Hey everyone. Here’s a beautiful picture of a newborn baby in its swaddling clothes. This little baby was born in Asia through the Ministry of PassionLife teaching many of the pastors there who taught their people who began to be good neighbors and a rescue moms that were in crisis. And this is one of them.

There’s a story behind this. I’ll look forward to sharing with you at another place. Here’s another picture that I love as well. This one I love because the baby just emanates the beauty of what it means to be a child, to be innocent before God. And, uh, this baby is being held by its grandparents who are part of God’s provision in rescuing a young mother who is in dire situations.

Uh, over in China, uh, I’m in the middle of my. 30th trip to China as you watch this video, and it’s been our privilege to be able to see hundreds and if not thousands of babies being rescued over these last few years alone as the church begins to answer the call to rescue the innocent one mother at a time, wherever we go.

We are confronted with a common question, and that is if the Bible says that none are innocent, why do we speak about the need to rescue the innocent? So the answer to that question really is going back to the Bible and recognizing that words can be used in different ways in different contexts, and the word innocent or righteous is one of those words.

There is a sense in which the Bible says that no one is innocent, for example, in Romans chapter. Three. We read in verse 11, no one is righteous. No not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God and all have turned aside. This is a, a pointer in the scripture that all of us are sinful and separated from God.

So the sense in which the Bible says no one is innocent or righteous, means no one is innocent before God. Before him. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God before him. We see that the just wages of our sin is death before him. We see that we need someone to come and rescue us as the guilty, and that’s what the good news is of Jesus Christ, going to the cross on our behalf so that we can stand before God wash, cleansed, and made pure and holy through the work of Jesus Christ.

But there’s another way in which the Bible uses the word innocent that is quite affirming that we recognize that there are innocent people in the world. Number one, we’re innocent before the law. So we commonly say that this man who’s been charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty. In other words, before the law, we assume innocence of that, of that crime until the evidence shows otherwise.

That’s a very common understanding, and if you accuse me of, uh, stealing your, your, your phone or your mobile phone or your wallet or something, I’m probably gonna say no, I’m innocent. I don’t mean I’m innocent in the sense of being sinless. I mean, I’m innocent of that particular, uh, accusation. I. And in the Bible we see that that is precisely the role of judges, is that, that they are to evaluate whether we’re innocent or guilty before the law.

So we read in Deuteronomy 25 that, uh, that the role of a judge is to acquit the innocent. And to condemn the guilty, that’s their job. That’s how they uphold justice. A corrupt judge, or living in corrupt times is precisely that moment in which we see judges who are acquit the guilty for a bribe and depriving the innocent of his right.

Isaiah five verse 23. This idea of, of protecting people and making sure that there’s a, a proper due process before the law is so important that in the book of Deuteronomy, God’s people were instructed to build cities of refuge. I. To make sure that that due process was not violated. Uh, and the warning is lest innocent blood be shed, Deuteronomy 1920.

So the reference to innocent blood being shed is, is the biblical language for, for murder. Murder means the intentional killing of an innocent human being, or to use the broader language in the Bible, the shedding of innocent blood. Psalm 94 21 warns us about the pain and the horrors of the wicked who have the upper hand in a culture says The wicked band together against the righteous and condemned the innocent to death, meaning they are innocent people.

They’ve done nothing wrong before the law. There is a second way that the Bible talks about innocent people, and that is to talk about children. So again, let me show you a couple pictures of some babies. Why do we love these kinds of pictures? It’s because they, they emanate. The spirit of innocence that we all love.

It’s one of the clues that God has really made us, uh, for holiness. Uh, we all wanna live in a place where there is no sin, that we are, that we are living free from its bondage and its presence. Uh, and children remind us they point to innocence and we all tend to love it. Uh, Innocence in this sense means they are innocent because they haven’t developed the the natural human capacity for making volitional moral choices.

They’re not old enough to know right or wrong, or to choose good over evil or evil over good. And that’s why we speak most commonly about children being so sweet and. Innocent, uh, unborn children and newborn babies do not consciously reject or embrace God. They may have a sinful nature, as all people do, but they have not matured enough to know right or wrong, or to choose right or wrong.

And that’s why we read things like, uh, Deuteronomy, uh, 1 39, where God says to the people of, of, of, uh, Israel, he’s gonna let their children grow up and go into the Promised Land and listen to how he describes these little children. He says, as for your little ones, your children who today have no knowledge of good or evil.

They shall go in there, meaning the promised Land, and to them, I will give it and they shall possess it. His description is that these are children who don’t know right or wrong yet in terms of their human development and their capacity for making moral decisions. And we see that language used several times throughout the Bible.

And of course, this is what makes the sin of abortion so abhorrent and wicked in. Of itself. It’s taking the people that we see as the most innocent and shedding their blood. So we read in Psalm 106, they sacrifice their sons and their daughters to the demons. They poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters.

This is anathema to God because it. Contrary to all of all of Creation’s natural order that children should love and protect their children, and then to sacrifice them in some way as to please God is an anathema and an offense to him. So anyway. That’s why we are out beating the bushes in hard places, whether it’s Cuba, whether it’s uh Russia, whether it’s uh, uh, China, India, uh, Ethiopia, wherever we see abortion, uh, taking root and spreading.

And infanticide and gender side, we wanna go into those places and equip the church to answer God’s call, rescue the weak and the needy, and deliver them from the hand of the wicked. Psalm 82 verse four. I’ll close with a couple more pictures here in China of beautiful, beautiful, innocent children that you, if you’re a part of passion life, have had a direct impact in rescuing from the wicked.

We go out with prayer, you give and prayer. We teach the people they pray and they begin to answer the God’s call. And we get to see glorious stories of innocent children rescued and uh, their mom and dad. Uh, delivered the good news of what Christ has done for them and will continue to do in providing for all their needs.

Thank you for being a part of this great mission.