Speak for Those Who Can't (Pastor Aaron Trelfa, 05/14/22)

surprise you. That today's sermon is going to be a little bit more PG than I

typically am. And that is not because of any vulgarity, that is not because of

anything unsavory or uncouth, but that is just simply because the topic that we

will be getting into is of a more mature topic. So that's upfront and

we'll get, I'll let you know a little bit more in just a second about what exactly

that is. Just know that as we progress, as I see, it may be something that if

there are little ones either watching online or little ones here, just

be forewarned. It's a little bit more mature today than typical, but I will do

my best to still keep it in the realm of comfort. So without anything else, let's

pray one more time. Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for an opportunity to

search for truth in your Word. I pray that as we open up inspired writings,

that we would find your will for us and not insert our will for you. So I pray

for discernment, I pray for clarity of thought and clarity of words. Speak

through me today in your name, amen. Amen. Last weekend, in case you didn't know, was

the Kentucky Derby. Now as someone who lived for 13 years in Lexington,

Kentucky, I was surrounded by horse culture. In the state of Kentucky, there

are two primary racetracks. One is Churchill Downs in Louisville, where the

Derby happens, and the other is Keeneland horse track in Lexington.

Keeneland, every year, two months out of the year, horse races, horse sales, people

from all over the globe flew into Lexington on double-decker jets in order

to buy multi-million dollar horses. It was, I mean, you can't get around Lexington

without seeing the horses. So last weekend was the Derby. Now the Derby is

important in Kentucky because that means now you can plant your garden. That's how

important it was, at least for me, because by and large I don't care about

horse racing. It's just kind of the culture of it all. Has anyone here seen

the clips from last weekend's race? No one. Oh, you did. All right, so we know

about Rich Strike then. Have we heard of the horse Rich Strike? We've heard of

Rich Strike. Last weekend's Derby was historical. One, it started with a

last-minute drop-off in one of the horses that was supposed to be slated to

race. Then they picked a replacement, apparently at some sort of randomness,

and Rich Strike was the colt selected to fill in that now empty slot. Now Rich

Strike didn't have any significant pedigree behind him. He was not a

multi-million dollar horse. He did not come from a prominent farm. He did not

have really anything of him to speak of. So he was an 80 to 1 odds at winning the

Kentucky Derby. If you watch the footage, it's awesome. I don't get excited over

horses. This was exciting because as they're coming into the last turn and

the last furlong, Rich Strike is somewhere in the middle of the pack and

then starts to, with incredible precision, weave through the horses making his way

up to the front and by the time they cross the finish line, I believe it was

half of a length. An 80 to 1 odds beat out all the rest of them in the last

stretch and it was really exciting. Apparently some people did well on it

and it certainly shot that owner and that jockey and that trainer right up

into the top of everybody's interest. Unfortunately he's not going to go for

the Triple Crown. Last time I'd heard they're gonna skip the Preakness and go

to the Belmont. Those are the three races for the Triple Crown. Stay

healthy, better chance and so on and so forth. What brought to mind when people

watched Rich Strike do his thing during that race was the last time that people

got this excited over a racehorse. 1973 Secretariat, big red, jumped onto the

scene as I believe the last Triple Crown, I don't think we've had one since. We

have not had a Triple Crown winner since 1973 and if you want to see some

exciting footage, look up the footage of Secretariat. Secretariat defied odds,

especially at the beginning. He was too large, they said his heart wasn't healthy,

they said he was a slow starter and he was. Slow out of the gates, picked up

steam and by the time he got to the end he was the winner and the most exciting

one was the Belmont where he won by record lengths. Do we hear a correction

on some of our...

Okay, so since 1973 two other Triple Crowns, thank you for that, I want to make

sure that we're accurate. It was exciting, people got it, there's a

movie made about it and if you go around Lexington and just kind of

north of there you can actually drive by the farm where they filmed most of

Secretariat, beautiful horse country, rolling green hills and picket fences

and the whole deal. But 1973 was also a year that has come back up in recent

discussions for another reason. Very exciting in the horse race, it's not as

exciting, at least not for me, when discussing perhaps the most historical

and monumental Supreme Court decision ever in the history of the world except

for maybe things that have to do with slavery. Roe v. Wade was voted on and the

opinion put out in 1973, the early part of that year, overturning a all of

history's precedent in allowing states to decide the topic of abortion and what

they were going to do. Now a couple of judges, the majority of judges at the

Supreme Court took it upon themselves to discover, to discover in the

immunarations and the penumbras of the wording of the Constitution somewhere

hidden inside of the right to privacy, also not mentioned in the Constitution,

now a federally recognized right to abortion. Now I'm phrasing this in a very

particular way because one, the word abortion and that right doesn't appear

anywhere explicitly in our country's Constitution at all, and then two, the

right to privacy is also not explicitly stated in our Constitution. There were

quite a few legal backbendings in order to find these supposed rights, but then

they became, relatively speaking, the law of the land. So if you're keeping track,

that is two degrees removed from the wording of the Constitution, this

supposed right to abortion. That's the topic for today because a week ago, a

little over to almost two weeks ago, almost two weeks ago a leaked draft from

the Supreme Court about a potential overturning of the Roe v Wade decision

was spread out. As of the leaked draft, it seems that five justices are going to

vote in favor of overturning Roe v Wade and four are going to vote in favor of

keeping it. That's what the draft seems to think. So here's your second warning.

This is a topic that for some people might be uncomfortable. This is a topic

for some people that maybe you like to shy away from or it comes close to home.

Up front, I want to recognize that it is a difficult topic for many. Up front, I

want to express some compassion and I want to express some empathy and I want

to express a non-condemnational and non-judgmental attitude up front. Up front,

I want to recognize and I want to make sure that we're all on the same page.

This is not to point fingers. This is not to be harsh. This is not to be

unloving. This is not to be any of those things. It is, however, to look at this

topic from a couple of important and relevant positions. The most important

being how does the Word of God influence our relationship to such a difficult

topic? Because I firmly believe that as Seventh-day Adventist Christians it

works in that order. You read Genesis to Revelation, you humbly submit it to the

Word of God as you understand it, and that's the worldview and how you

respond to difficult, challenging, moral discussions. It's not the other way

around. It's not what's popular. It's not what society says. It's not what the

textbooks might tell you. When they conflict with the Word of God as

Seventh-day Adventist Christians, we start with the Word of God and then we

go the other direction. And so today I want to take a look at the Word of God

because I don't believe that this topic is preached on enough from the pulpit.

If you decide to get up and leave, you won't hurt my feelings. You won't. I would

encourage you in your own time to come back to our Facebook page and maybe

re-watch it. You can pause it, you can take your time, because I think we're

going to go through a few things that are necessary to touch on. So with that

last caveat, let's move forward. First, I would like to dispel a

couple of lies. One lie is that the church should not engage in

socio-political issues. That is a lie. If the church did not engage in

socio-political issues, you would not have had good, solid moral Christians

leading the abolition movement. You would not have had churches at the front of

the temperance movement, and even still today in some churches. You would not

have churches at the front of helping to take care of refugees and the homeless

and addicts and the list can go on, because every one of those are

socio-political issues that carry with them a moral concern that the church

feels obligated to be a part of. So it seems that if we are going to be okay

with the church speaking on those topics and the Word of God clearly leaning into

it, then we shouldn't make a carve out for one topic because we just don't want

to. So the church can speak on this, it's in the Word of God, the church should

speak on it. So we will. Two, one that is just a more technical and legal

understanding of things. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, which it is not yet, this is

just simply a leaked draft. It is not the decision, it is not the vote. If Roe v.

Wade is overturned, it goes back to its previous state of the states decide. It

takes it away from the federal and puts it back into the states. It doesn't outlaw

it wholesale, it doesn't turn it into a felony, it doesn't

automatically do any of those things. It actually makes a more democratic process

possible by allowing the states to decide it. So please don't listen to the

lie that says if Roe v. Wade is overturned, wholesale women are going to

get thrown into jail. Don't believe it, it's a lie. Three, three the Word of God

is very explicit about how we look at human life and the value of human life,

including when the human life begins and our role in protecting and preserving

human life. So we're going to take, we're going to take I believe one, two, three

of the most common reasonings spoken for in favor of abortion and we will dispel

them today. I do want to add that this is purposefully on the topic of elective

abortions. It is true that there are some women who at the risk of their own lives

have to make a decision about furthering a pregnancy. Sometimes the pregnancy

itself puts the ladies life in danger and so in those scenarios this discussion

please don't think that it absolutely applies. Okay?

According to the Guttmacher Institute who does the statistics for planned

parenthood, the number one abortion provider in the United States of America.

In other words, this Institute is pro-abortion so the statistics are the

best available to support the abortion position. According to the Guttmacher

Institute we find that pregnancy that results from an incestuous relationship

account for 0.001% of pregnancies. That the woman's life was endangered by the

pregnancy is 0.065%. It's a very, that's a difficult, challenging, and sad

circumstance and it's a fraction of a fraction of a percent. For the woman that

was raped it results in a pregnancy in 0.085% and then after that it's the

woman's physical health at 0.28%, the woman's psychological health was

threatened at 0.29%, a serious fetal abnormality at 0.66%, that the woman

aborted for social or economic reasons at 6%, and for no reason at all at 92

plus percent. And this is from an institution in favor of supporting

planned parenthood. So let's dispel one other misconception, that we necessarily

need to have Roe v. Wade or federally codified abortion rights because of

rapes and because of incest or because of the mental health of the woman and so

on. That is arguing from the point of the edge in order to make the point for the

whole. Because I can assure you that any of those who are fierce advocates of

this, if you were to say, we'll allow it for the edge but not for anything else,

none of them would be okay with it. No one. And that also doesn't bring up the

fact that there is a huge percentage, a significant percentage, of women whose

physical health is threatened by the abortion, that women's mental health is

threatened by the abortion at a greater percentage than the pregnancy. That's true.

The numbers do not match up that way.

One argument is that abortion is okay or on the farthest extremes should be

allowed is because the baby is just a clump of cells. Have we heard that

phrase maybe? That is true only to the extent that you and I as we are now are

still just a clump of cells. Just the fact that your clump of cells happen to

be at an earlier stage of development instead of a later stage of development

doesn't affect the fact that you are a human being. I'm a clump of cells. I just

happen to have mobility and rational thought. I happen to have joint aches. I

happen to sleep good and not sleep good. I happen to experience emotions, joy and

sadness and hunger and fullness and you name it. My clump of cells might be able

to experience more than the unborn child but that unborn child is no less a human

than me just because of where it is at the stage of development. That is

something like saying we can abort the child because they are just a fetus

which is why we don't do infanticide because they are they are an infant not

a fetus. That's akin to saying we should be in favor of euthanization because they

are just a senior citizen they are not middle-aged. It's true. Fetus is just a

word to describe a stage of development not a different of kind. You cannot be a

fetus in the womb of a woman and be the fetus of a lizard or the fetus of a cat

or the fetus of fill-in-the-blank an oak tree. I don't know. It's still the fetus

of it. It's a human being. It just happens to be at a earlier stage of

development than what it will be. Are we clear on at least that aspect of it?

Along that line the just a clump of cells you might also hear a phrase

something like it is just potential human life. Have we heard something along

those lines that at this earliest stage it's potential human life? Once

conception happens life begins because the cells divide and all of that

genetic code all of that DNA mapping all of everything is immediately in place at

the point of conception. It is a better understanding that that is now human

life with potential instead of potential human life because allowed to go through

the natural processes that earliest 1 to 2 to 4 to 8 to 16 etc. cells should

healthy bodies end up with a baby end up with a toddler end up with a young

person end up with a oh my goodness a teenager and so on. Generally speaking

and and and we're gonna touch on a couple of the not generally speaking but

generally speaking uninterrupted a pregnancy results in a baby. At the not

generally speaking is a result of sin. Sin in our world occur on at least two

facets one our actions lowercase sins so if you steal if you covet if you sleep

with someone who's not sure your spouse and so on those are sins actions. There

is also capital S sin the nature that infection that goes through all of what

is creation presently speaking. That's the result of thanks to our greatest

grandparents Adam and Eve as the overseers of creation allowed and they

opened up that door for capital S sin to infect everything that they oversaw.

That's why we have mosquitoes my friends. It is no fault of the elephant or the

giraffe or the cat or the trout that they experience death and suffering. It is

because of the humans that they experience that sin. It is because of

sin that now we don't just have babies and at a hundred and five percent

success rate everyone is born with all of their fingers and toes and mouths and

ears and etc etc. Sin entering into this world perverted God's creation.

And that includes things like emotional not emotional um various physiological

handicaps. There's the word trying to find a good word. The various the various

physical handicaps the various psychological handicaps the various

other forms of handicaps that we experience are not because we

necessarily wanted it. It's because sin as gross as it is has affected God's

creation. So let us let us not try and think that it is anyone's fault but

Satan's for the sad reality of miscarriages or the sad reality of

someone being born with a heart outside their body or too many kidneys or

they're born blind or they're born with stunted limbs or they're born. That is

not the parents fault. That is not God's fault. That is Satan's fault from way

back when all the way to today. It's a very sad reality but it is the reality.

And one thing that is not often talked about is that we do not have a promise

or really should have an expectation of a life in a world of sin without

wholesale without suffering. That's not going to be a reality until we are

glorified and walk in the streets of gold. Toughness is the norm in a sin-filled

life. Difficulty, challenge, hurdles, hurt, pain, death, loss, you name it, suffering,

ritz-sale is the reality of this world and there's nothing we can do to

completely get away from it. And if I had a choice between risking some

suffering for my child versus I'm going to end their life so they don't have to

risk some suffering, for me the choice is easy. I would rather allow the person the

chance to live to know their Savior even if it means suffering along the way. I

would rather see that. I would. There are some rather sad positions where

some of these activists and speaking of activists, it was within

hours of the leaked draft when shrieks and shrills went up from the hardest of

activists. The wild-eyed look on their faces and some of the signs and

arguments means that the only conclusion I can come to is that they are demon

inspired, probably in a similar way to the demoniac that met Jesus and then

hurled the swine off the cliff. Some of the reactions are that severe. That's

where we won't go because that's too far for this setting. It's heinous, the

reactions to some of this. The second argument that you might hear, the second

argument that you might hear is that a person is not a person until they

experience consciousness or a or viability. Have we heard of that one?

Viability and consciousness. Consciousness is easy because when you go

to sleep you have a greatly diminished state of consciousness. It is against the

law for me to kill you with a pillow because you're asleep and not conscious.

Families fight each other over pulling a plug off of a ventilator because someone

is in a vegetative state for years at times with zero hope of recovery. They

will say no, I cannot unplug my loved one and end of their life prematurely. Let

them be. That's consciousness. It seems that consciousness argument, the debate

around personhood and consciousness, people narrow way down and they only

apply it to the unborn. All other experiences of personhood when it comes

to consciousness we say no you can't just kill a person because they're

unconscious. Seems like we should stop the differencing, the differentiation.

Viability. Viability is an interesting thing because you will hear a couple of

different arguments. We know that with modern technology it is the year 2022 not

1922 not 1822 not AD 22. In 2022 at about 20 weeks I think is when they start to

count a baby outside the womb we can keep it alive and it could have a good

chance at living. 20 weeks that's only half term, that's midterm and that's with

our current technology. Viability also has something to do with geography. Have

you thought of it this way? If you lived one block away from Emory or one block

away from the best Institute in New York City you have a greater chance of having

a baby live in that facility than the backwoods of West Virginia two hours

away from the nearest hospital. So where is where is that discussion on

viability? It seems that viability would be geography related. Viability can also

be this if if you've ever had a child or been around a newborn just because the

baby has left the womb does not make it immediately viable. If that baby is then

just set there how long will the baby live? Not long. My friends not long at

all. After birth it's necessary for the parents to feed, to water, to change, to

protect, to house, to clothe, to etc etc etc for multiples of years

for that child to just not die. The viability argument does not last even

past infant, past toddler, past middle school. I could take my 14 year old right

now cast him out into the world and say go be viable. Now he might be able to eat

and breathe and find water on his own but he is not going to last long. That's

why parents are responsible in the United States up until 18 years. That

number was picked because I don't know 18. Parents are responsible legally until

18 years of age in the United States of America because it is recognized that

younger than that the likelihood of survival diminishes, diminishes,

diminishes, diminishes farther down and farther down you go. Two or three I've

lost count. Speaking of viability, the vote that was just turned down that was

an attempt at not codifying Roe but rather expanding abortion would have

permitted abortion all the way up to the moment of birth. The moment wholesale

across the country it would have overturned more than 500 state laws and

for any reason which means that the viability argument someone is going to

say that the baby at this part of the birthing process while in labor etc to

that part a distance of one is not viable the other one is viable. One can

be ended and the other one needs to live and the distance is only I think we know

this maybe by anatomy. That argument should not hold water. It should not.

If we are looking at the Word of God for our answers to these things and you would

like to take note we're going to touch on a few of them and then we'll get to

our final point. If you would like to take note of this Psalm 139 verses 13 to

Psalms 139:13–16

16. 139 is a beautiful psalm about how the God of heaven knows you completely

and entirely no matter where you go no matter what you do he knows you

personally. It's beautiful. If you ever find yourself feeling like you are

entirely alone and God does not see you open up to Psalm 139 and the verses 13

to 16 speak of God knowing you from before or at the point of your earliest

existence. It reads like this. For the psalmist writes, for you formed my

inward parts you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am

fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very

well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret

intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed

substance. In your book were written every one of them the days that were

formed for me when as yet there was none of them. That's those days. Before your

days started to be counted God had you named in his book. In his mind he saw you

and if you were here when Elder Reed preached a couple of weekends ago one of

his things was may we see like God sees. Do you catch my drift? May we see like God

sees. From the earliest moments and even before you were on God's mind as

Christians that perspective matters. That should shape our thoughts and vision

rather than the other way around. Jeremiah chapter 1 and verse 5 a well

Jeremiah 1 · chapter mention

known quote for topics like this. God calling Jeremiah to his prophetic

calling says this before I formed you in the womb I knew you and before you were

born I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Now Jeremiah was

making the argument I'm so young I can't do this. God is saying hold on a moment

I've known you since before you were in your mother's womb and I consecrated you

for this. In other words I'm with you from before your beginning and I'm with

you now. I'm with you moving forward. It's great. I love this verse. Going back

to Psalm 127 verses 3 to the first part of verse 5 and this is a this is a

Psalms 127:3

connection to one of our core 28 fundamental beliefs number 23 which has

to do with marriage and the family. In our fundamental beliefs we recognize a

marriage between the man and the woman and creating that core family unit for

society. It was it was directed by God made by God blessed by God and so on. We

recognize that in our fundamental beliefs along with that is families. The

family unit continuing the generations blessing the young ones and even if if

you are unable to have kids or you've chosen not to you can still benefit and

bless the younger generations. That's a part of our church's main beliefs.

And it comes from the Word of God. Behold children are a heritage from the Lord.

The fruit of the womb a reward like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the

children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them.

A poetic language that just talks about a family is a good thing. It's a good

thing and it's not talked like that often in today's society. You will you

will hear words like the baby is an enemy to me. That child is going to keep

me from accomplishing things. Some of it some of it is is even more stark than

that. We've gotten to a point where for those in favor of the more activist

minded they look at an unborn child as an enemy to fight against rather than a

blessing of the Lord to propagate and to promulgate and to support and to love

and cherish and protect. That does not seem to be the making of a healthy

society when our younger generations are viewed as enemies. To be denied to be

rejected does not seem to be a healthy society. Ephesians 1 verses 3 and 4

Ephesians 1:3

blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in

Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even as he chose us

in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and

blameless before him. Now there's a secondary theological meaning to that

in regards to God wanted all of creation to be on his side that was his purpose.

That's why the sacrifice of Christ covers all including those who reject

him. It's not for the elect versus the reprobate. We reject that in the

Adventist Church. Christ's sacrifice was whole and complete for all of humanity

even the lost Christ bled for them. That's an incredible consideration but

that plan was made before the foundation of the world. God had you in mind if we

take all of these verses together.

The last main speaking point perhaps the most famous one for someone who is

pro-abortion maybe we've heard of it. My body, my choice. My body, my choice. At a

base logical and rational thought if you've already understood that at the

moment of conception you have you have

human being with potential human life with potential right. The only way that

it can be human life with potential is if that human life is its own of itself.

Its own separate DNA code from the mother. Its own separate genetic makeup

from the mother. It is not normal for women to have five ten fifteen twenty

fingers twenty toes four legs four arms two noses two hearts four kidneys etc

etc. That does not happen and if it does happen that's usually a different

type of medical condition. But when a lady gets pregnant we understand at our

base level of knowledge and understanding that it is different from

her. It is. The baby needs the mother's body to grow and to live and to be

sustained and to be protected until the time of birth but that does not make the

baby her. Do we see what I'm saying? If it were to be entirely my body my choice

and we meant those words as they were I would say okay okay because before the

time of conception do we realize how many choices have to be acted on that

only involve the woman's body? Quite a few. Shall I date? Shall I get intimately

involved with a man? Is it someone that I'm going to be married to? Is it

purposeful? Is it whatever? There are actions. Should we be using

protection of other options? A plethora of them many of which are free. Choices

ahead of the act. If it were truly my body my choice and we truly stuck with

that I would say okay. But the moment you put another person into the equation

which the unborn child is it's no longer her body. It's no longer that and she

should not be allowed to act as if it were. 1st Corinthians chapter 6 verses

19 and 20 at the end of a passage about sexual immorality so it fits for the

discussion. At the end of a passage about sexual immorality we hear this,

or do you not know so this is this is God saying you just you just can't go

about doing whatever you want with your bodies in an intimate way. You

just can't even do that and then he says this, or do you not know that your body

is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? You are not

your own for you were bought with a price so glorify God in your body. The

Christian rejects the idea that our bodies are our own to do whatever we

want with entirely and completely. You are created, you are here because in the

great scheme of things God saw fit to either purposefully create you or allow

you to be. God is all-controlling and all-powerful and all-knowing etc. And

then 2 because we are born into a fallen state, Christ's blood redeems us from

that we are bought with a price. Twofold God has claim over you and that includes

your body. That's why you find elsewhere in Scripture you don't just get to drink

what you want or eat what you want. That's why when it comes to recreation

choices I might think that we would shy away from ones that can certainly

enhance the likelihood of broken bones or death. We should choose more

uplifting recreation instead of damaging recreation. Our body is not our own it is

bought with a price. You cannot as a Christian make the argument my body my

choice because God has said twice you belong to me. You belong to me. Which

means that at some point how we use what we are given, how we use what belongs to

someone not our own means that we will be held in account. We don't like to

think of that but the Bible speaks to that. You were bought with a price. I'm

glad that God bought me with that price. I am thankful for that. I am thankful for

that because not only do I have hope in eternal life with my Lord and my Savior

but I also have the assurance of a help in victory over sin in the here and the

now. He did it for me. I cannot do it. I'm glad that I'm his. On a society level we

also don't agree with my body my choice. We have laws against putting heroin

between your toes. We have laws against we actually have laws against self-harm

are you aware of that? We have multiples of laws that stop you from doing

whatever you want to your body. We have prostitution laws. We have laws that

completely throw this one-sentence claim out the window but like many of the

other ones they go boom right here super narrow. That's where it applies.

And it doesn't even apply. Many if not all of the arguments are wholly illogical

when you take them and consider them rather than repeat them like a bumper

sticker. If not all of them 99% of them. Now I want to talk just for a second

about the one thing that I haven't talked about and that's rape and incest.

Personally this is this is pastor Aaron Trelfe speaking only for himself. I know

family members and I have friends who disagree with me on this. I'm not

speaking for anyone but pastor Aaron Trelfe. I do not find in the Bible where

the value of human life is based on how they came to be conceived. I don't find

it. In fact you can probably find Bible verses that support rape and incest and

still the baby was born. There wasn't an excuse made for ending the pregnancy

early. For me this is my opinion the value of human life is based on the

value that God has given humans not on whether a pregnancy was accidental or

desired because it seems to come down to those two things. When you when you kind

of weed through some of the other arguments it often comes down to was it

accidental or do I want the baby? And for me those two things do not define the

value of human life. They don't. Again many people will disagree with me on that.

That that is a more strict position even amongst more conservative minded people.

So in other words I would not be in favor of abortion even in those arenas.

Even in those arenas. Now I want to show you I have a friend up here. I brought I

brought a visual object aid today. Do we know who this little guy is? Some of us

have figured it out. The great American author, one of the finest pensmans of

modern history, Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss wrote one of his finest works. Perhaps his

only I guess more political minded writings, The Lorax. This is The Lorax.

This is the protagonist of the story. We meet The Lorax when the Wunzler, the

antagonist of the story, when the Wunzler shows up and chops down a cool tree

named after my last name, the Truffula tree, because he realized that he could

take the the fabric, the leaves, the whatever was at the top, the feathers,

however the top of the Truffula tree was made of. He could take that, he could sew

it into something he called a thneed and a thneed has many uses and then he could

sell it he could make a profit. This was this the book essentially is an argument

against destroying nature for the purpose of consumerism. That's basically

the story in a nutshell. Well when the Wunzler chops down the first tree from

the trunk pops out The Lorax. This little guy. Well after some introductions The

Lorax says I speak for the trees. The trees can't speak for themselves.

That's my job. I am here to tell you please don't chop down the trees. Later

on he speaks for the fish and for the swami swans and for the bears and for

all of the other dispossessed animals from a forest being clear-cut. I speak

for the trees. My friends I believe it is time like our Bible verse says like the

Lorax can inspire. We open our mouths and we speak for those who can't. I believe

it is time that on a moral and religious and biblical foundation and it very

clearly is we speak for those who can't. The church regularly does for the abused,

for the fatherless, for the dispossessed. It seems that we need to speak for the

most innocent, the unborn. If Roe v Wade is overturned it will not completely

eradicate abortion from our society as much as I would like to see that happen.

But hopefully it will take the number of elective abortions down from roughly

150,000 a year greatly reduced. I believe that more life is a better outcome and I

believe that it is high time that God's people open our mouths for the mute, for

the rights of all who are destitute. I believe it is time for God's people to

open our mouths to judge righteously, to defend the rights of the poor and the

needy. I believe it is time for God's people to speak for those who can't and

that includes the unborn. I know this was a challenging topic thank you for for

sitting through it. If you have questions please don't hesitate to reach out to me.

If you have, if this comes close to home and we know what that means, I will pray

with you, we will talk about it, you can share and it won't go any farther than

sharing with me if that's your desire. We can pray that God look on

us lovingly and with compassion just like he does every other son and daughter

of his. This is not an exception to that rule but this should be a part of the

conversation. So please I will make myself available you can find my email

and my phone number on the back of the bulletin you don't have to throw that

away right away but I'll make myself available. Let's pray. Heavenly Father I

thank you very much for your word. I thank you that it has led and guided

your people from centuries of history past all the way to today's present

time. Lord I would ask that we be revived in its relevance that we not think of it

as as so ancient that it no longer applies but that you very much inspired

with the future intended. So I pray that we would look to your word to frame our

worldview. Lord I would ask that you come alongside ladies who

might be facing a challenging decision or have faced it. Please impress upon

them through the working of your Holy Spirit how much you love them, how much

you want to heal, and how much you want to draw close. Lord it's not the end of

things but it is something to consider and so I pray that you would help us

consider thoughtfully and according to your will. Lord be with us the rest of

today. May our time on your Sabbath be be reflective of you as our Lord in our

lives. This we pray in Jesus name. Amen.