Family Worship, Abolition Interview with Brett Baggett

All right, well, hi, Brett. It's Michael Coughlin here with the, what's my podcast? It's been so long since I've podcasted. Be a Berean on the Bible Something Wingnut Network, and I have Brett Baggett with me. Did I say that right? That's right.

Brett Baggett. So this is the first time we met. Yes, it is. Yeah, so if the chemistry's great, then praise the Lord, and if not, then we can say, hey, we just met, you know, we're working things out. But I have I have listened to you preach because Brother Brandon Scalf has shared your preaching online and I have seen your posts about abortion. And I know you're interviewed by Callie.

And and I am excited to share you with the people who listen to me and also as a future resource for myself. So we have a couple of topics we want to go over. But before we get into the really the two main topics, Could you just introduce yourself and give us maybe a brief synopsis of who you are, where you're the pastor, and what kind of things you're doing with your family and your life?

Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Brett Baggett. I am 34 years old. I live in Muskogee, Oklahoma. I'm one of the pastors of a Reformed Baptist church here in Muskogee that we planted in 2011. So we're coming up on a decade of ministry here in Muskogee since we planted this church.

I do a lion's share of the preaching on our Lord's Day gatherings for worship. And I also train men, train pastors and men to lead their families and lead small groups and or lead Jesus Church. I have one wife and four children whom I love. so one of our favorite things to do is worship jesus from our home and we cherish family worship and i'm i'm engaged in uh abortion abolition kind of the movement and working to abolish abortion in the state of oklahoma the abolition movement really began concerning abortion began in oklahoma and has really just spread from there and it's spreading like wildfire now so i'm glad to be able to be a part of that and stand up for our pre-born neighbors and love them as Christ has loved us.

Amen. So it's Muskogee? Muskogee. Muskogee. Okay. I didn't realize.

Now, was there like a shooting there recently or some? There's always shootings here. Okay. Yeah. There was something that my wife showed me in the news and I said, I know a guy that's a pastor down there. So is that near Tulsa or Omaha?

Yeah, it's about 45 minutes from Tulsa, just southeast of Tulsa. Okay. Now, were you raised there? My dad was a pastor, so I've lived in Tulsa, Muskogee, and then we moved to Ardmore, Oklahoma, and then another small town in Oklahoma, and then back to Muskogee. But a majority of my life, I've spent in Muskogee. In the Oklahoma area?

Yeah, all in Oklahoma, but a majority of it in Muskogee. So are you like a Sooners fan or a Cowboys fan or one of those? Boomer Sooner all day. All right, so you like Mayfield then? Oh, yeah. My quarterback up there in Cleveland.

Yeah, Baker's a joy to watch play. Yeah, we forgave him for the whole planting the flag in the middle of our field in Ohio State when he beat Pittsburgh. Yeah. Yeah. So we're quick to forgive once you're on our side. That's good.

Well, it's nice to hear that about you. One of the things that I've so I've looked at your website of your church and I've seen some of your posts and you posted something about something you do called Shepherd School. And I wanted you to explain what that is and maybe get to pick your brain about it a little. It sounds pretty awesome. Can you can you tell us what that is?

Yeah, sure. About six years ago, I started meeting with some guys in our church who either desired to be an overseer, like 1 Timothy 3, they aspire to the office of overseer. And then there were a couple other guys in our church that I just saw pastor qualities in. And so I asked them to come and be a part of this group because 2 Timothy 2 says that we're to train up men and to entrust to them so that they may be able to teach others also.

And so we started doing that about six years ago. Very informal, but I was getting these guys together, giving them books to read, and then we'd get together and discuss what they'd read. And then I would teach through a book of the Bible. So the pastoral epistles or different things like that. How often were you meeting? We would meet once a week.

Okay. And so that for about six years, we did that. And then at the beginning of 2021, we got a lot more formal with it and actually opened it up to those who are outside of our local congregation as well. And we call it Shepherd School. And so really what it is is hitting three different kinds of men and training them. So it might just be somebody who wants to better lead their family.

They're not a small group leader. They don't have a desire to be a pastor, but they see that they are the head of their household. They're the head of their wife, and they are ultimately responsible for the physical and financial and spiritual health of the family that God has given them. And so they want to better lead in family worship and discipling their kids.

So you have some of the guys who are there. Some guys are there, plus they lead a small group or want to lead a small group someday and want to be a better shepherd there. And then some guys are family and small group, and they have the desire to be a pastor. And so we're training men to have good theology, to know how to teach the Bible, and to know how to shepherd the hearts and souls and lives of Jesus' people.

So we meet once a week. It's a lot more organized than it used to be. We got a syllabus We studying through the doctrine of God right now and so we doing a theological study and very practical as we reading Charles Spurgeon lectures to my students Oh good Studying the 1689 Confession of Faith And then I'm teaching expository sermons through each of these topics that we're reading in Thomas Boston's book, A Complete Body of Divinity.

OK, so you're you're pretty well developed after six years. And now, like you said, you've made it more formal. So what about for the guy who, you know, maybe he's a church pastor, maybe either it's a small church or they don't have anything like this at all yet. And what you just described, it sounded overwhelming, your finished product. What would you tell someone?

Like, how do you just start this? What, you know, what would be the bare minimum? Hey, let's let's just do it. Let's not overthink it. What would you recommend? I would recommend pastors seek out some of the men, a few of the men in their church that are godly men and take Christ seriously.

And start meeting with them once a week. Assign them books to read. And then when you gather together, discuss what they've read and then teach them from the Bible. Model for them what it looks like to teach the Bible, even in a more informal setting. So not just what it looks like to preach from behind a pulpit, but what does it look like to open up the Bible and walk through a passage of Scripture like you would in family worship or like you would in a small group setting, which is a little bit different and more conversational than it is in a formal preaching setting.

I'd say start there. Give people good books to read, and then test them in it. Are they really reading it? Are they comprehending it? And then go from there. I think one of the biggest failures that a lot of people do when they try to train men, especially for pastoral ministry, is they just give them a lot of assignments of things to write.

And I think that's all they know. They give them a lot of writing, a lot of writing. Write this essay, write this paper and all that. And people can easily do that. They can go and just do all this research and write it down. But are they really learning and growing and can they read something and feed on it that helps them understand the Bible and then teach it to other people, not just write it out formally?

That's excellent. So I heard you mention family worship multiple times. And yeah. And so we could do a whole podcast. But just family worship. Can you define that?

So if I'm a guy and no one ever told me what family worship was, you keep it simple. What would you tell someone? This is what you should be doing. It's a regular time of formal worship of the Lord Jesus in your own home with the people that are in your home. And there's a person, you know, I think the fear people would have is they'd have to be like a Bible expert, like a pastor to be able to lead this.

So how do you encourage men that they're not there yet? Or maybe some of them never quite get that good at those things. How do you encourage them? It's still their role and they can do this. Yeah. I would say open up the Bible, teach it, explain it, read it and explain it the best you can.

That's where you have to start. And men need to just hear this like men who say, well, I'm not a very good theologian. And I say to them, you best get to work then. Yeah. Because you you have to be a good theologian. you are responsible for your wife and your children deuteronomy 6 says you are responsible to teach your children diligently in ephesians 6 1 and 2 and moving on through that passage he shows that children must obey their parents and the lord for this is right and then he turns to fathers bring up your children in the discipline and instruction of the lord so first of all i think a lot of men are coddled by their pastors and don't they're not good theologians and i would say you better get to work then because you have to be and so you can be taught you can read you can learn people say well i'm not very good at reading it's like well you better get to work then because you better get good at reading you have to you have to know the word and then grow in that but you got to start somewhere it's your responsibility to teach the bible to your family.

So there's so many good resources on that as well. Joel Beeky has a little book. That's almost like a booklet. I think I have family worship. I think I have a book here. Someone gave me for Christmas.

Yeah. This one here. I don't know. Family Worship Bible Guide. Yeah. So what that book is, it has like application summary of each chapter in the Bible.

Oh, okay. I haven't cracked it open yet, but. You read through a chapter of the Bible in Family Worship Dad. And then that book right there, the Family Worship Bible Guide, it's like $12 or something like that, I think. But it's got two to four points of application for every chapter. Excellent.

So when you're thinking like, I'm reading this and I'm trying to do the best I can, but I don't know how to bring it home and apply it. That Family Worship Bible Guide, you read through that the day before and it'll help you be thinking through that. I mean, get a good study Bible. Sure. There's there are numerous good study Bibles. There's the Reformation Heritage, Reformation Study Bible, John MacArthur Study Bible, ESV Study Bible.

Those are all very helpful. Yeah. So even even guys that are good pastors and preachers who who guys might think, oh, that guy already knows a lot. They basically just read other people for a while before they knew these things. So. So if a guy's struggling with some of these things, it sounds like you'd agree it's more of a motivation and an effort problem than a skill problem.

Oh, absolutely. You just have to see it's not an option. It's not whether or not you are a theologian. You are a theologian. Are you a good one or are you a bad one? And if you are a bad one, what are you doing to march forward and to let the word of Christ dwell in you richly?

Colossians 3 16 so that you may teach and admonish one another all spiritual wisdom and insight And I sure if a guy came to you and said hey I don know how to do this Can I come to your house for family worship Can you model it for me? I'm guessing you'd say sure. Oh, absolutely. So I've laid out for our men as well. This is what we do in family worship.

It's not that ridiculous. It's not, whoa, you have to be a pastor or amazing theologian or something like that to do this. Yeah, you don't need like altar boys and candles. Yeah. I mean, we open with a prayer. We pray John 17, 17 most days.

Father, sanctify us in the truth. Your word is truth. Me and my whole family, we pray that aloud. Okay. And then we're in the book of Acts right now. And so I'm teaching through a little portion of Acts.

We'll read it. I'll ask some questions and try to apply it the best I can. to, I mean, I've got a, I've got a one-year-old, three-year-old, five-year-old, eight-year-old, and then my wife. And so we're leveling it up, leveling it down the best I can. One of the guys in our church who was convinced I need to start doing this. He started preaching through the old Testament.

And so when he gets to the book of Leviticus, he's like, man, this is difficult. So he bought Bonar's commentary on Leviticus. And so now every day before he's going to teach it the next morning, he's reading a commentary so that he has a good grasp of what he's going to teach to his family. Like that is absolutely what we must do. If you don't understand the text, there are so many good resources that would help you.

The real problem is that men abdicate their responsibility and don't want to do what God has commanded them to do. I agree. I think that the other thing is if you're a guy who aspires to preach or be an overseer, you know, then a lot of times guys want opportunities to preach, right? Yeah. And it's like, well, here's an audience every day. That's true.

Preach at home. I understand, you know, there's maybe a little different setting if you get chances in churches. But hey, let's prove prove to yourself you can do these things and get the practice that a guy needs. I find that for my family, it's it's really good practice for everyone also just to be able to practice for church because I have little ones, too. and with me being up front preaching, I can't sit there and give them the evil eye or take them out and discipline them if they have trouble in church.

So we work really hard to practice sitting still at home so that my wife can maybe sit and enjoy a sermon. And so that's one of the things we do. The other thing I did that I have found helpful, and I hope other people like it, I love it personally, but when I pick out the songs that we're going to sing at church, I try to select them very early in the week, and I publish the songs.

And then what my family does is those are the songs we sing every day in our family worship. And so we're memorizing these songs now because you sing them every day. By the time we get to church, we've already worked out the kinks or sometimes songs are a little difficult. And so that's been a real blessing too. And I thought if I was a guy in my church and I wasn't sure what to do, well, here, someone just gave you three songs to sing.

Now all you really have to do is pray and maybe read a section of scripture and you don't even have to try to teach it. You can just read. Yeah. Just start there. If all you can do is read it and then think, what kind of remark could I make? Or what could I clarify?

Do the best you can. And then if that's all you can do, you hopefully will realize I better get to work. I think I'm going to be able to better feed and lead my family. For sure. Yeah, we don't want to set the bar too low for people. We also don't want to discourage people who aren't quite there yet, right?

Yeah. Well, that was a good segue you brought up. You said abdicating our responsibility and which which that phrase could be applied to our attitude about abortion in our society, probably. And so what I want to introduce here is that anyone who listens to me would already know that I'm an abolitionist. and a lot of people might not know what that means or they may have a picture of what that means that is not accurate because of an abolitionist that they encountered and and so I know there was a time that I you know I don't talk about this a lot because I don't like fighting with people but there was a time that I wouldn't associate with anyone associated with AHA because of some things that only a few people in AHA had done.

And so anyway, what I heard you say on another podcast was if you met a Bible-believing Christian, somebody that said the Bible was inerrant and infallible and sufficient, that you believe that you could spend a half hour with them and you could, from the scripture, try to teach them that abolition is in fact the way that a Christian should have their attitude about abortion. And so I don't mean it as like an overt challenge, but I'm actually going to set a timer, 30 minutes, and I'm going to kind of play your good Christian sort of pro-life buddy, and you're going to try to teach me why I should be an abolitionist rather than basically what we'd call a pro-life person. Yeah.

And you may even have to explain that difference. And then I'll ask you some questions and I'll try not, you know, I don't think I'm going to ask you anything you haven't already heard. So but what the goal here is is that at the end of the half hour people who already are abolitionists maybe we all have a better toolbox with which to teach others Sometimes I think we can come across almost like we just carrying a sledgehammer And then second of all anyone who legitimately wants to listen and says, hey, you know, I don't see what's wrong with being pro-life or endorsing heartbeat bills or incrementalism or whatever some of the different words people would use are, maybe we would at least be able to clearly explain what is the biblical view of abortion and how Christians should respond to it.

So I'm going to get my timer out. Are you ready for that? Yeah, sure. And since everybody knows we've never met before, we've never talked before. And so, so we're going to go at it and we're going to see if, if we can do something that edifies Christ's people. All right.

Well, hi, Brett. I'm Michael. I think abortion's wrong. And so I vote for all the pro-life candidates that my email gives me, and I pray that abortion would stop. And I think that's plenty. What do you think of that?

Well, I think the fact that you call yourself pro-life is a good thing. And one of the things I'd like to help you think through more, and the thing that I hadn't thought through more until even just a few years ago, was that there's a big difference between the pro-life movement and what can be called the abolition movement. Okay, like slavery? No, I'm talking about the same principles that they use to abolish slavery, but the principles applied to the abortion holocaust that's happening in our nation specifically.

Okay, well, what do you mean? So abolition means to put a formal end to a system or a practice. That's what it means to abolish something. And so put it to a formal end. And so the abolition movement basically says we think abortion should be illegal, period. And sadly, the pro-life movement says we think abortion should be unthinkable or only illegal maybe for the abortionist or only illegal after five weeks or after 12 weeks or things like that.

Okay. So can you, you know, I'm a Christian and I believe the Bible, but when I read the Bible, I don't see anything that tells me I have to do things the way you're doing them. Right. What I think is if I could, if I can push a law that would make it illegal to murder babies after a heartbeat's detected, then that's a good thing. And there would be no reason why someone could criticize me for that effort.

Yeah. So one thing to consider with those laws is the fact that any incremental, that means like trying to just take a step and push it further, pro-life bill like that, like a heartbeat bill, for instance. So let's say five weeks or after a heartbeat is detected. In reality, all that bill is doing is telling a murderer the window that they have to meet in order to murder their child.

So it seems like in pro-life people are saying, well, you can't murder a child from five weeks, you know, till on. But actually what it's really saying and what it's teaching people who want to murder their children, that they can murder within this window. So it's actually a bill is approving of murder. It's saying you can slaughter your child as long as it's under five weeks or as long as you can't detect a heartbeat.

But the Bible, science, and rationality is all very clear that life begins at fertilization. There's no line of like life begins when you can detect a heartbeat. At the moment of fertilization, you've got everything there that if it's not impeded, it will be just like you and me. It's just an earliest stage of development. And so really all a pro-life secular bill does is tell people when, how, and where they can murder their own child.

OK, well, when you put it that way, it doesn't sound good. But if if a whole bunch of people are going to do abortions anyway and we can pass a bill that reduces that number like that, we should celebrate that. That means that babies are being saved. So a couple things with that. Babies aren't actually being saved because all you do when you pass a bill like that is tell someone they have to have an abortion.

They have to murder their child before five weeks or before the heartbeat. And so they do that. When it's up to 18 weeks, they know that they've got a window to fit in there and I've got to have an abortion before 18 weeks. When you make it before a heartbeat, they're going to do it within that window as well. So you don't actually save any babies. You just tell a murderer when, where, and how they can murder their child, and they do it.

That's why in Oklahoma, for instance, from 2015 to 2018, abortion numbers, just the ones that we count. This is not including the abortions that you can buy at Walmart. You can buy abortions at Walgreens, CBS. Yes, you can even order them online and get them shipped to your house now. But we're just talking about the ones that you count. In 2015 to 2018 in Oklahoma, which is the most conservative state in the union, the abortion numbers just rose.

Rose, rose, rose, rose. We have 30 pro-life incremental restrict abortion bills on our books in Oklahoma. And the abortions continue to rise. Because here's the spiritual or the theological view of what we're doing when we try to pass a bill or when we celebrate a bill that says you can't murder a baby after five weeks. But in actuality, it's saying you can murder a baby before five weeks.

All you're doing is telling someone that you've put the altar of Molech outside the city and it's harder to get to now. Or you've made the altar of Molech where in Leviticus 20, people offered their children, their seed to this demon God, all you're doing in a pro-life incremental bill is telling someone where the altar of Molech is. And it's harder to get to, it's not right in the middle of the city maybe, or it's only open a few hours a day.

But when you tell someone who wants to murder their child, when, where, and how they can murder their child, they'll do it. And so that's one thing to consider. And the other thing is to consider that that is, in fact, Isaiah 10.1, that is an iniquitous decree. That's an iniquitous decree. Isaiah 10.1 says, I'll just quote this for you. Yeah, I'm going to turn there too.

Yeah. Isaiah 10.1 Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice, and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey. A pro-life incremental bill fits that definition, that the Lord says, a curse be on those who write iniquitous decrees because in the end all an incremental pro-life bill does is tell someone when, where, and how they can in fact slaughter their child.

There are other kind of pro-life bills that are like dismemberment bans and they say you can't crush or you can't use forceps, you can't use a surret. Or you have to have a funeral. Yeah, things like that. We're doing that one now. We have to have a proper funeral. Yeah.

So you can murder your child as long as you have a funeral for it. That's what the bill is saying. Or the heartbeat bill, I would frankly say a heartbeat bill, something like that, like that was passed in Alabama and then ended up getting struck down, of course, because it didn't defy the higher courts. That bill is an abomination in the sight of God.

Because in that bill, it tells someone that they can murder their child. And people say, well, we just, we're going to make it more difficult for them to murder their child. Like there's a reason that abortions go up and go up. And there's a reason that now, because of these kinds of pro-life incremental bills that don't just make it illegal across the board to kill a baby.

There's a reason that those bills have actually pushed scientists to get better at killing babies. So now you can get an abortion at Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, or you can order it online. Why? Because they realized what the pro-life movement has been trying to do is regulate it, regulate it, regulate it, make it harder to get one. So they've got more clever at how to kill a baby.

And now I think it's 93% of abortions are chemical abortions before the first 10 weeks where someone can take a pill that basically starves their baby to death. And then they take a couple of more pills that causes contractions to start. And then they expel their murdered baby, usually into a toilet. Wow. Yeah. And then as long as someone gets paid for it, it's okay.

Because if you do that yourself with drug use, you're actually held accountable. Right. Right. But somebody has to get paid and then it's okay. So you mentioned a few things I want to make sure we remember to talk about. One of them is the altar of Molech.

I've seen that tossed around on websites and the Facebook and stuff. And so I want you to explain what that means and why you think it applies. And you brought up defying Roe v. Wade. And I need you to explain to me what that means. Because as long as Roe v.

Wade is law, we have to follow it is pretty much what I've heard. So do you want to explain those two things in any order you want, the Molech thing and the Roe v. Wade thing? Let's go to Molech, and I want you to just think about Leviticus 20. Okay, I'm open to there now. Okay, so Leviticus 20, there are at least seven things that the Lord specifically says towards you and me concerning child sacrifice.

And so lest we just think that God speaks about murder in general, and then we have to apply it to abortion. He doesn't just speak like that. Of course he does. Like thou shalt not murder. That's a command. And it's not specifically explicitly talking about child murder or child sacrifice.

But we apply it to that as we should. But if that was all God said, that would be sufficient. Plenty. But you're saying if we look at Leviticus 20, we're going to see... Right. You're going to see God explicitly talking about child sacrifice.

And so this is what it says in Leviticus 20, starting with verse 1. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who gives any of his seed, or children, or offspring to Molech, shall surely be put to death. Now, Molech is the god of the Ammonites, and the Phoenicians also worshipped him. basically had the body of a man and the head of a bull and his arms were out in the physical part of this idol and they would light fires inside of him and below his arms and they would offer their children up into the arms of molek they would sacrifice the text says their seed and this is why it particularly evil and why abortion you know we don do it to molek but but we do it in the same way in our culture People sacrifice their children because they don want them and or they think their life will go better if they don have them So that's the same spiritual reality of why someone would sacrifice their child to Molech is because false gods promise to give you what you want or what you think you need if you do this.

And so it's the same thing with abortion today. People sacrifice their children because it will give them something they want or get rid of something they don't want. But in the end, it's still like, I will benefit if I do this. And it's the same reason that people worship the false gods. okay so that's why you said it's like moving your altar to molek just outside the city you're just making it harder for people right you're not actually condemning it you're not actually telling people no this is wrong you need to turn to the one true god and away from a false god so so like like i don't know a single person in 2021 in the united states that even knows the name molek except for a handful of christians yeah what are people worshiping then because they're not worshiping Molech, literally, what are the false gods that you're saying people are worshiping that's causing them to do abortion?

Probably comfort. Could be success. Just in general, it's more often than not, it's just self. I'm worshiping myself. For some people, their career would be thwarted, or some people, their life would just be a lot harder because they would have a child to take care of. I don't know all of the reasons that people are doing it, but it's at least those, or it could be at least those.

But the only reason someone would kill their own child is for their own benefit. So they think that having a child is going to be too expensive or they won't be able to get the success they thought they were on track for at work. Could be. Or maybe they'd be shamed because they actually like being a part of some church and they don't want their fornication or adultery to be exposed.

Could be. There's a big church here in Oklahoma who is really all over the United States. It's probably the biggest church in the United States because they have all these different locations. And over the last few months, there's been four different people pull into the abortion mill in Tulsa that we go to with this church's sticker on the back of their car.

Four people pulling in to murder their children with this church's sticker. So yeah, it could be something like that. More often than not, when we get to talk with people, it's because they literally don't want the child. And our laws tell them they can kill their child, and so they go and do it. They just don't want the child. They say, are you going to adopt my baby?

And we say, we would love to, please come and talk with us. We'll adopt your baby. We'll do an open adoption so you can still see your baby, whatever you want to do. And then they flip us off and cuss at us and leave. And so with the whole thing concerning Molech, I mean, here, let me just rapid fire these truths that we learn in Leviticus 20, one through five.

First of all, the Lord has much to say concerning child sacrifice, which in our day is called abortion. That's why in verse 1 and the beginning of verse 2, he says, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, say to the people of Israel. The Lord spoke, saying, and then he tells his prophet Moses, say this to the people of Israel. The Lord has a lot to say about child sacrifice.

Then he says, if any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel. So not only God's covenant people, but even the sojourners were not part of God's covenant people. If anyone gives any of his children, it's the word seed, offspring to Molech shall surely be put to death. So see in that a child sacrifice is particularly evil, which we call abortion, because it is the slaughtering of a blessing the Lord has given.

If any of you offer any of your seed, it's clear throughout the entirety of the scriptures that the Lord opens and closes the womb. You just read through the book of Genesis and you'll see that the Lord is sovereign over the womb. So if you can get pregnant, it's because God chose to give you a gift. This is your seed, your offspring. The Lord said, be fruitful and multiply.

And we know if we're actually able to multiply, it's because God has sovereignly given a gift to that mom and dad. And that's why it's particularly evil because it's taking one of the greatest gifts God gives us in this life and it's killing it to a false god. Whether it's yourself as the false god or your success or your comfort or whatever it may be.

Or it was Molech. It's taking your seed. That's why it's evil. Psalm 127 says that children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward. We're taking a reward the Lord has given us and slaughtering it. So the abolitionist viewpoint then becomes that by regulating it at all, even if the person has, we'll say, really good intentions, that they really hope to end it someday. and they think this is the right strategy is what they'll say.

The abolitionist viewpoint is by participating at all in the regulation of it, you're now participating in the unfruitful works of darkness rather than opposing it. Sadly, that's right. That's where I was a majority of my life. Until I really realized the pro-life movement actually says, Because we don want to make it a criminal act for those who kill their children The abolition movement says no it needs to be the homicide laws need to be applied equally to everyone And I find that most Bible Christians just go well yeah that's true.

When I say, shouldn't the same law that protects you from being murdered, shouldn't that be applied to those in the womb so that they're protected from being murdered? Most people are like, well, yeah, that's what the law exists for. That makes sense. Another thing to consider with the secular pro-life movement is that the bills they push, like a heartbeat bill for instance, in the end you can't get around the fact that it actually approves of murder.

It disapproves of murder after the detection of a heartbeat, but the bill actually approves of murder before the detection of a heartbeat. And in Romans 1, 29 through 32, the Apostle Paul is given a laundry list about the function of idolaters. And he says idolaters are full of murder. Then in verse 32, they're full of murder. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, They not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them.

So in the end, all a pro-life incremental bill is, is giving approval to murder, though disapproval after the heartbeat, but approval before. And that's why I say it is an iniquitous decree. It's a sinful decision. it's a sinful bill because anything that approves of any bit of child sacrifice is an abomination in the sight of god as you go through leviticus 20 you keep going the very first time stoning is mentioned in the scriptures is concerning child sacrifice you shall put them to death you shall stone them with stones and then he he continues i will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people because he has given one of his seed to molek this is verse four is convicting there right verse four then well after the before you get to even four the lord makes clear that child sacrifice is an attack on the worship of god yeah and the glory of god so when you do that you profane you make my sanctuary unclean and profane my holy name.

It's an attack on the glory of God and the worship of God when people sacrifice their children that God has given them as a gift. That's an attack on his glory and his pure worship. Then verse four transitions to saying, you, even if you've never considered child sacrifice and you would never do that. Yeah, you're guilty too. You're guilty too if you remain indifferent towards children who are sacrificed in your land.

And so I encourage anybody who's listening to this to read through Leviticus 21 through 5 and notice God promises those who sacrifice their children, he promises them his physical wrath and his eternal wrath. Physical wrath and you should be put to death, you'll be stoned with stones. That's the physical wrath of God that the governing authorities execute.

That's Romans 13. The governing authorities exist. They bear the sword and they are God's avenger, inflicting his wrath on the wrongdoer, meaning the death penalty, things like that. So that's the physical wrath of God. He promises that to those who sacrifice their children, but then he promises his cosmic wrath, or you could say spiritual wrath, because he says, I will set my face against that man.

That's what he says to those who sacrifice their children. And then later in verses four and five, he promises the same wrath on those who don't sacrifice their children, but who remain indifferent to those who sacrifice their children. So if you and I are indifferent or compromised, or we at all close our eyes to child sacrifice that's happening in our land, the Lord promises his wrath and judgment on us.

Now that's sobering for me. Yes, and this includes the thing you brought up earlier with equal justice. in that so you're saying that not only the abortionist is guilty of murder in the eyes of God but the parents of the child absolutely so explain that from the pro-life abolitionist bill law perspective like what's the major distinction here that maybe people don't realize happens with a lot of these pro-life laws that is the problem with especially the mother right Yeah, so one of the biggest holdups with people who are in the pro-life movement is that they don't want to criminalize the mother or the father who hires someone to murder their child. They don't want to criminalize them because they believe that the woman is also a victim of abortion.

And frankly, that's just a lie from the pit of hell. people who murder their own children are not victims they are victimizers by definition those who murder someone else are the victimizers they're not the victims and anyone who thinks that women are just victims of poverty or things like that or anything else or that it's pressure you come to the murder mill with me one time and you see us preaching the gospel, we're offering help, pleading with people saying, how can we help you? We'd love to help you financially, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, any kind of help we can offer you we here for you Would you please come and talk with us They say things like a few weeks ago a girl said I eat babies for breakfast when we offered her help You need to go to notavictim.com too and just see all of these testimonies that have been put on that site showing that women are not victims of abortion. The people who murder their own children are not victims.

They're the victimizers. There are exceptions to that rule. No. Surely there are sex slaves, things like that, who are forced into doing those kind of things. That is the exception to the rule. That is not the rule.

The rule is women who go to murder their children need to be threatened with criminalization so that they will not commit that criminal act. That's why it's illegal to murder me. it's illegal to murder me as a 34 year old male in oklahoma so that people won't murder me it's not so that we can just put people to death if they do murder me it's first of all to thwart to be a terror to evildoers so that they don't go and murder people and that's why it needs to be criminalized as far as abortion because right now our laws show partiality to the wicked they they show partiality to the mother and they tell a mother that she can murder her child yeah under the cover of law but an abolitionist says no it should be illegal for anyone to murder any human being at the abolition movement would be the exact same if it was like 30 to 35 year olds could be murdered but babies couldn't be murdered there'd be an abolition movement for those 30 to 35-year-old people. We're saying any human being who's not protected under the law should be protected.

And right now our pre-born neighbors aren't. And so I want you to just think about what the Lord says concerning governing authorities who show partiality to the wicked, who show partiality to the wicked, because that's what's happening. Partiality is being shown to the woman she can murder her child and the pro-life movement is fine with that i mean you go look up some of these quotes abby johnson ben shapiro all these big pro-life they say we would never want to criminalize the woman al moeller yeah al moeller yeah we'll never criminalize the woman the whole coalition yeah that's evil you should criminalize the woman and the point is not that you want to put women on death row the point is that you want to keep women from murdering their children.

And that's why homicide laws exist like they do. So it would thwart the evildoer from killing. So what does God say about governing authorities showing partiality to the wicked? In Psalm 82, Psalm 82, two through four, the Lord himself is speaking to governing authorities and he says, how long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked, Selah, which means pause and meditate.

How long, governing authorities, will you show or will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? That's exactly what our governing authorities are doing right now. And that's actually what pro-life bills are trying to perpetuate, that our governing authorities would keep showing partiality to the woman who murders her child. And then he says in verse 3, give justice to the weak and the fatherless.

Maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy. Deliver them from the hand of the wicked. So a pro-life bill who tries to regulate when, where, and how you can have an abortion is an abomination because it shows partiality to the wicked i'm not allowed to go murder a baby inside a mother's womb and a mother should not be allowed to murder a baby even though it's in her womb because the body inside her body is not in fact her body that is a human being that must be protected under the law and that's the that's one of the biggest differences between pro-life and abolition is that pro-life says let's make it harder to get abortions, which in fact doesn't work.

So all you're telling someone is what window they got to meet and they do. And then an abolition bill says it should be illegal to murder any human being. The same laws that protect you should protect our pre-born neighbors. So that's why the abolition bills in Oklahoma, they're not trying to write a whole bunch of new legislation. They're just trying to say, no, the same laws that we already have on the books for every human being will be applied to those in the womb as well from fertilization.

No, I agree. I understand, too. So if you tell a woman that it's – so it's interesting, irony. You're saying that people are showing partiality to the evildoer. but ultimately if you care about a person's eternal soul you're actually doing them a disservice when you lie to them and tell them that what they're doing is not in fact murder that's right you're going to face god on judgment day for murder and there's going to be some people i'm afraid who are actually a little surprised i know we won't be because his law is on our heart but there's going to be some people who they're going to wonder why didn't why didn't all these Christians in my life tell me, hold on, you're half hours up.

We're going to keep going. It's too good. But, but so, so let me ask you this then, but if a woman has committed abortion, yeah. Uh, is that just straight to hell when she dies? Like there's nothing left, no chance. Like what is, is there a way she can be forgiven for that?

Like if, if someone has murdered someone else, does that straight to hell? No, I don't. Well, I don't think so. I'm letting you present it, though. Yeah, that's I'm trying to rephrase the question because that's that's really what we're asking. And well, if so, then Paul, who said he persecuted this way even to death or Paul's not in heaven, then.

David's not in heaven. Yeah. So how does a person get forgiveness? Well, the great thing about the gospel is that, especially as it pertains to abortion, is the gospel is the reverse image of abortion. Whereas abortion says, your life for mine, even to death, Jesus Christ came to the earth, lived without sin, and on the cross, he's crying to you and me, my life for yours, even to death.

One of the greatest things that should give comfort and encouragement to those who have committed the atrocious abomination of child sacrifice is that Jesus Christ was willingly murdered for murderers so that they could be forgiven and made righteous in his sight. on the cross the very first thing that jesus cries out as he's dying to pay for the sins of his people is father forgive them looking down at his murderers father forgive them for they know not what they do now they knew what they were doing but in one sense he's saying they have no idea what they're doing they were guilty for what they were doing but jesus was pleading for their forgiveness. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. And this was the Apostle Paul's experience.

He said, God saved me to be an example to everyone else that no one is too bad for God to save. I was a blasphemer, a reviler. He says, I persecuted this way to death. And God redeemed him because Jesus stood in his place, bore his sin and shame. and if you're in Christ, if your faith is in Jesus, or if you would go to him in faith, even right now, you trust in what Christ has done in place of sinners like me and like you, then you can know for certain that Jesus took your sin and paid your debt that you owe.

And if your faith is in Christ, he's also given you his righteousness. His perfect righteousness, he perfectly upheld the law, fulfilled it, obeyed his father. Everything that Christ deserves is given to you through simple faith in him and what he's done. So there's really good news for murderers. Jesus willingly allowed himself to be murdered to take the wrath and judgment of God. we deserve for our murderous ways so that we could be cleansed.

Excellent. Isn't that the opposite of abortion? Yeah. I'll kill you for my benefit. Jesus said, you can kill me for your benefit. He offers himself at our place.

Yeah, it's the perfect antithesis to the idolatry of it all as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, we know that we know that God is is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and he forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. And so that's what we want to proclaim to people. And so we we lie to people when we don't tell them honestly what God thinks of their sin.

And so if as a Christian, I promote a law that doesn't truly show people the depth of their sin, I may be, you know, inadvertently, I may be inadvertently sending people a different message about what they're going to see on Judgment Day. And so one other thing I wanted to bring up, you brought up Roe v. Wade. Yeah. And so if I say Roe v. Wade is the law, we just have to obey that.

So maybe we can set up some laws so that if Roe v. Wade's repealed or whatever, we can overturned, I guess, is the word. So how would you respond to someone that says Roe v. Wade's the law? It's just what we have to do. Well, when I started thinking through this, I had to go back and get some civics lessons. because I had totally forgot.

And I had just been thinking that same thing. It was like, well, Roe's law. But in fact, the Supreme Court cannot make laws. And that's kind of civics 101 is the Supreme Court does not make laws. They render opinions and decisions on certain things. And so when people act like Roe is law, it's not law.

And beyond that, we just have to realize that when a governing authority tells a state that they must allow mass murder in their state, it's the duty of the states to say, no, we're not doing that in our state. And so that's what it looks like to defy Roe v. Wade. It's not law. Actually, it's an unconstitutional opinion that the Supreme Court rendered and the states must assert their state sovereignty and say no we not going to bow down to this unjust unconstitutional Supreme Court opinion that was given in 1973.

But sadly, for 48 years, states have done that, and many Christians have done that too, and they, hold on, I've got to plug my computer in. They act like Roe is, in fact, law. so so Roe v. Wade effectively effectively says the state shall not you know make it difficult for women to receive an abortion it's it's kind of like effect it doesn't say abortion is necessarily legal it's implied that it's legal right you're saying that in your state you know you're in Oklahoma I'm in Ohio that that our legislators can can say hey here and here where we are, this is not legal.

This is murder. We're going to treat it like murder. And we don't have to fear that there's a constitutional or a Supreme Court opinion on the matter that people might think we're in violation of because ultimately we're accountable to God and that government's accountable to God. And there's a point when we have to defy a government that's wrong. Yeah, that's right.

So just consider it. But so nobody's free of the of the blood of children on their hands because they're just doing what the government said. Right. Absolutely. I think that's important for us to know and realize as Christians. Yeah.

So go ahead. You're going to say something. I mean, even the Constitution of the United States says that you shall not prohibit anyone from life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness. And then our state constitutions say it as well. Ours in Oklahoma, I'm not sure about yours in Ohio, but ours says the same exact thing. And so Roe is an unconstitutional Supreme Court decision that must be defied. and just helping people think through it states defy the federal government all the time yeah it's illegal you know states would if they overturned bro right there's states that would keep abortion legal so yeah so in oklahoma it's now legal to smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes okay that's illegal federally but we nullified that and said no we're not gonna allow that in our state we're gonna allow people to smoke weed if they need to medically so every time one of my one friend said every time you see a billboard in oklahoma for a marijuana dispensary think our state loves pot more than babies because we defied the federal government to smoke weed But we won't defy the federal government to protect children under the law.

We can do it. We do it for other things like farming and different things like that. We defy the federal government. But we have to defy Roe because that's what's glorifying to God. That's what's loving to our pre-born neighbors. And that's actually what our founding fathers told us that we must do, that the states must defy the Supreme Court or the federal government in general if they do something unconstitutional.

It's the duty of the states to nullify and to disregard their opinions. So in summary, let's wrap it up, but let's give people a couple bullet points to think through here. So if you believe the Bible, so if you're a born-again Christian and the Bible, the whole counsel of God is supposed to be what you love and that's your guide, you must agree with God that any law that simply regulates murder is an abomination.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, so let me ask you this. If like, can you be happy, though, that if a baby gets saved, like let's say a baby really did end up being saved because something happened. We can be happy a life was saved while still disagreeing that with the mechanism that was used. Right.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we can be happy. We're happy when any baby is saved. Absolutely. It really comes down to faithfulness to what God says in his word. And we must we can never approve of murder.

We can never approve of showing partiality to the wicked. We can never close our eyes in any way to child sacrifice. We never do evil that good may come either. That's Romans three, eight. We never allow some evil so that good may come because potentially saying, well, we've got to allow some child sacrifice to try to stop some more child sacrifice. No, no, no, no.

We never do evil so that some good may come. That was a good bullet point summary. You kind of beat me to it there. Yeah, I asked a guy once, I said look I said if I brought a little child in front of you right now and I said if you bludgeon him to death all abortions would end Would you do it And he said well no way Because he knew he couldn do it And that kind of the argument is, you know, we're not the ones that decide if a kid's sacrificed so that others may live.

Our goal is to proclaim that all of it's wrong. All the people that perpetrate it are perpetrating it from hearts from, you know, murder comes from the heart. Yeah. And there are legitimately, there are women who aren't murderous, who, like you said, there's exceptions, there's women who are forced to do things. And anyone who's coerced into a crime is not guilty of the crime in a court of law.

So just let the laws deal with that. Now, we do acknowledge that, that just because a woman's not guilty or just because a woman's not a victim of her abortion, that doesn't mean she's not a victim maybe of something else. A woman could have been treated horribly in a lot of ways in her life. It still doesn't justify murdering her child. And you know what?

If I never adopt a kid, it's still wrong to murder them. I'm not going to adopt my neighbor's kid and I hope he doesn't beat them. Yeah. Yeah. You don't invite every single homeless person into your house and then can't say you shouldn't murder homeless people. No, I agree.

So what we want Christians to do is we want Christians to think reasonably. And we want Christians to think with the mind of Christ and take every thought captive to obey Christ. And ultimately, I think in summary, The point is, is if a Christian was taking their thoughts captive to obey Christ, which is going to be revealed to us through the word that his spirit inscribed for us, we will follow to the logical conclusions that most of these pro-life shenanigans that are going on are just that.

They're just shenanigans. They're just ways to raise money. They're ways so people can feel popular, so people can proclaim their self-righteousness. and uh and ultimately it's the same idolatry that the abortionists are committing they just have a different way they're performing the sacrifice to their false god right one of the saddest things to me is the people who are who still consider themselves pro-life and you should be pro-life as far as what those words mean that's that's not that shouldn't be your approach to abortion it's like i'm just pro-life like no you should be anti-death yeah like make it illegal to murder children but the sad thing to me is that people that are caught up in this movement are doing most of them are doing what they think is right and all they realize and then my experience has been most people when they come to understand what the pro-life movement is trying to accomplish they go whoa i didn't know that i thought we were trying to make it illegal to kill babies They used to say, no, not really.

They're not trying to just make it illegal and abolish it across the board. But the abolition movement is. A lot of people that I've helped see that go, well, then I'm an abolitionist, I guess. Praise the Lord. Go, well, I think it should just be illegal to kill babies. Yeah, it should be criminalized so that they are protected.

And most people, I mean, that's my thesis is that let's open the Bible for 30 minutes. and help people understand what the pro-life movement is really about and does and does not do, because you have to have that as well. And then you look at the Bible and you go, well, I can't do that. That's what we've seen with a lot of people. Yeah, it used to be you just get the list of Republican candidates in your area, and there'd be like a little pro-life column.

There'd be a check. Yep. And I knew behind the scenes with a couple of them that they'd switched that to pro-choice, depending on which district they were in. And but but in the end, you know, you just thought, well, they're pro-life. OK, that's what I am. And yeah.

And it wasn't until people who who cared enough to explain these details to me helped helped me to kind of see it as a Christian. Yeah. You know, and the other thing you were saying, what's so sad is when I'm at the abortion clinic here and I know they don't like hearing it. But, you know, I tell the Catholic people, I say, you know, you're going to burn in the same hell as the abortionist if you don't repent.

And, you know, so that's the other problem I have with a lot of the pro-life movement is it's basically a Roman Catholic sorority. It's gospel-less. Yeah. And even the Christians that join up in it, the very first thing they check at the door is Christ and the gospel. Yeah. And, you know, I'm committed to if I'm part of any organization that tells me I can't have Christ, then I don't need to be a part of that organization.

And I think too many people are happy to fight the pro-life thing. And they think because of the nature of the battle, they need to link arm in arms with Roman Catholics and anyone else who they think agrees about it. And I'm thinking because of the nature of the battle, I need to be even more separate from the world. That's right. I don't know. We go on forever I can wait I hope I meet you someday Yeah well we will someday Well yeah I meant in this life sure But you know we got some mutual friends and I have a lot of respect for you.

I heard your preaching. If anybody, well, you have a sermon audio page, or where's your preaching posted? On your church page? Yeah, we've got a, I mean, you could go to our church's YouTube. That would be the easiest place. It is youtube.com slash Ekklesia Muskogee.

Okay. So that's E-K-K-L-E-I-S-A. S-I-A. Ekklesia Muskogee. All right. So Church Muskogee, called out Assembly of Muskogee.

Right. Awesome. Well, good. Well, so I encourage, so that's Brett Baggett. Yeah. And you're one of the elders down at Ekklesia Muskogee.

That's right. I appreciate you, brother. And I hope that I hope, you know, maybe this will just launch conversation for people. I hope so. I don't know if, you know, an unconvinced person would be convinced for sure after this. But your hope is people would start to investigate those scriptures themselves and the Holy Spirit convict them.

So any other final comments from you? Yeah. If you'd like to look into this more, anybody who's thinking about the difference between pro-life and abolition. We launched a website that is meant to be a one-stop place to understand how we as Christians, based on what God says in his word, should respond in the midst of this abortion holocaust. One-stop site to understand and then get equipped, and it's called rescuethose.com.

So you think Proverbs 24, 11 says, rescue those being carried off to death? Yep. Rescue those dot com. There are six main messages on there. And then there's links to like more study and action resources. So it's one stop place.

That's our intent. One stop place to have a holistic view of how Christians should respond to actually rescue those being carried off to death. Who are who that's happening to in this abortion holocaust. Oh, I see my friend John Speed on there. yeah john's on there uh senator joseph silk oh i see joseph silk yeah yep you know i don't i haven't seen that site i'm glad you told me about that yeah that's we're hoping that people make use of that and so it's it's informative it's trying to be educational as well as so what how do i what do i do i think most pro-life people they think they're like donating to pregnancy resource centers and voting for pro-life Republicans is like, that's what I do.

And then they realize voting for pro-life Republicans is actually not doing anything to save babies. It's actually the pro-life Republicans in our state who are keeping abortion legal. And then you realize, well, pregnancy resource centers are great, but it's not really a holistic approach to rescuing babies that are being carried off to death. So the site and all the messages are meant to help you think through it from a biblical point of view. and then resources to help you take action.

That's great. And then not a victim. I think it's not hyphen or a hyphen victim.com is a really good one to help people see that, you know, these women are not as innocent as doves that people make them sound like. So even if they were, it's still wrong to murder, but sometimes it's eye-opening for people to see that. You know, I said when Gosnell got caught, remember uh gosnell that guy you know i said the worst thing about this guy is that he's he's he's created a like a bad form of abortion that everyone can hate and call ball barbaric while it's all barbaric that's it's all ball bearings that's a movie um but it's all bar if every baby could be killed painlessly in their sleep with a little drug to even make them feel good.

It would still be barbaric. It would still be murderous, evil, and abomination. And so we need to be careful with our distinctions we make when we're criticizing this stuff too. And the gospel is always center. Jesus Christ is always king. He's who we proclaim.

And that is, I mean, that's our goal. And if you want to get involved in abolition and you don't have a local church and you're not covenanted with a group of people at a called-out assembly somewhere with pastors, elders, you need to make sure that's taken care of as soon as possible as well. Amen to that. Well, good. Well, I'm going to sign off here.

Thank you, Brett. Yeah, thanks for the time, Michael. It was good visiting. Yeah, I appreciate you. Thank you for listening to Be a Berean with your host, Michael Coughlin. I am a writer at thingsabove.us and I also have a personal website michaelcoghlan.net You can contact me by emailing me michael at thingsabove.us I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures.