Today is Saturday, August 22nd, and this morning around the country, Christians gathered together in cities to protest the activities of Planned Parenthood and to protest government funding for the organization. Early reports say that pro-life groups gathered at 320 different clinics around the country. This marks one of the largest coordinated protests against Planned Parenthood, and this includes the Planned Parenthood in St.

Paul, Minnesota, where John Piper participated. Pastor John was asked to pray for the gathering, which he did, and what follows is a field recording of his prayer. Father in heaven, it's a sober moment to be this near to this place, and I pray that there would be in my heart and all of our hearts a kind of earnestness about what we're doing here.

We want to just pause and stand in awe of you for a moment because you made us. You made all the children. You made all the abortionists. You are our creator. You uphold all things by the word of your power. You sustain all things. You govern all things. You say, "I am God and there is no other." I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, "My counsel will stand and I will accomplish all my purpose." You are God and we are not.

We humble ourselves under your mighty hand and we stand in praise and awe of your justice and wisdom and goodness and truth and power and eternal mercies towards your creation. And we acknowledge in the face of your holiness and power that we are sinners. Everyone standing here in this gathering is a sinner in desperate need of salvation that you offer in Jesus Christ.

We know that our consciences condemn us, and if our own consciences do, how much more your holy law. So we have not lived up even to our own standards, let alone to your standards. We confess our sins corporately before you as individuals, as churches. We have not given heed to your word as we ought, as a nation.

We have not listened to the word righteousness exalts a nation and a sin brings reproach to any people. And we are a sinful people. We have gloried in our shame and inverted your law and made good what you call evil. We confess corporately that we are not what we ought to be and therefore we fly to Jesus Christ.

We love your son. What would we do, we sinners here on this street, what would we do if there were no redemption in Jesus? We would thank you for putting him forward to bear your holy wrath and take our punishment and put our sins on his back. That we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

And that's why we're here, Lord. We want to dedicate ourselves afresh and we want to pray for Planned Parenthood. That they might live to righteousness. We want to ask, Lord, that according to their title, which is on the wall, Planned Parenthood, that they would bring about nurturing parents, rather than helping parents stop being parents by killing their children.

We ask that you would help them create and bring about nurturing parents by not taking the lives of future parents in the womb. We ask that you would grant that they would see, along with our nation, that killing children is not an acceptable solution to a crisis pregnancy. There are other ways forward.

You are God. You make ways for people out of difficulties and killing is not one of them. So God, grant, I pray, that because of this event and all these videos and other things that you're going to be doing in our days, that truth would hold sway. We're not eager to pull the wool over anybody's eyes.

We just want to see truth hold sway. So bring out of this building here all the truth that goes on in there. Let it be seen for what it is. And so, Lord, when you do these mighty works, may your name be honored and may Christ be exalted. May the gospel advance in our land.

In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. That was John Piper praying on site at a Planned Parenthood protest this morning in St. Paul, Minnesota. For more information, see John Piper's recent article, "Planned Parenthood, Invitation, Explanation, Indignation." You can find it right now at DesiringGod.org. I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

Thanks for listening to this special weekend episode of the Ask Pastor John podcast. (music playing) (music playing)