A Pirate Christians Guide to the Old Testament: Part 5

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A Pirate Christian's Guide to the Old Testament Part 6 - Ruth

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith and our ongoing series,

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A Pirate Christian's Guide to Understanding the Old Testament. This is part 5.

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Now if you haven't already watched parts 1 through 4, pause the video, go back and actually watch them.

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They all build off of each other. This will be a little bit of a shorter one, but I'm gonna start by asking a question.

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Quick, off the top of your head, can you recite to me John 3 .16?

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John 3 .16. Yeah, by the way, this is a fellow.

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When I was growing up, this guy was like at all the major sporting events with his

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John 3 .16 t -shirt and his rainbow wig. So you know what John 3 .16

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says. John 3 .16 says, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten

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Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

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It's a great text and it's one that even if you're not a Christian, you might even know what

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John 3 .16 says. But now let me ask you this, what does John 3 .14 and 15 say?

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Without looking, no cheating, what does John 3 .14 and 15 say?

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Let's take a look at that real quick. John 3 .14, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the

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Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

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Yeah, John 3 .14 and 15. Yeah, the two verses immediately preceding John 3 .16

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is a reference to a story that if you're familiar with the Old Testament, you may have heard about.

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It is the account of the bronze serpent. So what we're gonna do in this shorter version of A Pirate Christian's Guide to Understanding the

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Old Testament, we're gonna unpack what this bronze serpent is all about, and why

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Jesus is referencing it in a way that it is referencing himself. The answer is actually quite simple, that the bronze serpent is a type and shadow of Christ and his crucifixion for our sins.

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This is one of the major themes of Scripture, and it's found very clearly in the Old Testament, but it's also taught in the types and shadows, and that bronze serpent itself up on the pole, well, that's a type and shadow of Jesus.

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So we have Jesus's word on this, because again, John 3 verses 14 and 15 say, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the

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Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. So our first text that we're gonna be looking at is the actual story of the bronze serpent, found in Numbers chapter 21.

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Numbers chapter 21, and we'll note that the children of Israel are in their wilderness wanderings right now.

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They are going to be spending a lot of time in the wilderness, 40 years because of the unbelief of 10 of the spies that were sent to spy out

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Canaan, and the whole assembly grumbling against God and accusing

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God of having brought them out of slavery into the wilderness for the purpose of killing them.

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Yeah, that's how that went. So now they're in their wilderness wanderings, and it says this, from Mount Hor, they, this is the children of Israel, set out by the way to the

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Red Sea to go around the land of Edom, and the people became impatient on the way, and the people spoke against God and against Moses.

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Why have you brought us up out of the wilderness, out of Egypt, to die in the wilderness?

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That's what we call a loaded question, which assumes that the whole motivation why God brought them out of Egypt was to kill them.

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There is no food, there is no water, and we loathe this worthless food.

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They're grumbling now against the manna. And so here then comes

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God's punishment, a curse, if you would. So Yahweh sent fiery serpents, interesting phrase in the

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Hebrew, ha -nechashim seraphim, ha -nechashim seraphim, the serpents, the fiery ones, the fiery, the serpents fiery.

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It's an interesting phrase, and I think there's a little bit of a play on words going there. So God sent fiery serpents among the people, and this is the the

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Bronze Desert Adder, and I guess you can call them fiery serpents because if you were envenomated by one of them, it would feel like your insides were catching on fire.

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This is just fun. So Yahweh sent the nechashim seraphim among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died.

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And the people came to Moses and they said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against Yahweh and against you.

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Pray to Yahweh that he take away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people, and Yahweh said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live.

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So Moses made a bronze serpent, set it on a pole, and if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

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Now a little bit of a note here. So the people have sinned, God sends the nechashim seraphim against them into the camp, they're biting people, people are dying, they confess that they are sinning and that they have sinned, and so God, rather than remove the serpents, remove the curse, gives them a special thing, and we're gonna call this thing what it really is.

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This is a sacrament. It's a mystery. A sacrament is when you take earthly matter and it's combined with the

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Word of God itself. God's Word is the active ingredient, if you would, in a sacrament.

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So in this particular case, the bronze serpent has the audible Word of God promising that if you look at the serpent, if you're bit, you will live.

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So there's the promise. So this is, so in a sense, what he's created is a sacrament. It's a good way to look at it.

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And you'll note that if you were to create a bronze serpent today, right, you know, so we understand there's a lot of people who are rattlesnake bite victims every year, and so we're sending out to all of the local hospitals, you know, this side of the

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Colorado Rockies, we're gonna be sending them bronze serpents.

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And you know, this is silly, but it doesn't work this way. And so anybody who's bit by a rattlesnake, all they got to do is look at one of our bronze serpents and they'll immediately be healed.

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Now the reason why that wouldn't work is because God has not promised that everybody who looks at any old bronze serpent would be healed.

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It's only those who looked at this particular bronze serpent at this particular time would be healed, and this is in the types and shadows of then that something applies to all of us.

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So they made a fiery serpent, a bronze serpent, put it on a pole, and anyone who then was bitten, all they had to do was look to that serpent and they would be healed.

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Now here's how it works then in the types and shadows a little bit more. Let me kind of flesh this out, and that is that every single human being, you and me included, all of us are in a sense snake bit.

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Let me explain. In Genesis chapter 3, here's what it says, and here we have a nechash.

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Yeah, this is a serpent. So now the nechash, the serpent, was more crafty than any other beast of the field that Yahweh Elohim had made.

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He said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the nechash, the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst, in the center of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die.

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But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for the Lord knows, God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

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So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that was a delight to the eyes, that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and she ate.

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And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. And the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

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And then they heard the sound of Yahweh Elohim walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife, they hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh Elohim among the trees of the garden.

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But Yahweh Elohim called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.

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And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, the woman, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate.

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And so you can make the case then that Adam and Eve, by listening to the words of the serpent, rather than the

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Word of God, that they were envenomated. They were snake bit.

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And see, this snake bite then affects us all. You kind of get how this works.

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So the woman whom you gave to me, she gave me the fruit of the tree I ate, so then the Lord said, Yahweh Elohim said to the woman, what is this that you have done?

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The woman said to the serpent, well the serpent deceived me and I ate. And so Yahweh Elohim said to the serpent, because you have done this curse are you above all livestock and above all the beasts of the field, on your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

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And now here comes in one of the curses of the serpent, the first promise, the first promise of the gospel,

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I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

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He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

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And so you see in the midst of all this, so here's the issue, is that each and every one of us, because of, you know, that we're direct descendants of Adam and Eve, every one of their descendants then are snake bit.

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They are born dead in trespasses and sins under the dominion of darkness. And God has not promised to save us from this curse, he has promised to save us through this curse, and he's saving us through what

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Christ has done for us on the cross. So the idea then is is that Christ then in John 3 14 and 15 says, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the

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Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

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In other words, that bronze serpent then is a type and shadow of Christ.

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Now Christ isn't a serpent, but remember the serpent would bruise his heel, right?

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And so the idea then is is that Christ, by taking our sin upon himself, your sin and mine, he took the envenomation that we have within us, he sucked all the venom out and brought it into himself.

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And that's kind of the gist then of one of the other biblical texts that we're all quite familiar with.

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In 2 Corinthians chapter 5 it says this, Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has passed away, behold the new has come.

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And all of this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

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That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

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Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ. God is making his appeal through us. We implore you then on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God.

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You see, for our sake, God made Christ, God made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

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And so now you can kind of see how it comes full circle. Now if you want to test to see whether or not you're snakebit, you know, one test is if you're breathing, then you're snakebit.

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But if you want something a little bit more definitive, then you look at the Ten Commandments.

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The Ten Commandments, this provides the definitive list to test to see whether or not you have the venom of the devil running through your veins.

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And this is real simple. I'm gonna read out the Ten Commandments, and if you have not broken any of them, then you're clear.

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You don't need Jesus. You don't need him bleeding and dying for your sins. But if you have broken any of these commandments in thought, word, or deed, by the things you've done or by the things that you have left undone, then you are tested positive for the venom of the serpent, of the devil in you.

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And you then need to look to Christ and him and what he's done for you, so that you can be forgiven, reconciled, and that the venom of the serpent that it's running through your veins would not lead to your eternal death.

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So Exodus chapter 20, this is where you find the Ten Commandments. You shall have no other gods before me.

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This is the commandment against idolatry. Subcommand of it, you shall not make for yourselves a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

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You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, showing steadfast love to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.

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You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

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Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, and on the seventh day is a

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Sabbath. By the way, Sabbath day, type in shadow too, we'll get to that in an upcoming installment of A Pirate Christian's Guide to the

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Old Testament. Let me just say this, that the Sabbath itself is a type and shadow of salvation by grace through faith alone apart from works.

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So remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. The seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your

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God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates.

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For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day.

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Therefore Yahweh has blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land and that Yahweh your

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God has given you. You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, you shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor.

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Now if after reading that you can say, well I've never sinned once, well then you're not snakebit. But the reality is this, everyone descended from Adam and Eve is snakebit.

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Snakebit, this is most certainly true. So and as Moses then, Christ says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so must the

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Son of Man be lifted up. You see just like the children of Israel there in the wilderness when they were snakebit, they had to look to the bronze serpent in order to live in the same way then all of us who are snakebit by the serpent's venom that envenomated our first parents

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Adam and Eve, that we now are to look to Christ who was lifted up between heaven and earth like that serpent, so that anyone who believes in him may not perish but instead have eternal life.

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Why? You see, for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

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You see, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.

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Whoever believes in him is not condemned, although they deserve to be.

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Whoever does not believe is condemned already because he's not believed in the name of the only Son of God. So this is the judgment.

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Light has come into the world and the people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

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For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed.

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Whoever does what is true comes to the light so that may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

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And then I would remind you of the ending portion of John chapter 3. It says this, whoever believes in the

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Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life. The wrath of God remains on him.

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So that bronze serpent type in shadow of Jesus Christ and a sign then that we are all envenomated by the serpent that bit our first parents, bit them by causing them to disobey

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God and listen to their his words and their own hearts rather than what

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God said. And God has had mercy on us in his great love and sent Christ who was crucified for our sins, suspended between heaven and earth.

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So now look to him you who are envenomated by the devil and you will live,

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Christ said, because of his great love for you. So if you found this helpful, all the information on how you can share the video is down below.

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All of those different ways help support us immensely. So until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and the mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins, you snake -bit people just like me out there.