:44.840 | You knitted me together in my mother's womb.

00:10:47.520 | I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

00:10:51.520 | Wonderful are your works.

00:10:52.520 | My soul knows it very well."

00:10:56.860 | And so I think passages like that make it pretty obvious.

00:11:00.280 | But for some, it's not enough.

00:11:04.840 | They may acknowledge that the unborn child is a human being at some point of development

00:11:09.160 | within the womb, but they can't be absolutely certain that life begins at the moment of

00:11:13.960 | conception because the Bible doesn't explicitly say that life begins when the sperm meets

00:11:18.560 | the egg and fertilizes it.

00:11:21.880 | Now when I hear this, I think it's pretty obvious that the burden of proof is upon the

00:11:24.600 | person who questions the humanity of the unborn child because the scripture always ascribes

00:11:28.920 | human worth to the unborn child, always.

00:11:32.280 | So if a challenge is posed against the general pattern presented in scripture, if an exception

00:11:37.980 | or specific aspect that goes against a broader tenor of truth, then that exceptional case

00:11:43.320 | should be shown biblically.

00:11:45.960 | So that again, the burden of proof is upon the individual who questions and doubts the

00:11:50.280 | broad tenor or the general teaching of the humanity of the unborn child.

00:11:54.800 | Furthermore, I believe that the Bible is sufficient for many things, especially our salvation,

00:12:00.560 | but also obviously for morality.

00:12:02.720 | In 2 Timothy 3.16-17, it says, "All scriptures breathed out by God and profitable for teaching,

00:12:08.400 | for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may

00:12:11.720 | be complete, equipped for every good work."

00:12:14.800 | The reason why this is important is because the questioning of someone's humanity is

00:12:17.800 | not a neutral thing.

00:12:19.240 | It's not a fair question.

00:12:21.560 | I know some might say, "I don't know if a human being begins at conception, but I'll

00:12:28.800 | err on the side of safety and I'll just treat that person like a person.

00:12:32.760 | I'll treat that being like a person, just in case it's a person."

00:12:37.120 | So practically, they might treat the unborn child no differently from somebody who believes

00:12:42.320 | that that child's life begins at the moment of conception, but the issue is more than

00:12:47.600 | just the matter of how we practically treat the unborn child.

00:12:51.920 | It's a matter of whether or not we honor God, glorify God.

00:12:56.800 | Can you imagine, given our history of slavery, going up to a black man and says, "You know

00:13:00.040 | what?

00:13:01.040 | I don't know whether or not you are a person."

00:13:02.040 | That's not a non-offensive question.

00:13:07.560 | That's not an amoral question.

00:13:09.640 | To question the humanity of an individual is a sin in and of itself.

00:13:12.680 | But it is a sin against the individual and a grave offense against the God whose image

00:13:16.080 | they bear.

00:13:17.080 | And so to suggest that the Bible cannot give clear direction with regards to the humanity

00:13:21.360 | of a zygote practically testifies to its insufficiency in dealing with a very serious moral issue.

00:13:26.840 | And so for these reasons, I believe that the straightforward passages in scripture is enough

00:13:31.520 | to believe that life begins at conception.

00:13:36.000 | But regardless, my objective this morning is going to undertake the task to show biblically

00:13:41.480 | and logically that the child in the womb is not a potential person, that it's not a potential

00:13:47.160 | life, but it is a precious child made in the image of our God.

00:13:53.960 | And that precious child begins to live at the moment of conception.

00:14:00.320 | So I want to cover two points to show that life and personhood go hand in hand, that

00:14:03.840 | you cannot have one without the other.

00:14:05.880 | The first point, life and personhood go hand in hand in creation, and life and personhood

00:14:12.040 | go hand in hand in new creation.

00:14:14.000 | So that's going to be my two broad points for today.

00:14:18.200 | So let's talk about how life and personhood go hand in hand in creation.

00:14:22.720 | And what I mean by that is that you cannot have one without the other.

00:14:25.940 | To have human life is to be a person, and a person is to have human life.

00:14:33.160 | So in order to show that life and personhood go hand in hand, I want to cover two sub points.

00:14:37.200 | First, an unborn child at the moment of conception is a distinct living human being.

00:14:44.880 | So distinct living human being.

00:14:49.000 | My second sub point is that a distinct living human being is a person.

00:14:54.240 | That's how I'm going to argue my case.

00:14:59.640 | So an unborn child at the moment of conception is a distinct living human being.

00:15:03.160 | I want to take Hosea 12.3 as an example to launch our study.

00:15:06.720 | In Hosea 12.3 it says, "In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood

00:15:11.960 | he strove with God."

00:15:13.040 | So in the womb he took his brother by the heel.

00:15:15.080 | It's talking about Jacob when he was in the womb.

00:15:18.840 | Passages like this, of which there are many, we see a number of important qualities about

00:15:22.040 | Jacob, that within his mother's womb he is a distinct living human being.

00:15:27.480 | Jacob is not part of his mom, he is distinct.

00:15:31.480 | He's living, he's moving around, he just grabbed his brother's heel, he's moving around.

00:15:37.360 | He's human.

00:15:38.360 | He's not a pig, so he's a human, so he's a distinct living human being.

00:15:44.200 | So let's first talk about, I want to first talk about life, life of the unborn.

00:15:47.280 | In Roe v. Wade the justices speak about the fetus representing the potentiality of life,

00:15:51.000 | but that statement is incorrect.

00:15:52.760 | It's a nearly uncontested idea that a fertilized egg is in fact alive.

00:15:57.960 | Even the sperm and the unfertilized egg before coming together is alive, right?

00:16:02.840 | You guys know that from high school biology, it's alive, it's a living cell.

00:16:07.120 | As a result, there's internal dynamism within the zygote that is a fertilized egg that continues

00:16:11.320 | to grow within the womb and eventually outside of the womb until he or she finally dies.

00:16:16.800 | The ethicist John Feinberg quotes Patrick Lee, a professor of bioethics, who says the

00:16:20.320 | following, "Once fertilization occurs, the new embryo possesses the internal resources

00:16:26.480 | and dynamism needed actively to develop himself or herself to full maturity.

00:16:31.760 | And unless deprived of a suitable environment or prevented by accident or disease, this

00:16:35.560 | embryo will actively develop itself in its own distinct direction towards its own survival

00:16:41.120 | and maturity."

00:16:42.120 | Dr. Alfred M. Bongiovanni, who is a professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the University

00:16:49.220 | of Pennsylvania, testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee to give his

00:16:53.480 | expert opinion on when life begins.

00:16:55.840 | He said the following, "I've learned from my earliest medical education that human life

00:17:00.120 | begins at the time of conception.

00:17:01.920 | I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood

00:17:06.680 | and that any interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of human

00:17:10.680 | life.

00:17:11.680 | I'm no more prepared to say that these early stages of development in the womb represent

00:17:16.160 | an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic

00:17:21.160 | effects of puberty is not a human being.

00:17:23.880 | This is human life at every stage."

00:17:27.760 | So the idea that a zygote is alive is very difficult to contest considering the internal

00:17:32.460 | dynamism and the vitality, and even more so when you consider the fact that the sperm

00:17:37.440 | and, again, the sperm and the egg, which come together to make the zygote, is also alive.

00:17:42.780 | So the more precise question we should ask is not whether a zygote is life, but whether

00:17:46.480 | it's a human life.

00:17:49.180 | Is it a human life?

00:17:50.320 | And this brings me to the second characteristic of the unborn.

00:17:53.520 | It's humanity.

00:17:54.520 | It's humanity.

00:17:55.520 | The same way that people talk about the embryo being a potential life, some people make the

00:18:00.740 | argument that the embryo has the potential to be human.

00:18:04.800 | I don't know if you guys heard this stuff before, right?

00:18:08.680 | The potential to be human.

00:18:11.360 | But the fact is, it is human, not a potential to be human.

00:18:14.880 | It's human.

00:18:15.880 | The unborn child is genetically distinguishable from, like, a bat or cat or a dog, right?

00:18:20.400 | It's a human embryo, a human, therefore, life.

00:18:24.480 | When we utilize a term like human, we have brought ourselves into the discussion or framework

00:18:28.520 | about creational types or species or kinds, the nature of what type of thing that creation

00:18:34.360 | is.

00:18:35.360 | To be human is a categorical description of a kind.

00:18:38.460 | That is a kind of being.

00:18:40.200 | We are mankind or humankind, as opposed to a kind of dog or a kind of cat.

00:18:46.000 | Now, when we talk about the potentiality, we're talking about precursors to what something

00:18:52.280 | might become.

00:18:54.080 | To have the potentiality to become a thing means that it has yet to become that thing.

00:18:59.800 | Correct?

00:19:01.280 | Right?

00:19:02.280 | To have the potentiality to become a thing means that it has yet to become that thing.

00:19:07.640 | But because the embryo is human, there is no potentiality.

00:19:10.240 | It's not a—again, it's a human sperm that comes together with a human egg.

00:19:15.960 | The product is a human embryo.

00:19:19.040 | What would it actually mean for something to be potentially human?

00:19:22.000 | Like, what is that thing?

00:19:24.360 | We're not talking about inorganic material that somehow evolves into a human being.

00:19:28.660 | We're definitely not talking about a cow becoming a human being.

00:19:32.080 | What does it mean to be the potential to be human?

00:19:34.520 | It's a nonsensical term.

00:19:38.080 | It is human from the get-go so that there is no potentiality.

00:19:40.880 | It is human.

00:19:44.520 | The last characteristic is whether the living human cell is distinct from the mother.

00:19:50.360 | As many of you know, it is.

00:19:51.880 | What is growing in the mother's womb is not something that is part of the mother.

00:19:55.680 | The child within the womb is not a tumor.

00:20:00.040 | The child within the womb is not another foot or a fingernail that has attached itself to

00:20:04.640 | the uterine lining.

00:20:06.440 | It is another being that is growing.

00:20:09.760 | Even genetically, the child has a different DNA blueprint that is distinct from the mother.

00:20:14.400 | And this distinction is obvious when we see the child grow within the mother's womb.

00:20:21.180 | And so it's clear that the unborn child is a distinct living human being.

00:20:26.160 | To claim that it has the potential for life is blatantly incorrect.

00:20:31.520 | The idea that it has the potential to become human is nonsensical.

00:20:35.480 | And it's obvious that the embryo is not a part of the mother.

00:20:38.640 | It is its own unique being.

00:20:42.140 | So what is true of Jacob in Hosea chapter 12 is true of a child the moment he or she

00:20:46.120 | is conceived.

00:20:49.920 | So I think here's the fair question then.

00:20:53.200 | Is it a person?

00:20:55.960 | Is it a person?

00:20:56.960 | Are you guys tracking with me?

00:20:58.360 | Yeah?

00:20:59.360 | Yeah?

00:21:00.360 | Okay, are you guys tracking with me?

00:21:02.680 | All right.

00:21:03.680 | So sometimes it's kind of like, anyway, okay, good.

00:21:08.560 | All right.

00:21:09.560 | So does the embryo have the potential to become a person?

00:21:15.000 | And that, I would say, is a good question.

00:21:17.800 | Another way to understand it, is there a time of bodily development of the child when the

00:21:21.320 | soul enters into the physical body?

00:21:24.320 | Is it like the body being formed within the womb and the soul comes in in three months,

00:21:29.480 | four months, five months?

00:21:32.480 | Or is the soul knit into the body the moment that it is formed at conception?

00:21:37.320 | And so we come to my second sub-point, that a distinct living human being is a person.

00:21:47.640 | The question of personhood is philosophical in nature or theological or metaphysical.

00:21:54.000 | And the reason is because we're talking about what it means to be a person.

00:21:57.500 | And this is not only relevant when talking about the unborn, but it's a question that

00:22:02.020 | needs to be addressed when we're talking about issues like slavery or genocide, where people

00:22:05.960 | are dehumanized.

00:22:08.760 | What we see is that because the question of personhood is philosophical, theological,

00:22:14.580 | or metaphysical in nature, people cannot objectively determine what makes a person a person.

00:22:19.560 | So you see a lot of confusion in the secular society.

00:22:25.040 | Mary Ann Warren was a professor of philosophy at SF State University, and she believed that

00:22:28.920 | personhood was determined by five criteria.

00:22:31.720 | She said the following, "I suggest that the traits which are most central to the concept

00:22:35.600 | of personhood or humanity in the moral sense are very roughly the following, consciousness

00:22:40.480 | of objects and events external and/or internal to the being, and in particular, the capacity

00:22:45.760 | to feel pain."

00:22:47.680 | Two, reasoning, the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems.

00:22:52.520 | Three, self-motivated activity, activity which is relatively independent of either genetic

00:22:57.680 | or direct external control.

00:22:59.920 | Four, the capacity to communicate by whatever means messages of an indefinite variety of

00:23:05.880 | types, that is, not just with an indefinite number of possible contents, but on indefinitely

00:23:10.640 | many possible topics.

00:23:12.320 | Five, the presence of self-concepts and self-awareness, either individual or racial or both.

00:23:18.720 | So this is her criteria to determine whether a human life is a person.

00:23:24.240 | Now immediately you can see how troubling this criteria is, because a newborn child

00:23:27.840 | or a severely mentally disabled person cannot meet this criteria.

00:23:32.640 | But it's not only these criteria that is the problem.

00:23:34.800 | You have to wonder on what authority she can even assert these qualities to be determinative

00:23:41.240 | of personhood in the first place.

00:23:43.800 | At the end of the day, these are just subjective assertions of what makes a person a person.

00:23:48.920 | In other words, she just made it up.

00:23:51.120 | She just made it up.

00:23:52.720 | She says this is the criteria for personhood, what says who?

00:23:57.680 | Her.

00:23:58.880 | And if the criteria for personhood could be made up, then anyone in power can just make

00:24:02.000 | up whatever he wants to establish as the boundaries of personhood and dehumanize anybody who falls

00:24:07.320 | outside of that boundary in order to enslave them, to abuse them, and to kill these subhuman,

00:24:12.480 | inferior subhuman beings.

00:24:15.360 | What if someone said that personhood is determined by skin color?

00:24:18.520 | That's the boundary.

00:24:20.520 | Isn't that what we have done in the past of this country?

00:24:23.560 | Or what if someone says that personhood is determined by the stage of development?

00:24:26.680 | That's the boundary.

00:24:27.680 | And that's exactly what we're doing in the present as a nation.

00:24:31.720 | In California, a child can be aborted until fetal viability, which is about 24 to 26 weeks.

00:24:36.880 | In Nebraska, a child can be aborted until 12 weeks.

00:24:39.760 | In Utah, 18 weeks.

00:24:42.320 | In Oregon, there are no restrictions, no restrictions.

00:24:47.320 | But things get even more extreme.

00:24:48.320 | I mean, that alone is shocking.

00:24:50.600 | There's an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics published in 2012 by Gubalini and Minerva

00:24:54.520 | entitled "After-Birth Abortion, Why Should the Baby Live?"

00:24:58.720 | The writers argue that we should not only have the right to kill the child within the

00:25:01.480 | womb, but they argue that we should be able to kill the child outside of the womb.

00:25:06.080 | This is the abstract to the paper.

00:25:07.080 | This is what it reads.

00:25:09.800 | Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus's

00:25:14.360 | health.

00:25:15.360 | By showing that, one, both fetus and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual

00:25:19.440 | persons.

00:25:20.440 | Two, the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant.

00:25:24.600 | And three, adoptions is not always in the best interest of actual people.

00:25:28.040 | The authors argue that what we call after-birth abortion, killing a newborn, should be permissible

00:25:32.600 | in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

00:25:37.520 | These guys are basically saying that newborn children, like unborn children, do not have

00:25:43.040 | the right to life because it doesn't matter whether they are persons, potential persons.

00:25:50.600 | So they say, "What does it mean to be a person?"

00:25:52.000 | They go on to say, "Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons,

00:25:56.240 | but neither is a person in the sense of subject of a moral right to life.

00:26:01.620 | We take persons to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence

00:26:06.040 | some at least basic values such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss

00:26:10.600 | to her."

00:26:11.600 | They're saying a human being becomes a person when they become aware of his own value as

00:26:17.660 | an individual.

00:26:19.060 | And since a newborn child, like an unborn child, is not aware or self-aware of its own

00:26:23.520 | existence by thinking, "Hey, my life is important.

00:26:25.920 | Hey, I'm here," they do not have a right to live.

00:26:31.180 | This is crazy.

00:26:32.440 | You see how this line of thinking, if you draw it out to its logical end, it leads us

00:26:39.000 | to a very, very, very dark place.

00:26:42.600 | Even now it's a dark place, but we have become accustomed to the dark, sadly.

00:26:49.120 | Without God, people are just making up what constitutes personhood.

00:26:51.480 | They're just making it up.

00:26:54.100 | So that some people are saying that children outside of the womb can even be killed.

00:26:58.240 | And Guglielmini and Minerva are not the only ones who think this way.

00:27:01.320 | There's a Washington Post article that came out, and it said this, "Accordingly, from

00:27:07.300 | Should the Baby Live, it does not seem wise to add to the burden on limited resources

00:27:11.400 | by increasing the number of severely disabled children."

00:27:16.960 | Also in that book, Singer and his colleague Helga Kuss suggested a period of 28 days after

00:27:22.840 | birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to live

00:27:26.200 | as others.

00:27:27.200 | Singer, I believe, was a professor at Princeton University.

00:27:32.480 | Now, the reason why people are floundering in the dark and trying to answer when personhood

00:27:36.320 | begins unable to reach a consensus is because the question, again, is philosophical in nature.

00:27:40.920 | It is theological or metaphysical, so that an answer cannot be determined and discovered

00:27:46.120 | from the natural order.

00:27:48.300 | It cannot be assessed through our senses.

00:27:50.920 | It must be revealed to us, and it has been revealed to us from God himself, the source

00:27:56.040 | of our life in personhood.

00:27:58.520 | And so, of course, to answer the question, we must go to the Bible.

00:28:03.660 | We have to go to the Bible, and what we see from scripture is that personhood is not determined

00:28:07.860 | by a stage of development, it's not determined by your skin color, it's not determined by

00:28:12.040 | social acceptance or a mother's choice, but whether or not a creature is made in the image

00:28:17.400 | of God.

00:28:19.400 | In Genesis chapter 1, verse 26 to 27, take your Bibles, turn with me there.

00:28:23.480 | Genesis chapter 1, verse 26 to 27.

00:28:43.560 | Genesis chapter 1, verse 26 to 27, this is the reading of God's word, "Then God said,

00:28:50.680 | 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over

00:28:54.760 | the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over

00:28:58.540 | all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'

00:29:02.080 | So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female

00:29:07.320 | he created them."

00:29:08.320 | To be an image bearer of God is a loaded idea, so that it's difficult to come up with

00:29:14.460 | a narrow definition.

00:29:16.600 | The accurate understanding of this term is probably the most general.

00:29:20.720 | The accurate understanding of this term is probably the most general, which is to be

00:29:25.520 | like God.

00:29:27.320 | And who God is, is a personal being expressed in the person of the Father, the Son, and

00:29:32.360 | the Holy Spirit.

00:29:33.480 | And also we know that God is a living God.

00:29:36.560 | In Psalm 42 verse 2 it says, "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God."

00:29:41.680 | In 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 13 it says, "I charge you in the presence of God who gives

00:29:45.020 | life to all things."

00:29:46.600 | And so to be made in the image of God is to be a living person.

00:29:51.180 | And just as God's nature, personhood, and life, though distinguishable, is not separable,

00:29:55.940 | so we as image bearers of God share in the distinguishable, though not separable, unity

00:30:00.280 | of the realities of our nature, personhood, and life that God has communicated to us.

00:30:05.740 | And that's why throughout the Bible we see personhood identified with distinct human

00:30:09.680 | life.

00:30:10.940 | This is demonstrated to us in Genesis chapter 2, where we see personhood the moment that

00:30:14.640 | God breathed life into Adam.

00:30:17.320 | In Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 it says, "And the Lord God formed the man of dust from the

00:30:21.000 | ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living creature."

00:30:26.880 | And so Adam is alive, but he's not some unprogrammed robot, right?

00:30:31.680 | What do we see in the following verses?

00:30:32.920 | We see personal interactions of a person.

00:30:36.160 | In Genesis chapter 2 verse 15 to 17 it says, "The Lord God took the man and put him in

00:30:40.600 | the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

00:30:42.640 | And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,

00:30:47.040 | but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you

00:30:50.520 | eat of it you shall surely die.'"

00:30:51.800 | So God speaks to him, commands him.

00:30:57.520 | What we find from Scripture is that we find both life and personhood in God, who has breathed

00:31:02.900 | into us, which makes sense because God is alive and he is a person, in fact three persons

00:31:07.800 | in one.

00:31:09.280 | As a result, the identity between personhood and life is something that we observe throughout

00:31:13.680 | all of Scripture.

00:31:14.960 | There's absolutely no case in the Bible, absolutely none, where an individual is alive but is

00:31:20.000 | not considered a person.

00:31:22.820 | No case in the Bible.

00:31:24.840 | And so to make a divorce between life and personhood is something that is alien to what

00:31:28.800 | we find in Scripture, and specifically what it means to be an image bearer of Yahweh.

00:31:33.400 | And we see the relationship between personhood and life at the end of life.

00:31:39.200 | A corpse has the DNA information to show that it is a distinct human corpse, right?

00:31:45.480 | Not a distinct human life, but a distinct human corpse.

00:31:48.320 | It is human, it is distinct.

00:31:51.800 | But we do not treat that human corpse as a person, why?

00:31:54.720 | Because it does not have life.

00:31:58.320 | The fact that it has no life means that the person is gone, that it's a soul.

00:32:02.040 | You can technically hit it, you can make fun of a corpse, it's not going to respond.

00:32:06.160 | You can bury a corpse and it's not a crime, whereas if you bury a living person, a living

00:32:10.520 | human being, it is a crime, it's a crime against that person.

00:32:15.960 | So death is a reverse parallel of the creation account.

00:32:18.400 | In creation there is the body, or a pile of dirt, we don't know the actual composition

00:32:23.000 | of that human shell, but then it's when God breathes life into that body, right, into

00:32:28.040 | the individual, breathes life into the individual that it has life and personhood.

00:32:33.440 | And when the breath of life leaves the body, the person departs from the body.

00:32:37.680 | From thus we came to thus we shall return.

00:32:40.680 | And I think it's relevant to mention just because a man dies physically, his vitality

00:32:45.760 | is not extinguished.

00:32:47.560 | That is really interesting too.

00:32:49.600 | The life energy of his existence continues in the form of a soul.

00:32:53.120 | And again what we see is that where there is a human vitality, I guess you can say human

00:32:57.680 | life energy, there is personhood.

00:32:59.240 | In Revelation chapter 6 verse 9-10 it says, "When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under

00:33:03.320 | the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness

00:33:07.520 | they had borne.

00:33:08.600 | They cried out with a loud voice, 'O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will

00:33:12.560 | judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?'"

00:33:16.440 | So I saw under the altar the souls of those who have been slain.

00:33:21.680 | So vitality, whether bodily or solely, immaterially, vitality and personhood is identified with

00:33:29.680 | one another.

00:33:31.200 | To suggest therefore that the soul comes into the shell of the human flesh in the unborn

00:33:35.160 | child at later stages of development is incompatible with the biblical data because vitality begins

00:33:40.960 | at conception.

00:33:42.100 | The moment the egg is fertilized, it begins to divide.

00:33:44.960 | And where there is vitality, as we have seen, there is personhood.

00:33:49.120 | And that is true from the beginning of life to the end of life.

00:33:52.960 | John Feinberg quotes William B. Hurlburt, who is a senior research scholar in neurobiology

00:33:57.300 | at Stanford Medical School, and he says the following, it's an extended quote, so bear

00:34:01.600 | with me, as Hurlburt adds, "Unlike an assembly of parts in which a manufactured product is

00:34:06.600 | in no sense present until there is a completed construction, a living being has a continuous

00:34:11.400 | unfolding existence that is inseparable from its emerging form.

00:34:15.360 | The form is itself a dynamic process rather than a static structure.

00:34:19.720 | In biology, the whole, as a unified organismal principle of growth, precedes and produces

00:34:26.280 | the parts.

00:34:27.280 | Thus, to interfere in the embryo's development is to transgress a life in process.

00:34:33.440 | Hence the notion that at some point in the development of the fertilized egg, the embryo,

00:34:37.040 | it is not a human being and that it later does become one contradicts the fact that

00:34:41.560 | a continuous process begins at fertilization and runs the whole course of the new organism's

00:34:49.680 | life.

00:34:50.680 | One, of course, can arbitrarily draw a line of various points in the gestation process

00:34:54.680 | and say that before that point it isn't a human entity or being an after that point

00:35:01.320 | it is.

00:35:02.320 | But it's hard to defend any particular drawing of such a line when any drawing would be arbitrary.

00:35:08.680 | The only line that can be drawn and supported on objective grounds is a line between sperm

00:35:12.680 | and egg as distinct entities unconnected to one another and the point when the sperm fertilizes

00:35:17.700 | the egg.

00:35:18.700 | The developmental process doesn't exist before fertilization and after fertilization it never

00:35:24.200 | stops until the new organism dies.

00:35:27.400 | That is a difference that is objectively measurable and it is a difference that makes a difference.

00:35:39.360 | Neither sperm nor egg alone can generate the developmental process that leads to a baby

00:35:43.960 | but an embryo can does.

00:35:46.560 | Since the developmental process is continuous once it begins and since it is generated and

00:35:51.080 | governed from within the new organism there seems to be no objective grounds for thinking

00:35:55.400 | the embryo is a human being at some point in its development but not others.

00:36:01.040 | Feinberg quotes Herbert again and he says the following, "Zygote, morula, embryo, fetus,

00:36:05.680 | child and adult, these are conceptual constructions for convenience of description, not distinct

00:36:10.400 | ontological categories.

00:36:12.760 | With respect to fundamental moral status, therefore, the human being is an embodied

00:36:16.240 | being whose intrinsic dignity is inseparable from its full procession of life and always

00:36:20.760 | present in its various stages of emergence."

00:36:26.920 | One of the reasons why I believe there might be confusion as to the personhood and the

00:36:29.680 | humanity of the unborn child is because we have made scientific classifications for certain

00:36:33.660 | stages of fetal development, points of growth that we can demarcate and label.

00:36:38.160 | And so to ponder the question of personhood and to anchor it in the label points of development

00:36:42.080 | seems to have an air of scientific legitimacy but we fail to see that the scientifically

00:36:47.120 | labeled points of development are themselves anchored in nothing but categorizations whose

00:36:54.620 | lines are arbitrarily drawn.

00:36:56.520 | In other words, people are anchoring personhood in something that is not anchored in it of

00:37:01.720 | itself.

00:37:02.720 | And the categories are not categories of ontological differences.

00:37:07.960 | They're not differences of beings in essence.

00:37:11.240 | We're not like cow in week one and we become a monkey week two and then we finally become

00:37:15.520 | a human being in week three.

00:37:17.840 | The categories are not categories of ontological differences or essential differences, differences

00:37:23.060 | of nature, differences of being, but they are differences of development.

00:37:27.560 | They're developmental differences.

00:37:31.320 | The procession of distinct human life begins at the moment of fertilization and it continues

00:37:36.120 | indivisible, uninterrupted until the day that we die.

00:37:42.000 | And so when David praises God for his development within the womb of his mother, it begins with

00:37:45.500 | the initial point of development that is conception.

00:37:48.920 | For you form my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

00:37:53.720 | I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, wonderful are your works, my soul knows

00:37:57.920 | it very well.

00:38:03.680 | So distinct human life is a person from beginning to end.

00:38:12.600 | This relationship between life and personhood doesn't just have practical implications

00:38:15.800 | but practical implications for how we should look at the unborn, but it also established

00:38:22.280 | a prototypical framework for our salvation as a part of the new creation.

00:38:27.160 | What I mean by this is that relationship between personhood and life as we see it in Genesis

00:38:30.780 | sets the pattern with how we experience new life and the renewal of who we are as a person

00:38:35.340 | in Christ.

00:38:36.560 | Just as we identify life and personhood in the first creation, so we identify new life

00:38:41.600 | and renewed personhood in the new creation.

00:38:44.240 | So we come to my second point, life and personhood go hand in hand in the new creation.

00:38:50.480 | So the relationship of life and personhood as we find it in Genesis establishes prototypical

00:38:56.800 | framework of our salvation with respects to the new creation.

00:39:02.920 | In Genesis chapter 2 verse 7, it says this, "Then the Lord God formed the man of dust

00:39:10.240 | from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living

00:39:14.480 | creature."

00:39:15.480 | Now in that text the word breath is from the Hebrew word neshama.

00:39:22.320 | But there is another word for breath, you may have heard it, ruach.

00:39:26.640 | And that word ruach can also be translated as spirit or as in the spirit of God.

00:39:33.800 | So we get this relationship between the breath of life that God has breathed into man and

00:39:37.520 | the spirit of God that gives life to man.

00:39:39.760 | I think this is super cool theologically, okay.

00:39:43.280 | So listen to this, Job chapter 27 verse 3, "As long as my breath, neshama, is in me,

00:39:50.640 | and the spirit, ruach, of God is in my nostrils," Psalm 104 verse 30 says, "When you send forth

00:39:58.360 | your spirit, ruach, they are created and you renew the face of the ground."

00:40:04.400 | What might not be obvious in Genesis 1 and 2 is made clear through progressive revelation

00:40:10.120 | that we are the image bearers of God because God breathed his spirit into us to make us

00:40:16.720 | like him.

00:40:18.340 | So we are the image bearers of God because God breathed his spirit into us.

00:40:24.280 | But as you know, sin has corrupted the nature of man and marred the image of God within

00:40:27.920 | us.

00:40:28.920 | So there was moral decay, and as a result we came to know death.

00:40:36.840 | So a person, a man, would be morally twisted because of sin.

00:40:40.880 | They would become hostile to God, naturally suppressing the truth in his unrighteousness.

00:40:45.160 | But the effects of the sin didn't just morally corrupt the person, it also killed his life.

00:40:49.200 | For with sin came death, so that the immoral life that we live would be a life that is

00:40:56.120 | dying unto death, even death in the lake of fire.

00:41:02.520 | But the Lord in his grace chose to restore fallen nature of humanity, the marred image

00:41:07.560 | of God, to make us new, to save us from death and the moral corruption of sin.

00:41:13.400 | And just as he breathed his breath into man in the first creation to make him the image

00:41:18.920 | of God, so God breathed out his spirit unto man in a new creation.

00:41:24.080 | In John chapter 20 verse 22, okay, it says this, "And when he had said this, he breathed

00:41:29.320 | unto them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'

00:41:36.280 | The work of the Spirit in the new creation will not be as it is in the old, for the Spirit

00:41:42.880 | of God will intimately unite us with the Son of God in an inextricable, inseparable, intimate

00:41:47.240 | bond, a union with the resurrected Christ that restores the image of God within us."

00:41:54.000 | So what we have in the book of Genesis is that God breathed life into man so that man

00:41:57.480 | was made in the image of God.

00:41:59.760 | Sin corrupted that image.

00:42:01.920 | And so what does Jesus do when he comes back, right?

00:42:05.000 | It says here, "He breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'"

00:42:09.920 | And what the Holy Spirit does is that he unites us with the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:42:14.720 | Jesus Christ in Colossians chapter 1 verse 15 says he is the image of the invisible God.

00:42:19.360 | Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, right?

00:42:24.120 | And so, for the Holy Spirit who is breathed into us unites us with the image of the invisible

00:42:30.120 | God.

00:42:31.120 | By being united with the image of the invisible God, the image of God that has been marred

00:42:34.760 | at the fall is fully restored.

00:42:36.600 | And that's why in Colossians chapter 3 verse 10 it says, "Have put on the new self which

00:42:40.680 | is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator."

00:42:45.640 | In Christ we have been remade in the image of God and the renewal was not simply a restoration

00:42:49.320 | what was lost in Eden, but an elevation from it.

00:42:53.400 | First Corinthians chapter 15 verse 45 to 49 says, "Thus it is written, 'The first man

00:42:57.080 | Adam became a living being.

00:42:58.780 | The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.'

00:43:01.120 | But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural, and then the spiritual.

00:43:05.000 | The first man was from earth, the man of dust; the second man is from heaven.

00:43:08.640 | As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust.

00:43:11.680 | And as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.

00:43:14.840 | Just as we are born the image of man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of

00:43:18.120 | heaven."

00:43:20.280 | The new life that we have is not a return back to the old, but an escalation towards

00:43:25.240 | something that is greater.

00:43:27.120 | So it says in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

00:43:32.000 | The old has passed; behold, the new has come."

00:43:34.560 | In Christ the image of God has been fully restored so that what was lost to sin, our

00:43:39.120 | moral innocence, and our life was regained, and not only regained, but upgraded to a righteousness

00:43:44.400 | and eternal life that would be impervious to sin.

00:43:47.360 | Before it was innocence, now we have righteousness.

00:43:49.600 | Before it was life, now we have eternal life.

00:43:52.440 | To be united with the resurrected Christ is to experience the life of the resurrection.

00:43:57.680 | Just as the Spirit of God made Adam a living creature, so the Spirit of God made us, who

00:44:02.760 | were once dead in our trespasses, a living creature, born again in union with the resurrected

00:44:08.000 | Christ.

00:44:09.960 | The life we live is a life eternal, but the resurrection life of Jesus Christ is eternal.

00:44:16.040 | In John 14 verse 19, Jesus says, "Because I live, you also will live."

00:44:20.800 | In Ephesians chapter 2 verse 5, it says, "Even when we were dead and our trespasses made

00:44:24.000 | us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved."

00:44:27.320 | We are alive because Christ lives, but to be united with the resurrected Christ is not

00:44:33.840 | only to experience the life of Christ, it's also to experience the person of the resurrection,

00:44:40.320 | that is Jesus, so that we are transformed to be like Jesus himself, so that in him we

00:44:45.820 | are a new man, with a renewed mind and a renewed heart.

00:44:51.200 | Our old self is dead upon the cross, and a new self has risen from the grave.

00:44:56.760 | We have been born again.

00:44:58.860 | First Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14 to 15 says, "The natural person does not accept

00:45:03.240 | the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand

00:45:07.640 | them because they are spiritually discerned.

00:45:09.840 | The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one."

00:45:15.040 | First Corinthians chapter 4 verse 16, "So we do not lose heart, though our outer self

00:45:18.840 | is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day."

00:45:23.720 | Galatians 2 20, "I have been crucified with Christ.

00:45:25.920 | It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

00:45:32.200 | Just as God breathed his Spirit into man to make him a living person in the first creation,

00:45:36.000 | so he breathed his Holy Spirit to make us a renewed person with eternal life in the

00:45:40.480 | new creation."

00:45:43.560 | So from the beginning to the end, the life that has been endowed to us has always been

00:45:47.280 | expressed through personhood.

00:45:50.280 | So that in the beginning, it's a person who lived.

00:45:53.300 | After the fall, it was a person who was dying, and upon the resurrection, it is a person

00:45:57.360 | who lives again.

00:45:59.400 | So that where there is life, there is a person, and when there is death, the person is gone.

00:46:06.200 | So the beginning of new life of a child within the womb of a mother is not a life whose personhood

00:46:10.360 | is to be sacrilegiously questioned for, even that child bears the image of God, the living

00:46:14.120 | God, the God of three persons.

00:46:17.520 | The glory and the sanctity of human life in the first creation is the foundation and the

00:46:20.440 | framework for the new life that we have in Christ, the new creation where we are given

00:46:24.020 | a new nature and eternal life which coincides with a renewed heart and mind that loves God.

00:46:29.720 | We are a new person, so to speak.

00:46:33.560 | The same way that God breathed life into Adam to bring him into existence, so the Lord in

00:46:37.640 | the moment we came to faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ breathed into us a new life

00:46:41.360 | through his Spirit.

00:46:43.480 | We cannot deny personhood that is essential in the distinct human life of a child any

00:46:47.920 | more than we can deny the renewed personhood that is identified with the new eternal life

00:46:51.640 | that we have in the resurrected Christ.

00:46:55.560 | Life therefore is sacred, for where there is life, there is personhood, a man, woman,

00:47:01.160 | or child who bears the image of the living God.

00:47:07.920 | All that to say, the baby in the womb is a baby, okay?

00:47:13.240 | That's the point of the sermon.

00:47:14.880 | All right, let's pray.

00:47:18.120 | Father, thank you for your grace.

00:47:20.320 | It's time we can enter into the study.

00:47:22.480 | I know a lot of information was said, but the beauty of your truth, O God, is that even

00:47:29.520 | with its complexity, there's a simplicity that is easy to just know, that God, you made

00:47:36.760 | us in our mother's womb.

00:47:40.520 | We are wonderfully and fearfully made.

00:47:46.400 | God, thank you for giving us life, and thank you, Lord, even though we like fools have

00:47:51.480 | sinned against you, even though we have inherited the curse of Adam, you made us a new creation.

00:47:58.080 | God, you've given us new life.

00:48:01.400 | God, you renewed our mind and our hearts so that the old self is crucified and our new

00:48:08.200 | self is being renewed day by day into the image of Jesus Christ.

00:48:12.640 | Again, Lord, I pray that for all the members here, we will stand in awe of your grace and

00:48:21.200 | your goodness in the life that you give to us, that we will guard it, we will protect

00:48:26.640 | it, and more so, we will proclaim the message that renews it and restores the image of God

00:48:33.200 | that was marred at the fall.

00:48:34.920 | Lord, thank you again for our time together, Lord, we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

00:48:46.020 | All right, it's 9.54, and we're going to take a break until 10.05, okay, so we're going

00:48:55.520 | to get back together a little bit earlier because we wanted to save more time for later

00:49:00.640 | when we have Q&A.

00:49:01.640 | The Q&A is not going to be an open Q&A where we're going to have an open mic, people come

00:49:06.060 | and ask questions for the sake of time.

00:49:10.000 | We don't want the time to be just kind of dictated anywhere we go.

00:49:12.880 | We already have some questions that we will ask, but if you have a question that really,

00:49:19.760 | really want us to address or Pastor James or any of the other leaders to try to address,

00:49:27.280 | you can, like, if you text it to me, I'm not going to be able to read it, you're going

00:49:30.680 | to have to write it on paper and put it next to me in large letters in order for me to

00:49:35.200 | read it.

00:49:36.200 | Or text one of the pastors, and if they feel like this is something that maybe we need

00:49:39.880 | to address that we don't already have, then maybe it'll come through that.

00:49:44.200 | But we're not going to have open, we're not going to just have any questions because we

00:49:47.040 | just won't have time.

00:49:48.160 | So we'll address that later, okay?

00:49:50.640 | And so after the second session, we'll take a short break, set up the Q&A, and we'll try

00:49:54.680 | to address some of these issues.

00:49:55.920 | So for now, we'll take a 10-minute break and 10.05, we're going to start right at 10.05,

00:50:01.280 | okay?

00:50:02.280 | So you can go to the bathroom, you can leave your stuff there, go to the bathroom, go get

00:50:05.960 | some coffee, do whatever you need to do, but 10.05, we're going to get started, okay?

00:50:14.000 | Thank you.

00:50:16.960 | [end]

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