This is the Truth Network. This is the Truth Network. I'm about to blow your mind with a statistic that I just heard a few minutes ago. I'm sitting next to a man who's part of an amazing ministry, Passion Life, all over the world. They're changing lives.
Valuing life, the sanctity of life. I've got my Lebanese brother from another mother, Kalim Andreas, who's just an amazing man of God, a real challenge in my life, a mentor. Iron sharpens iron. Mark, you blessed us speaking today, and I saw jaws drop at our New Canaan Society group. Friday morning you spoke.
When you ask the question, ask it to our audience and then leave that awkward pause so they can think about it. Yeah, if someone were to ask you, To think about all the abortion that takes place in the world every year. Of all the annual abortions in the world, what percentage? of that abortion occurs inside the United States. One guy yelled out 25%.
Another guy yelled at a higher number. Yeah, 33, I think, was mentioned, and I've heard people say 90%. And it's because it's talked about a lot here. It's not necessarily. Um Talk about it in a lot of other places, but the truth is.
The number is under 3%. Under 3% of the world's abortion is inside the United States every year. Which means, and this is what we like to say: that means that 97%. of the world's abortion problem. is left to us to address as a missions challenge.
And that's where Passion Life comes in: we are pro-life missionaries, and there just aren't a whole lot of those. There aren't a whole lot of organizations that use the platform. A family. and abortion and abortion recovery and babies. and ministering to people in great need.
in pregnancy-related crisis and using that as an endpoint. For the gospel, an entry point for the gospel.
Well, Cleem Andreas, your passion is missions. And when you hear a guy who's a pro-life missionary speak, what hit your heart today when you heard him speak this morning to our men? Yeah, definitely Homeland Security. That's how I feel. You know, when we see wonderful people like Mark here, just.
going out of his Comfort zone, being in the game, serving the Lord in tough places, loving on people. You know that this country is being prayed for. A lot of prayer worries, a lot of folks have helped you with your ministry, passion life. Tell us who is Mark Nicholson. Give us a little bit of your testimony, how you came to know Christ, and how you got.
Engaged in this unique ministry that's now going to some of the biggest countries in the world. Christian family, but I really started walking with the Lord through Christian ministry in college. And the Lord used. People in my life at that point to really alert me to the need in the world for the gospel in far. Places.
In other words, missions became very important to me, and I felt a calling to missions. At a young age, and so I've been involved in missions, various types of missions, church planting missions in Tibet for 10 years, and then now serving as executive director with Passion Life Ministries. I'm on an airplane all the time. I tell people I love my job, it's the commute that gets to me, right? You know what that feels like, Khaleem, yeah.
Yeah, so yeah, our heartbeat is missions. We want to see the glory of Jesus Christ lifted up among the nations. We want to hasten his return if we can to any extent that he'll let us participate in that. And again, the most evangelistic ministry I've ever been a part of. In my 52 years on this earth, so far has been this pro-life ministry of passion life.
Yeah. You know, so many people categorize what you do and when you say pro-life, You know, they really, of course the left calls it anti-choice, you know, which is awful. But you have folks that are say, well, we're pro-choice, we're pro- well, this is a political thing. We have pastors even that say, I'm not going to touch that. That's a political issue.
But really, this goes to the heart. Of the gospel, speak to that, Mark.
Now, this is just this. If you said something very quickly there, and I don't know if many people caught it. I caught it, and I think I might have written it down. I took a page of notes in your message this morning. But you said, hey, if someone.
Isn't alive, they can't hear the gospel. That's exactly right. I mean, yeah, one of the beautiful things about Christianity is that we minister to people in every phase of life, in every circumstance of life, whether it's people who need elder care, people who are addicted, people. Did you know that the Braille language was invented by a Christian who wanted blind people to be able to read the Bible? The Salvation Army, the Red Cross, Underground Railroad.
I mean, all these justice ministries that have shaped the world are started by, and you'll find Christians leading them to this day. But you have to make it to birth to be able to hear the gospel.
So we're not one of these people who say the most important thing in the world is pro-life ministry. The most important thing is the gospel, but I've never found anything. where you have an opportunity to introduce the gospel in difficult circumstances into someone's life if you help them there. And sometimes it means starting a business in another country. Can you talk about that and how you're helping certain countries get their population rates back up because abortion has absolutely devastated their economy, their demographics, and all that stuff?
You know, almost every country and nation in the world. on every continent is in population decline. In other words, the population is going to decline at this point worldwide, even if we don't do anything to stop it, it's going to happen quickly. I mean, you said China's going to be, right now they're 1.4 billion. In 75 years, they're going to be half that.
By the end of the century, they're projected to be about 700 million Chinese people in existence. And so the Chinese government is waking up to that. The Cuban government is waking up to that. Even the U.S. government is waking up to that, that you have to have more babies to be able to sustain the economy.
And to be able to be able to have a prosperous, growing nation, you have to have families. You have to have babies. These are good things. Everybody's always known that the the family is the bedrock of a stable society. And when people aren't having babies, you end up with instability.
And so we are encouraging and working with countries. We've established a for-profit business in Asia that is becoming a model for helping serve through hospital situations, serve people in raising the fertility rate or the number of babies that are born by decreasing the abortion rate and encouraging people to consider families. It's fascinating. You know, Planned Parenthood is a massive billion-dollar industry. I mean, abortion is a Huge money maker.
Isn't it fascinating that you, you're not, even without even bringing up the gospel, even out you bringing up God's love of life and the Fabulous Psalms 139 arguments for life. You go to a country in Asia. And you say to them, look, You're going to lose money. if you keep killing these babies and you show them economic, fiscal. Demographic, psychographic.
Evidence For why they should not kill babies. And they're like, that makes sense. Hey, Doc, stop. You know, I mean, Mark, how do we ever? Did you ever think this would ever come to this?
No, I mean, it's really fascinating, but this is the beauty of the gospel: it continues to shock. It's a miracle all the time. But the truth is, you don't have to have. a Christian faith or a biblical worldview to value life. Life is important even to non-Christians.
And so, even though we use it as a bedrock for how we minister and why we minister, it's easy to just take religion out of the conversation, still make a convincing and compelling argument for life among non-Christians. But it's just another way to go in. You may be a businessman, you may manufacture widgets, and you have a great process, and you go to a country like Malaysia and you share with their industry leaders how you do this.
Well, you're there. Using that as a way to reach people with the good news of Christ, just like Mark, you're doing with this amazing pro-life platform, bringing people to the life of Jesus. Quickly, you've got some events coming up. You've got Dr. Gary Chapman, Five Love Languages, Alan Wright, John Piper.
Give everyone a little bit preview of these cool events that they need to sign up and maybe give you a website so folks can come and support your ministry, come to an amazing banquet. Here, this guy, hey, listen, if you like hearing him on the radio or on podcasts, the ways you hear him in person, we're in a biscuit bill that's a little bit loud right next door to the New Canaan Society. We meet at this Riverbirch Lodge. On Friday mornings, amazing group of men. Kaleem is one of our leaders there.
But to speak real quick to these events coming up and how folks can support your ministry and learn more and register and get their tickets and all that, maybe sponsor a table, all that, how that works.
Well, to be honest with you, we do these events in the United States. We do them annually, we do them regionally.
So we have one in Dallas where Alan Wright is gonna come speak for us. We have the one in Atlanta soon is going to be headlined by John Piper. Basically, these are folks who know our ministry, who know us, who trust us, who love what we do, and want to advocate for us by speaking on our behalf. These are fundraising dinners. And the one here in Winston-Salem is going to be on April 23rd at the Benton Convention Center at 6:30.
And Dr. Gary Chapman is going to speak for us that night. I'm going to be speaking there as well. We're going to have a team of people from Passion Life to talk about what the Lord is doing in India. But we've gone a different way this year, Stuart.
We've decided not to require a ticket fee or a table sponsor fee. Just sign up. We're going to fund this trusting that the Lord will inspire people with His Word and what He's doing to get involved and say, Hey, I want to be a part of that.
So it's a free event, Benton Convention Center, April 23rd. Gary Chapman, and you can sign up on passionlife.org. That's passionlife, all one word. I love that website. Let's go back to Homeland Security.
One of our many powerful speakers, I mean, it's time to get in the game. I mean, I love that verse in Proverbs he quoted: you know, if you shrink, In the day of adversity, your strength is small, but God has brought us to this point to be strong in the Lord, in His mighty power. We need homeland security, we need prayer warriors, right? Spiritual. Kaleem Andreos, your challenge about being in a group of men like we just left.
Iron sharpens iron and getting behind ministries like this. What do you say about this, Kaleem Andreos? Of course, you know, you want to be in the game. You don't wanna just watch it from listening. From the sidewalk.
How do you be in the game? How are you gonna share these amazing stories of God's? Miracles way of doing things. It's just showing up in Jesus' name to places where we need to show up. and and love on people.
And tell them about the hope of nation, our Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, what else? What else? And you wanna Go get some stories to tell. And that's the best stories you can ever hear about what God is doing around the world.
The Lord is at work. Join him in that work right now. Get involved in any number of these ministries. Give money to these people, friends. This money is not our own.
It's all the Lord's. You're advancing his message when you're supporting a kingdom ministry like Passion Life. Go to the website one more time, will you, please? Yeah, that would be passionlife.org. That's passionlife.org.
True to the life. Yeah.
