When Saturday Night Live Clowned About Abortion

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network today in particular if you are a woman who had an abortion in the past or if you're a man who paid for or participated in an abortion. I'd love to hear from you today 866-34-Truth, 866-348-7884.

This is Michael Brown. Welcome to the Line of Fire, your voice of moral sanity and spiritual clarity. We are going to play clips from Saturday Night Live this past Saturday. It's gotten a lot of attention. The video that we're going to play for you has been viewed well over 4 million times online and then who knows how many other times it was viewed on TV and in other formats.

I want to get your response to this if again you participated in an abortion, either you're a mother who aborted her baby or you are a father who paid for or participated in the abortion of your baby. 866-34-Truth, I want to take you through this skit which was on Saturday Night Live. Now this doesn't make me holy or special but I've never watched Saturday Night Live in my life. To my memory, I've never seen Saturday Night Live live. Watch the show on TV. Now I've seen clips now I've seen clips many many clips and read about the skits for years and years and years of course Saturday Night Live has been famous or infamous depending on your point of view but a friend sent this to me I was reading about it then a friend sent it to me so I watched the entire clip and what we're hearing the people are praising this and MVP performance and Saturday Night Live the whole show instant classic and this is helping many women who have had abortions now to to speak honestly and openly I find the whole thing utterly appalling utterly distasteful and anything but funny so here and there I'm going to give you a description of what's happening on the video or what happened on the video but you'll all be listening to this this is from Saturday Night Live we'll play a few clips it's three minutes and change break it up and then I want to get your feedback I want to give you my thoughts on this as well eight six six three four truth clip number one the supreme court heard arguments this week in women's whole health v texas about the controversial texas law that essentially bans all abortions after just six weeks here to cheer us up well this can't be right goober the clown who had an abortion when she was 23. so goober you had an abortion when you were 23. hey whoa slow down I'm a clown let's clown him around hey smell this flower you're not gonna squirt me are you oh I would never okay oh got you got you I had an abortion the day before my 23rd birthday okay it seems like you do want to talk about your abortion actually I really don't but people keep bringing it up so I gotta keep talking about freaking abortion but it's a rough subject so we're gonna do fun clown stuff to make it more palatable all right so to start off she's here to quote cheer us up right they say she had an abortion when she was 23 and the crowd laughs at that and then she's talking about it her her flower and her lapel squirts the host and then she says yeah it's a rough subject but we're going to make it more palatable you know here she is in a clown suit clowning around about it and if she's saying that saying we the the her bow tie is spinning rapidly you know the clown bow tie is is spinning okay let's continue it gets well you decide let's keep listening and I wish and I wish I didn't have to do this because the abortion I had at 23 is my personal clown business but that's all some people in this country want to discuss all the time even though clown abortion was legalized in clown v wade in 1973 here can you stop saying clown abortion what is this it's a worm I don't know hey hey did you know one in three clowns will have a clown abortion in her lifetime you don't because they don't tell you they don't even know how to talk to other clowns about it because when they do talk about it if you were a clown who wasn't the victim of something sad like clown says they think your cloud abortion wasn't a righteous cloud abortion I mean what the is that I don't think you can say that word on the show abortion well I guess kind of you know it's funny Colin we're having fun just laugh hey pull my finger no laugh I need it I need you to laugh so hard like the way I laugh when the doctor asks if I got pregnant on the way over to the clinic because I wasn't very far along and that is one of my favorite jokes to this day all right so whatever the intent of this is friends this supposed to free women up to talk about painful subjects I I cannot personally imagine a less taste oh you should find even more untasteful ways to do it but just as being done I can't imagine a less tasteful way a less ugly I mean it is so untasteful I should say less untasteful way it is it is so ugly and laugh and and there's no humor in what's being said and and you know some women are clown so clown v wade and clown abortions and they they keep talking about it they keep talking about it as far as I can tell folks in the shout your abortion side folks on the Planned Parenthood side have been talking about abortion and a right to abortion day and night year in year out and when pro-life women so pro-life women who had abortions in the past don't know how to address this all right one one more clip let's listen I love that joke it's such a good joke not like a funny haha joke but like a funny you're not an awful person and your life isn't over now Joe the best time a honka honka good horn good horn feel her horn I'm not a clown and in the waiting room they had a little guest book where all the clowns could write their clown abortion story for the next round to read it so she wouldn't feel so alone a woo-ha and then years later you'll be at a dinner with a big group of clowns one clown will go out on a limb and say she's had an abortion and then like eight other clowns at the table say they've had an abortion too because that's how common it is and then everyone's excited and relieved to be talking about it but it's like wow we kept this secret for so long despite being so grateful it happened so I'm wait are clowns really women excuse me wow okay Colin Joes thinks women are clowns cool oh that's not what I said let me do some helium okay Colin here's my truth I know I wouldn't be a clown on tv here today if it weren't for the abortion I had the day before my 23rd birthday clowns have been helping each other and their pregnancies since the caves it's gonna happen so it ought to be safe legal and accessible we will not go back to the alley I mean the last thing anyone wants is a bunch of dead clowns in a dark alley how about a bunch of dead babies in a garbage bin how about that how about a bunch of baby parts of dead babies in the products of conception containers in the back of a planned parenthood clinic how about that all right ladies mothers those who had abortions how does that skit strike you does it help would that help you talk about abortion and to me it is so utterly degrading it is degrading to the memory of the baby it is something to be tossed away so you can have your successful quote clown career to me the very thing we need to do is is have safe places for women to talk about pain they've endured or guilt they've endured or pain they still carry to have safe spaces where they can they can talk to others and say hey it's not all that it's cracked up to be and to express regret or second thoughts and things like that you don't do it by putting on a clown suit oh there's much more to say and there's more to hear about her own background this didn't come up in the show but others have been talking about it online so I want to get to that I want to talk about that but right now let's let's hear from you eight six six three four truth uh an anonymous caller from Missouri welcome to the line of fire thanks for calling hello Dr Brown um I just I wanted to say that I'd had abortion in 1979 I was 21 and the worst part about it was that I had gone forward and joined you know to be baptized and I joined the church um about five or six years earlier but I had a life of a lot of upheaval anyway and then after I had the abortion I just um I left church for about 15 years and I finally came back to church and you never get over it I mean I know the Lord's forgiven me but I don't know how I could have done it when I said I was a Christian I believed I was safe but I don't know and this was this was in 1979 yes and and it brings you to tears to this day even though you know you've been forgiven not always do you believe yeah do you believe that Jesus died for the sin of abortion like all other sins oh yes and look if you if you sinned knowingly in the light or if you sinned in ignorance in the dark either way when you come into repentance he does forgive and he wants you to know that forgiveness yeah I know it just things trigger it and I could start crying sometimes yeah over it again well can I tell you this I can't I literally cannot tell you how many calls I've received from mothers just like you with abortions decades in the past and the moment they begin to talk about it they break down crying just like you I mean friends everyone listening watching please hear this message it's not the way it's cranked up to be especially if you know the Lord that the consequences are severe when you hear that skit how does it make you feel the clowning around about it oh it's like fingernails going down the chalkboard or something it's oh I think about the Lord it's terrible well listen may the Lord use your story even today to help a listener who's considering abortion who's who's going through their own set of upheaval and crisis and and they really they don't know a way out and it seems to them to be that the best solution is as painful as it may be may they hear the cry of a woman now decades later over 40 years later still things trigger the pain I mean those who've had abortions really come to know forgiveness in the Lord if you've never repented of it and confessed it a sin to God please do from the heart feel the weight of it and then let him cleanse you and and wash you afresh so that you can you can live and minister life to others of the pain that you've experienced 866-348-7884 is the number to call hey thank you so much for calling and opening your heart to us your sister we'll be right back change the world it's the line of fire with your host dr michael brown get into the line of fire now by calling 866-344-TRUTH here again is dr michael brown thanks friends for joining us today on the line of fire for many months and years to come we can feel quite sure that the subject of abortion will be front and center here in america with major bills being passed with major supreme court decisions being made with pushback that is going to continue intensely in the days and months and years ahead and as we pray for revival and awakening and we pray for the changing of hearts remember we always want to see hearts change and with that laws change as opposed to only laws change hearts change laws change you can see greater cultural change 866-344-TRUTH 866-348-7884 again if you watched or heard the skit from saturday night live if you saw it on tv if you just heard it now on the broadcast and you've had an abortion let us know your feelings let us know how you would react as someone especially a woman the apparent target audience from what we're reading that this again it's it's in the skit but now others are saying yes yes this is going to help women not feel bad about what they did open up conversations let me ask you one other question i'd love to hear from you in terms of your own feedback your own experience and i know it can be difficult to call in feel free to call completely anonymously not even mentioning where you live if that's important to you but the fact that people feel that level of shame and pain that over 40 years after an abortion they still don't want to use their name on the air that's saying something so here's another question again for those who in one way or another were involved in abortion yourself either as the mother or the father what could the church do better to minister to women who've had abortion is it a matter of talking about this more we're going to talk about pro-life issues for sure and saving the lives of babies as we should and many of the key pro-life leaders are themselves women and some of them had abortions in their past so they really can speak to these things many others are mothers who have not had abortions some are even single women standing for the lives of the unborn but first and foremost we need to hear from the women obviously as those who are most affected but what could we do even better to minister is is it to recognize how many women are in our midst who are hurting how many are secretly covering up guilt or shame what could we do better to minister life to minister wholeness all right as you think about that and call in let me move over to something else in the background to this Saturday Night Live skit and when I see someone like Cicely Strong doing this I don't know her at all having followed her career don't know anything about her as a comedian don't know her larger life ethics zero all I know is these these few minutes of seeing her on tv and this about her background so so check this out this is what makes things more painful and Saturday the SNL and Review Experience tweeted this out September 4th of this year at the Planned Parenthood headquarters in Chicago Cicely Strong was the receptionist who opened the hate mail opened the office answered the phone Dr. George Tiller was fatally shot in the head by anti-abortion extremist Scott Rotor while she worked there at Planned Parenthood okay so she would experience the very worst the very ugliest the most violent hateful side of those who oppose abortion if someone kills an abortion doctor they cannot call themselves pro-life because they murdered in the name of in the name of life as grievous as these acts were you don't just decide to take this person's life that is a violation of pro-life that's why you have so many millions of Americans genuinely concerned about the life of the unborn and strongly feeling a pro-life conviction and yet they are not going out killing abortion doctors it's horrific when it happens it is it is not the way our system works however it remains exceedingly exceedingly rare why because we are pro-life people we are pro-life followers of Jesus so we don't take a life in the name of being pro-life in terms of murdering someone she's also opening the hate mail according to this account so let's take it for exactly what it says that means she's getting the most vile hateful ugly letters attacking her attacking Planned Parenthood attacking everything they do and it's often Christians or people writing as Christians or even quoting scripture and damning them to hell and expressing utter hatred now we should have a hatred for the act of abortion we should have a hatred for the sin of abortion we should have a hatred for the destruction of lives and the shedding of innocent blood and and the negative impact is that this ultimately has on all involved including abortion clinic workers and doctors they may not think there's any negative impact but there is there must be on their lives as they're doing this we and hate all that and stand opposed to it while still wanting to see those involved come to faith come to the Lord be set free and and I remember many years ago a friend of ours she was a PhD in biology she was probably in her 60s then looked very much like Barbara Bush all right if you remember Barbara Bush the mother of George W Bush wife of George HW Bush a gray-haired lady and actively involved in pro-life and she was could it be Buffalo New York I don't remember for sure but I think it was Buffalo New York she was involved at a pro-life event and they were there part of operation rescue camping out in front of the abortion clinic and then you'll get arrested you know you get carried into the the the into the police bus you're arrested you're booked at the precinct and then you pretty much go home the one time I was involved with it with our two daughters that's what that's what took place but you're making a statement you are sending a message and you yourself are getting stirred and broken over the sin of abortion so she was there she was on the bus and arrested with all these other pro-life women and another woman who was protesting was a pro-abortion called pro-choice protester and she was somehow rounded up in the crowd and was arrested and put on the bus and she was shaking like a leaf according to her friend she was shaking like a leaf so this is late 80s early 90s when this took place because she thinks the worst of the pro-life movement she has believed every negative thing that's been said she has believed every negative stereotype and caricature and she thinks that this is how the people are this is and so she's on this bus with all these women and she's petrified well she ends up coming to faith by the end of the day because they just ministered the love of god to her and they told her the truth about jesus and she got to know who they really were and heard the message and came to faith so if if we are going to play into the negative stereotypes we make god look bad we drive people away we only exacerbate the problem we can guarantee that they will be all the more an advocate against us as opposed to what paul says in romans 12 that we overcome evil with good that we demonstrate the love of god the compassion of the messiah and god's grace and the offer of forgiveness while at the same time standing up for the life of the unborn you say what so you're going to leave women with a back alley abortions see that's the thing there are always options other than abortion and virtually every law on the books pro-life law if the mother's life was literally threatened in other words if that baby was not aborted at that moment that the mother would die in virtually every pro-life law there's going to be a cause to save the life of the mother that that the surgical procedure which is going to now terminate the baby can be done and there are agonizing decisions where the mother and father say they want to have the child even if the mother dies because the child's viable and it's agonizing painful decisions but in every other case there is a choice to be made as painful as that choice is there is a choice there is an option there for example in texas with the heartbeat bill there is funding available in texas to help a woman have her baby and and in the initial stages raise her baby here in in north carolina where i live love uh love life which was originally love life charlotte but has expanded across the state and now to other states they actively work with other organizations and families and individuals so if you determine to have your baby they're folks that will come around you and help and and do the baby shower with you and help get things established if the financial needs to to help meet them so you can get started and and not be behind the eight ball and and then legally in every state you can you can actually go to a fire department a hospital literally with a newborn child say i can't keep this child and the child is given up for adoption and then there are waiting lists if you know early on okay i can't keep this child i don't want to keep this child this child was conceived in some terrible circumstance then then you can say okay i want to give this baby up for adoption and there are lists of people long lines couples waiting to adopt babies newborn to be raised right almost literally out of the room to be raised and cared for by these loving and caring couples so there's always an alternative there's always another way you said it's easy for you to say as a man don't listen to me listen to all the women saying the same thing listen to the women who gave their children up for adoption listen to the parents who adopted the babies joyfully as a gift from god with great prayer for the mother listen to the women who've had abortions listen to those who are on the front lines of pro-life forget me as a man but listen to them and then first and foremost listen to god what does he have to say does he have to say about this how does he feel eight six six three four eight seven eighty four we come back we're going to go to your calls and then i want to read some quotes of of people praising this goober the clown skit why on what basis again to me it's as ugly and distasteful as can be a man it's the line of fire with your host dr michael brown your voice of moral cultural and spiritual revolution here again is dr michael brown thanks for joining us on the line of fire to everyone that was watching on facebook you've now connected with us a different way and you can't watch today's broadcast it is not because facebook banned us because we are talking about abortion rather we played three clips from saturday night live three minutes and change total a skit goober the clown talking about abortion yeah as as sick as it sounds and there's a copyright claim that blocked it right now it appears we're still running on youtube we'll see what happens it's very common to play clips parts of clips etc anyway it got flagged and stopped it's not because of the subject of abortion as far as we know and from what was posted but rather nbc just blocked it because of copyrighted content in either case we continue talking about the subject of abortion 866-348-7884 let me put out a new question for those just tuning in if you had an abortion and you are now a follower of jesus how did you come to grips with it and receive forgiveness how did you come to a place where even though if the subject comes up it still may pain you and it still may touch something deep inside of you but how did you come to a place of knowing that you were forgiven and that you could be in fellowship with god without that hanging over your head perhaps your story could help others who are struggling perhaps your own testimony could help someone that can't seem to get over the guilt because they're thinking look it's it's a life that was taken a life that should have been here i have to live with that for the rest of my life how did you receive forgiveness while not minimizing the gravity of the situation and again what can the church do better as we stand up for life as we are pro-life believers as we seek to be holistically pro-life from inside the womb to outside the womb to the caring for the baby in the womb and the needy and the hurting outside the womb as we seek to do that how could we do it in an even better way how could we change even more hearts how could we help people to see that god's ways are best and that god's ways are ways of life eight six six three four truth so look at some of the positive responses to this clown about clown around abortion skit uh this is sean mccarthy his article on the decider snl recap cecily strong's mvp performance tops an instant classic episode so this is an mvs mvp performance again one of the the most unfunny poorly done things i can remember seeing having anything to do with abortion is called an mvp performance but why for for what reason so uh brian stelter cnn famously leftist news commentator brian stelter said this take three minutes and watch the video if you haven't seen it yet on twitter it has already racked up more than 2.5 million views remember this is from saturday night and as we're speaking live now it's tuesday according to the site's metrics as of this writing as it was last night it's over 4 million views don't know what it's up to even now probably in fact let's just let me just see what it's up to now as far as views uh okay yeah 4.8 million almost 5 million views looking at some other headlines uh this is on the wrap cecily strong wins praise for pro-abortion rights snl segment holy expletive and bravo woman activist renee bracy sherman writes this is wonderful joyful and powerful are you serious wonderful joyful and powerful there's nothing wonderful joyful or powerful or powerful about abortion or about clowning around about it to help free up other women to if you want to free up other women to talk about the pain then do it then talk about the pain honestly talk about how you felt talk about how society made you felt talk about how the church made you feel talk about that you say well you don't understand this has been effective it appears to have been effective and i'm saying is wrong just because something's effective doesn't make it right and which way are the conversations going to go here another headline this is on today cecily strong's clown abortion snl sketch prompts women to share their stories people who've had abortions offered support solidarity and thanks for cecily strong's controversial clown abortion sketch now here's here's what i wrote at the end of my article which you can read on askdrbrown.org gonna say this and then go to the phones uh elissa melano has recently shared that she's very very strong pro-abortion advocate that she had feelings of guilt after having two abortions in her 20s she believed her two miscarriages were a result of her abortions and and she later feared that her children might be quote hurt for karmic reasons she said i definitely had this moment of while i'm being punished basically for abortions in my 20s and she also explained that she had fears that something bad might happen to her children milo and elizabeth due to her decision to have two children killed in utero this is the way someone else is describing it she didn't say killed quote i always felt like what if something happens to these two little beings that i love so much and is there a world in which they're taken away from me for whatever karmic resolution needed to happen so this is some of the guilt that she experienced so as i end my article i say this all of this underscores the need to sit down face to face and have honest compassionate discussions with those on the quote pro-choice side as well as to provide safe spaces for the many women grieving over past abortions enabling them to open up their hearts it's our contrast the last thing we need is someone called goober the clown to clown around about abortion there's any subject on the planet that does not comport with a ridiculous clown skit it's the subject of a portion abortion if you don't believe me then listen to the cry of the blood of the tens of millions of unborn babies who were terminated in their mother's wombs listen to the silent cry of the millions of women who made that faithful faithful choice and are hurting inside to this day and successfully strong i urge you to put away the clown suit if you want to talk about abortion if your heart still needs healing i'm not your judge only you know clowning around will not bring the cure all right with that we go back to the phones starting with an anonymous caller in north carolina thanks so much for calling the line of fire hey there dr brown thank you for taking my call sure um i just wanted to say two things and first to the woman that called earlier that was crying and very upset um i had an abortion when i was 19 and um it took until really a few years ago and i'm in my 60s to um come to terms with that um a local pregnancy center i'm sorry i'm nervous so my voice is shaking no no no go ahead go ahead but um a local pregnancy center that counsels women that are thinking about having an abortion offered a bible study that you know would walk you through hopefully a healing process hopefully a healing process and it was wonderful and so it's that woman i you know i really just want to say to her and i hope she's still listening to find one of those pregnancy centers and get involved in with whatever they're doing and hopefully there is a study or a class that she can go through to find her healing because i knew god forgave me a long time ago but i you know struggle with forgiving myself um and the second thing you asked what churches could do the church that i attend supports pregnancy centers and it's out there but i feel like it could be out there more where it's talked about uh during the service you know for to speak to the young women there that could possibly be pregnant and you know faced with what to do and to encourage them to go and get counseling at one of these centers but um it's and the thing on snl that was it's really heartbreaking and even before i found my healing um which you know there's a piece that's still there because my child is in heaven and and that's another thing i want to say to that woman her child is in heaven woman her child is in heaven um and that's a huge consolation but um i forgot what i was going to say i forgot where i was going with that well let me let me just ask this then to be clear so you were 19 when you had your abortion how many years later was it that you went through the bible study and received healing in your heart oh you know three years ago oh okay so from 19 into your 50s or early 60s okay yeah and you see you carried this somehow in the back of your heart all these years yes oh yes oh my and do you think do you think with many women who are they say they're pro-abortion and shout your abortion do you think that that it's masking pain in their own lives absolutely and i mean it's a sad state of affairs that this girl i guess worked at planned parenthood i don't you know maybe she had an abortion i don't know but yeah she did the the yeah she she did one day before she turned 23 and then worked at a planned parenthood and opened would be hate mail etc so but but and then on the practical level then what you're saying is okay the church supports the pregnancy life center which is great because many churches don't even know if there is a pregnancy life center in their in their city or in their community so they they support it but it would be good periodically every month every few months to say hey if you're here and you've had an abortion uh or if you're here and you're contemplating abortion or maybe you're a father and you've gotten a girl pregnant a wedlock and you're talking to her about abortion hey we want to encourage you go this pregnant pregnancy life so in other words bring it up more often because otherwise it's out of sight out of mind right right yeah and it and it uh and it fosters secrecy yeah and um even though i didn't say my name or anything no no but that's that's fine though that that's fine again it's one thing to be sitting down with friends in a church setting it's another thing to be on on a national radio show and giving your name so that that's perfectly fine not to but you know the thing again is yes let's bring up the discussion but not through a clown suit and clowning around about it because ultimately you trivialize it and ultimately you yeah so maybe you're fighting the pen well then say i'm fighting pain instead of putting on a clown suit so again and here we've heard from a couple of women so far who had abortions and either like fingernails scratching out a chalkboard or heartbreaking those are the words they describe to give their reaction to the snl skit we'll be right back it's the line of fire with your host activist author international speaker and theologian dr michael brown your voice of moral cultural and spiritual revolution get into the line of fire now by calling eight six six three four true here again is dr michael brown and we had a couple of other ladies on hold that i was ready to get to and i guess he had a drop out if if you're still available give us a call maybe you thought the show was over or something eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four i'd love to hear from more of you if possible i've learned a lot doing daily talk radio now for more than 13 years five days a week sometimes two hours a day at least one hour a day every so often broadcasts are pre-recorded because of travel schedule or being overseas ministering something like that but otherwise we do our best to be live every single day one reason is we can comment on what's happening in the world around us in real time another reason is that we can hear back from you we can get your feedback we can get your response we can have some give and take and then of course another reason is that you can just call in with your questions on all different kinds of subjects so by choice we are on live radio but i want you to know that it has enriched my own life that your calls and your perspectives have expanded some of my understanding or deepened some of my understanding or challenged some of my understanding so for example when it comes to the subject of abortion did i already know that many women who've had abortions and are believers still deal with pain and tinges of guilt over the years yes i knew that i've understood that first from hearing it over the years secondly secondly reading about things thirdly common sense would say the gravity of of this especially if you come to the lord afterwards and you think about what you did however what was a revelation to me was how many women and men as well that we've mainly heard from women decades after the abortion and some of them saved for decades but decades after 30 40 years after the abortion get on the air and start to cry break down weeping because it remains such a raw subject to them i i've i was telling a colleague who brought a really strong message about abortion with maybe eight thousand people in the building so crowd that large you've got a lot of women and certainly certainly a good number of them have had an abortion in their past and this colleague brought a very very strong powerful convicting word in the midst of his message about the sin of abortion but did not then immediately reach out to the women that were there and men but it can be a higher percentage of women reach out to the women that were there to the men who were involved in abortions in the past who decided to have abortions and the moment you hear that that strong preaching that strong pro-life message it triggers that pain again and i said hey what you said was great but next time be sure to minister to the to the women that are hurting and then to offer grace and forgiveness to those who've had abortions that have never received forgiveness so sometimes we can forget that look in the same way i've i've had black friends of mine say to me mike there's not a racist bone in your body but there's a lot you don't know well that's the case for all of us in many areas of life start to travel around the world here maybe you're part of one particular denomination and you spent your whole christian life in that denomination in your state go to another state to a church of that same denomination and you'll probably be surprised like oh i didn't know they did things like this in our denomination then go to another country with that same denomination you're like what this is like completely different i guess a christian but i've never seen it ah and and is one way right or the other way wrong some of it's cultural travel overseas and and and find out what culture shock really is talk to people who went on the mission field all full of zeal and passion only about six months or a year or two to to suddenly think what in the world am i doing in this foreign culture with my family and nothing makes any sense and the people do things completely wrongly ah culture shock so we all have a lot to learn i don't mean that i've changed any of my fundamental beliefs there there is not a biblical conviction a deep biblical conviction that i had before i started doing live radio 13 years ago that's any different today my my basic biblical convictions my basic biblical beliefs remain exactly the same but in so many other areas my understanding has expanded and then with that you get deeper compassion you get deeper care you get deeper concern so that's why i can talk about these things i can i can speak as as a scriptural voice as a teacher in the body as a leader in the body i can i can speak and give perspective but then there's the perspective look i can bring perspective as a jewish believer that someone else can't because they're not a jewish believer in the same way someone can bring perspective as a gentile believer that's different than what i can bring or as a man versus a woman or woman versus a man but it's really important i want to say it again that we address the pain of abortion the guilt of abortion the shame of abortion whenever we talk about pro-life issues now for those that never even talk about pro-life issues i would urge you to get closer to god's heart and his word and see what burden he wants to share with you concerning the taking of innocent lives and the shedding of innocent blood but all that all that being said to the extent that when we talk about the texas heartbeat bill or the dobbs case that's going to be coming up in mississippi that the supreme court will be hearing or the uh potential overturning of roe v wade when we talk about these things or if you address the snl skit as the clown skit as as i did let us be sensitive and let us recognize that there are likely women that are listening that are in pain and that when you talk about abortion or the sin of abortion or the shedding of innocent lives or the terminating the life in the womb that it's a knife pierces their soul again now are there some that have had multiple abortions it's just a form of birth control you do what you do you're you're not careful with your sexual decisions you do what you do yeah i don't want to have the baby it's not going to work oh pregnant i can't believe it and just have an abortion there are some like that you know there are countries some of my friends work in ukraine said it's very common to to meet people in russia women have had five six abortions it's just yeah just do it it's birth control it's the way you do it maybe they've hardened their heart to a certain point maybe they're at the point where they don't really think about it's just a little medical procedure right but i can assure you if they really come to know the lord then something's going to come up in their heart and they're going to need ministry if they really come into an intimate relationship with the lord they're going to need ministry so pastors leaders talk to women in your congregation who've had abortions if you haven't done that sit down with your with with your wife and and together have these discussions with them and and find out more about how we could more effectively minister to the women and give safe spaces where they can sit and share their story and others who've been through it can minister grace and forgiveness to them and then many of these women may feel called to be pro-life champions they may feel called to get involved with pregnancy life centers they may feel called to be a presence in front of an abortion clinic sharing the gospel sharing the love of god they may feel that to share their stories on social media they may feel to to impact their their teenage daughters with the truths of their own life and experience or they may just say hey god forgave me for that and and i still grieve over the loss but i know he forgave me and and you go on with life and just minister life to others but remember what satan means for evil god can turn for good what would satan means to destroy us and and to discourage us and to wipe us out if we humble ourselves then god can turn that for good you know it it's become it's become a regular habit for me especially when i'm on the road ministering but any day when i'm going to have an especially intense schedule or i'm going to have to alter my sleep schedule and things like that and and and get up early to do particular things to minister or stay up a certain way or do a broadcast in the middle of night whatever it is or especially flying overseas and now you've got jet lag and you've got the time clock is turned completely upside down and on and on and you've got to minister three times a day every day starting immediately when you get off the plane my my mantra the three words that i say i said it this morning when i woke up even though today was not an intense especially intense ministry day but just flying back and then last night starting a fresh day the words that came out of my mouth the moment i woke up were strength out of weakness strength out of weakness it's become a lifestyle prayer for me as much as i feel strong i feel strong in body i feel strong in mind i feel strong in heart i feel strong in spirit i feel energized by god to run my race and and and feel just like a kid with excitement and anticipation about what's ahead at the same time i realize my human limitations and god's no limitations god's infinite possibilities and therefore every day that's my heart that's my cry especially in times of intense ministry lord strength out of weakness i encourage you to have that same mentality out of the weakness of your own life and the brokenness of the pain of the trial out of the challenge out of the difficulty strength out of weakness and may god redeem sicily strong may he bring her to himself and reveal his great love may she get on the radio one day and talk about i can't believe i ever did that google the cry on skit now i really know forgiveness and redemption god bless another program powered by the truth network