This is Rodney from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we explored manhood within Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Sit back, enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network.
This is the Truth Network. Have you thought about your loved ones and their financial security if the unexpected happens? Plan for the future with PRCUALife.
Do it for them. Since 1873, PRCUA has been ensuring that which is most precious, life. As well as protecting its members and their families financially, helping craft robust retirement plans, join PRCUALife today and take advantage of its affordable life insurance plans, competitive annuity rates, and additional member benefits. Did you know that you can lower your income tax bill and boost your retirement income by opening a new PRCUALife, annuity, or transferring your existing account? Earn up to 3.75 APY with one-year guarantee and $500 minimum deposit. Get to know us better.
Visit PRCUA.org or contact your local PRC representative at 336-776-7456 PRCUALife, protecting life through all its stages. All right, for my YouTube channel, it's If Not For God with Mike Zwick. Just like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell so you'll be alerted when we have our next video. Welcome to If Not For God, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick.
If Not For God with Mike Zwick. We've got my good friend, Pastor Dana Coverstone, wrote a new book, is that right? I have.
It's called Simple Accountability. And it's basically just a 30-year journey that I've been on since college. I got out of college and went through a really difficult situation, reached out to some friends to help me go through this difficult situation. And it became a lifetime of writing a letter to six guys every single week, telling them the things I struggle with, the temptations, the frustrations, the difficulties I don't hold back.
I'm very transparent. And finding those guys over that 30 years has helped me to be able to overcome some sin in my life and some areas of struggle and frustration. It's like having wise guys around you. And it's helped my prayer life, my walk with the Lord. And it's strengthened me incredibly.
And so that book is available on Amazon. I can also sell people a little cheaper. They want to contact me at realdanacoverstone at gmail.com.
Give me an address. I can say how to do that. But so far we're doing well with it. I appreciate being on your show today. I appreciate your friendship. I appreciate your heart and appreciate your sense of timing of what's going on in the world and how strongly you're listening to that situation. So thanks for having me on today.
Yes, sir. Today we wanted to talk about the issue of abortion. There are people on both sides of this. A matter of fact, we actually have a local lady running for Congress. She says that she is a born-again Christian, loves the Lord, but she believes in a woman's right to choose.
I believe it was Chelsea Clinton a few years back. She came out and she says, now I know I'm probably going to get some pushback for this, but I believe in what she calls a woman's right to choose because of my religious background. Pastor Dana, what do you think of all that? Well, I think first of all, the Bible is very clear in the book of Joshua. We are to choose life. Family was the first foundational thing that God created. And he basically said to Adam and Eve, you know, go forth and multiply. He also before that said it's not good for man to be alone.
So the relationship aspect was driven by the heart of God, which is why he made Eve to be with Adam. But the command was go forth and multiply, which means have children. And those children have children.
Those children have children. There's generations of people who will then share the hope of the gospel, life that we have and the purpose of life itself. And so when I hear somebody say, well, you know, if my religious beliefs allow me to kill, I question that. You know, we saw things happen in Europe, Northern Europe years and years ago, even before Roe v. Wade was the big deal here in America. And abortion was just kind of streamlined and brought in. And it wasn't about 25 to 30 years after that happened that pretty soon a lot of the older folks in some of those nations like Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, were basically terrified even to go to the doctor or the hospital because after deeming that life in the womb wasn't essential or necessary or what could be discarded easily, pretty soon people discovered that if you're over 75 years old and you've had a heart attack, hey, you may not be needed for care because your life is useless and used up.
And we need that bed for 40 year olds who's had a heart attack instead of a 70 year old. So what we've seen in life or about life in the last 30, 40 years is that the value of life has been thrown to the wind. Nobody cares anymore. Which is why the abortion issue has to be a primary place because first of all, the Church is the only agency, the only entity, the only group, the only established place that is actually speaking up for the unborn. When you think about who else is talking about abortion, who else is talking about the murder of unborn babies? Well, it's only the Church. I will give great credit to the Catholic Church. Although we may not agree on everything, I am grateful for the pro-life movement that the Catholic Church has really pushed out there, because they have been on the forefront of it.
I'm thankful for the Evangelical Church, I'm thankful for other churches that have come together to realize what's happening. But when you begin to not care about the unborn, eventually you will not care about anybody else and life has no value. And it really comes out in Romans chapter 1 verse 18.
It says, The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and the unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. So really what we're saying, when, if and when we accept abortion, we're saying that life doesn't matter. We're denying what King David said when he said, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Before we were knit together in our mother's wombs, God knew who we were. God knew the purpose and the calling on our lives.
The Bible makes it very clear that, you know, He established us. Even Jeremiah said before I was in the womb, you called me, you knew who I was, you knew the hairs on my head, you knew the calling on my life, you knew when I preached my first message, you knew when He would give the prophetic words that He would give. So when we start denying that life is valuable, we actually are telling God that what He created isn't worth having, isn't worth being around, is not as valuable as He says it was. So that wrath of God will eventually, and I believe already is being revealed against heaven, against us.
You know, the Bible also talks about in Peter, Peter says that judgment begins in the house of God. And I fully, really, absolutely believe that there will be people who will be judged, who called themselves Christians, and yet did not see the value of human life. I've been a pastor now for over 30 years, and in that 30 years of time, I have had ladies sit in my office who are in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, who years ago, without anybody else knowing them, maybe just a mother or father, went and had an abortion because they'd gotten pregnant.
And I'm telling you what, my friends, I have heard these ladies cry and weep, they talk about dreams they have, they talk about nightmares they have, they just can't get over it. I have prayed, and this is no joke, I have prayed with hundreds of women who have dealt with abortion from years ago, who struggled to get through it. And I know that Planned Parenthood and other groups can say, oh, it doesn't hurt the woman, it doesn't hurt the baby, it's this and that, but the emotional scars and the emotional wounds, it really hurts people. So when I see a pro-choice movement that denies who God is, denies the value of life, it helps me also understand that if they don't value life before you're born, and we've even got some laws that are trying to be passed that would allow a woman to basically decide after 28 days if she wants that baby or not. So once again, we're seeing a whole new level of the value of life being thrown away.
And the wrath of God's gonna come. And verse 19 of Romans 1 says, for what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power to my nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world. You cannot, you know, you're a father now, and you understand the incredible joy and feeling you get when you hold that baby in your arms, you realize, wow, this was the product of mine and my wife's, and this child represents me, it looks like me, it looks like my wife, this child has value. And even though that baby cannot do anything for you, so to speak, you still love that child unconditionally, because wow, this is the greatest gift of its life. You actually created something with your own bodies that becomes a reflection of who you are, and even more than that, a reflection of who God is. And so when we start saying that what God did or what God made isn't worthy of value, or it has no value at all, we're putting ourselves in a very, very dangerous situation.
That's definitely, you know, how I definitely feel that way about this topic. Yeah, and one of the things that people will say is, they'll say, well, some women need to get an abortion because it could ruin their career, or if they get pregnant when they're younger, it could ruin their lives, where they're not going to be able to get a job and make as much money as they could because they have this child. So some people on the other side, they'll look at it, almost the baby is a hindrance.
What do you think? I understand that some people want to try to put their own life out there, or the excuse that, well, hey, we're going to have to make more money, or we can't afford this. I also have prayed with a lot of folks who are trying to adopt, and I've seen families who are able to adopt after four to six years. I've seen people raise a lot of money to bring kids from other nations.
But the other thing I see about this is that I've got a personal experience with something. I've got three kids, when my youngest daughter was in the womb, my wife, it was about five months along, and she began to have serious issues with blood pressure, to the point that she had preeclampsia so bad that my doctor actually talked to my wife and I and said, look, she was a Christian, she was a solid Christian. She said, I have to medically tell you that at this point, there's a chance that you could lose this baby, or your wife, she said, and my wife, or you could die in the process. And so we had a decision, and my wife, I looked at the doctor and said, you know what, we stand with life, there's no way we're gonna trust God to bring this to pass, we're gonna trust God to take care of this. And that last three months of her pregnancy, it was a horrible, difficult situation.
She could hardly get out of bed, I had to help her to the bathroom all the time, and even get into the hospital. When we got there, that doctor told her, she said, I'm so glad you kept this, but she said, I also realized how difficult this has been for you both, but we were committed to choose life. We had planned for this child, we anticipated this child coming, and so I remember the doctor that day saying, I really believe it's gonna be all right, she prayed with us, and we had the baby, and everything worked out. But I heard that doctor say to us, I have to offer this to you as a medical professional, because you could die or your baby could die. So I sat there having been told by a doctor that my wife could die or my baby could die, or both could die in the process of childbirth. And I knew that there had been other people who had gone through that, who had dealt with that, but at that moment, I had to honor what God's word says. And in that moment, I found the faith and the strength of God in my own life and my wife's life.
You know, that little girl is now 20 years old and just graduated from college, and has an incredible, talented voice, she's very gifted in music. And there were no complications whatsoever. And my wife dealt with all that. And it was my wife who had to carry that, you know, this possibility of death or whatever, but we just trusted the Lord. And it wasn't easy. People say, oh, we are pastors, it should be easy.
No, it wasn't. There were moments at night when my wife's blood pressure was so high, I had to run to the ER and worry, you know, what's gonna happen, what's gonna happen? And we lived in a state of prayer. The church that I served at that time lived in a state of prayer for us.
So I was not gonna use the excuse, well, it's gonna sound crazy, but even the excuse, well, my wife might die, that was not an excuse. I trusted in a God who, the God that I serve is a God of miracles, He's a God of healing, He's a God of grace, He is a God of life. He's the God that breathed life into my body when I took my first breath out of the womb. I was breathing out what God had breathed in, so to speak.
And I found out how to trust God in a deeper way. And so I would say to so many people out there that, or saying, well, I can't do this, or I can't have that. Look, a child is a blessing. And yeah, I understand there are moments and times when the financial things can get a little scary and a little hairy.
I understand there's moments when careers can be looked at, but you know what? We make that choice to have a child. When God allows our opportunity, it has an opportunity for us to allow a child in our lives. It's a chance for us to reflect how much we love that child by honoring God's purpose of choosing life.
And so if and when we start saying, well, you know, a baby's not important once again, we have taken the value out of life and said, our choice, our decision is more important than the life of this child that God has given us. And whether it's planned, unplanned, whether you're married or not, life is still life. That definition doesn't change. It's not altered.
It's not dragged down anything. It is still life. From time to time, I have conversations with people. And you know, the world right now is in a crazy place.
And there's food shortages come in and those sort of things that people are talking about. And a lady called me two years ago, and she said, Pastor Dan, I don't know how to prepare. I've got three special needs children, and I don't know what I'm going to do. And she said, what should I do? And I said, honestly, I don't know.
I've got three kids, do not have any handicaps or physical or mental disabilities. I said, I don't know how I would do that. I've worked with students like that. We have folks that are special needs in our church. But I said, you know what?
I don't know. But if you pray, God will show you what you need, what you're going to have to have. And I prayed with them for several months, later heard from them, hey, God gave us this wisdom and this idea, this understanding. And I was so grateful that this family who had adopted these children said, we want these kids to know that they're loved. We want these kids to recognize that they've got life and purpose and hope.
And so I'm grateful that there are people, regardless of other situations out there, that have said, you know what? This baby's not perfect. This child doesn't have all the advantages that it could have. But we're going to love this child. We're going to help this child. We're going to share this child's life. Even if they know they may have to raise that child for the rest of their lives, in their adult lives, what they're saying is, life matters. And my hope would be, especially in the church world, is that people would say, you know what? We're going to honor life.
We're going to honor life. And I'm one of those guys, I don't support abortion for any reason. OK, if somebody gets raped, hey, there are still people who are willing to adopt children. I know families that cannot have children. That's all they want to do is have children. And they can't.
There's some physical situation on one or both. And there are lines of people who want to adopt. The other thing that I see in that is that, if we start denying the value of life, we literally ultimately deny the value of the God who made that life. And once you start telling God that what He's doing isn't good, isn't needed, isn't necessary, the Old Testament, especially through Numbers and Deuteronomy, He says things like, remember what I'm telling you, remember to follow these commandments, be faithful, to follow these commandments and these statutes, be faithful, do this and do that. And basically, He kept reminding them to remember what He told them, remember where you came from, you came from Egypt, you came from this, you came from that, remember what I did.
And when you're in this new land, this promised land, you've got to follow these rules. And so if and when the church starts accepting abortion for any reason, we will go down an even slipperier slope and get further away from the value of life. We have a creator God, and when you're a parent and you've created this child and you bring them into the world, God honors that life, but He also wants you to honor Him by raising that child in the right way. That's why the Bible says, train up the child the way you should go and the angel will not forget it. It's not a guarantee that your child's going to do everything right, but it means those foundational things you teach and you put into them will be held onto and probably come around back to in life as they walk away from it. So it's more than just having a baby. It's about recognizing the life that that child brings and that God is honored. As a parent, you and I are both honored to have children. It's an honor from God for us to raise and to be entrusted by Him to invest into those children as they grow the laws of God, the commandments of God, how we shall walk and live, how we should glorify Him. So my hope and my prayer is that the church really wakes up to understand that this life thing is not something you just throw away.
It's important. And the way that we value life now is how we'll value life later on. There was an old story that's told of someone who was an older person was in their home and they had made them, like a parent, and they made them sit at a little table because they started as they got older, they couldn't control the fork and the spoon as much and they were having trouble with spilling some food and things and so this guy, the grandchild's father, yeah, the kid, trying to explain about, sorry about that. Parents that moved their parent in, okay, and the younger parent made the father sit at another table, like a kid's table, because of the messes and things. And basically, the child that's in the house realizes that he basically says to his dad, he said, Dad, am I gonna have to do this with you and put you at a table by yourself when you start making messes? And the dad woke up very quickly to what he was doing.
They brought the father back to the table and became a family again. But if we're not careful, we will take all the value that there is in life and throw it away. It starts with not caring about the unborn. Next thing you know, hey, if you're 70 years old, you better not come to the hospital because we're not gonna take care of you because we need that bed for a 40-year-old and we're seeing medicine in the medical world, we're seeing things just like that because people have forgotten that life still has value and when we forget that in the church world, we are really in trouble. Yeah, and one of the things that I've heard a lot lately and seen a lot lately is that history is filled with barbaric cultures, but one of the worst though has to be the ancient Canaanites. As was customary in that culture, parents offered their newborn children as sacrifices to their god, Molech.
Do you think there may be some sort of a correlation between Molech and what we're doing today? Absolutely, because if, once again, when we take what God has made and created and we say, this is not good or not good enough or this child will ruin my career or I don't have the time right now for this child, I don't, you know, we live in a world right now here in America, Michael, and you know this, where a lot of grandparents are raising grandchildren. In the small community that I live in here in Kentucky, I see more and more grandparents that are raising their grandkids because their kids have gotten off in drugs or alcohol or running here, running there, or realized that, hey, y'all, this baby's a little bit more than I thought, so hey, hey, grandma, you take this baby and take care of it.
And so those grandparents who are sometimes struggling financially or getting up in years and age, they gotta deal with it. And so in a lot of ways, a lot of things, people just say, well, we'll just, if you don't value the life, you throw it away. And so we are seeing sacrifices of babies millions of years, millions each year. We're seeing the sacrifice of responsibility. It's not just that they're throwing the baby away. They are walking away from their responsibility to foster and care and take care of and maintain and grow and teach and train this child. So it's not just the fact that they're throwing a baby away, they're murdering a baby. They are literally walking away from the responsibility that they did on their own. It takes two people to have a baby. And so when they do that, it becomes that sacrifice to MOLAC or whatever agency it is that we see, but it's also a thing of convenience.
And as I live my life and you live your life for the Lord, we're not called to live a life of convenience, we're called to live a life of excellence, whatever your hand finds to do, do it all to the glory of God. And I know a lot of people also who got pregnant out of wedlock, who didn't know what to do. And yet those kids that were born became great leaders and greatly gifted by the Lord. And I'm thankful for those mothers that said, you know what, even if I have to do this alone, I'm going to do it.
And I know plenty of single moms and single grandmas who are taking care of their kids and their grandkids. Everybody else walked away, everybody else left, except these people stayed focused. And in that sense, they're honoring God's word to life. And my fear is that the judgment that's coming to this country, and already is here, and the judgment that's coming to the church, it's going to be because we did not accept life as it's true reality. It comes from God. It's something that God speaks into us. And so when abortion literally, in my mindset, it's a sacrifice of responsibility, the absolute murder of an unborn baby who has no voice. I think it was Ronald Reagan who said, all the people who support abortion have a voice.
And I've never forgotten that little phrase that he said. He was bringing out the point that the unborn baby has no voice. And even that child thrown to the fires backed by the Canaanites and Assyrians and those groups, those babies had no clue what was about to happen. I cannot imagine how hardened your heart has to be to take something that was conceived in love and throw it into a fire. And to hear whatever agony comes from that child, to not value life like that, and to throw a baby away, it shows you the hardness of heart. And so we are the Assyrians, we are the Canaanites, we are those cultures that just say, we don't care about life.
And if that culture gets accepted in the church, we're in even deeper trouble than we think. Yeah, and I'm starting to see that a lot of the people who say, well, a woman should have the right to choose to kill her own baby or not. I see some of these same people saying, well, Pastor Dana or Mike, if you're a man, you can just choose to be a woman. Well, if a woman says, well, I don't want that baby, you know, a guy can say, well, I don't want you as a wife. You know, why not have five or six other people out there?
It becomes, in other words, it becomes a way to absolutely disbelieve reality. They're a thing. You know, I was born a man, a physical man. How do I know that? Because the doctor looked at me and said, that's the boy. And the doctor did the same thing with you. And over the years, nobody's had any questions about that because we knew what we were. Biology was assigned to sexes. Biology basically said, this is it. Bible says male and female, he created them. And so when someone says, oh, just, you know, I want to get rid of this baby, a lot of times, they are disbelieving the reality that they're in.
And I'm sure there are things that shock people and shock us. But the point is, when you say, I want to get rid of this child, you're saying, I want to get rid of something that God made. I want to get rid of something that God's allowed to grow inside of my womb. I want to do away with the responsibility of having this child. And you know, even now, I know there's a lot of people posting about, well, I've had an abortion.
I'm proud of this and I'm that. I think I know better. Because once again, I've talked to hundreds of women who have major, major trauma, emotional nightmares, on a consistent basis.
Even 30, 40, and 50 years later, they're having nightmares. So for someone to say, oh, it's just a tissue glob or a bunch of cells, no. No, it's not. It's a life created by God. And when we choose to destroy it, we have basically said, God, what you've made is not good enough for me.
Not at this time, God, it's not convenient. I believe there'll be greater judgment that will come into church because of those opinions. I'm a pastor.
I get yelled and screamed at all the time, from my opinion. But I stand with life. And I believe the wrath of God will absolutely rebuild against those who just take life as a non-value thing. So I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. And you're fearfully and wonderfully made. And those that are listening to us today are fearfully and wonderfully made. And that means God's put His stamp of approval on us.
We're hit. And He breathed life into us. And I want to make sure that my life glorifies Him because of that.
That's right. Every single life has value. Pastor Dana Coverstone, I'm so glad you could come on. I believe the website is endabortionnow.com. You guys want to get involved, we go outside the abortion clinic every Saturday. And we pray outside of the abortion clinic for abortion to end. As a matter of fact, every Wednesday, we were fasting and praying. And then guess what happened to the abortion clinic in Greensboro?
They're no longer open on Wednesdays. We started doing that other days. And so if you're saying, well, what can I do about this? What can I do to get involved? I would look at an organization called Love Life. We're involved with that.
I would also look up that website, endabortionnow.com. And Pastor Dana Coverstone, thanks for coming on again today. God bless you. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. If not for God. All right. For my YouTube channel, it's If Not For God with Mike Zwick. Just like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell.
So you'll be alerted when we have our next video. Consider joining the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, also known as PRCUALife. PRCUALife is a fraternal benefit society that offers a variety of different life insurance portfolios for all stages of life. PRCUALife also offers fixed index annuity plans with the yield up to 3.75% APY. As a fraternal organization, the PRCUA provides member benefits, such as education scholarships, sports tournaments, numerous Polish American cultural programs, and much more. To become a member and for more details, visit prcuA.org or contact local PRCUA representatives at 336-776-7456. Consider joining the PRCUALife this week. This is the Truth Network.
