"Battle For Our Souls" RESCUE RADIO with Marjorie Cole

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Music.

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Rescue Radio, because there's a war for your soul. Yes, Father God, indeed, indeed.

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The war has been done and won, and yet we're still in it.

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And this mystery, Lord God, that keeps hounding us, Lord, is it finished from

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the foundation of the world? Yes.

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Are we in it today? Yes. Are we in two places at one time? Yes.

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So, Father, I thank you for helping us to navigate through this life,

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realizing that we are actually in the beginning part of our eternal life and

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hopefully that life for all of us will end with you forever in heaven and not

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be misguided and detoured to the pit of hell.

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So thank you, Lord, for intervening, Jesus, for rescuing us by dying in our

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place, by making it possible for whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord to be saved.

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And of course, because you gave us a free will, everything gets all moved around

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and you vote for us, The devil votes against us and we break the tie by whose report we believe.

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And so I thank you, Jesus, that you believe the Father completely surrendered

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your life to him completely and took on the form of a human being and died in

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our place so that you could finish the works, the demands of death by dying.

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Giving your blood, all your blood in payment for our rescue,

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for our redemption, for our salvation.

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So Lord, I thank you for that. We thank you. We do not take that act of love

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for granted, and that is by the most, every person,

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idea or sense of the word, a true act of love when one lays down his life for

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his friend or his foe. And we were your foes at the time.

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So, Lord, thank you for your faith in believing that your work would turn us back to righteousness.

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And thank you for giving us power over all the power of the enemy,

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even as we're sons and daughters.

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You've now given us, reinstated us with the power and the authority to forgive

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sins, to bind and loose, and to love our enemies.

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And So, Father, I thank you for the divine promise and protection,

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even as we're in this war, that's already been won, that you promised that no

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weapon formed against us will prosper, that no word said, deed done,

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or action taken will be able to be used by the enemy to bring forth any shame, trouble, or reproach.

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So get us out of that place of feeling afraid that it's all lost, all is lost.

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But let us now stand up and say that all things work together for good to those

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who love God, even though they think they're lost and things are lost.

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You are more than able to turn things around in a second, in an instant,

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as you've shown us many times in your stories you've given us in the Bible. So, thank you, Lord.

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Give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to receive this revelation now in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Well, we're continuing in our Relationship with God series, and our title is, Who is God to You?

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Is God a friend, a foe, or a father.

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And so today we're going to be talking about God as a foe, as an enemy.

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And this becomes a real, real stumbling block to a lot of people when they see

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how God does or doesn't behave according to their expectations,

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whether it's a prayer they pray or just over the course of the Old Testament,

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seeing all the things he did and not understanding why he did them,

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and then judging God for doing things that seem to be very out of character

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and out of context with a loving God.

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You know, I've seen over the years people that have abused themselves,

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maybe abused their bodies, you know, with inducing hurt.

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Internalizing all kinds of chemicals and stuff like that.

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And they just lived a life of recklessness and not honoring God at all.

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And then when they end up in the hospital, they get really sick or something

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and they're dying. They're mad at God.

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They're mad at God. Why is, you know, they blame God.

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We often tend to blame God for what we've done ourselves. Yeah.

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And we've sown evil, and we're reaping evil, and we blame God for it.

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Well, here's the problem.

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The problem is in the beginning, when God wanted people to love Him.

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He had to give them a free will to not love Him.

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And so that free will has become the problem, because we're not robots. We can choose yes or no.

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There's two kingdoms only, God's and Satan's. There's not a third kingdom of

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maybe I don't know or mental illness or accidents and fate and bad luck. That's not a kingdom.

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Those things are fruits that will come into the kingdom of hell.

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So Jesus is by the fruits you shall know them. So there's only two kingdoms.

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But the thing is, we ended up in this place of confusion.

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God votes for us all the time, but it doesn't look like that because the devil

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comes and puts a thought in there.

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Well, if God is so good, then why? Why does he let all this bad stuff happen to me?

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Well, the reason God lets it is because he has to.

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He has power to do whatever he wants to bring things to, you know,

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straighten things out. And he will, and he does.

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But in the meantime, if you have used your free will to vote against him,

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to choose the devil's side, then the devil gets you because the rule is whom

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we yield their self-servants to obey.

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That's who slavery becomes. So when you're disobeying God, you're obeying the devil.

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When you're obeying the devil, then he says, Now, I have a right to work in

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their life, to be in their life.

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And so then you go to this place of despair and trouble and addiction and brokenness

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and all this stuff the devil has beat you up with.

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And then you cry out to God, and before you cry out to God, usually the devil

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says, well, see, see, it's your fault.

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No, no, see, it's God's fault, because God had the power.

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God, if God's so good, then why did he let all this best of us?

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But the thing is, God has a perfect will for us, and that is to live in the

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joy and the goodness and the peace and the health and the abundance of the life

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he died to give us. And you can have that.

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Even on this earth, when things are so crappy and corrupted,

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you can still have that peace and that fellowship with God, that constant goodness

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and assurance of his love, you can have that even in the pit.

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That's because God is big enough to do that. We're living in the snake pit,

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but God is able, he took you out of that pit, whosoever will,

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and puts you on the rock, Christ Jesus.

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And so you are strong and strengthened in him and he gives us armor and protection and purpose.

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But you don't have to live with God. You can go in and out, in and out, in and out of the pit.

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But when that happens, you're not living in God's perfect will,

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you're living in God's permissive will because he has to permit you to exercise

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your free will so you get in trouble.

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There are so many misconceptions about who God is and what he expects.

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You know, I remember...

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As a young man, as a teenager, thinking, you know, I really should serve God,

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but it would be impossible to serve God because I can't keep the Ten Commandments perfectly.

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I break three of them before I get out of bed in the morning.

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Which three, honey? I don't know. But I figured it was impossible.

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And yes, it is impossible in our own strength. Yeah, but this isn't even the requirement.

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It isn't the requirement, but that was my attitude. Right. It's like, God is so hard to please.

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I'm finished before I start. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the truth of a lot of people's thinking.

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But see, that's because Satan's concept of God, he has twisted and perverted

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the true nature of God, his love.

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He's twisted that into being, keeping perfectly the 10 commandments or walking

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in some legalistic ritual or religious demands that are impossible.

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So then we assume, well, that's what God wants. I can't do that. God is mad at me.

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God is mad at me, and he's very strict, and he's very boring.

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Because it's no fun to serve God. That's not the God of the universe.

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That was the idea that I had.

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It's no fun to serve God.

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But then you find that, you know, Psalm 1611 says, in his presence there's fullness of joy.

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In his right hand there are pleasures forevermore.

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And that's the truth. Yeah, that's what the truth is. but it's a lot of people

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are lied to because sometimes they look at church, they look at a dead church

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and they think, oh man, I don't want that.

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Well, they look at the Old Testament, they look at the New Testament,

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they think of all the things that they're told about God. God is wrathful.

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He's just basically so temperamental, he's always kicking out his wrath against people.

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So he can't be a friend. Ooh, he can't be a friend. So I want to avoid him.

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But who is God? You know, he even admits himself to us in Romans.

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He says he's justice and mercy, mercy and justice.

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Justice sometimes has to look pretty strict and straightforward and wrathful

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and separating the good from the bad.

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And mercy is, you know, foregoing whatever it is that we deserve to give us the place that we lost.

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And so, again, going back to the point, Satan wants you to judge God as being

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a foe, as being fickle, as being uncaring, as being, you know, distanced.

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And so we are given the opportunity to fall in love with the devil.

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He's going to be your best friend at some point in the beginning.

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He's going to give you everything you want. You're going to have this love affair

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with his power, with his seduction,

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with his, you know, free gifts, his bribery, his blackmailing,

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and he seduces, he has basically, the whole world, I believe,

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has been set in that place of darkness.

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And then one by one, the little light, the flickering light of God's truth in

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the midst of this dark world, the flickering of God's consistent love and plan,

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flickers in the midst of it all and says he lights every man that comes into the world.

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So every man that comes into the world has a moment, an understanding,

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a grasping of that, a glimpse of that light.

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And those who go for the light come to the truth.

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You know, is it, excuse me, righteousness and justice?

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Righteousness and truth. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His

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throne. Yeah, justice and truth are the foundation of His throne.

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So, the goodness of God.

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And the psalmist said, I would have lost heart unless I had seen the goodness

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of God in the land of the living.

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So the goodness of God, this is it. Yes, God is just. He is holy.

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He, in a sense, is unapproachable because he's so holy.

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He is all God. He is all good. He is all righteous.

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He is all knowing. He is all loving. He is all merciful. He's all everywhere

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present. He's faithful. And He's faithful, totally faithful.

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And the thing is too is, the truth of the goodness of God has to come to the

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revelation of the Word of God.

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To counteract the lies of the enemy about how strict and harsh and awful He is.

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That He is an enemy. We think of God as just.

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An enemy rather than a friend. Yeah.

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So we live in this pit of adversity and where everything is against us.

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Because why? Because Satan still hates us, even though he has us trapped in the pit.

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His one desire is to rid us, get rid of us, and get rid of our identity or who

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we are because we are still loved by God.

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Jesus, when he came, he said, I've come to seek and save that which is lost.

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And, you know, the devil has told us we're depraved and unsavable.

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And God did not come to seek and save the depraved. If you have something that's

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depraved, you throw it away.

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He wanted to, we were lost. We were precious to him, even though we were broken.

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And in the psalmist, you know, David and the various ones who keep praying and

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showing, you know, here we are, he was in a pit.

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If you know David's story, King David, he was grappling in this pit. He worshiped God.

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He had found God in the way that God revealed himself to him,

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even when he's a shepherd boy.

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And he would worship and play his guitar, not a guitar, to God and worship and

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write all these songs. But then he grew up and killed Goliath because he had this power.

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He wasn't even very grown up when he killed Goliath. That was the beginning of his career.

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Teenager, probably. Yeah. And so then he ultimately was chased around in the

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wilderness by the bad king for 30 years or 10 years or whatever it was.

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And then he became the king of Israel, the greatest of all the kings, really.

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And here's one of the things that he said in his struggles.

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He's being chased by Saul or by whoever at that point. And he says in Psalm

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40, verse 11, to God, he's praying to God, Do not withhold your tender mercies from me, O Lord.

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Let your loving kindness and your truth continually preserve me.

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For innumerable evils have surrounded me.

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My iniquities have gone over my head so that I'm not able to look up.

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They're more than the hairs of my head. Therefore, my heart fails.

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Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help me.

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So he is still, we're all in this place,

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this position of vulnerability, where we have the opportunity as God's children

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to come before him and remind him of the promise, the covenant that he has entered in through blood.

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And the Old Testament was the blood of the lambs. That was the covenant he made with Abraham.

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And they had to keep this covenant of bloodshed with the lambs and the sacrificing

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going on and on and on to every year, so that every day of every year,

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because they had to keep that covenant alive.

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But that was the temporary, that was the shadow of things to come,

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because in the end, what happened was Satan was defeated when the blood of the

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Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, was slain on Mount Calvary.

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And that was the end of the blood, the need for the shedding of blood.

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But in the midst of that promise being fulfilled after, it was thousands of

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years, it was 4,000 years before Jesus got here.

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And we've been here now 2,000 years after that, so it's 6,000 years.

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So in that 4,000-year interim, people like David and Moses and various others,

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Abraham, God approached them. He started with Abraham, approached him again.

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You know, Noah, of course, he landed the boat, and then things got,

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you know, kind of bad again, and got paganness.

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They built the Tower of Babel going back that, okay, so they landed the boat.

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Everybody's happy. Everybody's out of the boat, and they start to have kids,

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and the animals multiply, and blah, blah, blah. And so then one of the sons

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of Ham, which is the son of Noah, his son's son, decided that would be Nimrod,

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decided to build the Tower of Babel.

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And at the Tower of Babel, they were going to take matters back into their own

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hands under the influence of the fallen angels.

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And they were going to build this ziggurat to heaven so they could communicate

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with the fallen angels and get that intelligence, get that demonic,

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angelic intelligence so they could, you know, take over. Do more evil. Do more evil.

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And so God didn't hurt anybody, but he just corrupted all their languages.

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That was kind of a fun fix to the problem.

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And they couldn't talk to each other. And so they couldn't build the tower anymore.

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So they scattered, and that became the nations.

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And out of all that, they were all pagan because the watchers.

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The divine counsel of God had betrayed him as well.

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And they were supposed to watch over these nations, 70, 72 nations.

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And they all went their own ways and began to fight with each other.

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And that's why we have the wars on the earth today. But anyway, back to the real story.

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That's just another dimension of the war, another dimension of the hatred,

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the contempt that Satan was using even more.

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The fallen, the watchers, the fallen angels to turn men against men,

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but we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. But in relationships, we forget that.

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We think my enemy is my boss. My enemy is my wife. My enemy is what?

00:16:11.097 --> 00:16:15.477
So anyway, so in this, this Tower of Babel thing, at that point,

00:16:15.697 --> 00:16:17.897
God went and found him a friend.

00:16:18.077 --> 00:16:21.537
That's what he did. He was a foe to most, but he went and found a friend and

00:16:21.537 --> 00:16:22.737
his friend's name was Abraham.

00:16:23.157 --> 00:16:26.597
And Abraham was, you know, of the pagans. He was with the pagans,

00:16:26.717 --> 00:16:28.637
but he had this different idea.

00:16:28.817 --> 00:16:31.557
He thought, well, you know, why? He started to think.

00:16:31.737 --> 00:16:35.517
He started to actually think, well, how come these idols, my dad's idols,

00:16:35.677 --> 00:16:39.477
have to be carried around and moved around? They can't even move themselves

00:16:39.477 --> 00:16:43.137
around, and yet I'm asking them to move around and do things for me?

00:16:43.517 --> 00:16:47.357
Yeah. So he kind of got, you know, I guess logic helped him to say, this is ridiculous.

00:16:47.637 --> 00:16:51.177
So he asked his dad about it, and he destroyed the idols, and he got in trouble,

00:16:51.237 --> 00:16:56.277
and he followed God, God gave him the promise and God said, come follow me,

00:16:56.477 --> 00:16:58.257
get out of here. We'll go to Ur of the Chaldees.

00:16:58.537 --> 00:17:02.257
We'll get out of Ur of the Chaldees and go where I'm going to show you a promised land.

00:17:02.457 --> 00:17:06.457
So God had this hope in his heart too, that he was going to reestablish a place

00:17:06.457 --> 00:17:10.777
of safety, a people for himself, going back to building a family.

00:17:11.277 --> 00:17:13.657
Another family in the midst of the world.

00:17:13.857 --> 00:17:17.417
And they're in absolute hatred of God. They're sacrificing their children.

00:17:17.597 --> 00:17:18.977
They're being controlled by demons.

00:17:19.217 --> 00:17:22.757
They're violent towards one another, and they're full of lust and perversion.

00:17:23.337 --> 00:17:26.177
Corrupting their own bodies, et cetera, gone and on.

00:17:26.597 --> 00:17:30.137
God pulls Abraham out as his friend. Abraham follows him.

00:17:30.337 --> 00:17:33.377
And Abraham then begins to, God says, I'm going to give you,

00:17:33.537 --> 00:17:36.297
like we said earlier, I'm going to give you so many descendants,

00:17:36.317 --> 00:17:39.537
you won't be able to count them. I'm going to give you all this land as far as the eye can see.

00:17:39.797 --> 00:17:42.677
It's going to be yours and you will be my family.

00:17:43.017 --> 00:17:46.657
So they became known as the children of Israel.

00:17:46.957 --> 00:17:51.357
How do we get the word Israel, the name Israel because Abraham had a son,

00:17:51.497 --> 00:17:53.437
Isaac, which was the son.

00:17:53.537 --> 00:17:55.477
He had the promised son.

00:17:55.657 --> 00:17:58.577
There were several other sons. He had quite a few sons, actually, after.

00:17:58.857 --> 00:18:02.197
But the only one that really God was interested in that the promise was given

00:18:02.197 --> 00:18:05.617
to was Sarah because Sarah was the mother of Isaac. She was her only child.

00:18:06.177 --> 00:18:10.597
And so Isaac had two sons. One was Jacob and one was Esau.

00:18:10.737 --> 00:18:14.317
And Jacob's name was changed to Israel. So that's why we get the children of

00:18:14.317 --> 00:18:17.957
Israel who were the children of Isaac, who were the children of Abraham,

00:18:18.137 --> 00:18:19.997
and these were the children of God.

00:18:20.097 --> 00:18:22.877
So this was his family on the earth. In the midst of the snake pit,

00:18:23.257 --> 00:18:26.797
in the midst of everybody else's following Satan and their gods,

00:18:26.957 --> 00:18:29.637
their idols, their sticks and stones, God was the one true God.

00:18:30.342 --> 00:18:36.082
In James 2, verse 23, breaking in there, it says, Abraham believed God,

00:18:36.262 --> 00:18:42.722
and it was accounted to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. Yep.

00:18:43.162 --> 00:18:50.042
Wow. And so think about it. No foe. No foe anymore. So God had one ally on the earth, basically.

00:18:50.362 --> 00:18:56.082
He found a man, one guy, who was willing to be his friend. And so what happened

00:18:56.082 --> 00:18:59.462
there, Abraham, how this happened, he became a friend of God,

00:18:59.622 --> 00:19:03.322
is he believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

00:19:03.602 --> 00:19:05.822
And you're talking earlier about keeping the Ten Commandments.

00:19:06.022 --> 00:19:07.662
Abraham had no Ten Commandments.

00:19:07.782 --> 00:19:12.742
There was no Ten Commandments in Abraham's whole lifetime. They came with Moses.

00:19:13.022 --> 00:19:18.602
So Abraham was considered righteous, not because he kept the thou shalt nots

00:19:18.602 --> 00:19:23.742
and thou shalts, but because he believed the promise of God.

00:19:23.862 --> 00:19:26.942
The promise of God, it says, why is it saying James?

00:19:27.202 --> 00:19:29.322
He believed, and that was accounted to him for righteousness.

00:19:29.622 --> 00:19:33.322
I think it's James, I'm sorry, Romans 4. Well, yeah, it's Romans 4,

00:19:33.442 --> 00:19:34.842
and it's referred there too.

00:19:35.402 --> 00:19:39.902
But it's interesting. It talks about, was not Abraham our father?

00:19:40.382 --> 00:19:46.202
And James 2.21, justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar.

00:19:46.962 --> 00:19:51.922
Do you see that faith was working together with his works? And by works,

00:19:52.062 --> 00:19:54.522
faith was made perfect or complete.

00:19:54.802 --> 00:20:02.642
So basically, he believed God and he showed his, he expressed his faith through obedience.

00:20:02.842 --> 00:20:08.262
And not only did he offer Isaac, but before that, he had to believe for Isaac.

00:20:08.542 --> 00:20:12.002
So in Romans chapter 4, 25 years.

00:20:12.002 --> 00:20:18.542
So he said here in the, therefore, in verse 416, therefore it is of faith that

00:20:18.542 --> 00:20:23.082
it might be according to grace so that the promise might be sure to all the seed,

00:20:23.542 --> 00:20:27.682
not only to those who are of the law, but those who are of the faith of Abraham,

00:20:27.682 --> 00:20:29.202
who is the father of us all.

00:20:29.282 --> 00:20:33.042
So it was written, he said, he is making him the father of many nations and

00:20:33.042 --> 00:20:37.542
he called him and contrary to all hope, he also promised him a son.

00:20:37.742 --> 00:20:40.202
Of course, he didn't have that son at the time. The promise was made.

00:20:40.202 --> 00:20:44.222
Who contrary to hope, in hope, believed that he would become the father of many

00:20:44.222 --> 00:20:45.842
nations according to what was spoken.

00:20:46.042 --> 00:20:48.262
So shall your descendants be.

00:20:48.542 --> 00:20:53.762
And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his body already dead.

00:20:53.762 --> 00:20:57.222
He was already 100 years old since he was about 100 years old.

00:20:57.562 --> 00:21:00.502
And then the deadness of Sarah's womb, because she was right behind him.

00:21:00.562 --> 00:21:02.262
She was probably 85, 90 years.

00:21:03.264 --> 00:21:08.404
He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief. So Satan was beaten

00:21:08.404 --> 00:21:10.364
on his door to say, this is never going to happen.

00:21:10.644 --> 00:21:13.604
You know, you're too old. You're all dried up. There's never going to,

00:21:13.704 --> 00:21:17.184
this is a big hoax. God has just lied to you.

00:21:17.564 --> 00:21:25.044
But Abraham held on like a bulldog to this promise and was strengthened in his

00:21:25.044 --> 00:21:28.444
faith, giving glory to God, even in the midst of what didn't look like it was ever going to happen.

00:21:28.684 --> 00:21:32.944
If you and I can give glory to God, you hold on to the promises of God,

00:21:32.944 --> 00:21:35.984
no matter what that relationship looks like, no matter how bad it is,

00:21:36.044 --> 00:21:41.044
how far away that prodigal is, you hold on to that promise of God because you

00:21:41.044 --> 00:21:43.584
know God's will is for you to be healed and restored.

00:21:43.844 --> 00:21:48.704
That's what God's will is. And so if you want God's will, then believe God and do what God says.

00:21:48.804 --> 00:21:52.124
And at this point in time, all Abraham could do was wait.

00:21:52.444 --> 00:21:56.364
That's all he could do because, you know, and waiting is the worst part of every

00:21:56.364 --> 00:21:59.484
trial because the devil comes every day. Oh, it's never going to happen.

00:21:59.624 --> 00:22:00.524
It's never going to change.

00:22:00.744 --> 00:22:03.924
It's never going to work. Who do you think you are. You're so stupid to believe God.

00:22:04.104 --> 00:22:11.044
So Satan had 25 years to beat on Abraham, to try to get Abraham to give up on the promise of God.

00:22:11.204 --> 00:22:14.644
I'm sure that Satan has beat on some of you guys for 25 years,

00:22:14.824 --> 00:22:18.664
hoping for this and waiting for that, and it didn't happen, and it didn't happen

00:22:18.664 --> 00:22:19.524
the way you thought it would happen.

00:22:19.764 --> 00:22:24.664
And so you gave up and got mad at God. But here he says, and being fully convinced

00:22:24.664 --> 00:22:30.524
that what he, God, had promised, he, God, was also able to perform,

00:22:30.524 --> 00:22:32.984
and therefore it was accounted to him for righteousness.

00:22:33.404 --> 00:22:37.804
So his righteousness came through faith. It came through faith and believing

00:22:37.804 --> 00:22:40.304
in the promise of God, not in keeping the law.

00:22:40.983 --> 00:22:45.703
That law was not able to save, and Galatians, Paul says, the law can't save

00:22:45.703 --> 00:22:47.803
you. Because the law can't be kept.

00:22:48.063 --> 00:22:51.943
Yeah, and that's why God made it impossible for the law to be kept,

00:22:51.983 --> 00:22:55.683
because he didn't want us to be saved by a law, by rules, by earning our salvation

00:22:55.683 --> 00:22:58.283
through works. He wanted it to be his gift.

00:22:58.443 --> 00:23:03.623
He wanted it to be the grace and the goodness and the love of Jesus Christ laying down his life for us.

00:23:03.783 --> 00:23:08.763
And there was 4,000 years almost. Well, this was probably a 2,000-year interim

00:23:08.763 --> 00:23:12.383
by the time Abram shows up, maybe a little bit more than that,

00:23:12.743 --> 00:23:16.703
maybe 2,500 years, before Jesus gets to the cross.

00:23:17.083 --> 00:23:20.343
Okay, that's my math. You can check it out. But anyway, it was a long time.

00:23:20.483 --> 00:23:26.363
And so this has been the ordeal of the human race for the first 4,000 years,

00:23:26.403 --> 00:23:30.123
to believe for that promise made to Adam and Eve. Believe, believe, believe.

00:23:30.383 --> 00:23:34.623
Then God created the children of Israel to carry that promise.

00:23:34.623 --> 00:23:38.743
They were the only ones, all the pagans around them were worshiping the sticks

00:23:38.743 --> 00:23:42.363
and stones and sexually perverted and, you know, whatever.

00:23:42.623 --> 00:23:45.143
What are they all doing? Sleeping with animals, et cetera.

00:23:45.983 --> 00:23:53.283
And so all this crazy was going on, except in this holy little lump of people gathered together.

00:23:53.683 --> 00:23:56.783
Seventy-five people, Abraham's descendants, went down into Egypt,

00:23:56.963 --> 00:24:00.503
were there 400 and some years, 430 years. And in that process,

00:24:00.643 --> 00:24:06.763
they were incubated in that it started out good, ended up terribly in the crucible. But in that.

00:24:07.333 --> 00:24:12.653
Cauldron, a million people came out of that 75 people in that 400 years.

00:24:12.793 --> 00:24:16.573
So now we have a million people that God is rescuing, again,

00:24:16.793 --> 00:24:22.693
moving in on the human story with his own divine acts of taking down Pharaoh,

00:24:23.213 --> 00:24:27.553
setting the captives, the people free from the oppression of Egypt,

00:24:28.133 --> 00:24:31.813
opening up the Red Sea for them to get through it, opening up the Jordan,

00:24:32.233 --> 00:24:36.633
taking down Jericho, giving them Moses and Joshua to take, now they're going

00:24:36.633 --> 00:24:40.353
back in to take the promised land that they left 430 years before.

00:24:40.533 --> 00:24:43.073
And now while they were gone, it was all filled up with giants.

00:24:43.273 --> 00:24:47.373
So now they had to go back in and take out the giants. And so here we have the

00:24:47.373 --> 00:24:51.453
drama and the war and see Satan, he did not want them to have the promised land.

00:24:51.553 --> 00:24:54.353
So what did he do? He filled it up with literally giants.

00:24:54.953 --> 00:24:59.453
Og and Sion were the king of Og and Bishan. These were giants.

00:24:59.713 --> 00:25:05.033
These were not little guys that are, you know, five, six feet tall. These were giants.

00:25:05.253 --> 00:25:08.573
And so Joshua and his guys, they had to take them out.

00:25:08.733 --> 00:25:14.073
They had to believe God to regain what God had promised them in the first place. This is crazy.

00:25:14.933 --> 00:25:20.953
What we have to remember is that in every situation, God is working on something

00:25:20.953 --> 00:25:22.873
bigger than what we see around us.

00:25:22.953 --> 00:25:25.173
And nothing is as it appears to be.

00:25:25.873 --> 00:25:29.873
And in whatever you're going through today, just think of it this way.

00:25:30.433 --> 00:25:37.033
God has got something bigger in mind. It's something beyond what you see, what you feel.

00:25:37.293 --> 00:25:42.953
He's doing something that is greater. And you don't see it at the time. In the moment.

00:25:43.639 --> 00:25:48.539
In the moment, you might not see, how can any good come out of this?

00:25:48.539 --> 00:25:50.519
This really sucks. This is terrible.

00:25:50.719 --> 00:25:54.659
But God has got a bigger picture. Yeah, he does. He's got the full picture.

00:25:55.099 --> 00:26:00.179
Because he's good. And all things work together for good to those who love God,

00:26:00.299 --> 00:26:01.919
who are called according to his purpose.

00:26:02.479 --> 00:26:04.279
Yeah, there's a little book called Lamentations.

00:26:04.939 --> 00:26:08.179
It's five chapters. It comes right after Jeremiah.

00:26:08.459 --> 00:26:13.319
Some of you may have read it. And in Jeremiah, that whole saga of 40,

00:26:13.399 --> 00:26:19.799
50 chapters, Jeremiah is pleading with the children of Judah to come back to

00:26:19.799 --> 00:26:21.699
the Lord, come back to the Lord. They don't listen.

00:26:21.939 --> 00:26:27.099
And so their kings blew him off. I mean, he wrote books and letters and visited

00:26:27.099 --> 00:26:29.159
them, and they threw him in the pit, and they threw him in prison,

00:26:29.259 --> 00:26:31.159
and they threw him in whatever.

00:26:31.359 --> 00:26:32.379
They locked him up.

00:26:32.599 --> 00:26:37.659
And all the while, he's the prophet of God begging them to turn around.

00:26:37.659 --> 00:26:39.219
It's not too late. turn around.

00:26:39.559 --> 00:26:46.139
Because there's two tribes, two different divisions of the children of Israel at this point.

00:26:46.259 --> 00:26:51.519
There's Israel, who was taken off captive by Assyria, and that's the 10 tribes.

00:26:51.659 --> 00:26:55.639
And then there were the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin that were left that

00:26:55.639 --> 00:26:58.039
stuck with the Lord a little longer.

00:26:58.279 --> 00:27:03.879
And so Jeremiah's talking to them, oh, don't go like the others going off to Assyria.

00:27:04.059 --> 00:27:08.079
And so he begged them. And so, but they refused that the king actually,

00:27:08.359 --> 00:27:11.619
there was prophecies that this king would be, his eyes would be plucked out.

00:27:11.759 --> 00:27:13.239
He'd see his kids killed in front of him.

00:27:13.879 --> 00:27:16.899
Zedekiah. Zedekiah. Yeah. And all of that happened to him.

00:27:16.999 --> 00:27:21.959
And so at the end of that now, and everybody's taken off into captivity and

00:27:21.959 --> 00:27:25.359
there's just a few little people left in the land and it's all trashed and burned

00:27:25.359 --> 00:27:29.759
and devastated and overrun and just destroyed.

00:27:31.339 --> 00:27:35.859
Jeremiah is weeping, and he's crying out to the Lord, and he's lamenting,

00:27:35.939 --> 00:27:41.599
he's lamenting, and in chapter 1, verse 12, he says, he's still,

00:27:41.879 --> 00:27:43.159
well, I'll start with 11.

00:27:44.792 --> 00:27:51.132
All of her people sigh. They seek bread. They have given their valuables for food to restore life.

00:27:51.532 --> 00:27:56.072
See, O Lord, and consider, for I am scorned. You know, he was rejected, of course.

00:27:56.772 --> 00:28:00.592
The adversary has spread his hand over all her pleasant things,

00:28:00.732 --> 00:28:04.212
for she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary. Interesting.

00:28:04.732 --> 00:28:10.092
Seen the nations enter her sanctuary, to whom you have commanded not to enter your congregation.

00:28:10.252 --> 00:28:14.992
And then in verse 12, Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?

00:28:15.092 --> 00:28:20.392
Behold and see if there's any sorrow like my sorrow, which has been brought

00:28:20.392 --> 00:28:25.672
on me, which the Lord has inflicted on me in the day of his fierce anger.

00:28:25.672 --> 00:28:29.072
So why was God freaking out and getting so mad?

00:28:29.332 --> 00:28:34.832
Because he had to deal with this situation. Again, these people had all gone into idolatry.

00:28:35.012 --> 00:28:39.772
They'd gone into sacrificing their sons and daughters. That's about the bottom

00:28:39.772 --> 00:28:41.452
line. That's about the end of the line.

00:28:41.612 --> 00:28:45.592
It doesn't get any worse than that. You can kill a full-grown man as an enemy,

00:28:45.632 --> 00:28:51.272
but when you're starting to sacrifice your babies, born and unborn, to the blood.

00:28:51.972 --> 00:28:58.732
Shedding their blood for your own benefit, that's where God has to step in.

00:28:58.812 --> 00:29:02.392
So anyway, so this is what they were doing, and they were not heeding Jeremiah.

00:29:02.552 --> 00:29:06.112
So Jeremiah is weeping and sad and sorrowful and full of grief.

00:29:06.412 --> 00:29:09.532
But in the middle of the book of Lamentations, after he said,

00:29:09.732 --> 00:29:15.252
God has inflicted us, and God has protected them, but he sent some of them off

00:29:15.252 --> 00:29:19.012
safe to Babylon, his little seed that wasn't going to be destroyed.

00:29:19.272 --> 00:29:21.612
But some of them had to go away.

00:29:22.052 --> 00:29:26.772
And then he said in the middle of, he says, chapter 3, verse 22.

00:29:27.760 --> 00:29:31.920
Through the mercies, through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed because

00:29:31.920 --> 00:29:34.820
his compassions fail not. This is Jeremiah with great faith.

00:29:35.300 --> 00:29:38.420
They are new every morning. This is where we get that new every morning thing.

00:29:38.560 --> 00:29:40.120
Great is your faithfulness. That's a song.

00:29:40.380 --> 00:29:43.980
The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore, I hope in him.

00:29:44.160 --> 00:29:47.940
The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

00:29:48.200 --> 00:29:53.420
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

00:29:53.580 --> 00:29:56.440
It is good for man to bear the yoke in his youth.

00:29:56.780 --> 00:30:00.740
So he's saying his mercies are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness.

00:30:00.940 --> 00:30:04.940
The Lord has not cast us off forever, though he causes grief, verse 31.

00:30:05.220 --> 00:30:08.120
Yet he will show compassion according to the multitude of his mercies,

00:30:08.280 --> 00:30:12.320
for he does not afflict willingly or grieve the children of men to crush under

00:30:12.320 --> 00:30:15.920
his feet all the prisoners of the earth, to turn aside the justice to a man

00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:20.360
before the face of the Lord Most High, or subvert a man in his cause the Lord does not approve.

00:30:20.480 --> 00:30:25.120
So he's reaffirming the goodness and the character of God who is not willing,

00:30:25.220 --> 00:30:26.520
is not happy, is not participating.

00:30:26.760 --> 00:30:32.140
He has seen men use and yield and their free will to follow the devil,

00:30:32.300 --> 00:30:34.660
to disobey, to do all the things God said not to do.

00:30:34.880 --> 00:30:38.780
And now we're in this terrible predicament, and God has got to bring severe

00:30:38.780 --> 00:30:40.620
correction, chastening.

00:30:40.800 --> 00:30:43.740
He's not destroying them. He's bringing this correction, chastening,

00:30:43.820 --> 00:30:47.460
because they're still not to Bethlehem. They're still not to the place of the promise.

00:30:47.720 --> 00:30:52.540
And so they're still not to the place where we are. And so God had to correct

00:30:52.540 --> 00:30:54.560
them, but God, like a parent.

00:30:54.980 --> 00:30:59.000
Sometimes he has to chasten his child to correct them for the sake of protecting

00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:03.380
them and preserving them and teaching them, training them to be good and be righteous citizens.

00:31:03.620 --> 00:31:10.580
Yeah. And so many times, excuse me, so many times, again, we don't see God,

00:31:10.760 --> 00:31:15.420
we don't see the goodness of God, the goodness of God, the greatness of God.

00:31:15.480 --> 00:31:19.840
And we see it supremely in Jesus Christ.

00:31:20.780 --> 00:31:25.020
God the Father sending Jesus Christ to sacrifice for us.

00:31:25.980 --> 00:31:33.920
In Romans 5, verse 6, For when we were still without strength in due time,

00:31:34.120 --> 00:31:35.880
Christ died for the ungodly.

00:31:36.040 --> 00:31:41.880
For scarcely for a righteous man would one die, yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die.

00:31:42.480 --> 00:31:46.160
Well, they're worth it. We think they're worth it, right? Because they're good.

00:31:46.380 --> 00:31:51.240
So his relationship was always the one of love. It never changed.

00:31:51.620 --> 00:31:55.120
It was always God always loved, even underneath all the wrath,

00:31:55.320 --> 00:32:00.360
the correcting, the disciplining, the chastening, the letting them go their way kind of thing.

00:32:00.480 --> 00:32:04.680
There was always one thread that stayed, and that was God's unchanging love

00:32:04.680 --> 00:32:08.440
for his people and for us, for Jesus to come.

00:32:08.440 --> 00:32:14.200
And this was brought to a climax, Romans 5.8, but God demonstrates his own love

00:32:14.200 --> 00:32:21.720
toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And he talks about.

00:32:22.899 --> 00:32:27.699
Much more, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the

00:32:27.699 --> 00:32:30.059
wrath to come, wrath through Him.

00:32:30.979 --> 00:32:36.479
For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of

00:32:36.479 --> 00:32:42.879
His Son, much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.

00:32:43.479 --> 00:32:47.759
So basically, while we're enemies, God is taking the step.

00:32:47.899 --> 00:32:52.659
He's taking the first step to reconcile us, to bring us back together.

00:32:53.199 --> 00:32:56.139
We're not really, I mean, He reconciles us to Him.

00:32:56.299 --> 00:32:59.479
Well, yeah, He had the plan from the beginning, and this is how the plan is unfolding.

00:32:59.599 --> 00:33:04.179
So the whole Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, is the plan of God's redemption

00:33:04.179 --> 00:33:07.339
after that, chapter 3, after the fall in Genesis.

00:33:07.599 --> 00:33:12.679
The whole rest of the book is basically God's promise being fulfilled.

00:33:12.679 --> 00:33:16.439
God's plan coming forth with the devil, knocking him down, trying to kick him

00:33:16.439 --> 00:33:18.819
out of the race, killing people.

00:33:19.019 --> 00:33:21.959
It's just the battle between God and Satan to wrestle.

00:33:22.199 --> 00:33:26.579
God has wrestled his way through this mess of our free will and our rebellion.

00:33:26.699 --> 00:33:31.599
And even to this very day, there's still that wrestling match to save the righteous, to save.

00:33:31.819 --> 00:33:35.099
We are saved, but to use us now.

00:33:35.219 --> 00:33:39.299
I believe now that the point is after the death of Jesus is to use the followers

00:33:39.299 --> 00:33:44.479
of Jesus Christ as the remnant to bring forth his true will and purpose,

00:33:44.739 --> 00:33:47.579
which is love and life and eternal life for those who are still lost.

00:33:47.579 --> 00:33:52.439
So we're now entered into the fight with Jesus to turn the foes,

00:33:52.579 --> 00:33:55.199
his foes, into friends. Into friends. Yeah.

00:33:55.499 --> 00:34:00.799
And the thing is, the marvelous, persistent love of God. Yeah.

00:34:01.199 --> 00:34:04.899
He is so persistent. You think of all through history, Margie,

00:34:05.079 --> 00:34:10.699
all through history that we read about in scriptures and history that we don't see in Scriptures.

00:34:11.565 --> 00:34:18.045
You know, it's just been wrath, evil, fighting war, betrayal,

00:34:18.805 --> 00:34:23.585
tragedy, sickness, disease, demonizations, all this stuff.

00:34:23.765 --> 00:34:30.065
God is still saying, I'm not giving up on you. And he proves this by sending Jesus.

00:34:30.325 --> 00:34:36.665
In Romans 8, 31 and 32, what then shall we say to these things?

00:34:36.885 --> 00:34:41.105
If God is for us, who can be against us?

00:34:41.105 --> 00:34:46.825
He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all,

00:34:47.165 --> 00:34:54.045
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Amen.

00:34:54.385 --> 00:34:58.425
So that's God's heart. God hasn't changed. He's had to do some behaviors to

00:34:58.425 --> 00:35:01.325
adjust things for us and deal with our enemy.

00:35:01.485 --> 00:35:03.725
But God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

00:35:03.905 --> 00:35:08.345
Father, we thank you for your consistent love. We thank you for your powerful

00:35:08.345 --> 00:35:11.825
love. We thank you that your love has defeated our enemy.

00:35:12.045 --> 00:35:16.585
Your love has crushed fear under our heads, under our necks.

00:35:17.085 --> 00:35:21.085
That was crushing us. You've crushed it under our feet, Father God,

00:35:21.205 --> 00:35:24.345
that it no longer has power to destroy us.

00:35:24.465 --> 00:35:28.445
So thank you, Lord, and let us rejoice and be thankful this day and every day.

00:35:28.665 --> 00:35:32.925
And start living your life as a winner, as a victorious one,

00:35:33.125 --> 00:35:35.485
as one that has taken a stand for God.

00:35:35.605 --> 00:35:38.065
And do not back down. You will not regret it.

00:35:38.245 --> 00:35:40.825
In Jesus' name, give us your courage. Amen.

00:35:41.505 --> 00:35:46.645
Amen, amen. And we're going to mention again, doing relationships God's way.

00:35:47.165 --> 00:35:51.805
And there's a chapter in there, right? One of your chapters is dealing with

00:35:51.805 --> 00:35:53.925
our relationship with God. Exactly.

00:35:54.225 --> 00:35:58.685
Yeah. God is a father. That's what we'll be talking about in part three, God as our father.

00:35:58.905 --> 00:36:03.805
So the Lord bless you all. Take an opportunity to get a copy of the book,

00:36:03.925 --> 00:36:07.765
Doing Relationships God's Way. and don't neglect to read your Bible first.

00:36:07.985 --> 00:36:12.625
Everything is all comes from the word of God. Bless you and have a wonderful, a wonderful week.

00:36:13.040 --> 00:36:42.898
Music.