Podcast Transcript | About Abortion with Dave Brennan
A curse upon the land: how child sacrifice affects us all | Ft. Lynda Rose | 22 Nov 2022 | Episode 24
Dave Brennan: Let me just introduce you for any of our listeners who don't know you already. Lynda heads up Voice for Justice UK, V.F.J.UK, and I highly recommend their newsletters. I don’t know if it's a particular frequency, but I get these newsletters into my inbox. And as someone who doesn't generally like email, I can say I really do appreciate them. They're full of helpful insights into what's going on in the nation, analysis of the spiritual status quo really, of our church and our country. And I really appreciate the sort of historical perspective that's often brought to bear, and really just looking at culture through a biblical lens. I highly recommend that to anyone who doesn't already get those mailings.
But Lynda, you've been speaking into the Church and nation on a range of issues for a number of years now. And abortion isn't the only one. But it does seem one of the key issues that you and Voice for Justice focus on. Tell us, why does this feature highly on your agenda of all the things we could be talking about?
Lynda Rose: Life: it's fundamental to how we approach everything. Voice for Justice is a Christian organisation, so we're speaking out to protect human rights and protect people from abuse, and protect the Christian faith. And the normalisation and acceptance of abortion goes to the heart of what our faith is, and it has a profound impact on everyone, irrespective of whether they have faith or not. The way that we view life, and view its importance influences how we behave at every level. So it's foundational to the changes that we've seen in society over the last fifty years, and it's also foundational to how we defend Christian faith, how we see Christian faith.
Dave Brennan: Thank you. And thanks for mentioning that issue of the impact this has on other issues. I think that's something that is so important for people to see. In and of itself, abortion is an incredibly significant issue, but the ripple effect of abortion in a sense is even more significant - what it does to a culture, what it does to a society, what it does to families, and so on.
And that's really what I'd love to speak with you about today. And funnily enough I noticed an article that you just wrote for Christian Today, about the spiritual consequences of abortion. That's very much what I was hoping to speak with you about today, and in particular, the spiritual impact that takes place when a nation embraces abortion as we have done.
So let's just do a quick recap for people. We've just passed a very significant threshold in our nation, and a significant anniversary. Could you just update us on what that is, why it's significant?
Lynda Rose: It was the 55th anniversary of the passing of the Abortion Act, and it is hugely significant. At the time, when David Steel introduced it, he said he thought at most there'd be maybe three hundred abortions a year, and this would be just for women in extremis, to just stamp out this terrible backstreet abortion. And don't get me wrong, backstreet abortions are bad. But he massively underestimated the effect. And since that time, we've had ten million abortions. And it is the availability, the ease withs which people can get abortion, that has driven and underpinned the whole sexual revolution.
Because in the sixties, the big thing was about free love, and this was the important thing. Women, and men too, had never been able to indulge that up to then, because there was always the fear of the consequences. And women would not have sex before marriage because they didn't want to have a baby. Shame, horror!
And then suddenly, with the Abortion Act in 1967, there was a way of dealing with this if they had some unintended consequences. They had a right to have sex, just as men had a right to have sex. And this fueled the whole drive towards the loosening of moral values in society. It underpinned the sexual revolution, and that figure of ten million aborted children (and let's not call them foetuses, embryos, or anything else. Let's call them what they are, babies or children) that just shows the fundamental shift in society and how suddenly sex has become a human right for everybody, because they can get rid of unintended consequences.
Dave Brennan: And just to back up what you're saying statistically, and this is even acknowledged openly by the abortion providers, by the likes of Ann Furedi, who recently retired as head of BPAS, the main abortion provider, some 98% of abortions are what we might call for social reasons.
Abortion is a sort of retroactive contraception. There's no medical indication whatsoever. We're not talking about rape, we're not talking about incest, not talking about life of the mother or foetal abnormality. 98% are quite simply, for one reason or another, the baby who was conceived through consensual sex, was not wanted. And that's what the official statistics bear out for us. So it's no exaggeration to say 98% of these are quite simply unwanted babies.
Lynda Rose: They are, and of course we dress it up because we say, “It's the wrong time to have a child.” When is a time the wrong time to have a child? I'm not trying to say that it's easy to make a decision to have an abortion, because it's not. And it scars so many women who have abortions and they know what they're doing, and it's painful. But they've bought into this delusion that there has to be an optimum time to have a baby. With consensual sex, a baby is just showing that the machinery is working the way it ought to be working, and a baby is a gift from God. “It's a reward”, scripture says. And yet suddenly we're saying that's only right if it's the right time to have a baby. And people dress it up and they're hurting themselves because you can say, “We haven't got enough money to have a baby, we’re doing exams at the moment, it’s going to inhibit career prospects,” and all the rest of it, but the knowledge that you’ve actually ended the life of your unborn child is actually horrendous. We're not giving a service to women in perpetuating this myth. And you're right, 98% for social reasons, that is horrendous.
Dave Brennan: And we'll go on to talk about some of those ramifications on women, on families, marriages and so on. But before we get there, let's just talk a little bit about this idea of abortion as child sacrifice, and that's the term that you've applied to it. It's a term I've applied to it, but I know there are going to be some people who will say, “Hang on, that's a bit rich, child sacrifice. Isn't this kind of just religious hyperbole, aren't you just trying to slap some biblical jargon on something to make it sound like a bigger deal than it really is?”
Because of course, in our culture, we just speak of abortion like it's healthcare. It's just a choice. It's just a private decision between a woman and her doctor. Child sacrifice? Wow, that's a bridge too far. So can you make the case for us. Is abortion child sacrifice, and in particular, in a culture that wouldn't see itself as religious? We’d say we're secular, we're post religion, we're postmodern people.
Lynda Rose: Let's explode one of those myths straight off, Dave. We are secular, we don't hold religion? No. Secularism is a belief system. And it's actually an alternative religion because it is hostile to the idea of faith being in any way influential in society, and what we've seen over the last century is an increasing rejection of God.
And if you look at the whole evolution of humanism and secularism, there's a real antagonism towards God. God is this judgemental fairy in the sky who's irrelevant. They don't want that because we've come of age, we can control it all. If we only have knowledge, we have the power.
So there's this real clash of belief systems. Christianity says we are servants of the living God. And God has given us the rules by which to live, and those rules give us freedom. So obedience gives us freedom and brings us to fulfillment. So there's a real clash of belief systems there. So it's just not true to say secularism is just this nice objective little way of approaching things, it’s just trying to keep a bit of balance here. No, it's not. It's a belief system.
But coming back to your point of how we can possibly call abortion child sacrifice. Men and women actually are profoundly religious. Most people will say to you, “I'm not religious, but I'm very spiritual and I believe in all sorts of things.” There is a strong impulse for religion and for spirit, and for faith in all of us. And as we have rejected God, and specifically rejected Christ, we've replaced that with another worship. And in society today, the big God is actually self. It's my rights, I can do what I want. Whatever's good, consumerism, I can have what I want.
We have made a God of self, and the way that we can continue that worship is actually by getting rid of all the things that get in the way, that hinder it. Children that are not wanted are a part of that. They can be sacrificed in order to allow the continuation of this new worship. So it is not fanciful at all to say that children, the unborn, are being sacrificed on the altar of self. Because that is exactly what's going on.
Now the whole idea of sacrifice and why I do tend to call it sacrifice, is when you look back to paganism and what's going on in sacrifice. It's very interesting because sacrifice is very transactional. And from men and women's side, humanities side, it's because they're trying to get some kind of control, some handle on the divine and the divine is often very capricious and behaves quite badly. So offering a sacrifice is a way to appease the divine and to get favour. But it also feeds that divine spirit to which it's being made, so as a sacrifice is made, men and women are trying to get favour, but on the other side of the equation, the demonic spirit that's being sacrificed to is being fed and it's growing. And the ultimate thing, if you go back to pagan understanding, blood sacrifice was incredibly powerful because blood was the life force. So what the men and women are doing in sacrificing blood sacrifice, was giving this life force to the demonic spirit, which was growing more and more powerful.
And that is actually a transactional thing that's happening in abortion. We are sacrificing the unborn on the altar of self and it's feeding into this demonic spirit, that's growing stronger and stronger. And that is why we are seeing the growth of evil in our society today. And it goes at every level. It's not just related to sexual relations, but the chaos that we're seeing in society, the breakdown in family, the fragmenting of relationships. So there's so much loneliness in our society today because people can't form relations with each other anymore because there's no idea of commitment.
We have these serialised relationships and everything is breaking down. Domestic abuse, violence, the figures are astronomical. And again, it's all coming down to the fact that we don't have that stability anymore. Stability which actually comes from faith. The chaos is a product of this replacement faith that we've put there.
Dave Brennan: When you put it like that it's obvious, isn't it? When we worship self, is it any surprise that we end up with an epidemic of loneliness, of marital breakdown? I've even read that amongst students, and you think of students as having a great time, the time of their lives in the prime of their youth and so on. But I can't remember the source of this, but the number one problem mentioned by students was loneliness. You might think they're feeling a bit financially hard up or they got their exams, but it was loneliness. And is that any surprise when we've fed this demonic spirit, this worship of self, that we end up alienating ourselves and breaking down relationships?
I think it's really interesting this term you're using: ‘transactional’. There's a spiritual transaction taking place in this act of child sacrifice, and maybe that will help us to begin to grasp something of the spiritual power of what's going on in abortion. A critical line has been crossed, and I think you could say, once you've sacrificed your own children to the God of self, what greater sacrifice is there to make? It doesn't get much more precious than your own child. And that's something that pagan religions seemed to acknowledge, and that was the ultimate sacrifice. Human sacrifice, especially child sacrifice was the pinnacle, because in transactions, the more money you put down, the more you get out of it.
But tell us, what do you think it means for that spirit to have been strengthened? And I've heard people speak in terms of this act of child sacrifice welcoming or strengthening a spirit of death or a spirit of murder. What's your understanding of these things? What's going on spiritually in heavenly realms, what's going on spiritually in our nation and in our church, when we not only tolerate this stuff, but we actually feed it and we protect it?
Lynda Rose: In giving so much worship to something that is actually hostile to God, and we've put sex in the place of where there ought to be relationship. And that too has skewed everything. But while we keep giving this worship to the demonic, God, I believe, has withdrawn his protection. Again, you see this in scripture. Time and again, God says to the nations, to individuals that sin, that reject him, rebel against him. He says, “I'm going to stand back. I'm going to give you up to the consequences.” And spiritually that is what's happening to us here because as a society, by rejecting God, and God's actually very polite, He doesn't force himself onto people, so He's just standing back. And what we're seeing in society today, I really believe, is just the fruits of our choices, the chaos is coming because we are worshipping the demonic, and we are getting the demonic.
And God is just letting that happen because we've chosen it. So in a sense we've written our own judgement by this and that is the spiritual impact of what's happening. But, and there is a big ‘but’ here, because God is sovereign, He is Creator, and this world is His world, and Hem will only allow this to go on so long.
I don't believe it's right to say that we are under judgement here, but I think we have written our own judgement, and that unless we do majorly repent now, judgement is really coming in this life and eternally. This is serious stuff. I really believe it is.
Dave Brennan: If I'm understanding correctly, your understanding is Romans chapter one, this is what you want, I'll hand you over to it. You want to worship created things? Okay, we'll see how that goes. And we are handed over, which is a terrifying thing. It’s a fearful thing.
Lynda Rose: And don't forget, in Romans two, the understanding gets darkened as they're handed over, so men and women can't see the truth from there. And that again is something that's really evident in society today from our wrong choices. People are just more and more blinded to what's actually going to make them happy and healthy and fulfilled.
Dave Brennan: So biblically we see, of course, that even the more straightforward, (if I can use that word,) the more straightforward shedding of innocent blood, Cain kills Abel, even that brings a curse, doesn't it?
Lynda Rose: Dave, that very explicitly brings a curse. That too is something that throughout the Bible, taking of innocent life is murder and it brings penalties. It brings the death penalty and it always places the perpetrator under a curse. So think about it. We are without cause killing all these unborn children and they are children, and everyone is special to God. Everyone is loved by God. Everyone is known by God. And they're cavalierly just ending their lives. We are putting ourselves under a curse. Now, it doesn't mean to say this is the ultimate sin that cannot be forgiven, because sin can always be forgiven. When we repent and come back to God, there is always healing, because God's love never ends and God does not desire the death of a sinner.
He wants to reach out and to forgive people. That is what he wants, people to turn back to him. But without turning back, we are placing ourselves under a curse. Those who have an abortion are putting themselves under a shadow that they cannot get rid of by themselves. The men involved are also coming under that curse. The medical practitioners who do it are placing themselves under that curse. Our government in sanctioning it, is putting itself under a curse. Because it is all rebellion against God. And it's the ultimate rebellion because it's the destruction of a life that He has made, and it is so infinitely precious to him. Because God knows us from even before conception the Bible says. Jeremiah 1:
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
And over again in the Bible, we find the same idea. Babies aren't just special. God knows us before that moment of conception. He has plans for us from before that conception.
Dave Brennan: I want to just consider the impact that this has on various different sorts of groups of people. We've touched on it already, but I'd love to just dig a bit deeper on these things. We are looking here at the curse that the shedding of innocent blood brings, and as you said, it darkens our thinking. It means we lose God's protection. If we don't repent we face serious judgement. But can you just help us think through, what does this do? For example, obviously abortion itself is an attack on children, that's straightforward. It takes the life of an innocent child. But beyond that what do you think that's doing to our perception of children more broadly, and our concept of the family, and how we treat children generally? How has it changed our attitude towards children and indeed to other vulnerable people groups?
Lynda Rose: I think that's a really good question, Dave, because it's actually saying that children are only special when they're wanted. So it's actually drawing this distinction between the wanted and the unwanted and that actually makes us view people as objects who are only really of value when they're being useful, because it's when they're useful that I want them. So it's actually bringing a terrible attitude into society, it's this utilitarian attitude, that people are only of value while they're actually contributing something and everything else, well, what's it matter? We can get rid of them.
It doesn't just affect how we look at children, but at end-of-life too, because, suddenly people are good and great while they're contributing to society. But if they're not contributing to society, they're a bit of a drain. Do we really want them? Couldn't we use our resources somewhere else? It weakens how we look at others, and actually the Bible says that we should actually respect every other human being, and more than that, we should love them. We should always treat them with honour and with compassion because they are made in the image of God, and God loves them. That applies to us too. We are made in the image of God and God loves us. We are special. So it's breeding this terrible utilitarian approach that is actually so destructive of humanity.
Dave Brennan: It's interesting that in scripture, and in Jesus’ own life and ministry, there's such an emphasis on those at the margins, be it the young, the old, the disabled, the foreigner, the widow. It’s so interesting, such a disproportionate emphasis on those on the fringes, because it's there that our true colours are shown. A society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. That's the measure of it. It's easy to love those who serve your purposes. But what about those who are costly? What are those who aren't like you? It's a real litmus test, isn't it?
Lynda Rose: It is a litmus test, but it's also, spiritually, God is engaging with us from the word go.He knows our destiny and God has plans for all of our lives. And the meanest beggar on the street, God is working with them and doing something in their lives. We don't know what that is this side of eternity, but it's something precious. And that goes on for all of our lives, in every situation of life, God is at work, doing something. And we should allow him to get on with it because he know’s it a bit better than we do.
Dave Brennan: Yes. It's not our authority, is it? It's not our place to say who gets to live and who has to die. At so many levels, it's just not our call. We don't have the right, we don't have the wisdom. And another people group, what does this do to women? Now, of course, the great promise is that this is empowering. You mentioned earlier that you can now behave as the men have always been able to behave. This is freedom for you. You don't have to suffer the cruel oppression of biological cause and effect. But what has this actually done to women, and to how our society perceives women, and femininity, and perhaps motherhood?
Lynda Rose: I think it's had an effect at so many different levels, Dave. It's hard to know where to begin. I think this is a very basic thing because sexual relations have become the norm. It's almost that having sex is like having a cup of coffee was years ago at the end of an evening. And that actually has placed women, I think, under an enormous burden because they don't always want sex. What women want, and I venture to say, I think what men want actually, is relationship. All of us actually want meaning and we want love. We want commitment. We want to commit to somebody, we want somebody else to commit to us.
But this current approach is forget that, it's just sex. And I think there are so many, especially some young girls, and my heart goes out to so many teenagers these days, where the expectation is because they've had all the RSC lessons, sex is for when you feel ready for it. And they might be thinking, I don’t know when I feel ready for it, but everyone around them is saying, “You're ready for it.” And they're being forced into having sex and that is terrible. It's terrible for their self-esteem. It's terrible for how they relate to others and it massively impacts how they are going to form relationships, and are they ever going to find love?
And a lot of people, both men and women now, do not find love because it is being replaced by this casual sex all the time. So it's massively impacting women. And I think more and more too that women are behaving as men, and I guess some men are behaving as women. But it's destroying that unique bit of our nature, our God-given nature, which is beautiful.
And women should not be forced into trying to become men in society, whether it’s in attitudes to sex, in jobs, in relationships, whatever. Women should be allowed to be women, and to flourish and flower as God has made them. Just as men need to be allowed to be men, to flourish and flower as God has made them. But we've got this real unhealthy mishmash at the moment. So it's having a profound effect, and this comes back again to the worship. Because we're worshipping something that is at heart destroying us.
Dave Brennan: I was reminded as you were speaking there, people might have heard this in the States, soon after Roe v Wade was overturned, companies like Amazon coming out saying, “We'll pay for you to have your abortion if you work for us”. So employees get their abortion sponsored by Amazon. Now the interesting thing is, their actual maternity provision is still appalling. If you want maternity leave to actually have a baby, Amazon's not interested. But they'll happily spare a few hundred dollars and miss you for a day to get your abortion sorted out.
Now, which of those two options is really more honouring of women and which do women deep down really want? Or certainly, which is more beneficial for them? It's actually appalling that a company's message to its female employees is, if you get pregnant, we'll pay for you to have the abortion, but we're not interested in giving you proper maternity leave.
And I was also reminded of a friend of mine who began work, I think it was a legal firm, after university. But early on the boss made it very clear to the female employees who are just coming in, these graduates, you're not going to get pregnant, not at this stage in your career, not interested in having any any pregnant graduate employees. So again, the message is, if you do get pregnant, your options are lose your job or have an abortion. Is that really the best we can offer to women? Is it really benefitting women?
Lynda Rose: I don't think it's benefitting women or men, actually Dave, and I think what I'd really like to see in society is a sea change in how we approach the whole issue of abortion. We ought to be strengthening and building up the family within society. We ought to be strengthening men and women to enter into their roles as men and women, father, mother. We ought to be helping them. I think we just need a real sea change there.
Dave Brennan: And it has been a real attack on the family, of course, hasn't it? It's divorced sex from marriage. It's divorced babies from sex. It's really fragmented what God designed to be one thing for good reason. It's not to be a killjoy, but because He knows best. The maker knows how what He's made functions best.
But we've isolated those different things. You can have the sex over here. Don't worry about the babies. Don't worry about marriage. We think we can access them all as and when. But it's surely contributed to this colossal breakdown in the family that we've seen over the last few decades.
It's happened hand in hand. Over the last 60 years, we've seen divorce rates go up. We've seen number of children growing up in single parent families go up. And is it a coincidence that it's been over the same time period when it's been legal to kill your own children?
Lynda Rose: I think it's very much tied, Dave. I think you're absolutely spot on there. But I think it's interesting too that we talk about religion and the family being foundational, but actually quite apart from religion, the family has been the main building block of society going back to the dawn of history. You look at the tribes, you look at the family units within that, it was those units that have always given stability and strength. It was a place of protection for those in the family, and it made them strong. It gave order to the little social group that they were in, and that's what's been so attacked. With abortion, we destroyed any idea of you needing to be committed to a family, and that smashed in one fell swoop this basic foundation to our society. And I'm not just talking religion here, I'm talking of our society. It has done irreparable damage.
Dave Brennan: And the final group I wanted to ask you to comment on, is men. What's this done to men? We're conditioned to believe this is just a women's issue. It's got nothing to do with men. But actually even that's an interesting little phrase. What has this done to men, the way men perceive themselves, what we think of masculinity, what it means to be a man? And what sort of behaviors has it encouraged?
Lynda Rose: That's such an interesting one because at one level you can say men must think it's their birthday because they can have now sex without consequence whenever they want. Wonderful. But of course, it's like eating several bars of chocolate in one go, I imagine. You end up feeling very sick and you don't want to see chocolate again. And it is destroying for them the pattern of their lives. And a lot of men have just lost their role because they're supposed to be the breadwinners, the strength within a family unit, the father figure being looked up to. And suddenly that's all gone. And I think they really are at a loss.
And women have taken on a lot of that role themselves. They've become the breadwinners and the head of the family. So again, men suddenly, what's my role, what's my importance here? And no wonder we're just seeing so much confusion. All this gender questioning, I'm not surprised, because certainly people just don't know who they're supposed to be anymore. They've had too much of what they thought they wanted, and actually it's turned out to be extremely bad, and they can't get back to what's right. And it has led to so much confusion and so much alienation, and just loss.
So it's really bad news. At the very least, we should be urgently, as a society, looking at what we have allowed and saying, “This is too much, it's too far.” We should urgently be trying to limit abortion, because it is damaging.
Dave Brennan: We've looked there at something of the problem. We've seen abortion itself in isolation is a terrible problem, grievous, and just in terms of scale, it's astronomical. Ten million. That's more than the holocaust. Generally, we think of the Holocaust as six million, that's the traditional figure. There will be debates over that, but ten million is such a number. That's more than the current population of London, isn't it? It's a huge, huge number.
But then there's also all the ramifications, the impact on the way we see ourselves, the way we relate. The whole of our society has been deeply wounded by this, spiritually, morally. What's the remedy? What hope can you see for addressing a colossal issue such as this child sacrifice in our nation?
Lynda Rose: I think that's a very interesting question, Dave. I think left to ourselves, most men and women, even though it is such a mess, they still just continue. You see it already with arguments in the media and everywhere else. They just want more.
But it's very interesting with world events over the last few years, and we are facing a situation of crisis. We've got Covid, it's still there. We've got financial collapse coming on as a result of Covid and the war in Ukraine. We've got the possibility of war because, heaven help us, this might spread very easily from Ukraine at any minute.
We've got at every level family breaking down more and more, more and more violence on our streets. It’s getting bad, and I strongly suspect it's going to get a lot worse unless and until people come back to God. And I’m firmly of the belief that God could settle all this in a heartbeat. This is not beyond Him. He could very easily come and sort all this chaos. But He won't while we are still hellbent, literally, on going our own way. We need to come back to Him and need to say, “Sorry and help us please!” And that honestly is the only answer to where we are now.
We need urgently, as a society and as individuals, to say, “Abortion has gone too far.We must stop it now. We are killing off the human race and we are harming ourselves in the process.”But we need, at a more fundamental level, to come back into relationship with God and to say, “God, I'm just sorry that I have got it so badly wrong and gone after what I wanted all the time. We have rebelled. Lord, just come in, forgive us and sort us.” And if we do that, He will help.
So there is no easy answer here Dave, and I know a lot of people who are not Christian will say,“I'm not going to do that, thank you very much.” I think they are going to face a situation where more and more people are going to be confronted with some spiritual realities, and I hope their eyes will be open to God, and they’ll come back to Him.
Dave Brennan: It's my firm belief that the Lord, in His mercy, is allowing these things to happen at the moment in order to wake us up. These should be wake-up calls, and yet so many of us are still sleeping, still deluding ourselves, oh, we can manage this, we just need whatever it might be. We just need to change our economic approach or we'll sort out our education or whatever it might be. We continue to believe the myth that we can sort it, but if we would have the sense and the humility to admit what's obvious. This isn't working. We've gone our own way. It's not working. I was reminded of some scripture as you were speaking. This is in Isaiah chapter 30:
15 “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. 16 You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
Then it goes on to say:
18 Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!
And it's easy to be overwhelmed, isn't it? We look at this great problem and how deep we are into this. And yet there's a sense in which the way back to God is simple and it is quick because of the cross. Because Jesus actually has made a way for us to come back to God, which doesn't involve us having to rebuild everything we destroy, because we can't. We can't make everything right. We can't turn back the clock. And yet in Jesus, the way back to God is made clear and indeed can happen in an instant.
Lynda, thank you so much for spending time with us today and sharing your insights. Is there anything you'd like to share by way of parting comment, or can you tell us how people can find you guys and follow up in the fantastic work you are doing?
Lynda Rose: The only thing to add to what you've just said, Dave, about the Isaiah passage that God promises us that when we turn to him, He will never leave us nor forsake us. And He says,
“Be strong and very courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be dismayed for I am with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6)
And that is something that I think we all need to cling on to because I think we are living in frightening times, and nobody knows what's going to happen. But our God is a God who we can trust 100%. So I would just want to say to everybody, be strong and be hopeful, and trust Him. And be faithful. And we will come through, but we do need to turn back to him most definitely.
And people can find us just by going on the website to www.vfjuk.org and they will find our website and various things there, and how to contact us if they would like to.
Dave Brennan: Thank you Lynda. Would you be happy just to close off in prayer for us? Could you just lift this all in prayer and we'll finish there? Thank you.
Lynda Rose: Thank you, Dave.
Father, we just thank you that you are a God who loves us. You are a God who sees, and thank you that you love us so much that you will not just abandon us to evil and to the consequences of the choices that we have made Lord, that destroy, that brings so much harm. Lord, we want to say that we are sorry for the ways that we rebel, the ways we've knowingly rebelled, and for the ways that Lord, we've just unknowingly and heedlessly so often gone against you and gone against your Word for us. Lord, we pray now that you will help us. We pray that you will open the eyes, ears, and minds and hearts of men and women, that they may see the evil that we have embraced, and celebrated, and promoted in this society. And that Lord we will have the grace to turn back to you and to seek your forgiveness and your protection. So, Lord, please do be with us. And I ask your blessing, Lord, for Dave and for Brephos and CBRUK and all the work that they are doing. Lord just empower them. And may your voice be heard in this society. In Jesus' name, amen.
