March 13, 2025 • 21 mins
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In this episode of the Radio Coffee House, Clint Armitage broadcasts from Dallas, Texas, tackling the weighty subjects of dreams, thought crimes, and the deeply contentious issue of abortion. With a heart led by God, Clint delves into the significance of divine calling and how it can manifest in our lives, even through uncomfortable circumstances.
Beginning with a gripping news clip about Adam Smith Connor, a man charged with silently praying outside an abortion clinic, Clint raises critical questions about the nature of belief and God's law. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing the value of life, referencing Psalm 139 to illustrate that God knows us even before we are formed. Clint passionately argues that the terminology used to describe life—whether "fetus" or "baby"—is secondary to the inherent worth that God assigns to each individual from the very beginning.
As the episode unfolds, Clint shares the harrowing dream that propelled Adam into the pro-life movement, reflecting on how God can use dreams to awaken our purpose and guide us back to His path. Drawing parallels to the story of Jonah, he encourages listeners to heed God's call, even when it leads us into challenging or unfamiliar territories.
Clint also discusses the need for compassion and gentleness in our responses to the world around us, reminding us that while we may stand firm in our beliefs, we are called to do so with love. He wraps up the episode with powerful insights from the book of Titus, reinforcing the message of mercy and the importance of living out our faith in a way that is both good and profitable for all.
Tune in to this episode of the Radio Coffee House to explore how faith can inspire action and how God’s calling can lead us to stand up for what is right, all while embodying love and kindness in our approach.
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🗣️ Quotes from Clint Armitage:
"God values you way before the knitting happened."
"When God calls you to something, even though it's uncomfortable, it's part of your purpose."
"We are called to stand up, but we're also called to do it in love and gentleness."
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to another edition of the Radio Coffeeh House
show where Jesus meets coffee meets talk
radio. And the next one starts right
now.
How's it going everybody? Clint Armitage with the Radio Coffee House. Thanks
for coming back and thanks for listening in.
All right, we're still on the road. So this is another road show. We're
(00:22):
in Dallas, Texas still and we're going toa be talking about a
serious topic that God put on my heart last night.
And then this morning brought it up again and gave me specific
pass_ages to talk about. And so
we'renna be talking about dreams, we're gonna be
talking about thought crimes, we're gonna be hearing a vice
president speak and what he has to say,
(00:43):
comment on that. Then we're also going toa be talking about
abortion. And so again, it's a serious topic
because where we are at today
in regards to what we consider
God's law, God's truth, God's
word. And where does it look like
we're going? More of a serious topic, obviously. And
so stay tuned, check it out.
(01:05):
And we'll start off with the first clip from the vice
president.
A little over two years ago, the British government charged
Adam smith Connor, a 51 year old
physiotherapist and an army veteran, with the
heinous crime of standing 50
(01:25):
meters from an abortion clinic and silently
praying for three minutes. Not obstructing
anyone, not interacting with anyone, just
silently praying on his own. Okay, so now you know kind of
what the news clip is talking
about and where it's trying to go.
And uh, it's about abortion, it's about being
arrested for thought crimes. But it's also
(01:47):
about where we're at, where we're going. Do
we believe God? Do we believe that God's
word is the final word? And we're gonna take
a look at that, uh, right now.
So let's read from a
verse in the Bible in
regards to abortion, the way God
feels about people. Because isn't that the main
(02:08):
argument? The main argument is
is this baby a person? When is it an actual
baby? Okay, they use, you know, using the word fetus
and embryo, not saying a person,
not saying a baby. But does that even matter?
Does it even matter what you
call the embryo, the fetus, the
baby? Or does it
(02:30):
matter when God actually
values you? So let's take a reading
from Psalm 139, one of the more famous
verses, to understand what God thinks
about you, me and
these unborn. Psalm 139,
verses 13 through 16. And then we're going
(02:51):
to especially focus on verse 13 and 16. Here
we go. For you created
my inmost being. You knit me
together in my mother's womb. I praise you
because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Your works are wonderful. I
know that full well. My
(03:11):
frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the
earth, your eyes, uh, saw
my unformed body. All the
days ordained for me were written
in your book before one of them came to
(03:32):
be. All right, so King
David wrote this. And he's
talking about, in the overall gist
of Psalm 139, is him
saying, where can I go?
You know where I am no matter what. I could be in the
depths, I can be in the heights. David is
saying, you can search me out. God,
(03:55):
you know I cannot hide. You know where I
am, no matter what. And then starting in
verse 13, he's talking about
when he was conceived.
And so verse 13 again
says, for you created my inmost being.
You knit me together in my mother's womb. What
is that saying? It's saying that
(04:17):
God is the creator
from the beginning of all of us.
And he also knows everything
about us. He said, the creation
started when you knit me. You knit
me together in my mother's womb. Think about,
uh, older person. You know, I picture,
(04:38):
um, my grandmother. I picture a retirement
home, sometimes not my grandmother. But on TV and
stuff, where you see an older person starting to knit,
well, they start for that, with that first piece
of yarn and then their knitting needle, and
they start from nothing, from that
first piece. And that's when
(04:59):
things are being formed. And so
David is talking about forming him
by knitting, piece by piece
by piece, knitting it together from
nothing. And then verse 16, he
really starts talking about doing things from
beforehand. Okay. He says, your eyes
(05:20):
saw my unformed body. That means God
knew about you. God knew about us
before our bodies were formed. So what does that say about
babies? Well, it says
that God doesn't even. Isn't even addressing the fact
that there's a body for this baby. What
he's saying is David's saying that God
(05:41):
saw him before he
was even formed, before the knitting
even happened. God's value
on this baby, on King David in this
case, was before he was
formed. Then he backs it up, supports it by saying,
all the days ordained for me were written in your
(06:01):
book before even one of them came to
be. This all was beforehand.
David wasn't even a thought in his
Father's mind, in his mother's mind. But
God already knew him, and all the
days were, um, ordained for
him before that point. So what does that
mean when it comes to value? It means that
(06:24):
God valued you way
before the knitting happened. And,
uh, then when the knitting happened, it started from scratch,
from nothing, from a small piece of
yarn knitted and fashioned
into who you are today. So when we talk
about an embryo and a fetus not being
(06:44):
a person or a baby, that really
doesn't matter as much as God's
value on you happened before that.
So even if you weren't formed yet,
you were valued. And we can't just
throw away anything that's valuable. We never
do. When you have something that's valuable,
(07:05):
you do not throw it away. You do not
destroy it. You keep it. You take care of
it. You love it, you care for it.
So now let's listen to the next part of this news
clip that talks about this guy and
his reaction, his
response to God calling him to his
purpose. And God uses a dream of
(07:26):
his, and it's a gnarly dream. So let's see
what he has to say and what he did and what he was willing
to do when God called him to this.
When Adam Smith Connor was approached by police
officers, they asked, what is the nature of your prayer
today?
What is the nature of go. Um, I'm praying for my son.
Making the charge against him what many are calling a
thought crime. We met Smith Connor at a church
(07:49):
in Southampton, England, where he told us of a
terrible dream that led him into the pro life
movement. A dream in which he was butchering
a baby.
Ah. I was carving up this baby,
um, as if I was carving up the Sunday roast.
I didn't have any sense of guilt or
anything. It was no feeling
(08:10):
of. Of anything as I was doing
this. When I woke up, it
was like a nightmare in reverse. So
what horrified me was that I'd carved up this child who
I knew it was my son. And, um, it
horrified me that I hadn't felt
anything as I did it. And over the following days,
(08:30):
I came to realize it related to an abortion
that I'd paid for two decades earlier.
That abortion hadn't even crossed my mind. But
God knew that that was sitting on my conscience and knew
that I wasn'tnna figure it out for myself,
that that needed to be cleansed. So I, uh, feel
that he gave me that vision, that dream, to wake me
(08:51):
up to what had happened.
Okay, so God uses a dream for this
guy to put him back on track. For his purpose
or his calling. And he's willing to do these things
only after God puts him in an
uncomfortable place with this
gnarly dream. And then, uh, he gets
convicted and starts moving in the direction that
(09:12):
God wants him to go. It reminds me of Jonah,
how Jonah wasn't necessarily on the path God want him to go. He
was actually going on the opposite path. He was fighting it.
This guy Adam. He didn't, um.
He wasn't fighting it. He just totally forgot about it. The
way he used to think about abortion back
way back when. Now God is calling him
back to his word,
(09:35):
his way, his rule, his
laws, and is calling him
to do something about it. And so that's what this
guy did, is he answered the call,
even though he was lost,
at least in this area, didn't understand until God called him to
it with his dream that convicted him. And so I
(09:55):
feel like Jonah, all right, Jonah is
going the opposite way of where he's supposed to go, where God
wants him to go. And so, you know, God uses
a great fish to swallow Jonah
and bring him back to where he's supposed
to go, put him on the right path. And then while Jonah is
inside the fish for three days and three
(10:15):
nights, which again, is, uh, kind of,
um, a precursor to what Jesus
did in the middle of the earth. But Jonah
actually says a prayer from inside the fish, and he
calls out to the Lord. And so this is what it reminds me of is
this prayer here. So I'll read it starting in
verse 2. Jonah prays. In my
distress, I called to the Lord, and
(10:38):
he answered me. From the depths of the
grave, I called for help, and you listened to
my cry. You hurled me into the
deep, into the very heart of the seas.
And the currents swirled about me.
All your waves and breakers, uh, swept
over me. I said, I have
been banished from your sight,
(11:01):
Yet I will look again toward your
holy temple. The engulfing waters
threatened me. The deep surrounded
me. Seaweed was wrapped
around my head. To the roots of the
mountains I sank down. The earth
beneath barred me in
forever. But you brought my life up from the
(11:23):
pit, O Lord, my
God. When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose
to you, to your holy temple. Those
who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will
sacrifice to you what I have vowed. I
(11:46):
will make good. Salvation comes from the
Lord. And the Lord commanded the fish and then
vomited Jonah onto dry land.
And that's calling everybody
not only to repentance, but to get to a place to call out
to God. Knowing where you're at, are you
in this situation? Is God calling you
(12:07):
to turn around, go the other way?
Is he calling you to pray and call out to
him to deliver you? Depending on where you're at,
God can use things like dreams,
like situations, like circumstances to
get you to turn, to get you to call out to
him, to get you to pray. And a change of
(12:27):
direction can happen. Now you're moving towards God
instead of away from him, towards his calling for you,
instead of away from it. Like Jonah all. Uh,
let's see what else happens in this story. Let's listen to the
next clip.
Adam began to go to abortion clinics to pray for
his son and would eventually be charged for
it.
They asked me to leave the area.
(12:50):
I declined because I don't think
that prayer can ever be considered, uh, a criminal
act or illegal. Uh, I was out of
line of sight from the clinic, behind a tree,
and I didn't look at anyone, I didn't approach
anyone, I didn't speak to anyone.
The United Kingdom's new buffer zone law makes it
illegal for anyone to do anything that intentionally
(13:12):
or recklessly influences someone's decision
to use abortion services. The law
will apply within a 150 meter radius of
the abortion service provider. A 63
year old retired medical scientist from Bournemouth,
England was also put on trial for standing near
an abortion clinic and holding up a sign reading here
(13:32):
to talk if you want, and talking to women
who approached her.
So what you up to today?
Sorry, I'm praying.
You're praying? Yes.
Okay.
Uh, in Scotland, this letter sent to
citizens warns that anyone living within an
abortion clinic buffer zone could violate
the law while inside their own homes.
Some think it could include praying near a window
(13:54):
if a woman seeking an abortion walks by.
I've got a profound sense of sadness for
our nation. The fact that we have plummeted to
such a depth so quickly. I
believe in the Bible and what the Bible
says and I lived that out in my life. And the fact
that I'm now convicted for doing that, I think is quite
(14:15):
shocking. And the absurdity of a
trial for the contents of your mind, the contents of
your prayers, just has no place in a
liberal, free, democratic society. And
yet, and yet here we are.
An appeal of Adam's conviction has been set for
July.
Okay. So you can see when God
calls you to something, even though it's
(14:36):
uncomfortable, even though it's scary, even though it's
something you actually never thought about. And then all of a sudden,
he's calling you to something and you
believe that he is. And
you know it's God telling you to do certain
things for him, because it's what he's
called you that's part of your purpose. But it's scary.
(14:56):
That's what this guy did. He went through after God
spoke to him and started to do things
that he believed God was telling him to do. And
he believed that was the right thing to do. And he
began to stand up against what he believed
was wrong or is wrong. And so God will
call us to places that that's scary.
(15:17):
He'll call us to people that make us
uncomfortable. He'll call us to things
that we may not even know is coming
until it shows up. And then God's like,
go, are you gonna answer the call
in this case or in any other case that God calls you?
In any other situation that God calls you,
are you gonna go to areas that are scary? Are younna
(15:40):
go and do the things that he wants you to
do, even to the point of where you
are being affected
negatively? What are younna do?
And then you'd start to think, like, okay, wait a
minute. These people are evil.
They need to be destroyed. I don't
want any part of it. I have to go after them
(16:02):
with the heat. I want to make sure they're
destroyed. Well, I don't believe that's
God's attitude towards the people that are
lost. The people that have this wrong
thinking that are against him. Yes,
he's. They are God's enemies. But God
loves everybody. And we tend to take it
as, hey, we're gonna fight. And. But we
(16:24):
can't turn off the combat. We can't love
at the same time that we fight. And we're fighting
for this cause, we're fighting for this calling that God
has given us, this purpose. But can we do it out of
love and gentleness like Peter says? We got to be
prepared to let people know about the hope that is in
us. And so this guy here does it well,
(16:45):
he starts praying, but there's no
violence. And yet he's still suffering for it.
He's doing it the right way. He's praying about it. He's not
going after them saying, we've got to fight against them
and hurt them, whether it be in words
or in physical violence. That's not the way God
wants it to be done. Because go back to Jonah.
(17:05):
What was Jonah's problem? His problem was he
didn't want the Ninevites to be saved. He
knew God would save them,
and he didn't want them to be saved, so that's why he
ran. But then God put a certain situation,
circumstance in his life where he turned around and said, okay,
Lord, help me. And he turned around and did what God called him
to do. And so that's in chapter three of Jonah. And we're
(17:28):
gonna read, uh, a portion of that right now. Then
the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.
Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim
to it the message I give you. Jonah
obeyed the word of the Lord and went to
Nineveh. Now, Nineveh was a very
important city. A visit required three
days. On the first day, Jonah started into
(17:50):
the city. He proclaimed, 40 more
days and Nineveh will be overturned. The
Ninevites believed God. They declared a
fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the
least, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king
of Nineveh, he arose from his
throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself
with sackcloth, and sat down in the dust.
(18:13):
Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh.
By the decree of the king and his nobles, do
not let any man or beast, herd or
flock taste anything. Do not let them eat or
drink, but let man and beast be covered
with sackloth. Let everyone call urgently on
God. Let them give up their evil ways and
(18:33):
their violence. Who knows? God
may yet relent and with compassion turn from
his fierce anger, uh, so that we will not
perish. When God saw what they
did and how they turned from their evil ways,
he had compassion and did not bring upon them
the destruction he had threatened. Okay, what do we
(18:54):
got here? We've got these evil
people, the Ninevites, who are basically like
terrorists back then. You know, violence and all
that. And God still cared
about them, and he called Jonah to speak to them.
Jonah didn't want to do it because Jonah knew God is merciful.
But God says throughout his book, turn to me
sincerely, turn to me, and I'll be merciful to
(19:17):
you. That's a theme throughout the Old Testament
and New Testament. People just have to turn to him. Well, Jonah
knew that if they turned to him, he would save
them. That's why he didn't want him saved.
But again, circumstances happened where God put him in a situation
where he goes, okay, I understand what I have to do. And he obeys.
He doesn't even tell them, repent. He says, hey, in 40 days,
you guys are gonna die. They repent on their own,
(19:40):
not even knowing God. But they understand
God must have been in their hearts and their minds. And just like
in this scenario with. With Adam and
the British government, he's doing it the right way.
He's standing on God's word, standing on God's calling for
his life. God's gonna use that. People are gonna
recognize it, and God's will be done.
Okay, we're gonna end with this verse. And Titus. Titus, chapter
(20:02):
three, verse four through, like, eight.
Okay, here it goes. But when the kindness and love of God,
our Savior, appeared, he saved us not because
of righteous things we have done, but because of his
mercy. He saved us through the washing of
rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom
he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ,
our Savior, so that having been justified by his
(20:25):
grace, we might become heirs
having the hope of eternal life. This is a
trustworthy saying, and I want you to stress
these things so that those who have trusted
in God may be careful to devote themselves
to doing what is good. These things are
excellent and profitable for everyone.
(20:45):
It's clear. We're called to stand up, but
we're also called to do it in love and gentleness. And
that's something newer for me, because of my
environment, because of my job, because of the way I handled
things. I didn't do it with gentleness and peace and love.
I did it with force, fear, aggression. That's even how
I think now. Force, fear, and aggression. And God's calling us
(21:06):
to a higher purpose and to do it in a way that he would
want us to do it. That's in love. That's in kindness, that's in joy,
peace, patience, longs suffering, the fruits of the
spirit. Hopefully this speaks to somebody. My name is
Clint Armitage. This is the Radio Coffee House. Thanks for
coming back. Thanks for listening in. And until next
time, stay safe and God bless.
(21:34):
Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Radio Coffee
House show, where we're all, uh, about Jesus, coffee
and radio. We'll see you next time.
Welcome to another edition of the Radio Coffeeh House
show where Jesus meets coffee meets talk
radio. And the next one starts right
now.
How's it going everybody? Clint Armitage with the Radio Coffee House. Thanks
for coming back and thanks for listening in.
All right, we're still on the road. So this is another road show. We're
(00:22):
in Dallas, Texas still and we're going toa be talking about a
serious topic that God put on my heart last night.
And then this morning brought it up again and gave me specific
pass_ages to talk about. And so
we'renna be talking about dreams, we're gonna be
talking about thought crimes, we're gonna be hearing a vice
president speak and what he has to say,
(00:43):
comment on that. Then we're also going toa be talking about
abortion. And so again, it's a serious topic
because where we are at today
in regards to what we consider
God's law, God's truth, God's
word. And where does it look like
we're going? More of a serious topic, obviously. And
so stay tuned, check it out.
(01:05):
And we'll start off with the first clip from the vice
president.
A little over two years ago, the British government charged
Adam smith Connor, a 51 year old
physiotherapist and an army veteran, with the
heinous crime of standing 50
(01:25):
meters from an abortion clinic and silently
praying for three minutes. Not obstructing
anyone, not interacting with anyone, just
silently praying on his own. Okay, so now you know kind of
what the news clip is talking
about and where it's trying to go.
And uh, it's about abortion, it's about being
arrested for thought crimes. But it's also
(01:47):
about where we're at, where we're going. Do
we believe God? Do we believe that God's
word is the final word? And we're gonna take
a look at that, uh, right now.
So let's read from a
verse in the Bible in
regards to abortion, the way God
feels about people. Because isn't that the main
(02:08):
argument? The main argument is
is this baby a person? When is it an actual
baby? Okay, they use, you know, using the word fetus
and embryo, not saying a person,
not saying a baby. But does that even matter?
Does it even matter what you
call the embryo, the fetus, the
baby? Or does it
(02:30):
matter when God actually
values you? So let's take a reading
from Psalm 139, one of the more famous
verses, to understand what God thinks
about you, me and
these unborn. Psalm 139,
verses 13 through 16. And then we're going
(02:51):
to especially focus on verse 13 and 16. Here
we go. For you created
my inmost being. You knit me
together in my mother's womb. I praise you
because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Your works are wonderful. I
know that full well. My
(03:11):
frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the
earth, your eyes, uh, saw
my unformed body. All the
days ordained for me were written
in your book before one of them came to
(03:32):
be. All right, so King
David wrote this. And he's
talking about, in the overall gist
of Psalm 139, is him
saying, where can I go?
You know where I am no matter what. I could be in the
depths, I can be in the heights. David is
saying, you can search me out. God,
(03:55):
you know I cannot hide. You know where I
am, no matter what. And then starting in
verse 13, he's talking about
when he was conceived.
And so verse 13 again
says, for you created my inmost being.
You knit me together in my mother's womb. What
is that saying? It's saying that
(04:17):
God is the creator
from the beginning of all of us.
And he also knows everything
about us. He said, the creation
started when you knit me. You knit
me together in my mother's womb. Think about,
uh, older person. You know, I picture,
(04:38):
um, my grandmother. I picture a retirement
home, sometimes not my grandmother. But on TV and
stuff, where you see an older person starting to knit,
well, they start for that, with that first piece
of yarn and then their knitting needle, and
they start from nothing, from that
first piece. And that's when
(04:59):
things are being formed. And so
David is talking about forming him
by knitting, piece by piece
by piece, knitting it together from
nothing. And then verse 16, he
really starts talking about doing things from
beforehand. Okay. He says, your eyes
(05:20):
saw my unformed body. That means God
knew about you. God knew about us
before our bodies were formed. So what does that say about
babies? Well, it says
that God doesn't even. Isn't even addressing the fact
that there's a body for this baby. What
he's saying is David's saying that God
(05:41):
saw him before he
was even formed, before the knitting
even happened. God's value
on this baby, on King David in this
case, was before he was
formed. Then he backs it up, supports it by saying,
all the days ordained for me were written in your
(06:01):
book before even one of them came to
be. This all was beforehand.
David wasn't even a thought in his
Father's mind, in his mother's mind. But
God already knew him, and all the
days were, um, ordained for
him before that point. So what does that
mean when it comes to value? It means that
(06:24):
God valued you way
before the knitting happened. And,
uh, then when the knitting happened, it started from scratch,
from nothing, from a small piece of
yarn knitted and fashioned
into who you are today. So when we talk
about an embryo and a fetus not being
(06:44):
a person or a baby, that really
doesn't matter as much as God's
value on you happened before that.
So even if you weren't formed yet,
you were valued. And we can't just
throw away anything that's valuable. We never
do. When you have something that's valuable,
(07:05):
you do not throw it away. You do not
destroy it. You keep it. You take care of
it. You love it, you care for it.
So now let's listen to the next part of this news
clip that talks about this guy and
his reaction, his
response to God calling him to his
purpose. And God uses a dream of
(07:26):
his, and it's a gnarly dream. So let's see
what he has to say and what he did and what he was willing
to do when God called him to this.
When Adam Smith Connor was approached by police
officers, they asked, what is the nature of your prayer
today?
What is the nature of go. Um, I'm praying for my son.
Making the charge against him what many are calling a
thought crime. We met Smith Connor at a church
(07:49):
in Southampton, England, where he told us of a
terrible dream that led him into the pro life
movement. A dream in which he was butchering
a baby.
Ah. I was carving up this baby,
um, as if I was carving up the Sunday roast.
I didn't have any sense of guilt or
anything. It was no feeling
(08:10):
of. Of anything as I was doing
this. When I woke up, it
was like a nightmare in reverse. So
what horrified me was that I'd carved up this child who
I knew it was my son. And, um, it
horrified me that I hadn't felt
anything as I did it. And over the following days,
(08:30):
I came to realize it related to an abortion
that I'd paid for two decades earlier.
That abortion hadn't even crossed my mind. But
God knew that that was sitting on my conscience and knew
that I wasn'tnna figure it out for myself,
that that needed to be cleansed. So I, uh, feel
that he gave me that vision, that dream, to wake me
(08:51):
up to what had happened.
Okay, so God uses a dream for this
guy to put him back on track. For his purpose
or his calling. And he's willing to do these things
only after God puts him in an
uncomfortable place with this
gnarly dream. And then, uh, he gets
convicted and starts moving in the direction that
(09:12):
God wants him to go. It reminds me of Jonah,
how Jonah wasn't necessarily on the path God want him to go. He
was actually going on the opposite path. He was fighting it.
This guy Adam. He didn't, um.
He wasn't fighting it. He just totally forgot about it. The
way he used to think about abortion back
way back when. Now God is calling him
back to his word,
(09:35):
his way, his rule, his
laws, and is calling him
to do something about it. And so that's what this
guy did, is he answered the call,
even though he was lost,
at least in this area, didn't understand until God called him to
it with his dream that convicted him. And so I
(09:55):
feel like Jonah, all right, Jonah is
going the opposite way of where he's supposed to go, where God
wants him to go. And so, you know, God uses
a great fish to swallow Jonah
and bring him back to where he's supposed
to go, put him on the right path. And then while Jonah is
inside the fish for three days and three
(10:15):
nights, which again, is, uh, kind of,
um, a precursor to what Jesus
did in the middle of the earth. But Jonah
actually says a prayer from inside the fish, and he
calls out to the Lord. And so this is what it reminds me of is
this prayer here. So I'll read it starting in
verse 2. Jonah prays. In my
distress, I called to the Lord, and
(10:38):
he answered me. From the depths of the
grave, I called for help, and you listened to
my cry. You hurled me into the
deep, into the very heart of the seas.
And the currents swirled about me.
All your waves and breakers, uh, swept
over me. I said, I have
been banished from your sight,
(11:01):
Yet I will look again toward your
holy temple. The engulfing waters
threatened me. The deep surrounded
me. Seaweed was wrapped
around my head. To the roots of the
mountains I sank down. The earth
beneath barred me in
forever. But you brought my life up from the
(11:23):
pit, O Lord, my
God. When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose
to you, to your holy temple. Those
who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will
sacrifice to you what I have vowed. I
(11:46):
will make good. Salvation comes from the
Lord. And the Lord commanded the fish and then
vomited Jonah onto dry land.
And that's calling everybody
not only to repentance, but to get to a place to call out
to God. Knowing where you're at, are you
in this situation? Is God calling you
(12:07):
to turn around, go the other way?
Is he calling you to pray and call out to
him to deliver you? Depending on where you're at,
God can use things like dreams,
like situations, like circumstances to
get you to turn, to get you to call out to
him, to get you to pray. And a change of
(12:27):
direction can happen. Now you're moving towards God
instead of away from him, towards his calling for you,
instead of away from it. Like Jonah all. Uh,
let's see what else happens in this story. Let's listen to the
next clip.
Adam began to go to abortion clinics to pray for
his son and would eventually be charged for
it.
They asked me to leave the area.
(12:50):
I declined because I don't think
that prayer can ever be considered, uh, a criminal
act or illegal. Uh, I was out of
line of sight from the clinic, behind a tree,
and I didn't look at anyone, I didn't approach
anyone, I didn't speak to anyone.
The United Kingdom's new buffer zone law makes it
illegal for anyone to do anything that intentionally
(13:12):
or recklessly influences someone's decision
to use abortion services. The law
will apply within a 150 meter radius of
the abortion service provider. A 63
year old retired medical scientist from Bournemouth,
England was also put on trial for standing near
an abortion clinic and holding up a sign reading here
(13:32):
to talk if you want, and talking to women
who approached her.
So what you up to today?
Sorry, I'm praying.
You're praying? Yes.
Okay.
Uh, in Scotland, this letter sent to
citizens warns that anyone living within an
abortion clinic buffer zone could violate
the law while inside their own homes.
Some think it could include praying near a window
(13:54):
if a woman seeking an abortion walks by.
I've got a profound sense of sadness for
our nation. The fact that we have plummeted to
such a depth so quickly. I
believe in the Bible and what the Bible
says and I lived that out in my life. And the fact
that I'm now convicted for doing that, I think is quite
(14:15):
shocking. And the absurdity of a
trial for the contents of your mind, the contents of
your prayers, just has no place in a
liberal, free, democratic society. And
yet, and yet here we are.
An appeal of Adam's conviction has been set for
July.
Okay. So you can see when God
calls you to something, even though it's
(14:36):
uncomfortable, even though it's scary, even though it's
something you actually never thought about. And then all of a sudden,
he's calling you to something and you
believe that he is. And
you know it's God telling you to do certain
things for him, because it's what he's
called you that's part of your purpose. But it's scary.
(14:56):
That's what this guy did. He went through after God
spoke to him and started to do things
that he believed God was telling him to do. And
he believed that was the right thing to do. And he
began to stand up against what he believed
was wrong or is wrong. And so God will
call us to places that that's scary.
(15:17):
He'll call us to people that make us
uncomfortable. He'll call us to things
that we may not even know is coming
until it shows up. And then God's like,
go, are you gonna answer the call
in this case or in any other case that God calls you?
In any other situation that God calls you,
are you gonna go to areas that are scary? Are younna
(15:40):
go and do the things that he wants you to
do, even to the point of where you
are being affected
negatively? What are younna do?
And then you'd start to think, like, okay, wait a
minute. These people are evil.
They need to be destroyed. I don't
want any part of it. I have to go after them
(16:02):
with the heat. I want to make sure they're
destroyed. Well, I don't believe that's
God's attitude towards the people that are
lost. The people that have this wrong
thinking that are against him. Yes,
he's. They are God's enemies. But God
loves everybody. And we tend to take it
as, hey, we're gonna fight. And. But we
(16:24):
can't turn off the combat. We can't love
at the same time that we fight. And we're fighting
for this cause, we're fighting for this calling that God
has given us, this purpose. But can we do it out of
love and gentleness like Peter says? We got to be
prepared to let people know about the hope that is in
us. And so this guy here does it well,
(16:45):
he starts praying, but there's no
violence. And yet he's still suffering for it.
He's doing it the right way. He's praying about it. He's not
going after them saying, we've got to fight against them
and hurt them, whether it be in words
or in physical violence. That's not the way God
wants it to be done. Because go back to Jonah.
(17:05):
What was Jonah's problem? His problem was he
didn't want the Ninevites to be saved. He
knew God would save them,
and he didn't want them to be saved, so that's why he
ran. But then God put a certain situation,
circumstance in his life where he turned around and said, okay,
Lord, help me. And he turned around and did what God called him
to do. And so that's in chapter three of Jonah. And we're
(17:28):
gonna read, uh, a portion of that right now. Then
the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.
Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim
to it the message I give you. Jonah
obeyed the word of the Lord and went to
Nineveh. Now, Nineveh was a very
important city. A visit required three
days. On the first day, Jonah started into
(17:50):
the city. He proclaimed, 40 more
days and Nineveh will be overturned. The
Ninevites believed God. They declared a
fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the
least, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king
of Nineveh, he arose from his
throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself
with sackcloth, and sat down in the dust.
(18:13):
Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh.
By the decree of the king and his nobles, do
not let any man or beast, herd or
flock taste anything. Do not let them eat or
drink, but let man and beast be covered
with sackloth. Let everyone call urgently on
God. Let them give up their evil ways and
(18:33):
their violence. Who knows? God
may yet relent and with compassion turn from
his fierce anger, uh, so that we will not
perish. When God saw what they
did and how they turned from their evil ways,
he had compassion and did not bring upon them
the destruction he had threatened. Okay, what do we
(18:54):
got here? We've got these evil
people, the Ninevites, who are basically like
terrorists back then. You know, violence and all
that. And God still cared
about them, and he called Jonah to speak to them.
Jonah didn't want to do it because Jonah knew God is merciful.
But God says throughout his book, turn to me
sincerely, turn to me, and I'll be merciful to
(19:17):
you. That's a theme throughout the Old Testament
and New Testament. People just have to turn to him. Well, Jonah
knew that if they turned to him, he would save
them. That's why he didn't want him saved.
But again, circumstances happened where God put him in a situation
where he goes, okay, I understand what I have to do. And he obeys.
He doesn't even tell them, repent. He says, hey, in 40 days,
you guys are gonna die. They repent on their own,
(19:40):
not even knowing God. But they understand
God must have been in their hearts and their minds. And just like
in this scenario with. With Adam and
the British government, he's doing it the right way.
He's standing on God's word, standing on God's calling for
his life. God's gonna use that. People are gonna
recognize it, and God's will be done.
Okay, we're gonna end with this verse. And Titus. Titus, chapter
(20:02):
three, verse four through, like, eight.
Okay, here it goes. But when the kindness and love of God,
our Savior, appeared, he saved us not because
of righteous things we have done, but because of his
mercy. He saved us through the washing of
rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom
he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ,
our Savior, so that having been justified by his
(20:25):
grace, we might become heirs
having the hope of eternal life. This is a
trustworthy saying, and I want you to stress
these things so that those who have trusted
in God may be careful to devote themselves
to doing what is good. These things are
excellent and profitable for everyone.
(20:45):
It's clear. We're called to stand up, but
we're also called to do it in love and gentleness. And
that's something newer for me, because of my
environment, because of my job, because of the way I handled
things. I didn't do it with gentleness and peace and love.
I did it with force, fear, aggression. That's even how
I think now. Force, fear, and aggression. And God's calling us
(21:06):
to a higher purpose and to do it in a way that he would
want us to do it. That's in love. That's in kindness, that's in joy,
peace, patience, longs suffering, the fruits of the
spirit. Hopefully this speaks to somebody. My name is
Clint Armitage. This is the Radio Coffee House. Thanks for
coming back. Thanks for listening in. And until next
time, stay safe and God bless.
(21:34):
Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Radio Coffee
House show, where we're all, uh, about Jesus, coffee
and radio. We'll see you next time.
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