The Miracle of Yadkin County

Dr. Ray: Hello, welcome to Self Talk. I'm Dr. Ray Self, your host. What is this show about? It's about getting free. Getting free from what, you may ask? It's getting free from anything that keeps you away from God's plan for your life, anything that hurts you or suppresses you or causes you harm. That's my heart, that's my passion. I want to see you free, I want to see you living your God-given dream, I want to see you being the person God created you to be. Stay tuned for our next exciting topic. Thank you for joining us today, God bless you.

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Dr. Ray: Well, welcome to Self-Talk. I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self. Very glad uh, you're with me today. Please don't forget to rate, subscribe, download, give us a review on iTunes, and all that other great stuff, which helps us get this message out. So I'm very excited today, I have a very special guest with me. Before I get into that, I do want to thank Dr. Jess Youngblood and Premier Family Care of Arab, Alabama, Guntersville, Alabama, Bluntsville, Alabama, for sponsoring this show. This guy's a Holy Spirit-filled doctor. If you're in North Alabama, go see Dr. Jess Youngblood because I mean, he's the guy, he's amazing, and I'm very grateful for him. 

So my guest today, which I'm excited about, is Pastor Keith Pavansky in Yatkinville, North Carolina. The metropolis, the mighty metropolis of Yatkinville… I lovingly call it Mayberry, and um, I mean, you do have Barney here, right?

Pastor Keith: Absolutely…

Dr. Ray: …Floyd's here…

Pastor Keith: We've got them all…

Dr. Ray: …and Aunt Bea…

Pastor Keith: …yeah, we’ve got the whole cast

Dr. Ray: …and, you ‘em all, you got ‘em all… and he's the pastor of Faith Fellowship Church here. An amazing guy, good friend of mine. I've known him for some years now and we can tell you a lot of stories about that but what I want to talk about today is exciting and if I sound excited, I am excited even because of what I experienced this morning here in this church and in this community. Um, so something amazing has happened on the the war to save the unborn children and, and you know, if you're listening to me, we're in a tremendous spiritual battle, a political battle. We're in a fight to protect the rights of the unborn, to stop the killing of the unborn children. But around 2019, something happened here, um, in Yadkin County, North Carolina and I want you just to tell us about, so welcome uh, Pastor Keith. I'm glad you're with us. So what happened?

Pastor Keith: Dr. Ray: Thank you very much uh, thank you for giving me a chance to uh, to uh, explain some of the great things that are going on. This is a, a real testimony. Here in Yadkin County, in 2019, we became officially the very first county to adopt a resolution to make us a sanctuary for unborn children. In essence, we say here in our county by resolution that you cannot kill children, you can't– abortions can't happen within the borders of our county so it's, it's referred to as a safe county or uh, or a, a strong affiliate for life but uh, in our resolution that's what we called it, a safe county or a sanctuary for the unborn.

Dr. Ray: A sanctuary for the unborn. That is just, that just sounds right,

Pastor Keith: Yes.

Dr. Ray: I mean, the world should be a sanctuary for the unborn.

Pastor Keith: Oh absolutely.

Dr. Ray: You have an incredible victory here that this county, Yatkin County, North Carolina, is a sanctuary for unborn children. It's a safe place for unborn children.

Pastor Keith: In essence– in, and again, we're here in, in Yadkin County, North Carolina which should be the, the very buckle of the of the bible belt itself. This is, this is the center of, of, of God Land, USA. And, and you would expect you know, pro-lifeism but the laws in our state are really no different than the ones that they passed in New York which says that you can kill children all the way up to the day of uh, of their birth legally. And in uh, North Carolina they actually rejected, they vetoed a bill that, that would have said you can't kill children who are born alive. In essence, if they tried to have an abortion but it got botched and the baby comes out and is living in North Carolina, they allow that baby to die.

Dr. Ray: Oh my gosh.

Pastor Keith: That's the law in our state and many other states too. And so something needs to be done. We did something and uh, basically we told them it says well you know, you might be able to do that in the big city over in Raleigh or in, in Charlotte or one of the other big cities in North Carolina, but here in Yadkinville, we're saying we've taken, we've taken a hold. We've taken uh, control of matters for ourselves. The church rose up and we said you can't do that here.

Dr. Ray: That's amazing. That's amazing. You know, yeah, I was thinking that's a victory, I mean, it's a victory. And of course, we need a lot more victories like that but I just love the sound of it. And not only that, but it's a message. It's a message to the state, it's a message. And so tell me quickly, how did this happen? How did you– how did Yadkin County become a sanctuary? What was involved in that? And then you're telling me that this sanctuary idea has spread?

Pastor Keith: Yes, yeah. The– good, good questions, both of them. Uh, it happened here very simply. We were related or affiliated with a national organization that's called Personhood, and Personhood has affiliates in different states. In this particular state, I happen to be the, the president of The Personhood North Carolina. They were looking for somebody here, I was looking for information uh, and so for at least the foreseeable future I'll continue in that role until they kick me out. But they had just developed this um, personhood or a sanctuary city project as a, as a strategy for uh, generating excitement and energy within the churches so that we could see that we could actually win som,e some legislative battles. And that's what the church needs to think because too often we, we lose, we lose, we lose in court and our, our politicians say “We're tired of losing, we hate losing,” and everybody hates the whole, you know, downside of that. And we're saying, “Here's one where we can win and we can win every time so let's go put points on the board and get these victories.” So we're doing it here in, in Yadkinville. We've spread it, we've– at this point, we have three counties in our state that are sanctuaries for the unborn, and as uh, in two weeks we'll have, we'll have added a, a fourth one and uh, I have a seven-year plan that would uh, that would have at least 90 counties in our state uh, declared to be sanctuaries–

Dr. Ray: Four counties already…

Pastor Keith: That's correct.

Dr. Ray: …A plan for 90. 

Pastor Keith: That's right.

Dr. Ray: And you're also telling me in another state…

Pastor Keith: Oh, yeah.

Dr. Ray: …actually, which is near and dear to my heart, that there's 11 cities? Tell me about that.

Pastor Keith: [Laughs]. As fate would have it, uh, as fate would have it. Yeah, Mississippi has been very active.

Dr. Ray: Lil’ rebels.

 Pastor Keith: There you go. And they're uh, in, in, in Mississippi at least uh, they've, they've done it within the, the cities. It's quicker and easier to grab a city at a time, um, and that's, that's part of the, part of the message that we want to get across is that any pastor can do this, any person, any pro-life activist, any uh, business leader, church leader, somebody– if you want your area and your territory, if you want to take ownership of it, the Personhood alliance has the resolutions that are already printed up. All you have to do is we have to find one bulldog, one one strong person who will not let go and you go and you talk to your to your legislators. Typically in in my area, it was the county commissioners. We went to them first we said here's what we want to have done and the commissioners joined with myself and a group of other pastors and said “Yeah, that makes good sense, we should do this,” and so we passed it, they voted on it on their monthly meetings, and…

Dr. Ray: So you have the resolution already drawn up…

Pastor Keith: All ready drawn up.

Dr. Ray: …and available…

Pastor Keith: Yes.

Dr. Ray: …to be used by anybody who's bold enough. And of course I know all the pastors listening to me have Holy Spirit boldness, right?

Pastor Keith: Come on!

Dr. Ray: No problem, no problem there, right? You're a pastor, you're bold, you've got to be bold, you are bold.

Pastor Keith: Right.

Dr. Ray: And so you've got this resolution already ready to go that you can as a pastor, church leader, church– Christian– member of the body of Christ, you can take this to your legislatures, to your county commission…

Pastor Keith: That's correct. And not only, not only would you have the resolution available, in most states there's going to be an affiliate - somebody there who can hold your hand through the process and say you know, “Let me tell you–” get, get on the phone with you and say, “Here's how it's done.” There are attorneys that are part of the the alliance, other people, there's a lot of, there's a lot of support and structure that exists, all we need is somebody bold enough to say “I'll go in and talk to my city leader or to my county leaders,” and, and try to get something like this accomplished. And we start you know, targeting the map and seeing you know, county after county, city after city– as you mentioned, Mississippi has at least 11 cities now that are on the board and in that group down there, they're crazy. They'll uh, you know, I hope they find you know, they– we can get you know, 100 cities in Mississippi or something, you know? It would be an awesome thing and, and we're challenging even the affiliates in the other states, you know? Let's get started on this, let's uh, let's make this happen. Get it, get it rolling. 

Dr. Ray: Wow. So the name of the organization is Personhood. 

Pastor Keith: Personhood, that's correct.

Dr. Ray: And if a person's– if somebody listening to this, and I hope you are paying attention– you say, “You know what, this is touching my heart. There's something I can do to make a difference to save the unborn,” which I believe pleases God greatly.

Pastor Keith: Yes.

Dr. Ray: How would you– can you... give me a first step. A practical first step.

Pastor Keith: First step I would say is, is go log on, go, go find it on the internet, personhood.org. It's pretty simple to find. The concept behind Personhood is pretty simple. It's saying that uh, as human beings we're people and as– you say, well that doesn't sound very profound, and yet from a legal system, the United States of America doesn't recognize things that simply anymore and so we, we are fighting this fight saying if somebody is a human being, they're a person and they have the same God-given rights that we talk about here in America that were, you know, provided to us by our Creator. We have inalienable rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that's what we claim as Americans and it is our government's job to protect those rights. And so Personhood is simply saying somebody is an innocent human being, they're they're owed, they deserve these rights, they own them because they've been given them by God. And I will say that any time in our, in the, you know, recent history, American history, that they've had a problem with Personhood, that's when you see the wheels come off morality and civilization, society breaks down. We saw it during World War II with the Nazis and Hitler in Germany. And what they did is they said a certain group of people is no longer considered to be people anymore. They're saying you're– because you have Jewish lineage you're not a person and you don't get the same rights that everybody else does. And that's why uh, Personhood is much bigger than just the abortion issue. It speaks to the rights that you and I have as well. And so when we saw it also in American History, they did the same thing when, when slavery became a uh, uh again, a bad ruling by the Supreme Court. It's the same kind of thing that some justices get together and come up with some stupid plan like that and it ruins society because they're taking personhood rights away. And we're trying to put those back in and saying everybody has these rights. 

Dr. Ray: So there are people in the womb who need protection. 

Pastor Keith: That is correct. Innocent human beings.

Dr. Ray: Innocent human beings in the womb. It's interesting that the word fetus is nowhere to be found in scripture. The bible never refers to anything called the fetus. It refers to the baby, the child in the womb. Read uh, was it the gospel of Luke is a great example of that.

Pastor Keith: Right.

Dr. Ray: So this is amazing. You know, it really is amazing. And I know people listening… you know, as a Christian, it, you're grieved. We could give statistics and numbers about how many children are killed in the womb and…

Pastor Keith: Right.

Dr. Ray: …um, the very sad thing about pro-choice means a mother should have the choice to kill her children if she wants to. Just because they're in the womb she should have a choice and now they're saying, some states even outside the womb as long as it's within the first day of birth. It's just– it's horrible, it's sickening, you know it grieves God. And, and we were at a prayer meeting this morning which is incredibly powerful, um, praying outside of a clinic, and we're talking about you know, God's forgiveness and God's mercy. For those who have, who have you know, had an abortion, how God forgives and God restores. And so we have compassion over all of this but the main compassion is these, these persons, these persons who happen to be living in a womb not fully grown yet and uh, it's just– I don't know, my heart breaks for it. But I'm so happy that this is such a positive step.

Pastor Keith. Well, it is a positive step and, and what we want to see is, is the church of God start to gravitate toward this. I'll speak personally as a pastor and I'm speaking to all the other pastors that might be listening, when we began um, adding this to uh, to a regular course of action in our church, when we added it to our DNA if you will, we uh, we– as a church, we've, we've more than doubled uh, because of the, the excitement that's uh, that's involved not just– now there are other things going on in our church, trust me, there are family issues, there's financial issues, there's sickness and disease and death and all the other things that go on and we, we address all those. But we added this in intentionally saying we have to be– this is the number one moral issue of our day. We have to take this on. Since we've done that, we've more than doubled as a church so there's an excitement about that. And the crazy thing is that if you go to a lot of church growth seminars, one of the things they're going to tell you is stay away from this abortion issue. It's bad for your church. And I'm going to tell all the pastors out there you know, nothing could be further from the truth. This is an exciting it's part of the gospel and it needs to be part of what we talk about just as a regular course of business. Not the only thing but, but, but one of the– again, certainly as I said, number one moral issue of our day, you can't really avoid that. 

Dr. Ray: You know, to me it's, faith without works is dead. You know? It's like we have a tendency, and I've done it too, I've preached against moral issues my whole life, I've done– I've preached a lot of sermons you know, we need to stand up against this, we need to you know, to rebuke this, we, we need to live this lifestyle. But what I see here, there's action being put to this. There's– it's more than preaching something, it's more than preaching against something, it's more than proclaiming how evil it is, it's actually taking a positive step to do something about it. 

Pastor Keith: And when we– the first time that we took our church out and said let's go, we're going to the commissioner's meeting, that's where we're going - our people, again, not everybody was excited about it, trust me. Again and but, but each time that we win one of these battles, we become more bold and more excited. And so it's become a, you know, success breeds success type of situation. And you're correct, that's what the church needs to do is to activate and get involved in all the seven pillars uh, that affect uh, uh you know, societies, affect uh, uh our worldview, that affect our culture.

Dr. Ray: personhood.org.

Pastor Keith: Per–

Dr. Ray: Remember that. I'll put it in the notes for this show too. personhood.org. Of course, you've got a number they can call you 24 hours a day right here…

Pastor Keith: [Laughs]

Dr. Ray: Every pastor wants to hear that…so…

Pastor Keith: No, we would, I would be happy to. Again, and I've talked to pastors all over the country to say, here's a simple, it's, it's really quite easy. Anybody can do this. And in fact, if you go on there, we've got a uh, there are two quick videos that say here's how you get your city to become a safe city. Here's how you get your county to become a safe county. And there are two quick videos, little five-minute videos that say here's what we did, here's how it happened. Ao it's, it steps you right through. It gives you the arguments to use, the, the words to say, it's, it's, and it's, it's really painless. And all we're looking for is brave courageous Christians who, who are ready to take up uh, this part of this banner.

Dr. Ray: So you can fight the battle as a church against the evil of abortion, armed and dangerous.

Pastor Keith: Yes.

Dr. Ray: So what you're giving is, you're giving tools. I mean, you're giving ammunition. 

Pastor Keith: Absolutely.

Dr. Ray: You're giving a strategy that's been proven that works. Sanctuary county.

Pastor Keith: Yes.

Dr. Ray: A sanctuary for the unborn. I mean, what– gosh, it just sounds good just talking about it, it just sounds right.

Pastor Keith: It, it is. And the whole idea of sanctuary goes all the way back to uh, to the Old Testament and you had these cities of refuge. And so there's this, this uh, this portion of God's law that's always been in there, and we're kind of you know, breathing life into that whole concept. The sad part is that when we first started the sanctuary project, a lot of, a lot of the commissioners were hands-off saying “Wait a minute. No, I don't want to be a sanctuary county,” you know, “we're hearing bad things about this and it was used in terms of allowing illegal immigrants into the country and what have you.” And so there's a little bit– that's why a lot of the, the places want to adopt language saying safe county or either strong advocate for life or… It's not that this is something different, this is something different, but the funny thing is that the reason that that wording was chosen and selected is that our enemy, our opposition people who would normally fight against us on this thing, their hands become tied when we use that word sanctuary because they're the ones who've been forwarding it for so long and we've just adopted that language saying, saying, you know, we, we almost dare you to uh, to argue against this concept that you've been forwarding for so long - in a different venue obviously - and uh… And so from that standpoint, I, I love the, I love the idea. I wish that I could take personal credit for having you know, developed the idea. I've, I'm an 11th hour laborer. I just showed up and started doing this because literally uh, Dr. Ray, anybody can do this. Any pastor. 

Dr. Ray: But what you did was you took an idea that was really good and you bulldogged it.

Pastor Keith: That's correct.

Dr.. Ray: And you put action to it and, and you took boldness to the idea. So to me, this is not that difficult. It just takes boldness.

Pastor Keith: That's correct. 

Dr. Ray: And you know it's a pastor, it takes boldness to be a pastor period. It takes boldness to get up and preach on Sunday morning, it takes boldness to, to witness to the lost, it takes boldness to do what we do. So what about being bold now for the unborn and now there's a way that it's practical, that, that works, that's a proven method. And so you have a practical way to do this and… what, what a great message. What I think is going to happen is if this continues to grow, there's a message that's going to go to the U.S senate…

Pastor Keith: Absolutely.

Dr. Ray: …and there's a message that's going to go to Congress and hopefully a message will get to the Supreme Court that there's a movement going on here…

Pastor Keith: There is.

Dr. Ray: That's what I see.

Pastor Keith: There is and that's, that's a great point. Uh, nationally speaking there are cases right now in front of the Supreme Court that we expect them to rule on. Possibly as early as December but no later than May or June of next year that would potentially overturn Roe versus Wade. That's an exciting kind of thought process. If it does, if it does overturn Roe vs Wade, what people don't realize is that's the beginning of the war. That's the beginning of the battle because in most states the laws have already been passed at the state level. If they, if they, if they uh, cancel and overturn Roe versus Wade it, goes back to the states and each state will decide what their laws in their borders are going to be; which is why in North Carolina at least I'm saying, I'm getting a jump start. I'm, I'm moving forward. We're going to be in a position to pass legislation to make us a pro-life state and, and I'm headed that way whether Roe versus Wade is, is overturned or not. We're going to try to have that done in our state because we believe that's the correct path. 

Dr. Ray: I believe Roe versus Wade will be overturned someday. And so, what you're doing is– and then that's going to send it back to the states.

Pastor Keith: Correct.

Dr. Ray: And then when it's back to the states… so you've got a foothold in North Carolina where North Carolina can be prepared for this and uh, of course, Texas, they didn't wait for Roe versus Wade.

[Both laugh.] 

Dr. Ray: You know. 

Pastor Keith: Good for them.

Dr. Ray: It makes you want to become a Cowboy fan…

Pastor Keith: That’s right…

Dr. Ray: …You know…

[Both laugh.]

Pastor Keith: That is correct.

Dr. Ray: That's, that's uh… that's incredible. I, I love to see action. I mean, you know it's– there's so many times we have ideas and we have thoughts and, and you know, me too. I prayed and prayed and prayed against abortion and I prayed not only against it but I pray for the workers, I pray for the doctors who perform the abortion, I pray for the, for the mothers and for the men who are encouraging their girlfriends or wives to have abortion. And we pray and we pray God's, you know, hand upon them and, and God's forgiveness and for the Holy Spirit to open up blind eyes, which is a big prayer. Lord, open up their eyes that they can see… the truth. You know, the god of this world has blinded the eyes of the unbelievers and one of the consequences of that is the thousands and thousands and thousands of children that are being killed right in the womb, and we're saying that that is okay to do as a nation. I don't say that but the nation says that. I was talking earlier, actually to your father, and I'm saying you know, there's one thing to have a nation that sins but there's another thing scripturally when the nation begins to approve of sin.

Pastor Keith: Right.

Dr. Ray: And that's where you see the judgment of God coming. So the approval of sin is a very, very serious thing but we don't approve of it and I just love the fact that this is a step. Personhood.org, that this is a step and a powerful step. And, and you're already– it's actually becoming known. You know, “Hey, there's this guy in North Carolina–” in Mayberry, I mean yeah, it can be– “North Carolina, who actually got a resolution to make the County of– Yatkin County, North Carolina, a sanctuary for the unborn.”

Pastor Keith: Right.

Dr. Ray:  I mean, it's actually kind of– it's, it's getting noticed. 

Pastor Keith: It is, it's, it's, it's an easy thing that can be done but it takes that element. You know, number one is you can't have empathy or you can't have uh, apathy. I mean, you can't be completely zoned out. And that's what the church has done far too often. So, uh… if we can eliminate the apathy and we can engage and then you go at your, at your own you know, city level, at your county level and, and take uh, you know, responsibility for your territory. I'm telling that you can have the revival that you were talking about, you can have that in your little area. And it starts with something like this. You'll find that churches come together across denominational lines and that is exciting and fun to see.

Dr. Ray: Yeah, we saw that this morning in Greensboro, North Carolina. Um, what's the name of the organiz–

Pastor Keith: Love Life.

Dr. Ray: Love Life Organization…

Pastor Keith: Yes.

Dr. Ray: …outside an abortion clinic, about 300 people worshiping the Lord and they weren't confrontational. It was, it was uh, worshipping the Lord outside an abortion clinic and praying outside an abortion clinic. It was, it was powerful.

Pastor Keith: Yeah, I mean the, the statistics say - and this comes from Planned Parenthood, not from us - that when people show up at the abortion clinics and simply pray and worship, just the fact that they show up, that the numbers of, of abortions that are performed drop by almost 70 percent. This just tells the church we have to show up there. That's, that is the picture of love. And you don't have to shout and shake your fist and, and yell and holler, you just have to show up and pray. And that group is, has been very successful at doing that as they, they shared their numbers for the year today. They had over a hundred thousand uh, marchers for the entire year, they've got 14 cities that are, that are partnered with them right now. I think it was 925 decisions uh, to, to uh, to choose life instead of abortion as a result of that group just showing up and praying. So it's an exciting thing. 

Dr. Ray: So you know, what's, what's so difficult about showing up and praying? You know? Worshiping the Lord? And that's what, what we did this morning and… and I, I know it's effective, you know. It's just– this is just incredible. This is such a positive step. And I was just thinking, I'm a very compassionate guy and I really am, and I'm thinking if we could save one child, one child, everything we're doing is worth it just to save one child but what if we could save thousands? But it'd be worth it for one.

Pastor Keith: Come on. In fact, we saw that in uh, in Texas when they passed– you mentioned it, they just passed their law. One month later, they did a, a little uh, test saying you know, how many abortions we’re gonna save. The, the number of abortions in that state just by making that statement, passing that law, the number of abortions had been cut by 50 percent.

Dr. Ray: Yeah.

Pastor Keith: People's minds, the culture starts to change because people get out and do things. I'm hopeful that'll be the same thing in, in Yadkinville, that it'd be the same in Davie County, the same in Wilkes County, Randolph County, all the other places that we're going to, that we could see uh, abortion reduced by 50 percent simply by the church standing up and standing together and saying you know, we, we actually care about this situation.

Dr. Ray: So personhood.org has the tools and the weapons to do this.

Pastor Keith: Yes. 

Dr. Ray: You can go to your county commissioners and you can hand them a resolution to make your county, your city, a sanctuary for the unborn. How amazing and wonderful is that? It just sounds so good. And, and it's happening. So three counties in North Carolina, 11 cities in Mississippi already which is so wonderful.

Pastor Keith: Yeah, many other places too. Texas has passed a couple and uh..

Dr. Ray: Oh, Texas too? Okay.

Pastor Keith: …and uh, and Wisconsin has started one or two. And so…

Dr. Ray: So Wisconsin?

Pastor Keith: That's right. they've, they've, it's peppered the countryside. You know, if, if, if you're listening to this and you get excited about it, you should. And, and uh, again, go to the website, find uh, you know, find a contact in your state and get started. It's simple, it's easy to do, and I would encourage everybody to take that, that opportunity.

Dr. Ray: Well folks, I'm talking to Pastor Keith Pavlansky of Yadkinville, North Carolina, Faith Fellowship Church. He's the lead pastor, senior pastor, whichever terminology. Those old guys use the term senior pastor, the young folks call them lead pastors. I'm kind of the old-school senior pastor, but anyway… I hope this show has maybe provoked you. And notice this: one of the– you know, we talk about the gifts of the spirit a lot, and people love to hear about prophecy and healing and this kind of stuff but one of the primary gifts of the Holy Spirit that people don't talk about much is boldness. And what you see scripturally, when the Holy Spirit fell, there was a boldness that came upon Peter and John and the disciples and there was a boldness that came on the Apostle Paul. And I'm praying you will have the boldness to follow up. Let's save lives. Let's save some lives, let's just take this resolution. personhood.org. Take this resolution, be bold, be bold and just… do your part, let God do the rest; and pray for these commissioners. Pray for whoever– your mayor, whoever you're taking it to, pray their eyes will be open. It has happened. This resolution has passed, it has passed in multiple counties, in multiple cities. This resolution to make a city or a county a sanctuary for the unborn has been passing.

Pastor Keith: That's correct.

Dr. Ray: That's so cool.

Pastor Keith: That's correct. It's fun and exciting and again, everybody likes to be on a winning side and this is a chance for the church to be on the winning side. It's easy to do in certain locations. Obviously uh, you know, if, if you're going to try to do it in the middle of New York City or whatever, it's an uphill battle but across the majority of this country, most of the cities, most of the counties would be receptive to this. And by getting this done, it begins to give courage to the uh, the respective legislators in, in their states and, and even at the national level as you mentioned. And that's what we're trying to do is to, is to, to give them the courage that they should already have. To say “Here's an issue that's important to us and that we can win on.”

Dr. Ray: That's a very good point because there's so many politicians who have the conviction but they really don't have the courage.

Pastor Keith: Right.

Dr. Ray: And they'll tell you “I'm pro-life,” and uh, you know, all this stuff but they don't really do anything about that.

Pastor Keith: That's correct.

Dr. Ray: And so we've seen that. We've witnessed this in politics. Pastor Keith, it's awesome being here with you. Actually– we're actually inside your church right now in uh, Yatkinville, and uh, Barney Fife was out with his bul– one bullet. The other day I saw him down by the road there. It's pretty, pretty neat, um… But anyway, thank you so much and God bless you for what, what you're doing and would you just close this out with prayer? Any final words? It's yours, any final thing you'd like to say but we'll ask you just to close this out with prayer if you could.

Pastor Keith: Uh, again we've said it three or four times but any– anybody can do this. It doesn't take– it… you don't have to have been in the pro-life movement for years and decades and have a, you know, some special rank or anything like that. Anybody is capable of doing this. If I did it, anybody's capable of doing it. So let's pray.

Dr. Ray: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Stop for a second. So, if Keith Pavlansky could do it, anybody can do it.

Pastor Keith: That is correct.

Dr. Ray: I couldn't let you get away with…

Pastor Keith: That's the motto, that's right.

Dr. Ray: …I couldn't let you slide with that. Okay. Anyway, thank you everybody for listening to me today. This is Self Talk, I'm Dr. Ray Self and we will close with prayer. Amen.

Pastor Keith: Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for another opportunity just to spend time uh, sharpening one another, concentrating on your word of God and uh, and in this instance we thank you so much for the Holy Spirit of God that's giving us that boldness to go out and change our community; to change our culture. This is what we've been called to do. To go directly to the gates of hell and You say that Your church is going to prevail when it gets into that battle. And so I'm, I'm excited that that's happening. That we're seeing victory after victory. And I think that as a result of uh, Brother Ray having uh, having the uh, uh, tenacity to uh, to even have this, this meeting. That there will be people who will hear it that will change their communities and, and there will be just a ripple effect that occurs all across the country as a result. And I thank You for it in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Dr. Ray: Amen. Amen. Thank you for listening. Go to personhood.org. Be bold. You can do it. God bless you, this is Dr. Ray Self and we are out.

Narrator: Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review our show on iTunes, YouTube, Spotify, Charisma Podcast Network, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your review helps our show reach more people and spread the gospel. You can purchase Dr. Self's latest book, Hear His Voice, Be His Voice, on Amazon.com. Please visit Dr. Self's webpage at icmcollege.org for more information and free downloads.