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Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll sing it out together on that first verse now. Far away the noise of strife, upon my ear is falling. Number 449. Let's lift our voices together. Onto the Lord this morning. Hymn number 449. Sing it out now. Far away the noise of strife, upon my ear is falling. Then above the sands of earth we set on every bend. Down in fear and pain into the land. Far below the storm of doubt, upon the world is beating. Because a man in battle won't be and the meek will stand. Safe am I within the castle of God's word retreat. Nothing that can reach me is new of land. I'm living on the mountain underneath the cloudless sky. Praise God I'm drinking at the mountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes I'm feasting on the manna from the mountain full supply. Therefore I am dwelling in new land. Let the stormy breezes blow their cry and not of army. I am safely sheltered here protected by God's hand. Here the sun is always shining, here there's not an army. I am safe forever in new land. I'm living on the mountain underneath the cloudless sky. Praise God I'm drinking at the mountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes I'm feasting on the manna from the mountain full supply. For I am dwelling in new land. Viewing here the words of God I sing in contemplation. Hearing now his blessed voice I see the way he blends. Dwelling in the spirit here I learn of full salvation. Gladly will I tarry in new land. I'm living on the mountain underneath the cloudless sky. Praise God I'm drinking at the mountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes I'm feasting on the manna from the mountain full supply. For I am dwelling in new land. That's a great start to our singing this morning. We want to go and ask for a blessing on the service so I ask for the end all in religious privilege. I pray and ask that you bless all aspects of this service. Please fill Pastor Anderson with the Holy Spirit and please help us to lift up. And then back to hymn number 55. And the role is called up yonder. Hymn number 55 we'll sing it out on that first verse. When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound then time shall be no more. Number 55. Lift it up on that verse now. Number 55. When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound then time shall be no more. And the morning breaks eternal bright and fair. When the same numbers shall gather over on the other shore. And the role is called up yonder I'll be there. When the role is called up yonder. When the role is called up yonder. When the role is called up yonder. When the role is called up yonder I'll be there. On that bright cloud this morning when the dead in Christ shall rise. And the glory of his resurrection share. When his chosen ones shall gather to their home beyond the skies. And the role is called up yonder I'll be there. When the role is called up yonder. When the role is called up yonder. When the role is called up yonder. When the role is called up yonder I'll be there. Let us labor for the master from the dawn till setting sun. Let us talk of all his wondrous love and care. Then when all of life is over and our work on earth is done. And the role is called up yonder I'll be there. When the role is called up yonder. When the role is called up yonder. When the role is called up yonder. When the role is called up yonder I'll be there. Thank you. Alright this time we'll go through our announcements together. If you don't have a bulletin slip up your hand nice and high. We'll get to you with one. On the inside we have our service time. Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service. Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study. This week will be in 2 Chronicles chapter number 19. We've got the soul winning times listed there below. As well as salvations and baptisms. Across the page is the list of all the birthdays and anniversaries for the month of September. Which is why we had the donuts and coffee before the service this morning. On the back all families with students in grades K5 all the way up through 12th grade. Are invited to join us tomorrow at 4 o'clock p.m. for the don't go back to school party at Svalb Park in Tempe. This is very close by. It is literally just a half a mile south of here. And so you just go out of the parking lot here. Take a left on 48th Street and turn left at the first light that you come to. It's right next to Wigland and Hairland and the Smoke Shop and all those places that I used to live about 100 feet from. And you just yeah you just go down here take a left at that light and then boom Svalb Park is right there. And so that'll be tomorrow at 4 o'clock we'll have water balloon fights and ice cream. And we have an incredible amount of water balloons. Like you wouldn't even believe the number of water balloons. I think it's on the order of like four to five thousand water balloons. Okay so this is gonna be some serious water fight that's happening. We've done this a few times before so no we're not crazy. We know what we're getting into. This isn't our first rodeo. Below that we've got a trip coming up to the Navajo Reservation. It's an overnight trip and that is on Friday September 20th through Saturday September 21st. The detailed schedule and sign up sheet for that will be over here to my right. As always you can talk to Brother Raymond Cooper for more details. Although Brother Raymond Cooper is just leaving in a couple days to go do a missions trip. Foreign country missions trip and so be praying for him as he does that. And then when he comes back he'll be leading this trip on the 20th. And this trip will include a special time of recreation at Canyon Deshay. Which is of course a world-class destination. And you say well how do you know it's world class? Because if you go there there's people from other parts of the world speaking other languages. Because they came all the way here to check it out. All right that's what I mean by world class. And so of course it is incredible scenery and people literally do come from all over the world to see some of the sights of Arizona. Down at the bottom just a few other upcoming things. Of course always keep the missions conference on on your radar. It's way out but it's at the beginning of November. We've got a lot of fun stuff going on during the missions conference. First of all there will be preaching every morning and night on that Thursday Friday Saturday. And then we'll also have recreation stuff going on during those days. Such as going roller skating and having a on Saturday we're gonna have a German picnic at the park. With super authentic German pretzels made by my German wife. And here's the thing about this. Is that I literally just had a layover in Germany at the airport. And I was sending my wife pictures of pretzels that I was seeing at the airport. And with captions like can you believe this? What is this? Because they were so much lower quality than what my wife is producing. Alright so my wife is producing the real stuff. You go to Germany and it's a disappointment. Okay because the most German pretzels happening are here. So anyway I'm just kind of joking but kind of not joking. Anyway so we're gonna have free pretzels for everybody. Obviously everything's always free. Free roller skating, pretzels, sausages. Basically this is like the church picnic that we do. It's just gonna be German themed. Because one of the countries that we're emphasizing this year is Germany. Every year we emphasize different countries on each day. And it changes every year. We're never gonna do the same country twice. And so this year we're gonna be talking about the Dominican Republic, Tuvalu, Fiji, Samoa, Armenia, and Germany. And I think that's it. So anyway just a little bit of a foretaste of what's coming up at the missions conference. And so I hope you'll plan on participating. And here's the thing. You can participate in any part of it. So obviously you can just go to work as usual, live your life as usual. But you can pop in on a Thursday night, pop in on Friday night, pop in on Saturday just for the picnic or whatever. That'd be kind of weird if you just came to the picnic. And then also of course there'll be soul winning times happening on the Thursday and the Saturday and the Sunday. And of course Wednesday as usual. But we'll have soul winning times strategically set up so that you can go soul winning. Maybe you can take some of the visitors from out of town soul winning. And so anyway I took a little extra time on that. Just every once in a while I want to put that on your radar. November 6th through 10th. And then there's a missions trip to Jamaica that's gonna be happening December 1st through 7th. That is about it for announcements. Let's go ahead and sing our next song. Come lead us. Alright you should find the insert in the front of your hymnal with the song entitled We've a Story to Tell to the Nations. If you don't have an insert you can raise your hand. We'll sing it on that verse together. We've a story to tell to the nations. Sing it out now. We've a story to tell to the nations that shall turn their hearts to the rhyme. A story of truth and sweetness. A story of peace and life. A story of peace and life. For the darkness shall turn to dawning. And the dawning to new day bright. And Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth. The kingdom of love and light. We've a song to be sung to the nations that shall lift their hearts to the Lord. A song that shall conquer evil and shatter the spear and sword. And shatter the spear and sword. For the darkness shall turn to dawning. And the dawning to new day bright. And Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth. The kingdom of love and light. We've a message to give to the nations that the Lord who reigneth above. Has sent us his Son to save us. And show us that God is love. And show us that God is love. For the darkness shall turn to dawning. And the dawning to new day bright. And Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth. The kingdom of love and light. We've a Savior to show to the nations who the path of sorrow had trod. That all of the world's great peoples might come to the truth of God. Might come to the truth of God. For the darkness shall turn to dawning. And the dawning to new day bright. And Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth. The kingdom of love and light. Man, good singing everyone. Let's go to hymnals now to hymn number 409. Hymn number 409. The fight is on. Hymn number 409. We'll lift it up on that first now. The fight is on. The trumpet sound is ringing out. Number 409. Sing it out now. The fight is on. The trumpet sound is ringing out. The cry to arms is heard afar and near. The Lord of hosts is marching on to victory. The triumph of the Christ will soon appear. The fight is on. O precious soldier. And face to face in stern array. With armor gleaming and colors streaming. The right and wrong engage today. The fight is on but the not weary. Be strong and in his mind hold fast. If God before us is better or us. We'll sing the victor's song at last. The fight is on. O rousing soldiers brave and true. And victory we'll assure. Above the lawn the armor God has given you. And in his strength forever we'll endure. The fight is on. O Christian soldier. And face to face in stern array. With armor gleaming and colors streaming. The right and wrong engage today. The fight is on but the not weary. Be strong and in his mind hold fast. If God before us is better or us. We'll sing the victor's song at last. The fight is leading on to certain victory. The flow of pride that spans the eastern sky. His glorious name in every land shall honor be. The morn will break the dawn of peace's night. The fight is on. O Christian soldier. And face to face in stern array. With armor gleaming and colors streaming. The right and wrong engage today. The fight is on but the not weary. Be strong and in his mind hold fast. If God before us is better or us. We'll sing the victor's song at last. Alright this time we'll pass our offering plates around. As the plates go around let's turn our Bibles to Psalm 139. Psalm 139 the book of Psalms should be right in the middle of your Bible. And then Psalm 139 as we always do we'll read the entire chapter. Follow along silently with brother Corbin Brock as he reads Psalm 139. Psalm 139. O Lord thou has searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising. Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue but lo O Lord thou knowest it altogether. Thou has beset me behind and before and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit or whither shall I flee from thy presence. If I ascend up into heaven thou art there. If I make my bed in hell behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. Even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say surely the darkness shall cover me even the night shall be light about me. Yea the darkness hideth not from thee but the night shineth as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike to thee. For thou hast possessed my reigns thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect and in thy book all my members were written. Which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me O God. How great is the sum of them. If I should count them they are more in number than the sand. When I awake I am still with thee. Surely thou wilt slay the wicked O God. Depart from me therefore ye bloody men. For they speak against thee wickedly and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee. I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies. Search me O God and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Father in heaven Lord thank you for today and thank you for the opportunity to be in church. Lord we just ask that you bless Pastor Anderson. Fill him with your Holy Spirit. And Lord give everyone here ears to hear and hearts to understand the message. And just let everything be done. Give honor and glory to you. We love you Lord. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Man the title of my sermon this morning is the wickedness of IVF. The wickedness of in vitro fertilization. And before I get into that you might not even know what that is. And I'm going to explain what that is later in the sermon. But I want to first just lay down some biblical foundations here on which to have this conversation. And here's the thing about this. Don't just tune out if you feel like this is too specific or it doesn't apply to you. Because the same biblical truths that I'm going to be preaching this morning are also going to have implications for things like abortion, birth control pills, like just other medical decisions in general. Look biblical truth is biblical truth and it can be applied in a variety of ways. Even if the sermon on its surface doesn't feel like it applies to you there's always something that you can glean from God's word and apply to your own life. The first thing that I want to lay down in this sermon this morning is that life begins at conception. Biblically life begins at conception and a baby in its mother's womb is a living human being. Okay. Now we're starting here in Psalm 139 which is an extremely famous passage when it comes to this subject. Look if you would at verse number 13. The Bible reads, For thou has possessed my reins, thou has covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are thy works and that my substance knoweth right well. And what the Bible is teaching in this passage is that every child is formed and fashioned in its mother's womb. This isn't just unique to David that he is somehow special as the author of this psalm. No, this is in general talking about the care that God has for the unborn child in its mother's womb. He says that it's fearfully and wonderfully made. He says in verse 15, My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Now what does that mean? Verse 15, this might be a little bit tough to understand at first, but what you have to understand is that the substance of our bodies comes from the food that we eat. And the child that is fashioned and formed in its mother's womb, the substance to produce that child, ultimately comes from the food that the child's mother eats. Where does nutrition come from? Nutrition comes from the earth, and it actually comes from, believe it or not, the lowest parts of the earth because of the fact, and I don't want to go into some big science thing because obviously the Bible is not a science book, but the Bible is also not wrong about science. You know the Bible also is right about things. And what you have to understand is that the reason why a lot of civilizations and societies have flourished near volcanoes is because of the fact that when that volcano erupts, it brings up minerals and things that go into nutrition from the earth. Things that are over time ultimately depleted from the soil are actually replenished when they come from the mantle coming up through a volcanic eruption. Again, I don't want to make this a big science thing, but the bottom line is that the nutrition that we need to build human bodies, whether it's the body of a child or our own bodies, comes from the earth. You know, right on the surface obviously it's coming from the topsoil, but ultimately that nutrition, those nutrients, those minerals, ultimately did come from the lowest parts of the earth. And so what the Bible is getting at here is that not only is God there superintending the forming and fashioning of the child in its mother's womb, but he is even aware of everything that went into that moment up to and including, you know, the actual conception of the child in the womb. But even before that, the nutrition that went into the soil, that went into the mother who made the baby, I mean it's just God knows what's going on, and God is a part of this process, and God cares about it, and the Bible is describing the beauty of God actually knowing every thought that we have and understanding every cell of our body. In the New Testament, Jesus talks about the fact that the hairs of our very heads are numbered. It says in verse 16, Now, unperfect here means incomplete, immature, not fully ripe, because of course when a baby is first beginning to develop in its mother's womb, it is not perfect, meaning it doesn't have all of the parts, it's not complete. You're not going to see five fingers and five toes and so forth. It starts out just being round, and then it slowly develops these features, and so when the substance was not perfect or complete or finished, when it was an unfinished work in his mother's womb, he said, Thine eyes did behold my substance, yet being unperfect. And in thy book all my members were written, members is talking about body parts, okay, members were written which in continuance were fashioned. So in the womb, the members, the body parts are being fashioned. He says, When as yet there was none of them. So he's saying before there was a finger, before there was an eyeball, before there was a foot, before there was a heart, when you're just looking at what the world would call, what the abortion crowd and the pro-choice crowd would call a blob of tissue, God's looking at that and he's seeing a child even when it's imperfect and even when the members are not there, even when there are no members, no members, no hand, no arm, no nose, no mouth. God's still looking at that as a human being that he is forming and fashioning in the womb. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! Verse 18, If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with thee. Flip over to the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament, Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1, so Psalm 139 is clear even at the earliest stages of development that's still my substance, my members, it's still me in the womb. Obviously the material in the earth is what went into creating this human in the womb. But when it's in the womb and it doesn't have all the body parts, it's still a person that's being formed and fashioned by God. Look at Luke chapter 1 verse 15, it says, For he shall be great, this is talking about John the Baptist, in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. I mean, how could a baby in its mother's womb be filled with the Holy Ghost if it's not even human? If it's not even alive, if it's not even a person, then what sense would it make for the child in its mother's womb to be filled with the Holy Ghost? It's absurd, isn't it? Look if you would at verse 39. And Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste into a city of Judah, and entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost, and she spake out with a loud voice and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which are told her from the Lord. So again, we see that John the Baptist is filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb, and he even leaps for joy at being brought into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, right? But it's just a blob of tissue. It's not alive. It's not human, right? That's not what the Bible teaches. Psalm 139 teaches that it's a human life in the womb that God cares for. And Luke chapter 1 teaches the same thing. Go to Exodus chapter 21, very beginning of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus. Let's go back and look at the law of God, talking about laws that have to do with things like murder and manslaughter, and other crimes that are punishable by the civil government. Look at Exodus chapter 21 verse 22. It says, if men strive and hurt a woman with child. And by the way, with child doesn't mean she has a kid with her. It means that she's pregnant. When the Bible uses the term with child, it means that she has a child in her stomach. She is pregnant. And so if men strive and hurt a woman with child so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow, he shall be surely punished according as the woman's husband will lay upon him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. So if this woman is pregnant, and let's say two guys are fighting each other, roughhousing, striving, whatever, and in the process of being violent with one another, they accidentally bump into a pregnant woman. Now obviously some of these scenarios might seem a little bit specific. But the idea here is that God is giving patterned cases where then you could extrapolate principles from this and be able to judge any situation, right? The judges in Israel, they're going to be able to judge any unique situation that comes their way because they've got laws in the Bible including examples and precedents and illustrations. And so that's why you'll have maybe kind of a specific situation because if there's a similar situation then you would refer to this, okay? So the idea here is two guys are roughhousing, fighting, striving, whatever. They bump into a pregnant woman and injure her to where she ends up having a miscarriage. Her fruit departs from her. They put her into premature labor, okay? And the baby dies, okay? Well, in that situation, the Bible says if no mischief follow, then the assumption here is that if no mischief follow, if there doesn't seem to be any malice or hard feelings or anything like that, and it just seems like it was just legitimately an accident, well then in that case, then the guy is still punished because he still did something bad. He still hurt someone and caused her unborn baby to die. But because it was an accident, he pays a fine as determined by the judges. Everybody with me? Everybody understand? Be like if I were out doing something stupid, like I'm in the car, just going 120 miles an hour on the freeway, I'm just going double the speed limit, right? And then I end up accidentally killing someone as a result, you know? And you see news articles about stuff like this happening all the time, right? So what's the charge? Is it murder? Well, it's not considered murder because it's an accident. You're not doing it on purpose. It's not premeditated in any way. There's no malice or mischief involved. What it comes down to is you were doing something illegal and someone died as a result of your negligence, carelessness, whatever, and so it's manslaughter. And that's what people are typically charged with in situations like that. They get charged with manslaughter, okay? So it's not a death penalty thing because the death penalty is only for premeditated murder. Rather, this is an issue of manslaughter. And so that's why he says he's just going to pay as the judges determine because he did something bad, but it wasn't with malice. But the Bible says if any mischief follow, verse 23, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. Now here's the thing. When it says if any mischief follow, thou shalt give life for life, the idea here is that if, based on subsequent events, it becomes apparent that maybe this was intentional or that maybe there was an intent to harm, well then you'd look back at that and say, hey, now this is looking more like murder. And then it goes life for life. Now here's the thing. Some people I know would disagree with my interpretation of this passage, although I am correct. But let's say you disagree with my interpretation, have a different interpretation. Here's the one thing that anyone who reads this passage must agree on, that the phrase life for life, if there be any mischief, then he shall give life for life. The life that we're talking about is the one inside the womb. It doesn't matter how you interpret this passage. It's saying if you kill the child in its mother's womb, life goes for life. However you want to interpret the details of this passage, if you want to interpret them differently than I did, feel free. The bottom line is it's life for life because that child inside its mother's womb is alive. That's why. The Bible's clear. The Bible's consistent. We could look at a bunch of other examples. We could look at Jacob and Esau fighting in their mother's womb. We could look at Phares breaking forth in order to be born before Zerah. We could talk about Jeremiah being sanctified while he's in his mother's womb. We already talked about John the Baptist and so forth. Okay, so that's number one. Life begins at conception and the baby in its mother's womb is a living human being according to the Bible. Nothing could be clearer. Point number two, okay, conception is when the sperm fertilizes the egg. And again, this should be obvious from just a biology standpoint. This should be obvious biblically, but I'm going to take the time to prove this just to make sure we're all on the same page. Okay, flip over to Hebrews chapter number 11. Hebrews chapter number 11. First of all, if I just go on dictionary.com and I just type in the word conception, the definition is, quote, fertilization, the inception of pregnancy. So even the dictionary says that conception is fertilization. But some people will try to twist this and say, well, conception, it's later, it's implantation, or it's this certain stage of development, or it's when the baby starts having blood, or when the heart starts beating, or when it takes its first breath, or whatever. They'll try to come up with all these other possible times when it could be. But yet, the Bible is clear that life begins at conception, the unborn child is still a child, it's still a life. Of course, it's human. What else would it be? A raccoon? Well, it's alive, but it's not human. What is it? A tomato? The only thing it could be is human. Okay. Number two, conception. Hey, boys and girls, conception is when the sperm fertilizes the egg. I'll tell you about the birds and the bees up here, man. But I can prove this from the Bible. Of course, it should be obvious, it should be clear scientifically and so forth, but let's see what the Bible says, Hebrews chapter 11 verse 11. Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised. Look, she conceived seed. Okay. Let me explain something to you. Okay. The seed is only present. First of all, the word sperm is Greek for seed, sperma, that's what it means. Okay. Here's the thing about that is that the seed is only present at fertilization, right? There's the seed and the egg and boom, fertilization happens. A week later, two weeks later, four weeks later, six weeks later, eight weeks later, there's no seed. Seed's gone. The seed is only present at fertilization. The only part of this process that a seed is involved in is fertilization. And look, this is the terminology the Bible uses. Okay. The Bible literally talks about in the Old Testament, hey, when a man's seed, you know, goes out from him at night or whatever, you know, and I'm not trying to be graphic, I'm just quoting the Bible up here, but basically that's literally why it's called sperm is because of the fact that we've been influenced in our society by the Greek Bible. Okay. That's where we even get that word and obviously Greek language and culture, et cetera, has obviously influenced medicine and science, et cetera. The point is though that she is conceiving and she's conceiving seed because the seed is what fertilizes the egg. Okay. And that's the language that the Bible consistently uses. Now go if you would to Ecclesiastes chapter 11 verse 5 because we want to make sure that we don't make the mistake of thinking that somehow we can decide on some arbitrary time when life begins as opposed to just the obvious time of life beginning at conception, fertilization, the seed and the egg come together. And again, by any biological definition, that what science would call developing blastocyst, by any scientific definition, it is a living organism. I mean if you look at any list of the attributes of things that are alive and it will talk about them, you know, multiplying, developing, changing, locomotion, metabolism, you can look at any definition of what is the difference between something that's alive and not alive. The fertilized embryo, the fertilized egg, the blastocyst, whatever you want to call it, would 100% qualify as life. And you know, I've jokingly said this, you know, if they found it on Mars, they'd say they found life on Mars. They'd be so excited, they'd be coming unglued to find a single-celled organism on Mars. They wouldn't be like, well, it's just a blob of tissue. They'd be like, ah, ah, ah! They'd lose it. We found life on Mars! You know, if they found a little, you know, four-cell human embryo, they'd say it's life. This thing's alive. Of course, everybody knows it's alive by science. And if it's alive, it's human because again, it cannot be a porcupine, okay? It must be a human. That's all it could be. What else could it possibly be? What species is in there? It's human. Okay. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 11 verse 5. It says, as thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all. He's saying, look, don't think that you totally understand everything about the world or science or any of these processes. You don't understand how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child. Oh, yeah, we understand. No, no, we don't. You could even just look at the most basic processes in biology, things that are just happening every day of meiosis and mitosis. And here's what they'll say in these instances. Well, at this point, here's what the cell does during meiosis. We have no idea why. And if you can figure out why, you're going to be a very wealthy man because nobody knows why it does this. Nobody knows what triggers this. And these are processes that are happening millions and billions of times a day. And nobody can understand exactly how they're happening. Obviously, we're continually learning more as a society, as we learn more about science. But here's the thing. As we learn more as a society, it creates more questions too. You know, as we expand our knowledge of biology and answer questions, then new questions are created. And so now, things are more complicated than they've ever been in the history of mankind when it comes to science or biology or the human body. So don't get so presumptuous that you think you know everything about how that baby is developing in its mother's womb and you know when it's alive and when it's not. You know when it has a soul and when it doesn't. No, you don't. You should go by what the Bible says that a pregnant woman is a woman who's with child. She conceived seed and she has a living human being inside of her. Science proves that and the Bible proves it. It's all in agreement. Okay, so this brings us to in vitro fertilization, okay? Point number one, life begins at conception. Point number two, conception is when the seed fertilizes the egg. Point number three, in vitro fertilization process kills living human beings and biblically should be considered as manslaughter or murder because you're killing humans. Okay, now what do I mean by that? Because look, abortion is for sure murder based on what we're seeing, right? Because you're just knowingly, premeditatedly killing a child, right? So maybe you could plead this one down to manslaughter but either way it's a super wicked sin and anybody who is pro-life and believes that IVF is okay is a big time hypocrite. And they even get called out by the people of this world as hypocrites. It's not just me. I'm going to get to that later. It's not just some radical preacher saying this, okay? Now what is IVF? Well, let's break it down. In vitro fertilization, vitro is Latin, okay? We all know what in means, so I'm not going to explain that. But if you speak Spanish here, then you know this word, vidrio. Well, this is exactly the same word as the Spanish word, vidrio. It's just Latin, so it's vitro. This is in vidrio fertilization. Vidrio means glass, okay? So, you know, the glass breaks in your car, the vidrio broke in your car. It just means glass. So this is fertilization that happens in glass as opposed to happening in the womb, as opposed to happening inside the mother's body. It's happening outside the body in a glass dish. This is why it's called in vitro fertilization. Okay, so here's the thing about this. They harvest eggs from the mother's body and they fertilize them outside of the body in a glass dish. So basically, the guy goes into a room and he does whatever and produces a sperm sample, and then he brings it over, and then they basically put that in contact with the eggs that have been harvested from the mother, and this is how they create fertilized eggs in a glass dish, in vitro. Does everybody understand that? Now, this is where the first wave of deaths take place. There are multiple death waves that we're going to see. The first wave of death takes place when these eggs are fertilized in a glass dish. Now, let's look at some peer-reviewed science, shall we? And we're going to be looking at some things from the National Institutes for Health, NIH.gov, which, by the way, is a source that would be accepted in any college classroom in America. And any science class would say that this is a legitimate source of information, and it contains all kinds of peer-reviewed science and scientific articles that are mainstream, accepted, reliable sources of information. Let me give you some exact quotes here from the website. Okay, there was a study done by Bolton and Braude, Development of the Human Preimplantation Embryo in vitro. Don't worry if this gets a little heavy for a second because I just want to read the exact quotes, but then I'm going to break it down to you in plain English, okay? Bolton and Braude's review of the development of the preimplantation human embryo in vitro represents IVF as, quote, a remarkably inefficient therapeutic procedure and explores biological and technical reasons for the, quote, unacceptably high rate of embryonic loss associated with in vitro treatment. Of 784 pronucleate embryos, 75%, that is 585, were able to develop to the five to eight cell stage in vitro. Only 34% of these progressed in culture to form expanded blastocysts. Okay, now you say, what the hell did you just say? Okay, now here's the thing, okay? In the same article says, quote, it says in the context of IVF, quote, not much more than 25% of successfully fertilized eggs reach the blastocyst stage of development. Okay, now let me just put this for you in plain English, okay? They fertilize eggs in a glass dish. They create, according to the Bible, living human lives, okay? And 75% of them die. Now, why do 75% of them die? Because they're in a glass dish. It's like when you catch a lizard or something and put it in some stupid habitat or you put, you know, I remember when I was a kid, we made the classic mistake a few times. You catch some creature, you put it in a glass dish outside and it's like an oven because it's like a greenhouse effect. So you end up just cooking the thing. You come out later and the thing's just so dry and desiccated because you had it in this extreme sauna for even just a few hours, it just cooked the thing. And you're like, oh, whoops, whatever. Why? Because you put it in a weird environment. Do you think that God intended for human beings to be conceived in a petri dish or do you think that he conceived of them being conceived in a human's body? And, by the way, a woman's body, okay? So the point is that God designed a certain process. Obviously, if you're going to take it outside the womb and do it in a glass dish, just right away, right away you're going to have 75% fatalities and only 25% are going to survive. Okay. But, hey, who cares if it's inefficient, right? Human lives are expendable. It's just a blob of tissue, right? And then here's what people will say. Well, yeah, but they died on their own. No one killed them. They just died on their own. No one killed them. Okay, but here's the thing about that. What if I just laid a child out in the snow? What if I just took a baby and laid it out on the snow and said, well, I didn't kill it. It just died on its own, right? And, by the way, I'm not making this stuff up. Study ancient Greece and here's what you'll find out is a very common thing in ancient Greek literature, the idea of exposing a child. So if there's an unwanted child and they want to get rid of an unwanted child, here's what they do. They expose it. What does that mean? Just leave it outside, lay it down somewhere, put it in a harsh environment, and just let it die on its own because then they're not really killing it. They're just letting it die. I mean, I wonder if you and I were driving in a boat and I threw you out of a moving boat and just drove off and just said, well, I didn't kill him. He drowned on his own. He died on his own. You know, it's not my fault that bro can't swim 10 miles or something. No, but the reason why it would be murderous is because I'm putting him in a harsh environment where human beings don't thrive. And if anyone exposed their child, you'd call them a murderer if they just threw the child in a garbage can, threw it in the desert, threw it in the snow, you know, putting it in an environment where you know 75% chance of death. Sorry, but that's intentional at that point. Oh, but we're not even done because that's only the first wave of death. Okay. The second wave of death is that now that we have the 25% that survived this unnatural process of being conceived and developed in a glass dish, okay, here's a quote from the article about the ones who make it to the next stage. Quote, if an average is taken from the longest established IVF units, it can be seen that less than 15% of all embryos that are replaced, and what they mean is, you know, placed into the mother's womb or implanted, will result in a clinical pregnancy. Okay, so we're not even talking about being born. We're talking about less than 15% of what's implanted will even translate into a woman that you could clinically say is pregnant where you can tell she's pregnant, clinical pregnancy, like you can tell she's pregnant, she's passing a pregnancy test, we're looking at the ultrasound, okay, yeah, there's a baby there, whatever. You know, I now pronounce you pregnant or whatever. Now that number, less than 15%, is actually too generous because if you delve deeper into the article, these are the actual numbers. Sometimes they implant one embryo at a time. Sometimes they implant two at a time. Sometimes they implant three or more at a time. But these are the numbers. If they implant one embryo, it's 12.7%. If it's two embryos, it's 12.1%. If it's three embryos, it's 9.6%, okay. So do the math, my friend. 12.7, 12.1, 9.6, none of that's 15. But it's all less than 15, so it's accurate to say less than 15. It's kind of quite a bit less than 15. It's less than 13. Sometimes it's even less than 10. But it's always, you know, less than 13, the average, no matter how you look at these numbers. Now look, this is scientific data reported on the National Institutes of Health website, NIH.gov. This is not a right-wing website. I did not visit. There were no dolphins harmed in the writing of this sermon, nor was any right-wing website even visited in the writing of this sermon. This is from NIH.gov, and so if you do the math, if you look at the first wave of death and then you look at the second wave of death, here's what you end up with. You end up with approximately 3% of the human lives that you're creating in the dish actually being born. So that means that for every child you bring into this world through IVF, you have killed over 30 on average. So somebody has two kids from IVF. Well, then on average, they have killed 60 children. Oh, you have three kids from IVF? Well, then average says you have murdered 90. That's the average, over 90. Now, can you explain to me why this is morally okay? Can somebody tell me why it's okay? Because you just want to have a baby so bad. You know, on one hand we got people killing babies because they don't want to have a baby, and then we got people killing babies because they want to have a baby. Why don't you just do what God has commanded you to do, live your life according to Scripture, and stop trying to play God and stop trying to tamper with nature? It's what the Bible clearly teaches. It is immoral, it is wicked, it is ungodly. They say, oh, it's so beautiful it produces life. Well, yeah, never mind that you're killing 30 lives to produce that life, right, or 33. That's an average. And again, I dare you to check my numbers on any of this. These are the numbers, my friend. You say, well, you know, you can't make an alma without breaking a few eggs. Yeah, or you can end 30 human lives because you just really want to have a baby, and you don't, you know, you don't want to adopt or whatever. Here's an article from this year, okay, because you think, oh, Pastor Anderson, you know, you're so fundamental, you're so radical, you're so right-wing or whatever. Well, here's an article from February 20th, 2024. Alabama's top court rules that IVF embryos are children. Okay, this is the Supreme Court of Alabama has ruled this year that IVF embryos are children. They are living humans. They are children. Exactly what I'm preaching this morning, that they're children. And here's what happened. There was a situation where you have these frozen embryos because, by the way, first of all, we're talking about just the deaths. But now let's talk about something else besides the deaths. Not all of those 3% are really necessarily for sure even going to be born because a lot of them just get put on ice for later because what happens is when people go through the IVF process, once they get a live one, pun intended, okay, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, hey, we got a live one here. Hey, we got ourselves a live one. Okay, then once they have a live one, then, you know, they're just like, oh, well, now I have enough kids. You know, it's like, oh, you know, I really want to have kids. Oh, that's too many. Oh. So then once they have enough, then here's what they do, is then the rest of them are on ice. They're put on ice, right? And maybe for later. Maybe just till Jesus comes, they just stay on ice. I don't know, you know. Some of them are for later. Some of them get donated for medical research, okay. And here's what's funny. Some of these same people who will turn around and defend IVF, they're all into getting an exemption from the vaccine because they're like, oh, you know, we don't want to take vaccines that have been used through the research done with every... You provided the embryos. That's literally one of the options. People doing IVF is where the embryos come from. People literally do IVF, produce these extra embryos, and then donate them to science to be killed in a different way by scientists. And so the Alabama Supreme Court had a case where there's somebody, you know, broke into a freezer, okay. I don't, you know, I didn't get too into the details of the case, but I'm going to give you the important details. They broke into a freezer, and in the process of, you know, breaking into a freezer that they weren't supposed to break into, they ended up dropping some embryos. And, you know, so basically they killed those lives that were frozen in those embryos, okay. And so what happened was the person to whom those embryos belong, the person who did IVF who really doesn't have room to talk because they're a big murderer anyway, okay, that person complained and said, hey, you killed my children by dropping my embryos. Why are you dropping my kids, my babies, my popsicles? You're breaking them. And then what happened is the court, the lower court is like, no, that's not a child. And then they appealed, and they're like, yeah. The Supreme Court of Alabama is like, yeah, that is a child. Keep going, wrongful death, let's go. Wrongful death lawsuit, let's go. They did kill your kids. Those are your kids. So explain to me why does the Alabama Supreme Court think that embryos that are frozen are children? Do you think maybe it's because they are children? And do you think maybe it's because I'm not the only one who thinks this? And let me ask you this. Do you think maybe it's even because maybe some of them even read the Bible? In fact, I know that some of them read the Bible, and I've got to hurry for sake of time. But here's a quote from one of the decisions. Because, you know, when Supreme Court justices make decisions, there's like a majority opinion that's written, and then there is a dissenting opinion that's written, unless it's unanimous, okay? So here's a quote from the Chief Justice, okay? Here's an excerpt. We believe that, oh, and by the way, the article that's quoting this says, what really struck me is that the rhetoric sounds more like scripture than it does the language of the law, because it's some liberal probably writing the article. Listen to the quote. We believe that each human, we believe that each human being from the moment of conception is made in the image of God created by him to reflect his likeness. It is as if the people of Alabama took what was spoken of the prophet Jeremiah and applied it to every unborn person in the state. Let's read, what did the Bible say about Jeremiah? I have it in my sermon here. Jeremiah 1, verse 5, a famous verse. Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. Before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee and ordained thee, a prophet unto the nations. Of course, you know, we have John the Baptist. We have Psalm 139. We have a lot of examples of this kind of talk. It's as if the people of Alabama took what was spoken of the prophet Jeremiah and applied it to every unborn person in the state. Let me ask something. Who do you want to side with on this issue? You want to side with the liberal, watered-down Christians who don't care about human life, that are hypocrites, that want to just tamper with nature so that they can have their little designer baby, or you want to side with that guy, because you know what? I like this guy. I don't know anything else about him, but you know, I wish that all of, don't you wish all of our leaders talked this way? Hey, this is my kind of leader. Now, again, I can't vouch for that. I don't know anything about him. You know, maybe he's wrong in some other area, but the point is, hey, when any actual red-blooded Christian who loves the Lord, when they hear that, they're like, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I believe. Hey, I wonder what the Holy Spirit is leading you to feel when you hear that kind of talk versus everybody trying, well, you know, it's not until it's born and it takes its birth breath. The breath of life. What resonates with your spirit? Because I'm with this guy. You know, it's almost as if, it's almost as if everybody matters. It's almost as if certain people aren't just way important than others, and others we can just throw in the trash. It's almost as if we're applying what was said to David or Jeremiah or John, and we're actually saying, hey, everybody has value in the sight of God. Every human life has value. Every human is created in the image of God. That's kind of what it sounds like this law is saying. The Chief Justice continues, referring to the embryos, quote, carving out an exception for the people in this case, small as they were. By the way, he's talking about people, he's talking about the frozen embryos that got dropped on their head. Carving out an exception for the people in this case, small as they were, would be unacceptable to the people of this state who have required us to treat every human being in accordance with the fear of a holy God who made them in his image. This is the Supreme Court Chief Justice speaking, and you know what, he sounds more fundamental than a lot of Baptist churches, and that's pretty sad. This guy's a politician, this guy is a justice, and, you know, he's sounding more legit than a lot of so-called Christians today. Last point I want to make, I've got to hurry for the sake of time, go to John Chapter 9, John Chapter 9, and obviously I could speak about this subject for several hours. I don't think it's necessary to speak about this for several hours. This is one of those open and shut kind of cases. This is one of those things that's just too obvious. And you say, well, what about infertility? Well, you know what, I did a whole sermon on infertility, go check it out, go listen to my sermon on infertility, I did a whole biblical sermon on infertility, I already covered all those issues. The thing I want to focus on here is just the actual meat of this argument, because, you know what, all the stuff about infertility and what women are going through and what families are going through and all that stuff, you know what, none of that really matters in light of just the facts about murder. Because there's nothing that you can say to me that's going to make me justify tampering with nature, committing murder, and doing these things. Yeah, but I know these people and they, you know, they were produced through IVF and, you know, they, you know. So, oh, okay, well, then I guess we'll just ignore what the Bible says. I guess we'll just change what we believe. Because of your Aunt Plutie that did IVF. I don't care. Nobody cares. Because around here we care about one thing. What does the Bible say? What does the Holy God think? This Chief Justice isn't like, well, what about my cousin? What about my aunt? What about, you know. He's just like, nah, man, they're made in the image of God, they're humans. Where do we draw the line? Where do we draw the line? Either it's a human or it's not! And so we are to be impartial in judgment. We're not to just make judgments based on how we feel about people or situations. And here's the thing, look, there are people in the Bible who are conceived as bastard children, conceived through fornication, conceived with a prostitute. But yet, God used those people to do something great for him. Right? It's not that child's fault that they were conceived by a prostitute or fornication or adultery. But does that mean we're going to say fornication's okay because my buddy is a product of fornication? You know, we probably all have a buddy who's a product of fornication or a product of adultery or a product of whatever. Does that mean we're going to justify fornication and adultery? Look, sometimes what one person intends for evil, God can still use for good. Right? When Joseph was sold into slavery, when he's beaten and abused and thrown into a pit and sold into slavery, you know, that was evil for his brethren to do that to him. But he said, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. So God can still take a wicked action and make all things work together for good to those that love God. But does that mean we're going to start condoning wicked acts? We're going to start condoning sin? You're saying that so and so should have never been born or whatever. You know what? That is a wicked logic and it's contrary to the Bible. Because then you're saying that all these people shouldn't be conceived because of fornication and adultery. Oh, OK. So, yeah, you're right. OK, what's your point? But now that they're here, we're not going to treat them as anything less. They're still a human being made in the image of God. And you know what? We understand that better than you. We're the ones who actually believe in the value of your kids. You don't believe in the value of your kids because you killed 97% of them. It was an accident. Well, I wonder if I killed 97% of my kids by accident, how that would go over. Right? You think CPS will be called when 90% of your kids are dead? It was an accident. I left them in the snow. I left them in the sun. And you know, it's kind of quiet in here this morning, you know, and I don't really know why that is. I don't really care why that is because you know what? I don't really give a rip if every single person in this room disagrees with me. And I know that's not the case because I know like 97% of people in this room agree with me, if not 100. But let me say this right now. Ask me if I care because I don't. Because what I'm preaching is true. It doesn't matter. You know, it's my job to get up and tell the truth. The Bible says in John chapter 9, and by the way, I was reading this scripture. This is what sparked the idea for the sermon because it reminded me, because I preached a sermon on this subject back in 2007. I wrote a paper about it back when I was in Bible college and the teacher read it to the whole class. You know, I think I might have even gotten a little gold star or a smiley face on it. But back when I was in Bible college, I wrote a paper about this. But then I preached a sermon on it in 2007, and I was reading this scripture, and I was like, you know what? We need another sermon on this, you know, whenever I read this scripture. But I was reading the Gospel of John this week, chapter 9. Look at verse number 1. It says, And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither had this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifest in him. Newsflash for you, my friend. People who are born with a disability, it does not mean that that's a bad thing. Okay? Because it could be God's will for someone to be born with a disability for his glory. So who are we to say, hey, let's eliminate the world of people with disabilities, right? Let's just, I mean, I saw an article where in Iceland, they just have zero children being born with Down syndrome now, because they're just killing them all. They're just literally killing all of them. So now just Down syndrome is just being eradicated from these places, because they do genetic testing in the womb, Down syndrome, kill it. And you know what? IVF is the exact same thing, the exact same mentality, which brings me to my fourth point. IVF is a eugenics process that ends lives with defects. It brings lives to an end that have any kind of defects, because only the strong survive. I mean, think about it. It's like you had 100 kids, and only the three strongest ones survive, because 97%, right? And look, I didn't make, where did I get the 97% number? Does anybody remember? Yeah, NIH.gov, right? I did the basic math. Obviously, I had to crunch some numbers, because they did a lot of medical speak and everything, but I crunched the numbers, and we're looking at about 3% actually surviving this whole process, 97% fatality rate, which is why they said it was unacceptably high, that it was an extremely inefficient process, etc. That was the opinion of the authors of the study, okay? So, therefore, it's eugenics. What do I mean by eugenics? U means good. Genics means genes, right? Good genes. And what this is, is this idea of producing super humans or a master race. Usually, you hear this word in conjunction with Nazi Germany, right? Eugenesis, eugenics, and things like that. That's typically where you'll hear this word. But the idea here is that through this IVF process, only the strong are surviving, and so you're killing off anything that's weak. And by the way, a lot of the time, too, when they're making the decision which embryos to put into the mother, you think that they're implanting into the mother embryos that they know have genetic defects, or that they know have genetic disorders? No. They check that stuff out because it's so expensive, and it's a big... They want to make sure that they have the best possible chance. So they're watching these blastocysts in the dish, and the ones that are not moving around that much, or they're not really seeming to be that robust, they're just like, well, throw these in the trash. Because we're only going to do the strongest, best, robust ones, and even those are unlikely to work out. So we've got to put in two or three, and we've got to do it again and again and again, because the death rate is so high. But the ones that have an issue, well, they don't even have a chance. I mean, it's just like they're just off the table. You know, you're only putting in the ones that you know are going to be... I mean, you think people are producing in general, and I'm sure you can find the exception that proves the rule, but in general, you think you're producing children with genetic defects and genetic disorders through IVF because you're not, okay? Because that's all weeded out. Physical defects are weeded out. It is God's will that there be some people that are born blind. There are going to be some people that are born deaf. There are going to be some people that are born with disabilities. That is God's will, and it's not for us to decide whether or not those people should exist, okay? It's not like, oh, you're going to be blind? Well, you might as well just not even be born. Oh, you're going to be deaf? You might as well... Or who sinned? I wonder who sinned for this person to be born blind. You know, did he sin? Like, how does that even work? I guess they're thinking, like, maybe God just knows he's going to sin later, so he did, like, a pre-crime and just nailed him with blindness in the womb because of the stuff he was going to be looking at years later. You know, did this man sin, or did his parents sin that he was born blind? Well, you know what? His parents didn't do anything wrong for him to be born blind, right? Why was he blind? For the glory of God. So it sounds to me like God has a plan. It's God's will that there be some people who are born blind for whatever reason. And you know what? We used to have a family in our church, and they had a child with Down syndrome that was an adult child with Down syndrome, okay? And you know what? They said we wouldn't even be saved if we hadn't had this child with Down syndrome. That's why we're saved. That started the events in our life that led to us being saved. We're here because of her. We're here because of this child, right? And by the way, that same child that was an adult when we knew her would literally go out soul winning as a person with Down syndrome. She was very high functioning with Down syndrome, and so was she able to drive a car even? She wasn't able to drive a car, but she was able to do a lot of stuff. It's pretty surprising how high functioning she was. She was very high functioning. You could talk to her. She could do a lot of stuff. And she would go out soul winning. And obviously she had a soul winning partner helping her and everything. But she would go out and literally preach the gospel to people at their door. And she understood the gospel and was able to function at a pretty high level. And they literally said we wouldn't even be here. Sometimes maybe God allows these things into our lives for whatever reason. But at the end of the day, it's so that He can be glorified. And it's not for us to just decide, no, we're going to use science to kill these children. And I wish I could say more. I'm out of time. But I do want to just end on this one thought. There's nothing wrong. If there's something wrong with your health, there's nothing wrong with fixing your body. But what does the Bible say? They that behold need not a physician, but they that are sick, right? So people that are having some kind of a medical problem or have some kind of a defect or whatever, going to the doctor to get fixed, to get straightened out, to get repaired is totally biblical. So we're not against medicine. We're not against doctors. If there's some reason why, for example, we've known people that were not getting pregnant and they came to us for advice and we gave them nutrition advice. And then they followed the nutrition advice and immediately got pregnant, started having kids. You know, we're able to basically fix a problem and say, hey, you know, here's what's going on. Obviously, we know that God opens and closes the womb ultimately. It's His decision to open and close the womb. Children are inherited to the Lord, all that. I've preached that in plenty of other sermons. But the idea here is that if something's broken, there's nothing wrong with fixing that which is broken. You break your bone, you fix it, right? You break something, you fix it. There's nothing wrong with getting an artificial heart valve put in or something. You're just fixing your body. You're repairing your body. No harm, no foul. You know, if someone has bad nutrition and this leads to them being infertile, fix the nutrition. Fix your hormones. Fix whatever you need to fix to get your body functioning back to its factory default settings, what it should be. Nobody's against you restoring your body to factory default, okay? But do you see the difference between just restoring health and saying, we're just going to make these babies outside the womb using science, kill 30-some more than we create on average, right? We create one, kill about 33, create two, kill about 66, create three, kill about 100, you know, 97, whatever. Does everybody see a big difference between those two things? Between just restoring your body to its normal function so that you can have kids? Because I remember, for example, my grandmother, you know, she had like five kids and then she hadn't had kids for a long time and she went to a doctor and he found a problem and basically fixed the problem. I forget the details of it, but there was something wrong with her that he corrected and then boom, then she got pregnant with another child. You know, that's a lot different than, hey, let's make babies in a test. And by the way, you know, I jokingly said, hey, you know, in a woman's body, but you know, nowadays, I'm sure that they're probably, now they're probably just salivating about using the same technology so that men can have babies. Bunch of freaks and perverts, right? Because it's a plain God is what it is. Well, you just don't know what it's like. Well, you know what? Okay, so I'm going to go kill someone then and then say, well, you don't know what it's like. That'd be crazy, wouldn't it? If I went out and murdered someone, well, you don't know what I'm going through. You don't know what my life's like or something. Is that actually going to be legitimate in anyone's eyes? No, it's wrong. And we as Christians, we need to have some moral boundaries that we don't cross. We need to have moral boundaries that we don't cross, right or wrong. And look, in a crowd this size, obviously we have a huge number of people here this morning. It's quite possible that there's someone here who's already done this, who's already committed this sin. Well, here's the thing about that is, you know what? We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. But here's what you do when you've sinned. You confess it and you forsake it, right? You don't do it again. If you're guilty of this, you say, you know what? I'm sorry, I was wrong, I shouldn't have done it, and I'm not going to do it again. That's all you can do, folks. That's all any of us can ever do for any of the sins we've done in our lives, right? It's not like, well, I've done it, and Pastor Anderson preached it, so now I'm never coming back. Bye. But at the end of the day, that's an immature response to being corrected from the Word of God. The right response is to say, hey, I made a mistake. I'm sorry, I'm not going to do it again. And maybe even in a crowd this side, there's some product of IVF that's sitting there like, oh, Pastor Anderson doesn't think I should exist, or whatever. Look, you're here, buddy. We're cool with you now that you're here, okay? Just as much as someone who was brought into this world through fornication or adultery or any other sin, we're not taking it out on you, right? And by the way, you're looking pretty strong this morning. But at the end of the day, you can't control what your parents did. You can't control. The Bible talks about we don't hold the children accountable for the sins of the parents. We don't hold the parents accountable for the sins of the children. The Bible says you don't punish the sons for the fathers. You don't punish the fathers for the sons. You punish the people that are actually guilty of the crimes themselves. That is what the Bible teaches. And so instead of getting emotional about this subject, what we need to do is draw some hard moral boundaries and say these are lines we don't cross. We just have a hard line. It's called life begins at conception. It's called respect for human life. It's called not playing God. It's called having normal relations with our spouse, right, and conceiving children or not conceiving children the normal, natural way. And you know, some people, they might be married for five years, ten years, and they really wish they could have kids, and they're not having kids. You know what? That's sad, but you know what? God's got a plan. You've got to just trust God and just keep going in life. You know, or maybe, you know, you're having too many kids in your mind or whatever. You know what? At the end of the day, obviously, you've got to trust the Lord and live your life and not play God or commit murder to fix things about your life, quote, unquote, okay? You've got to realize, and by the way, and again, like I said, I could go on for hours, but one last thing, and another thing, one last thing I want to throw out there is this, is that, you know, there's kind of an epidemic of infertility in a lot of ways right now. You know, there's a lot of people struggling with this. Obviously, there's nothing new under the sun because people struggle with this in the book of Genesis, but it's kind of epidemic right now. Here's some of the reasons. Here's some of the reasons, you know. It could be some of it is lifestyle. Some of it's nutrition and lifestyle, and those things at least can be corrected. Number two, sometimes you'll have people taking birth control pills for years or even a decade, and then they've upset the balance. Obviously, there's a delicate balance in the human body. They've been taking this pill not to have a baby, not to have a baby, not to have a baby, not to have a baby, and it's like, okay, now I want to have a baby now. Wait, it's not happening. You know, it's like, well, hello, you've been training your body not to have a baby for the last 10 years. Now all of a sudden you're ready, and you expect God to just on a dime go in there and perform some miracle on your screwed up body that you screwed up by taking a bunch of drugs that you never should have took in the first place. And all of a sudden now it's God's fault that you're not having a kid when you've been pumped full of drugs for the last 10 years. And I know this might be some hard truth for people to hear, but you know what, it's hard what? It's hard truth is what it is, not to mention the birth control pills going into the drinking water and everybody getting all fricked up from being exposed to all this stuff. The bottom line is, though, that we need to just live our lives and be as healthy as we can, and if God blessed us with children, great, and if God doesn't bless us with children, well, you know what? Life is short, life's a vapor, serve God, love God, have some spiritual children by winning people to Christ, and you know, there's more to life than just having children, by the way. Having children is great, but you know what, there's a lot of other great things, too. And this is coming from somebody who has a lot of kids. And I love having kids, but there's a lot of other things that I love, too. And so life goes on, and if you're, no, it's just, I've got to have, you know, it's like Rachel, give me children or else I die! You know what? At the end of the day, serving the Lord is everything. Having children is a side thing. Marriage is a side, you know, serving the Lord is number one. I think we should all be able to agree on that. Even though we all love being married and having kids and ice cream and everything else, at the end of the day, serving the Lord is the big one. All right, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, we thank you for the clarity that your word brings on this subject, Lord. Help us never to be tempted to justify this sin. Of course, everybody wants to justify every sin that they indulge in. But, Lord God, help us to be honest about what scripture teaches. And thank you, Lord, for this decision from the Alabama Supreme Court. Lord, I pray that other judges and justices across the land would also search the scriptures for ultimate truth and apply those scriptures to their judgments. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Man, take your song books together, go to hymn 97, hymn number 97. I need thee every hour. Hymn number 97, we'll sing it out together on that first verse to be dismissed. Number 97. I need thee every hour, most gracious Lord. No tender voice like mine can peace afford. I need thee, oh, I need thee, every hour I need thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. I need thee every hour, stay thou nearby. Temptations lose their power when thou art nigh. I need thee, oh, I need thee, every hour I need thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. I need thee every hour, enjoy your pain. Come quickly and abide, for life is pain. I need thee, oh, I need thee, every hour I need thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. I need thee every hour, most holy one. Oh, make me like indeed thou blessed Son. I need thee, oh, I need thee, every hour I need thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee. Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee.