The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. (Luke 17:5-6 ESV)

If the abolition movement does not begin with prayer, it will die. This may seem a hyperbolic statement, but unless the builders entrust the work of abolition to God, we will certainly labor in vain. This prayer needs to be, firstly, one of repentance of apathy, supplication to cause us to be sorrowful for the lost, and remembrance that we represent and glorify Christ in this labor.

I am new to the abolition movement; long have I watched brothers and sisters from afar doing the work to ensure equal justice for the preborn, and, by the grace of God, he has brought me to a place where I can learn from experienced brothers and sisters and apply what I have learned. One such experience that sticks out to me is when I heard SB-456 (the anti-abortion bill for Oklahoma) brought before magistrates on February 19, 2025, and saw Sen. Dusty Deevers’ passion for the preborn. It deeply convicted me to watch as he spoke with such humility and tender care for the preborn and made me realize that I had long lacked that tender spot for the preborn. While I argued with people about abortion being a wicked thing, I had not allowed for the word of God to expose my apathy. For me, holding to the abolitionist viewpoint beforehand was simply intellectual; it was not a position I had taken in faith, allowing for the Lord to correct me, a sinner amid a holocaust, who was trying to point other sinners to their inconsistency. Abortion is the slaughter of innocent life, and it cannot be reiterated enough.

As I watched Deevers close to sobbing, I was stunned to realize I thought of myself as above those that were directly involved in the slaughter but denied God’s grace that restrained me from being involved myself. I also lacked sorrow for those lost souls who have murdered their children and are not covered by Christ. The fight against abortion does not begin on the streets; rather, it starts on your knees before a holy God that abominates the death of the innocent and abhors the apathy of man. It begins with repentance for ignoring such a horrific act.

A month later, God, in His providence, allowed me to attend the Washington, DC, mission and continued His work to humble me. Instead of graciously pursuing these people's reconciliation with God, I once again found myself seeking my justification for my righteousness in front of them, and my hardened heart was once again convicted. My greatest regret from the DC mission was that I prayed little and said much. The last line of 1 Peter 3:15, which is frequently used in apologetics — "yet do it with gentleness and respect" — is the most forgotten aspect of the passage. It demonstrates how easily humans are tempted to defend Christ "Christlessly." We are to love fellow image bearers by showing them the same love with which God sacrificially loved us. We must always seek to bring glory to God.

Ending how I began, we need to seek to do all our acts of work by prayer, remembering the words of how our King taught us to pray: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.” Pray with faith, believer! Christ will faithfully sanctify His bride, protect her, and change the earth through her. When the doubts from the vitriol set in, or the weary toil causes you to faint, pray to Christ! He will provide. When we faithfully pray, God plants seeds that will supernaturally transform darkness into light, and, likewise, abortion will be abolished to the glory of God. Let us pray that we are obedient in that mission.

Shout on! But most of all, pray on! We are gaining ground! Your King rides before you, triumphing over his enemies. Glory hallelujah!

Tim Martin became a believer while in high school, after God crushed his self-righteousness to save him from death and hell. Tim recently moved from Texas to Oklahoma and is involved in a politically active church and is a committed abolitionist. He is a signer of the Norman Statement.