Christian Bioethics

[0:00] Tonight we're looking at Christian bioethics. Really it's the study of bio meaning life, the ethics of life really, the ethics of life! and of death. And we're going to present some principles that hopefully can guide us here.

[0:15] It is a bit of a whole can of worms as well. There's a whole lot of questions that people come up with such things. Just for those that are watching you might want to download the info there. We can help you by going to that link, the URL there and you can download it to your device and for those present we've got paper copies so you can follow along.

[0:40] So we're just going to walk through this together and hopefully learn about this important truth because we're all in this. It's about life, it's about our living and about how we live and the sanctity of human life really. There's this truth of the sanctity of human life. In other words every human life is sacred. We're all especially given that blessing of life, the breath of life that he breathes into us and the sanctity of human life it really means that life is sacred. Every human life is precious in the sense that it's God given. We're created in God's image and we've all got an inherent worth. So we're going to unpack some of the scriptures that talk about that theme and really the fundamental foundational one is this right at the beginning right at Genesis 1 first book first chapter of the Bible Genesis 1 26 and it reads and God said let us make man in our image after our likeness. Then it reads on so God created man in his own image in the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. There's this concept they call it imago dei which is

[2:03] Latin for the image of God and that's true for all of us we're all being made in the image of God and it means that every person has that inherent worth that value from conception to natural death regardless of our age ability our circumstances and this is a truth that shapes really how we approach all of those considerations about our health care our medical and life related ethical dilemmas and for a time I did work in the department of health in a couple of roles and yeah healthcare professionals in that sphere they often face some of these dilemmas. I didn't really because I had more of an administrative job but the truth of human life and human life is it's something precious it's God's gift to us so it's something we want to uphold that human dignity and we want to have grace and compassion to we know that there's different minds and views on some of these things but we've got to go with what the word of God says it's not about our opinion it's about what does the word of God tell us about these things so another scripture that helps guide us is Deuteronomy 32 39 and that states see now that I even I am here and there is no God with me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand it's telling us here that God alone holds authority over life and death and our bodies are his temple as safe people it tells of us 1 Corinthians 6 19 through 20 it reads your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which you have of God and you are not your own for you are bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's you are not your own it's telling us here that as Christians we are called to honor God's design our body is something we should look after that it will go the distance and we're called to honor that design of God and show Christ like compassion where there's situations that come up and in today's world it's like the world's got this bias to they call it pro-choice or prioritizing individual choice and they use slogans like my body my choice and they call abortion health care they say my body my choice the thing is though for the woman who's got another human being inside of them it's not her body it's another body and it's respecting that and then they measure again at the other end of life a life's worth by quality of life but Christian bioethics are founded in scripture which affirms that every one of us is a person who bears God's image we're made in God's image and that really sets the foundation and then we aim to respond with that conviction but with care as well we've laughed especially when we're ministering to those in pain or confusion so we're going to look at especially two things tonight first one is abortion abortion so I'm not going to make it garish because I know I could have given you all kinds of garish photos and such things we're not going to do that we're mindful of some of the younger age set here but when you do look at such pictures it's very graphic it's very confronting what an abortion actually looks like and you can watch videos that describe the conducting of an abortion it's quite horrendous and graphic what we want to talk about really to emphasize as far as the biblical truths are in contrast with abortion that as bible believers

[6:08] what the bible should promote us to have is that we respect life and we protect life from conception because life is from conception and the bible shows us that it shows it teaches us that human life that begins at conception when god forms a person in the womb and you see psalm 139 it's beautifully stating just that fact we see it reads there psalm 139 from verse 13 for thou hast possessed my reins like my innards thou hast covered me in my mother's womb i will praise thee for i am fearfully and wonderfully made we're made by god we're made by god it reads on marvelous other works and that my soul knoweth right well and it also reads on thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect he saw us as it were as that embryo as in that fetus as in that little baby the very first emerging of cells into a person and he shaped us from that very earliest point that very earliest stage it's telling us there that he's possessed us or created us it shows god's active role in shaping us and even from that very earliest stage of the baby being formed and another scripture that echoes that is jeremiah 1 verse 5 god tells jeremiah before i formed thee in the belly i knew thee and before that came as forth out of the womb i sanctified thee and i ordained thee a prophet unto the nation so god saw jeremiah even in the mother's womb and he saw what he would become he's formed him in the womb and it tells us there of the value of the unborn and it confirms really that unborn are persons with a divine purpose another example you could look at where elizabeth met mary and of course elizabeth was carrying john the baptist and mary had not long conceived the lord jesus in her womb and it tells of their encounter there in luke 1 from verse 41 when elizabeth heard the salutation of mary they greeted each other it says the babe leapt in her womb and elizabeth was filled with the holy ghost and it reads on she says for lo as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears this is elizabeth speaking she says the babe leaped in my womb for joy so here we have the situation elizabeth meets mary jesus had only been conceived a few days maybe weeks before and the first one to recognize the lord jesus was john the baptist as an unborn baby and he leapt in the womb for joy so you can see there the truth that that they're recognized as alive as living as persons and it shows that even the unborn they've got that spiritual responsiveness i know some mums sing to their unborn babies while they're still in the womb and think of how you can even before they're born you can be communicating spiritually somehow to that little one there's something there that they're hearing the mother's voice they're hearing and they're sensing things even as an unborn baby so you can imagine what it would have been like that there was that encounter and they had that wonderful exchange that it's almost like the two babies the two unborn babies were communicating somehow in that sense and then you see another scripture exodus 21 it tells of a situation here that helps us understand the

[10:11] value of the unborn and of course it's in the old testament context and it's telling how if men strive and hurt a woman with child so a pregnant woman so that her fruit depart from her she miscarries and yet no mischief follow he shall be surely punished according as the woman's husband will lay upon him and he shall pay as the judges determine the point here is that it's equating harm with the unborn as a like to harm to a born person and there's a call for justice there and you look at science it supports this that when someone is conceived they're even just still in those early formative stages at fertilization there's a unique human formed and they've got dna there distinct and so it aligns with the biblical view of life's beginning point is at conception life is there and the person is there and we should value that whereas the world discounts that this tendency for pro-abortion discount that they disregard that but we think theologically like as bible believing christians abortion really it is the intentional ending of an unborn life essentially it violates the sixth commandment thou shalt not kill exodus 2013 thou shalt not kill and then in proverbs 6 from 16 to 17 talks about hands that shed innocent blood now of course there may be some rare exceptions and they're extremely rare for example an ectopic pregnancy where an embryo implants outside the womb threatening the mother's life so the situations that might be quite extreme and rare and unusual where it's threatening the mother's life and so in saving the mother there may be the unintended loss of the child so in all of these situations of course i've i've not had to be there myself to experience such a situation but you want to have discernment prayerfully discern and be making a decision of conscience that takes into account all these factors now of course there's complex cases too like pregnancy from rape or incest where really it still shouldn't negate the truth that this is an unborn person and they are created in the image of god they're innocent for whatever context of their conception and so they should still be valued it shouldn't matter those circumstances shouldn't matter and we know circumstances where someone has faced that and they've gone through with the pregnancy the child has been born and what a blessing that can be and of course there's options too for the mother to have the little one so to affirm life to proceed with the pregnancies really it's fitting with the scriptures and it's the godly thing the biblical thing to do i put to you even where there may be fetal abnormalities really disabilities do not diminish worth we know in in some quarters they would say they might be a downs child but it doesn't matter there's still downs people with down syndrome afflictions that still live a very quite a fulfilling life and it shouldn't discount them they shouldn't be written off just because they've got some disability we know that god can enable parents to cope with that and to go through with that and it's to glorify god isn't it and of course in all these circumstances we think of

[14:11] abortion of course as a church we want to show grace and we want to encourage women and we want to help them to keep the baby that's why we've got as a church we've got this ministry heart to heart that we offer for women who are in those difficult situations that we're going to offer grace to them and it's like how the lord jesus extends grace when he has interactions we know in john 8 11 the woman caught in the act of adultery he says neither do i condemn thee go and sin no more so he doesn't condemn but he helps that one to find grace to find salvation and that's the same with us that's our heart to extend grace and there's ways we can help women who might be facing these difficult circumstances so god helping us as a church that's what we want to do we want to provide for example access to where we can refer on or help ourselves to counseling to support groups to practical help and sometimes it can really help an expectant mum who's contemplating abortion to access ultrasounds for example so when they actually see and they can hear and see the child in their womb that can be a powerful persuasion to keep the child and of course there's ways we can help a woman to access other opportunities to get some support with child care or adoption and all of those things so that can help just convince the mum to keep the child not to give up because of the difficulties they might perceive and that's what we want to be as a church we want to advocate and likewise we support pro-life policies and advocate for them and show that empathy and that human rights issue that it is that we're made in the image of god and there's that beautiful truth that that he's watching over us in the womb he's knitting us together in the womb we should stand up for the unborn next subject is euthanasia i know there's different views on that one as well and it's important to think about because we looked at abortion the beginning of life now at the end of life euthanasia is what some think of it interesting word euthanasia that literally means good death or a happy death euthanasia we're going to look at this subject we're thinking really in the scheme of the lens of honoring god's sovereignty god is sovereign and euthanasia what is it it involves deliberately ending a life that would consider to alleviate suffering often through assisted suicide or lethal injection and there's a conflict here for us when we look at this as much as we might have our different opinions about this or that we've got to go with what does the bible tell us about what is right and not right and we see really that god's got authority over life and death look at that scripture there deuteronomy 32 39 we looked at that one before that god is basically the author of life he's the author of life and then another one here job 121 it reads where it tells of trusting in god's timing and job 121 it tells us there naked came i out of my mother's womb and naked shall i return there the lord gave and the lord have taken away blessed be the name of the lord it's a sense where we're going to praise god for our birth and for our death and we're going to bless him and trust him he gives us life and he takes it away it's in his hands and really the life of every creature is in his hand it tells us that there in the other scripture there job 12 10 it reads of our lord in whose hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind god is the author of life that's what it's telling us isn't it and he gives life he takes it away

[18:16] we're in his hand our soul the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind the life of every creature is in his hand and like we looked at before really our bodies belong to god as well as we read that one corinthians 6 one so taking life even at someone's request it's taking something out of god's hand really it's his role and when you think about life really as much as i've not been in that situation where i'm stood at the deathbed of someone that i love and all of the questions that might come to your mind or if it might be me in the bed thinking about what i should do god has his plan and his timing so hebrews 9 27 we know it reads it is appointed unto men once to die after that the judgment so there's the sense where god's got his appointment we've got to trust his timing his plan so looking at it theologically this next section the theological position so there's different kinds of aspects to euthanasia so the first one there active euthanasia so that's directly causing death now obviously the bible tells us thou shalt not kill so to actively directly cause death is a sin but then you see the next one passive euthanasia and that's different passive euthanasia withdrawing or withholding futile treatments to allow natural death so you could consider the situation i suppose where modern technology is keeping people alive quite artificially if we were alive a hundred years ago those machines wouldn't be operating those that artificial life sustenance would not be operating so you almost got to think if i was in a different time then would that technology be keeping me alive or that one and passive euthanasia is basically saying i'm going to withhold or withdraw that futile treatment i'm going to let natural death happen natural death and that's more you could understand well that's probably makes sense really that that aligns with god's timing as it reads in ecclesiastes 3 2 a time to be born and a time to die a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted and there's others that there's time for basically there's a time to be born and there's a time to die it's going to face all of us with loved ones we care about with ourselves a time to die and really it's ultimately resigning to what is god's timing what is his will and there's that truth though of as it reads there further there's no sense in prolonging a person's dying they're obviously dying and it's almost like you're just prolonging the inevitable by artificially keeping them alive then you could understand really that's not really a requirement for us to keep someone artificially alive and of course you get to that point where someone becomes vegetative where they can't communicate anymore they can't breathe on their own they can't feed on their own there's those artificial things that sometimes sustain people but it's really just prolonging that person's dying and so you've got to have that kind of understanding too well that's some different circumstances and then you've got palliative care which focuses on comfort and relief pain relief so palliative care is a good thing in the sense that it honors life it's alleviating the suffering rather than ending it you make the person comfortable give them as much comfort and care and pain relief and that's really a christian sentiment too and that we

[22:22] should have christ's compassion we think of our lord i was sick and you visited me cares for the sick he wants to have that care we should want to express that care too think these are awkward things to think about we think could it be my mom or dad one day or could it be one of my brothers or sisters and it's going to confront all of us really the reality of death and so these things are a bit kind of sensitive and we want to come to our own mind on what's going to fit with what the bible says that's what matters so if pain relief unintentionally shortens life if the intent is to comfort not kill then that's okay you know that we know the circumstances like that when someone is in a whole lot of pain pain and thank god now there's probably not much need for you to endure too much pain because there's so much technology and so many treatments that are available now to take pain away but you see how when they do give someone a lot of painkillers it can actually hasten their dying but that's an unintentional thing it's not like you're injecting someone with some poison or you're pressing a button to kill yourself like we know in europe now there's these pods you can get where you go into the pod and you press a button and administer some lethal injection to yourself really it's suicide and so really that's thou shalt not kill it's quite clear that that's not something that we can really i can't condone that in my good conscience that kind of action but when it's an unintentional thing of administering some painkiller then you could understand well that's i guess nature taking its course as well that the person is weak we see that we ought to care for the weak like it says in one thessalonians 5 14 so ultimately you think when someone is on their last hours of their deathbed really that we can try to show love and care for them and comfort for them and you know god helping us will make their last hours as meaningful and as supportive as we can because i know it's very important that we're compassionate and caring for our loved ones and helping them through that difficult time and you know some will think well suffering we should alleviate their suffering but there's a sense where we got to go through some suffering it's our lot in life sometimes where for example paul rejoices in suffering and he found that god tells him my grace is sufficient for thee that god's going to enable him so when you think about it as a believer like your peaceful death marked by faith can inspire others too you know it seems almost flippant in some ways like in europe i think there's laws now where you just feel like oh life's too stressful i'm going to finish myself and just step into the pod and press the button it's just so flippant because there's no hope for them there's not the hope for them whereas we have got hope as believers and we can have that death that is a good death because we're finishing well we're finishing our course it's marked by faith we can inspire others to trust god even in those difficult last stages if it be that's how we pass away and when it could happen we can ask the lord for strength we can pray we can rely on god's strength in that time of hardship we can trust scriptures like philippians 4 13 i can do all things through christ which strengtheneth me so we can express that hope and trust in god even if it be in those last hours even if we might be in some measure of pain that will still be a testimony for the grace of god next section pastoral application we can think about well what are we going to do when someone's in this kind of state we just want to exercise pastoral care we want to be loving and comforting supportive how can we support the dying how can we make their last

[26:26] hours as comforting as possible to encourage them and to support them and their loved ones too with practical help providing respite for their families and such things and some things we can do for ourselves and our loved ones with our kind of end of life wishes making them clear they call them advanced directives that ideally what we put there reflects biblical values so we'd reject acts of euthanasia now of course we've all got to make our own personal conscience decisions on all of these things but for example some people say well not for resuscitation don't resuscitate me don't keep me artificially alive that might be your choice and that's not a non-biblical choice you're just succumbing to natural death if that's what happens and so that's really it's not like you're killing yourself like pressing a button and killing yourself or such things as that you're just accepting well don't keep me artificially alive i don't want to be hooked up to some machine that's breathing for me or feeding me i just want to go naturally i just want to pass away and so those things we can think about for ourselves about end of life care kind of decisions and think about also what can we do we can advocate for healthcare people that sometimes they're faced by this situation where they're working in a hospital where they're basically got to follow suit with what they're told and that's really hard for healthcare people where there might be a believer and they think well i don't want to be participating in an abortion or actively euthanizing someone like you're treating them like an animal putting them to death and so we want to stand up for the conscience rights of christian professionals too it's really hard for christians in the healthcare world who've got those questions of conscience those stands of conviction that they don't want to be promoting abortion but rather that they can have more that positive palliative care where they're comforting and helping these ones in their last hours so i want to stand up for that advocate for that i think that's a good thing as well so that's euthanasia a third thing to talk about as well in this context of healthcare ivf now there's various views about ivf in vitro fertilization so in vitro it literally means in glass so these are test tube babies you could say where this medical process is where they help conceive they help a couple conceive by combining the sperm and egg in a lab in a test tube and it does reflect the desire for children which is a good godly desire psalm 127 3 low children are an heritage of the lord they're a blessing but it raises some ethical concerns too because we know that genesis 1 talks about that embryos are human life from conception they bear god's image and they deserve protection now of course families couples who have got to come to their own mind on this particular subject i'm just putting what i consider to be a biblical lens that you could look at it with and so the problems the ethical issues that could present with using ivf is that it can often create multiple embryos so they create multiple ones of them and some of them are frozen some are just discarded they just thrown out some are used for research and it violates their sanctity so this fundamental that we started with the sanctity of life that life is sacred it's precious it's kind of discounting that and it also is contrary really to god's design for the family

[30:31] which is marriage they should be one flesh it's intruding on that somewhat and then some can use this way they select embryos based on traits so they kind of pick and choose which embryo is going to live which embryo is going to die and it's almost like treating these test tube babies these children as products not gifts of course we know scripturally we we know infertility is painful and it's hard we think of hannah's story one samuel one we want to empathize we want to support infertile couples who are going through this difficult stage of really wanting to have a baby and they can't and yet we want to be mindful of some of the ethical dilemmas that present with ivf now apparently there are ways you can use some of this technology humanity without destroying embryos so there is some hope for christian couples who want to use ivf that they can make their wishes known they don't want their embryos getting destroyed so they want to honor god's design and so they limit the embryo creation to the ones that they're going to implant so there is hope there that it's not like it's ruled out altogether it's just there's just some ethical challenges there thinking further about these things of course that's the biblical model a man leave his father and mother cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh so that reproduction happens normally but of course we know it doesn't always happen but another kind of area to consider and this is some of this is really kind of a bit left field and you wonder what's going to happen next because really as technology is just going completely um wild really in some ways and i've got to say i'm not a healthcare professional so i'm only just going by information that i've gathered but you wonder who knows where some of this stuff is going to go to the emerging bioethical challenges so the advances in technology now they can challenge the sanctity of life as well so there's this thing called crisper which is gene editing so playing around with dna almost playing god really and then commodifying life there's things where you think well some of the stem cell research again it's playing around with these embryos it's different from ethical adult stem cell work and then you've got things like this for example pictured here it's more like imagination but i've had a look into it they are actually they're definitely looking into this they're definitely looking into artificial wombs where somehow i guess the test tube baby is put into a an artificial environment like a a man-made womb and you think how what scenarios could unfold there apparently they're only really looking at later stages of an embryo where they might put it in an artificial wound but you think how it could go ultimately it could go the whole distance but that might be a bit too far-fetched at the moment but just the thought that they're thinking of it is enough to kind of blow your mind really where is all this going and then you've got this situation where you've got commercial surrogacy so potentially and this is quite an old article i grabbed this picture from potentially you could have five parents so you've got the mum and dad who made the test tube baby they plant it in a surrogate who's another parent and then they hand it over to the adoptive parents so you've got and they're not necessarily man and a woman as well of course and so we see this crazy world now where it's quite contrary to like we

[34:33] talked about god's plan a man leave his father and his mother cleave unto his wife a man and his wife and they should be one flesh god's plan for marriage now you've got the situation where a poor child can have five parents and now apparently there's other things going on where they can have three parent embryos so they can take dna from three different people i guess a mix of male or female or or all of one or all of the other and somehow put it all together into some embryo that's got three parents so what confusion what madness and you know of course there's some that are playing around with human and animal mixing human and animal dna human and ai human and robot type concepts and all of these things are presenting a whole lot of ethical and mind-blowing challenges really for us aren't they and they think what's normality anymore and human identity these are things that think if you're the poor kid who's the who's in that situation it's quite concerning really isn't it what could present and it's really dehumanizing life as well they've got where they're creating embryos just for research just to experiment around like a frankenstein type kind of world and we see that human life is meant to be sacred and distinct it's meant to be treasured and precious and held sacred but now they're playing around with embryos designer babies basically i want my baby to have black hair and be tall or you know i want whatever feature you might want for your baby to have oh i want to make sure the dna is they're going to be a strong physically strong person or or a intellectually smart person and and oh then they're going to measure that embryo or chuck that embryo out that one doesn't match my design like a designer embryo and then just destroying those embryos because they don't have the desired traits it's treating life like a commodity that's how the world is thinking about the sacredness of life they're just trashing it and it's contrary to god's purpose to treat life like that so we think about just how are we going to respond with all of these things how are we going to respond to where they don't care about protecting life and harming embryos or and there's talk about cloning in that now too where you can clone your child rather we should want to use technology in a positive way to heal and to be a good steward so think about all those things in the notes just further things and another area of bioethical concern of course this is a big one more and more so these days and so it's quite confronting what's going on in this area of gender affirmation they call it where it's really a conflict with the biblical view of human identity god made them male and female it's binary in other words just two there's only two either one or the other male or female and that's the divinely ordained male female binary two things two two options and yet the world would think that they through surgery can change a person from male to female or female to male and reject god's design it's really quite abhorrent to even think of it as a biblical christian

[38:35] because god's created male or female only two and we've got a stewardship of our body too we should look after it and not mutilate it and we think of these ones who go down this track all the risk and harm it presents to them we think of physical psychological and spiritual harm and really it's irreversible even if they change their mind and want to switch back it's not going to be how it was and all of these mental health factors that go along with it so how do we respond to things like that of course we want to be compassionate with our pastoral care affirming god-given identity the binary male or female and not to change from god's design trust in his design and there's wholeness there so if we do have some interaction with people in this gender dysphoria they call it that will show love and support yet we're not going to endorse practices that contradict scripture with compassion hopefully we'll see them get things sorted and this is the world we're living in isn't it this is just one another ethical area to do with health care so in summary then what are we going to do when we face all of these things that we've talked about we want to live with compassion and conviction both of them and micah 6 8 says what did the lord require of thee to do justly to love mercy to walk humbly with your god how can we defend the unborn they don't have a voice we should speak up for them so we stand against abortion how can we support the elderly oh you get to a certain age and in some countries oh that's the age we uh snuff them out that they treat euthanasia so lightly that are or if someone gets a bit infirm a little bit too much demand on the health care system they write them off and say we'll just finish them off they haven't got quality of life anymore that's the extreme of euthanasia that's in some places even now we don't want to see that we want to advocate for the elderly the care for the elderly and the vulnerable people have got disability it's what hitler did where they've got some disability oh we'll finish them off that that's the crazy extreme of euthanasia that used to happen in any way it does still where in some countries someone's got a disability they write them off and finish them off so this is horrendous this is the way the world is this there's no ethics there so we want to support what's pro-life we want to advocate for that we want to support families as well that we're going to stand up for what's right biblically support mums that are going through a crisis pregnancy maybe an unplanned pregnancy maybe the circumstances are horrific how they've got pregnant we want to support them help them get through be a loving church full of compassion and grace and help them to keep their child and then god forbid if they do terminate their child they're going to need a whole lot of care a whole lot of love because they're going to go through a whole lot of grief and hurt and all of the heartache and trauma of that that we're going to give them that post-abortion care too because we want to support them support families and then we're going to trust the lord too to pray for wisdom with our medical decisions for ourselves our loved ones get those advanced directors that honor life that state how you want it to happen

[42:37] for yourself and ideally not dishonoring that value of life that you've got a value of life you trust god that you'll end your life with natural death when it comes to it and then you're going to show grace too when you can minister to people as i say ministering to people that are impacted by abortion euthanasia or infertility too we want to be gracious and help people in all of those difficult circumstances of life and yet show you that biblical fidelity so we want to be true to what the bible says that we made in god's image male and female we created he shaped us in the womb we've got a wonderful gift the breath of life it comes from him he gives life and he takes it away so we want to trust him in that whole context of that so hopefully he's given us lots of food for thought here tonight i think we'll just close it formally just for now and let's pray lord we thank you that you are the author of life you give us the breath of life lord our every breath comes from you and lord we think of the unborn treated so carelessly lord help us not to be like that help us to value life and lord if there's any hearing this or present that might have undergone an abortion that well we know that you give grace and healing and there's forgiveness there for that trauma or that situation lord we praise you lord that we can advocate for life and be mindful of all these things when we face even our own end of life or for loved ones we know that it'll be compassion and grace and faith that helps us get through that difficult time lord trusting your will that natural death can be the ultimate course of action lord that will trust in your timing lord give us grace and strength and lord for these circumstances of other things we talked about we know our world and the governments that rule us sometimes don't care about some of these biblical truths lord help us to stand firm and to advocate for what your word tells us to lord to encourage people to put their faith in you and to follow your will lord bless each heart each home lord for our refreshments now we pray your blessing and lord encourage those that are watching online too to be encouraged in these things so no one feels condemned or unworthy lord for whatever actions they may have taken yet lord to know your grace is there for us and that we can trust in your will help us lord to make wise decisions godly decisions that are not in contradiction to your word give us that wisdom lord we pray when and ultimately we might face those times where we've got to be confronted with death and lord give us your great grace to help us through we praise you lord in jesus name amen