F4F | Troy Gramling Misses Jesus While Looking for Greatness

Fighting for the Faith

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This episode is sponsored by the Word of the Lord endures forever. Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the

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Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ. This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the

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Word of God. So, in our last episode, we noted that Beth Moore missed

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Jesus in the story of David and Goliath. It's a common thing, unfortunately, when you think that the

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Bible is about you. And it's not. What we're going to do today is we're going to kind of build off of that.

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And we're going to head over to Florida to Potential Church. Apparently, they're not a church.

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They're just a church in Potentia. And we're going to listen to a fellow who was their former parking lot volunteer,

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Troy Gramling, whom Dan Sutherland exalted to being the vision casting leader of Potential Church, which makes no sense.

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Because Troy Gramling, you're going to see, is not really ever been qualified to be a pastor.

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And as a result of that, having not studied and showed himself approved as a workman, who need not blush with embarrassment, who can rightly handle or rightly divide the word of truth, he is one of these guys who's been falsely taught that each and every one of us has a unique destiny, that unique purpose that we need to discover and fulfill.

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And that the Bible, the Old Testament stories, you know, the stories of David and Moses and things like this, these are stories of people whom

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God had a destiny for. And either they achieve their greatness or they fell short of their greatness.

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And it's just going to be a mess. We're going to look at a lot of Bible verses today, a lot of passages.

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So if you have something to write with, take notes is probably a good idea today. So gird up your loins, whirl up the desktop here.

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And let's start here with the name of the sermon is, Is Greatness Possible?

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And like I said, a lot of Bible today and Troy just is not ever been qualified to be a pastor.

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I actually feel sorry for him that he is in this position because he's been deceived. And I think he's unintentionally deceiving others, really believing that he's doing good when he's not.

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But let's listen in to a portion of the sermon, shall we? Here we go. How many times do you think about greatness or when's the last time you thought you could be great?

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You know, we talked about that a little bit at Christmas. We talked about breaking through. We started a series last week as we go into January, kind of about potential possibilities.

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You think about great, great as a mom or a dad. Now, here I'm going to note, immediately we have a problem.

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And that is, is that Jesus covers this topic. If we're going to talk about greatness and who's the greatest and things like this, don't you think we ought to like, you know, look at what

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Jesus had to say about these things? So, let's start here and we'll take a look at two passages from the

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Gospel of Matthew where Jesus talks about greatness. First passage is Matthew 18, verse 1.

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At that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

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They want to know who's the goat, right? So, I mean, this is a great question.

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You're going to note, we've got a biblical text that gives us the topic. I mean, it's just perfectly teed up for Troy Grambling.

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All he's got to do is, you know, open the text and preach it. And so, calling to him a child,

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Jesus had a child. He put him in the midst of them. This isn't Jesus' child.

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He just, you know, got one from the crowd. Borrowed him for a minute, if you would. And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them.

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And he said, truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

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Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Oh, so children, do children conquer kingdoms?

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No. Do children become great CEOs before the age of six?

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No. Children can only be given to. And that's kind of the point that Jesus is making, is that the kingdom of God doesn't think and operate the way the world operates.

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And so, whoever humbles himself, you know, becomes the least. That's the one who's greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

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Then you have Jesus calling down woes on the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23.

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And boy, this is a rough text. And you'll note the Pharisees and the scribes were all about how great they were.

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You know, how righteous, what law keepers they were and things like this. So Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, the scribes and the

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Pharisees, they sit on Moses's seat. So do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do.

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For they preach, but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on people's shoulders.

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But they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others.

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Right. They want everyone to think how great they are. Right. For they make their flacketaries broad, their fringes long.

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And they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues.

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And greetings in the marketplace and being called rabbi by others.

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But you are not to be called rabbi. For you have one teacher and you are all brothers.

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And call no man your father on earth, for you have one father who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors.

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You have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your what? Servant. The greatest among you will be your servant.

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Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

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So the way the kingdom of God operates, greatness isn't about the way the world measures greatness.

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Greatness is looked at in light of who is the humblest.

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The one who serves everybody. And we'll talk about who the greatest is before too long.

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Because if you're thinking, well isn't Jesus the greatest? Right. You got it. I'm getting ahead of myself.

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We're just kind of laying some groundwork here. Noting that Troy is greatness possible.

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Jesus legitimately talks about what it is that we should be pursuing if we want to be considered great in the eyes of God.

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Greatness in the kingdom of heaven. Things like this. He ain't pointing people to that. So we're already off to the races and we're heading in the wrong direction.

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As a wife or a husband. Great as a friend. The GOAT. The greatest of all time.

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How about as a business leader? Or maybe in the area of your finances. Maybe life in general. Just having a great life.

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We think a lot about failure. We think a lot about when things go wrong. What are we going to do? But I was asking myself this week.

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When's the last time I believed that I could be great? That you could be great.

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That you could accomplish greatness. That's why we're here. According to whose standard,

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Troy? I just read two texts that show us that the way God considers greatness as compared to the way the world thinks about greatness.

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Two diametrically opposed things. They can't even be compatible. They are mutually exclusive.

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And the way you're talking sounds like you're talking about greatness the way the world measures it.

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We're doing this series. You know, I went and I looked what were the definition of the word possibility and the word potential.

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And I put it in your outline. If you're watching online, you can click. Or if you're here in the house, it's actually on our app.

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But Webster says that possibilities is the state or fact of being possible. In other words, something is possible.

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And potential means capable of becoming. Which biblical word are you exegeting?

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And which Greek lexicon or Hebrew lexicon are you using here? Because you're just using an online dictionary.

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Who cares what the definition of these things are? We need a biblical text that shows that you're rightly handling the biblical text.

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So what is possible is that you and I having the capacity to become. And Webster didn't fill in the blank, but you and I could.

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To become what? To become a great leader. A great parent. A great boyfriend.

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A great college student. A great business leader. Nothing wrong with striving for excellence in the vocation that you are in.

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So, we got a problem here. And let me do something.

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I. I'm going to look for the word I. And I am going to limit my search for this into the epistles.

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And the Apostle Paul. You know, let's see. Let's see.

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Is it Ephesians 5? Maybe 6. Hang on a second here. I'm doing this from memory.

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And this is the idea here. Is that part of what I'm trying to do is train you to think biblically. Here we go.

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Bond servants. Here we go. Bond servants. So, slaves. People who don't even own themselves.

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Duloi. Obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would

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Christ, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but as bond servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the

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Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bond servant, a slave, or is free.

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So, note that you want to be the goat of slaves? Yeah, that's kind of what this is talking about.

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Note, then, you don't work for your master. You work for Jesus. And so, if you want excellence in the work that you're doing at work, then note that Jesus is your boss, not your boss.

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Even if your boss is a terrible boss. In fact, I would note here, now we're kind of like, at this point, we're just all over the map because I can't help but react to the things he's saying.

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Listen to this. 1 Peter 2. There we go.

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Slaves of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. Servants.

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Here we go again. Be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and to the gentle, but also to the unjust.

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You have an awful boss who mistreats you and others? Aha. Well, you still need to treat him with respect and stuff like that because you're really working for Jesus.

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You want to talk about excellence at work, which is a different topic than the one he's talking about here. This is a gracious thing.

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When mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. What credit is it if when you sin, you are beaten for it and you endure?

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But if when you do good and suffer for it and you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

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For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.

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That's right. Jesus' death on the cross also serves as an example for us to follow. When we are mistreated by our bad bosses and made to suffer, when we're doing good, what do we do in the midst of that?

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Continue to do good, knowing that God sees these things and that we work for Jesus anyway, not for our boss.

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He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he didn't revile in return.

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And when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

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By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and the overseer of your souls.

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Good text, but you'll note here, I'm dealing with the biblical concept of excellence in the work that you're called to do, in the good works that you're called to do, while Troy is dealing with something very different.

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You'll see this in the second clip. He's legitimately thinking about what?

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This concept of, well, that we're called to some kind of individual great purpose and that we've got to find out what that is and achieve it and things like this and seek greatness in our purpose, our destiny.

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That's not what the Bible teaches, and I'll show you that shortly. A great entrepreneur, a great pastor, a great ministry leader.

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And I thought the best way in which for us to go into this year would be to look at some of the biblical heroes and what can we learn from them so as to become what

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God has created us to be. So the biblical heroes are held up as examples of men who achieved greatness in their

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God -given destinies and all you've got to do is follow their examples.

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Really? No, no. The scriptures are about Christ. That's who they're about.

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So that rather than focusing on what we haven't accomplished, we can continue to dream about what we were created to be.

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Because that's an important thing to remember, because it's very easy along the way to forget that you're unique.

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That God created you according to the scripture on purpose to do something of significance. Where in the scripture does it say that God created me on purpose to do something of significance?

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It doesn't. Yeah, he does.

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He gave them to me. Now, here's first Bible twisting.

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Ephesians 2, verse 10. Let me back this up so you can hear how he's twisting this text and we'll show you what it does say.

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He's basically reading into it, eisegeting in this concept that God has created you for a unique purpose or a unique destiny.

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And watch what he says here. Listen carefully, because the words matter. And this is such an egregious difference between what he says the text says and what it says that it's notable.

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Here we go. So I was created in Christ to do great things and I am his masterpiece.

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Alright, so let's take a look. Ephesians chapter 2.

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We'll focus on this part, starting at verse 8. Plural, which

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God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. It does not say that we were created for a unique purpose or a specific destiny.

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We are created in Christ Jesus for good works. Plural. In fact,

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I don't know why I don't have the Greek on this one. Let's pull the Greek up. I'm going to show you this because it's super importante.

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It says ergoes here. That's plural. So epi ergoes agathoes.

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We are created in Christ Jesus for works good. That's what the text says.

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What's a good work? Well, I would note that that's pretty well laid out for us in like Ephesians 5 and 6.

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You know, we looked at part of it. Wives submit to your husbands. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church.

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Those are good works. So being a faithful husband, faithful wife, a faithful mother, a faithful father, an obedient child.

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Children obey your parents for this is right in the Lord. Honor your father and mother. Bond servants obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling with a sincere heart as you would

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Christ. These are the good works that were called to in Jesus. And so what

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Troy Grambling has done is he's hijacked this text. He didn't even read it out. He made no effort to actually read the text and just said,

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Oh, you know, you are God's masterpiece created for significance and stuff like this.

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Listen again to what he says. No good works.

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His masterpiece. And so how do we live that out? I'm his masterpiece. That's not what the text says.

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It says I'm his workmanship. So we got a big problem here and that is that Troy is twisting the biblical text and his assumptions are completely contrary to what real biblical texts say.

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Now, here's where I'm going to interject and tell you about the sponsor for this episode of Fighting for the

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Faith. The Word of the Lord endures forever. If you are looking for a resource, a daily resource, where you will have access to sound teaching that exalts

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Lord Endures Forever. He does his homework. He's been a faithful pastor for decades and he knows his stuff and he then opens up God's Word and exegetes it.

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And he's in dialogue, if you would, with the church fathers. Knows full well how the church has historically understood these texts and knows how to connect them all back to Jesus Christ because the

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Scriptures are about Jesus. They're not about you. Jesus is the center. He's the one who's the hero, not you.

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And he doesn't teach this dream destiny thingy doctrine or anything like that. And so I would note

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Pastor Will Whedon, just a few days ago, has started a new series on the book of James.

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You know, I'm a confessional Lutheran. We confessional Lutherans slanderously get accused of not thinking that James is worth our time or things like this.

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That somehow it's not part of the Scriptures. Baloney. It absolutely is. And it's a wonderful, wonderful epistle and Pastor Will Whedon will help you to rightly understand it.

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If you are looking for a resource to find a good exegetical walk through the book of James, this is your resource.

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You want to go there. How do you get there? The word endures .org. The word endures .org.

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And there are multiple ways that you can subscribe to their podcast. And believe me, when you become used to hearing

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God's word rightly taught, correctly exegeted, and pointing all back to Jesus, centering on Christ and him crucified for our sins, and with the proper distinction between God's law and the gospel, you'll never go back.

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Preaching like we're hearing from Troy Gramling will just be like rubbing your cat the wrong way.

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You're going to get bit. You're going to end up biting somebody. You get the idea. So again, the word endures .org.

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And a big thank you to our sponsor for sponsoring this installment of Fighting for the Faith.

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And you will really enjoy this resource if you're not already enjoying it. All right.

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Moving on to the next bit. All right. Troy Gramling here is now going to fast forward a little bit.

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And we're going to see what he's going to talk about here. He's going to be making a claim that we've got to remain humble in order to achieve our destiny, our purpose, and that we can't get impatient on the road to greatness.

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And he's going to hold up Moses as an example of somebody who got impatient and as a result of it failed to achieve his greatness.

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Just saying those words just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Here again is

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Troy Gramling. The first thing that we see or that we learn from David's life is that greatness demands a humility that needs to be practiced.

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A humility that needs to be practiced. Now, humility is always difficult to talk about. Why? Because we're all humble, aren't we?

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Nobody ever looks into the mirror and says, boy, I tell you what, I'm just prideful. I'm just an arrogant dude.

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We can see it in others, but we have a hard time seeing it in ourselves. And yet without humility, we can't become great.

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So first step to being great is you've got to be humble. OK, where are these steps listed in the scripture in order so that I can learn how to follow them in order to be great?

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They aren't. He's making up this list. Impatience destroys greatness and impatience is the result of insecurity and pride.

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In other words, we become impatient because rather than being humble, we become arrogant. So one of the ways to determine whether or not you're struggling with arrogance is how impatient are you?

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How patient are you when it comes to pursuing your destiny? The opportunities, the challenges.

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There it is. How patient are you when it comes to pursuing your density?

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We don't have a destiny. We're created in Christ Jesus for good works, plural.

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And you can do your good works as a child. You can do your good works as an adult. You can do your good works as a husband.

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You can do them as a wife. You can do them as a grandma, as a grandpa. You can do your good works single.

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You can do your good works married. We are created in Christ Jesus for good works, not a specific destiny.

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Let me give you some examples in scripture, right? Because we all have this temptation to get ahead of God. You know what your dream is.

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And sometimes, man, we want to just knock down the door or crawl through the... I do? What's my dream?

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Listening to heretics every day? No, that ain't a dream. Instead, this is a good work that God tells us to do as pastors.

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To warn the flock and to rebuke those who contradict sound doctrine. Things like this.

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The window, and we get ahead of God. I can tell you as a pastor, I've seen it so many times. Especially in the area of ministry.

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Because that's kind of the window that I get to look through. Where somebody will feel like God's tapping them on the shoulder. To maybe vocationally do ministry.

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And they're immediately ready to do that. And they get ahead of God. And often when they get ahead of God, it destroys their impatience.

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Which is pride. Destroys them. And years later, rather than succeeding... What text are you exegeting, sir?

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The job of a pastor is to preach the word. And I'll be blunt.

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I've listened to this entire sermon three times now. And I can assure you at this point, he has not pulled out a master text that he's exegeting.

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Because there is no master text that he's exegeting here. Instead, he's just all over the map.

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And what he's doing, he's the one preaching his ideas. And he's looking for biblical texts that he can manipulate.

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And slot in to his sermon to fit his theology. That's not how you're supposed to preach.

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You're supposed to exegete the word. And let the theology in the biblical text come to the surface.

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And highlight it so people can see it. Instead, he's got a bunch of ideas.

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He's concocted all on his own. Or wrongly been taught by somebody else. And he legitimately isn't preaching the word.

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And what they've been called to do, they're no longer even pursuing it. For example, it happened to Moses. Moses is an incredible leader.

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And God calls him with the destiny to lead the Israelites out of... So he's going to talk about Moses' impatience and his failure to achieve greatness.

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Of all the patriarchs in the Old Testament, Moses is one of the greatest.

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I don't think anyone can accuse Moses of not achieving greatness.

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Although that's not the point. Moses was a humble fellow. Scripture, in fact, lets us know that Moses was legitimately super humble.

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That being the case, it's like, what are you doing here, Troy? What are you doing?

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He's twisting this text and shoehorning it into his theology. Let's see what he does.

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Hundreds of years of slavery to make a fool, basically, out of the most powerful nation, or at least one of the most powerful nations in the world at the time.

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That's Moses. The problem is, is in order to do that, guess what? Moses has got to lead people. Have you ever led people?

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People are a lot harder to lead than dogs. Right? Because people have their peopleness and their opinions.

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I mean, it's difficult to lead a child, especially a teenage child, let alone a few million people.

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And so Moses is just like, God, when are we going to get there? These people are driving me crazy.

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When did God say to Moses, when are we going to get there? These people are driving me crazy.

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When did Moses say that? He didn't. Always complaining. They want better food.

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They're thirsty. The first time they get thirsty, God tells Moses to go out and hit the rock, and God will produce water with his staff.

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And Moses does it, and water is produced. Well, goodness gracious, they're thirsty again. And Moses is just, oh, my gosh.

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And God tells him this time to talk to the rock. Now, you've got to know, right? What would you think? They're going to think

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I'm crazy. So he's taking two instances that are really far apart in time, squishing them together.

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He's not reading a biblical text. What's it mean, Troy? I can't wait to find out what you think these texts are about.

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You want me to talk to the rock? And so Moses goes out there, and look at what happens in Numbers 20. It says, then Moses raised his hand.

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He didn't speak to the rock. He struck it twice with his staff, and water gushed out. So the people didn't even know that he wasn't doing what

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God had told him to do. He had grown impatient with God. He had grown impatient with the people. So they got their drink.

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Their livestock got their drinks. But, verse 12 says, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, because you did not trust me enough to be patient, to do what

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I asked, to wait on me, to demonstrate my holiness, there's a reason I asked you to do what I asked you to do in the timing in which

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I asked you to do it. Where is that monologue with God saying,

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Moses, there's a reason why I asked you to do what I asked you to do at the time I asked you to do it?

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Where is that monologue in the text? Because that isn't even close as a paraphrase of what

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God did say. That's you reading into this text things that ain't there.

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He says, you didn't do it. And as a result, you're not going to lead them into the land I'm giving them. In other words, Moses, you were created for this greatness that you're no longer going to be able to experience simply because you became impatient.

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So Moses can't experience greatness because he became impatient. That's the whole point. Wrong. Okay, let's do a little more biblical work, shall we?

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Okay. So first off, let's take a look at the first instance where the people grumbled against God and how

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Moses struck the rock. And then we'll take a look at a text that helps us understand what this text is about.

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Exodus 17. All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of sin by stages according to the commandment of Yahweh and camped at Rephidim.

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But there was no water for the people to drink. Now, a little bit of a note here. We're very early on into the

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Exodus. Very early on. Okay. They've just crossed the

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Red Sea. That's how early on we are. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said,

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Give us water to drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test

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Yahweh? But the people thirsted there for water and the people grumbled against Moses and said, Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?

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So Moses cried to Yahweh, What shall I do with this people? They're almost ready to stone me.

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And Yahweh said to Moses, Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the

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Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.

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Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel, and he called the name of the place

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Massah and Merabah because of the quarreling of the people of Israel and because they tested

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Yahweh by saying, Is Yahweh among us or not? All right, so Moses struck the rock.

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Well, here's a biblical text to help us understand what's going on. First Corinthians chapter 10, New Testament text, the

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Apostle Paul writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, giving us a Holy Spirit -inspired understanding of what this text really means, says this.

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I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses.

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That's right, the crossing of the Red Sea is a foreshadowing of baptism. Baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.

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For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was

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Christ. Wait, what? That rock that Moses struck was

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Christ? Yep, that's the point in the types and shadows, which then kind of invokes something important.

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If I were to go to the Gospel of John, maybe chapter 19, and Jesus is delivered up to be crucified, and so we have the account of Jesus' crucifixion, and let's see here, the death of Jesus, and then note this little text right here.

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All right, so Jesus died. He says, it is finished. He bowed his head, and he gave up his spirit. So there's

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Christ, bleeding, suffering, dying for your sins and mine. As our substitute, in our place, he dies so that we can live.

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He now propitiates the wrath of God completely. It's six hours on the cross. He says, it is finished.

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He bowed his head, and he gave up his spirit. And since it was the day of preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the

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Sabbath, for the Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked for Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.

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So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.

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But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once, there came out blood and water.

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He who saw it is born witness. His testimony is true, and he knows that he's telling the truth so that you may believe.

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For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled, not one of his bones would be broken. And again, another scripture says, they will look on him whom they have pierced.

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So Moses striking the rock, according to Paul, since the rock is Christ, foreshadows

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Christ being speared after his death by that Roman centurion and blood and water flowing from his side.

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That's the point. Well, what about the second time that Moses struck the rock?

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He struck it twice, right? Well, you're gonna note something here. He was not told to strike the rock.

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Let's go to that account here. So in Numbers chapter 20, it says, now there was no water for the congregation.

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They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people quarreled with Moses and said, oh, would that we had perished when our brothers perished before Yahweh.

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Why have you brought the assembly of Yahweh into the wilderness that we should die here, both we and our cattle?

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And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place?

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It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates. There is no water to drink.

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And then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces.

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And the glory of Yahweh appeared to them. And Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, take the staff and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron and your brother and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water.

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So you're gonna note, Christ was once for all sacrificed for our sins.

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You can't strike Christ twice. Now that he's been struck, what do we do?

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We pray to him, right? That's what we do. We pray. So that's what, remember,

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Paul says, the rock was Christ. So that rock that followed them, that rock was

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Christ. So Christ has already been struck. Can you strike Jesus twice? No.

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Okay. So you tell, you speak, tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water.

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So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give them and give drink to the congregation, to their cattle.

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Moses took the staff from before Yahweh, as he commanded him. Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock.

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And he said to them, here now, you rebels, shall we bring water out for you out of this rock?

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And Moses lifted up his hand and he struck the rock with his staff twice.

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First time, crack, nothing. Second time, water starts flowing. Water came out abundantly and the congregation drank.

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And their livestock. And Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, because you did not believe in me to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.

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These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with Yahweh and through them he showed himself holy.

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So you'll note at this point, Moses is forbidden, forbidden from entering into the promised land.

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And that is a horrible, horrible thing. Deuteronomy 32.

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Let me see if this is my text. Deuteronomy 32. I think gives us the other part of this.

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Hang on a second here. I got to find the death of Moses. Hold on a second here. Okay. Hang on a second.

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I'm gonna do, I'm gonna show you something. When my memory fails, what do I do to search for a biblical text when

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I can't exactly remember how the words work out? Answer. I go to Google. Google's not a bad place to look for a

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Bible search. So I'm gonna go Bible, chapter, death of Moses.

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And it should find this for me pretty quick. There we go. Deuteronomy 34. So let's go back here and let's take a look because I know what

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I'm looking for. I just don't know where to find it somewhere. Here we go. Deuteronomy 34. Death of Moses.

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Listen to this. And then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite of Jericho.

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And Yahweh showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan. So at the end of their wilderness wandering, they're right on the border at Mount Nebo, you know, near Jericho.

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And God takes Moses up to the top of Mount Nebo, shows him, gives him the, you know, a travel log video of all the places that he didn't get to see, right?

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All Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea and then Gev and the plain that is in, that is the

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Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees as far as Zoar. And Yahweh said to him, this is the land of which

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I swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to your offspring. I have let you see with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.

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So Moses, the servant of Yahweh, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of Yahweh.

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And he, God, buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite of Beth Peor. But no one knows the place of his burial to this day.

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Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed and his vigor unabated.

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And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab 30 days. And the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.

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And the note, it says, and Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit and wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him.

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So who's going to lead the people of Israel into the promised land? Not Moses, the lawgiver.

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Instead, a fellow by the name of Yeshua. You know, that's the same name that Jesus was given in Hebrew.

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I know it says, you know, in Greek, Iesu. But Jesus' Hebrew name is

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Yeshua. Yahweh saves. And so you'll note in the types and shadows,

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Moses, the lawgiver, the law can't bring you into the promised land. Only the gospel can. And Yahweh saves.

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It's the one who brings them in. Joshua is a type and shadow of Joshua. Jesus, Yeshua, the son of God.

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That's kind of the point. But there's more to this. There's another aspect of this. Let me see if I can find this really quick here.

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I don't know if I'll, ah, I found it right off the bat. My memory isn't quite as bad as I think, but it's getting worse as I get older.

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Now, I want you to consider this text. This is a fun one, all right? So Moses was not permitted to go into the promised land.

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Not permitted at all. God said, no, you ain't going in there, right? And he didn't allow him to go in.

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And Moses died, and God buried him. Note here, interesting fact. So Matthew 17 says, after six days,

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Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And Jesus was transfigured before him, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.

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And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus.

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You're going to note here, in the transfiguration, Moses is permitted to be in the promised land.

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How'd he get there? He's with Christ.

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That tells us that Moses is with Jesus. That he went to heaven, and that he lives, right?

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That's the point. And so one of the wonderful little kind of hidden gems in the story of the transfiguration of Christ is that Moses is permitted into the very place where God forbade him to be in.

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And he's there only by the mercy, the grace of Christ. And so Christ is the one who brings

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Moses into the promised land. And it's right there in the transfiguration. It's one of these cool little bits.

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Anyway, so all that being said here, Troy Gramling hasn't exactly rightly handled this text.

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Like, far from it. And he makes this text out to be about God forbidding Moses from achieving greatness because of Moses' impatience.

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No, it was his disobedience. And there's a layer of meaning behind that disobedience because he was told to speak to the rock because Christ, his sacrifice on the cross is once for all.

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The first striking prefigured Jesus' death on the cross and him being pierced by a Roman lance.

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The second one, yeah, no, there's no, that ain't right. You don't strike

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Jesus after he's been struck. You pray to him. That was the point. And Moses didn't do that.

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And by doing so, he didn't show God as holy. That's why he was not permitted to enter into the promised land.

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Plus the law can't get you into the promised land anyway. Yeshua has to get you in. And Yeshua did get

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Moses in. We see it in the transfiguration. Great connections when you start working the Bible together like this.

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But Troy Gramling, yeah, he biffed it. That's the only way

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I can say it. Let me back this up just a little bit so you can kind of hear this. Listen again. To demonstrate my holiness, there's a reason

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I ask you to do what I ask you to do in the timing in which I ask you to do it. And he says you didn't do it.

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And as a result, you're not going to lead him into the land I'm giving him. In other words, Moses, you were created for this greatness that you're no longer going to be able to experience simply because you became impatient.

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But it didn't just happen to Moses. Yeah. That's not the point there at all. So he is completely clueless about what's going on with this text.

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And let's go on now to the next part of cluelessness as he talks about David.

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And so there's a great danger in our impatience and so the enemy is always trying to get us to do it our own way.

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To get ahead of God. Let's look at David though, alright? Because we see David, he's the antithesis of this.

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Now Samuel is going to secretly come to anoint the new king because if Saul finds out we're anointing a new king well it's not going to be pretty.

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And so he's kind of secretly coming in and God tells him to go to Jesse and Jesse's got all these boys and they lie.

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Alright, so in our last episode we talked about David and Goliath from 1 Samuel 17.

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1 Samuel 16 is going to deal with David's anointing as king. Him then going to the palace and playing the harp to calm the nerves of the demonized king

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Saul. And then the early part of 17 when David is bringing food and things like that and still keeping sheep even though he's the anointed king of Israel.

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This all connects to Jesus and that's the point. David is a type and shadow of Christ and when you see the connection you can't unsee it.

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But clearly Troy Gramling hasn't seen that connection yet. And you know the oldest one is impressive, he's tall, he's strong and God says well it's not him.

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And he's like you got any more? Can you imagine if you were standing there you're like yeah well the youngest boy is out taking care of the sheep and they bring him in and it's

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David. And look at what it says in 1613 it says so David stood there among his brothers and Samuel takes the flask of oil and he anoints

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David with the oil and the spirit of the Lord comes powerfully upon David from that day on. Right!

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David's anointing prefigures in the types and shadows Jesus' baptism.

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Just look at the connection here. Okay so in Matthew chapter 3

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Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him saying

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I need to be baptized by you and do you come to me? But Jesus answered let it be so now for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

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Then he consented and when Jesus was baptized immediately he went up from the water and behold the heavens were opened to him and he saw the spirit of God descending on him like a dove and coming to rest on him.

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The Holy Spirit comes and rests on Jesus and behold a voice from heaven said this is my beloved son in whom

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I am well pleased. You can see it right here so 1

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Samuel 16 so as David stood there among the brothers Samuel took a flask of oil that he had brought and anointed

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David and the spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David from that day on.

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That's prefiguring Christ's baptism in the Jordan. That's the point of this and so you'll note then that what happens next is not how a normal stories go regarding anointed kings and this again is in the types and shadows pointing us to Christ because normally when somebody's anointed king first order of business if they're anointed king and somebody's being evil and wicked you got to knock off the evil king right?

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That's what David does and there's a reason for it but watch what Troy does with this. In other words in that moment as a young man

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David is anointed to be the future king to sit in the big chair to live in the palace to rule with authority he's going to be the king but watch what happens next in verse 21 just a few verses later is

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David sitting on the throne? Nope. Is he telling people what to do? No.

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Is he leading the army? No. So David went to Saul because Saul didn't know that David had been anointed king and does

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David go and tell Saul? No. What does it say? So David went to Saul and began what's that next word? Serving him

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Right! Why would that be the case? I know exactly why but just keep this in mind there's a very important text

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I'm going to show you David's life is paralleling in the types and shadows something regarding Jesus playing the harp because Saul is dealing with anxiety and so David goes to the castle or the palace not to sit in the big chair but to play the harp.

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He becomes his armor bearer. You know how much humility that must have took? How bad do you think David wanted to say?

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Don't you know? That takes a lot of humility and that's kind of the point but this isn't about David achieving greatness.

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It's about Christ! But I want so badly to tell you but I just want to spin this out a little bit more.

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Did you not get the email? Did you not read the paper? Look in verse chapter 17 when the battle against the

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Philistines which you know Goliath was a Philistine when it takes off David's brothers are in the battle what does

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David do? He went back and forth so he could help his father with the sheep. He was being a shepherd and I told you at Christmas that shepherds were on the very low rung of society.

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Nobody respected shepherds and yet David the future king. What would you have said to your dad? He said hey

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I want you to go out there and feed the sheep. Do you know who you're talking to dad? I'm the king. You saw what Samuel did didn't you dad?

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He is so close but he can't make the connection because he thinks that this text is about you.

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This text is about Christ. Dad! I deserve to be treated better but he doesn't.

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He goes back and forth. Then he becomes an Uber Eats driver because look what it says in chapter 17 and verse 17

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Jesse who's David's dad says I want you to take you know these biscuits, these brownies to the battle.

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So David left the sheep with another shepherd and set out early the next morning with the gifts. Now you need to notice the responsibility that David has for the sheep even though he's the future king.

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Yeah I know. Don't miss that. He's given it a hundred.

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Yeah everything he's saying is like spot on but it's not about you.

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So maybe we should talk about how it's about Christ. Philippians chapter two.

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Philippians chapter two. Consider David has anointed the king of Israel and still doing all these menial tasks and isn't sitting in the big chair.

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Right! Exactly! Because this prefigures in the types and shadows the incarnation of Jesus.

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So do nothing from selfish ambition Philippians two says or from vainglorious conceit but in humility count others as more significant than yourselves.

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Let each of you look not only to his own interest but also to the interest of others. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form and Morphe here you can say by nature by nature

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God he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but he emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave a servant being born in the likeness of men being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross.

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Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord to the glory of God the Father. That's right. So Troy has put his finger on it.

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Why isn't David sitting in the high chair? Why isn't he calling the shots? Why is he doing all these menial slave labor type jobs doing an

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Uber Eats thing keeping the sheep and a servant of the king? It all is a prefiguring of Christ's humbling himself king of kings and lord of lords come to earth to serve us all and become obedient to the point of death even death upon a cross.

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Therefore God himself exalts Christ and gives him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven on earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord to the glory of God the Father. It's there in the types and shadows in the story of David and Troy grumbling right over his head.

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He just, no clue. The man's never been qualified to be a pastor.

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Where he is in the moment he doesn't just say dad wants me to go and I'm going to be the future king and who wants to take care of these sheep anyways.

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No, he has to do the hard work of finding somebody to take care of the sheep so he can do what his dad wants him to do which is deliver some food and yet he's the king.

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That's right, Jesus had to do that hard work of doing what God the Father wanted him to do. That's right.

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And he does it, why? Out of humility, out of a patience that God humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

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Right! God knows what he's doing and he will sit in the chair at God's time not his own time.

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He doesn't forget about the sheep. Let me ask you this, are there some harps maybe you need to play?

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Oh. Oh. Oh. Just, this is what happens when you think the

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Bible's about you and not about Christ. The Scripture says they're about Christ.

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Are there any harps that maybe you need to play? No! I don't even play the harp. Maybe you've gotten out ahead of God.

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Maybe you've allowed yourself to get frustrated to the point of giving up or maybe even quitting because God hasn't opened the door, you haven't gotten a loan at the bank to start the business yet.

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This isn't about getting a loan at a bank to start a business. You're still trying to find that special someone.

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This isn't about finding a special someone. You haven't had the child yet. You haven't got into the car. This isn't about issues regarding fertility.

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Whatever it is and everything within you is tempted to move ahead to get ahead of God because you've grown impatient.

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It's a dangerous place and it's one that the enemy does over and over again because see, greatness demands that we be humble.

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Okay, I can't do it anymore. I think I've made the point. This guy legitimately has no clue.

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He does not understand. The Bible is about Christ. It's not about you. David is in the types and shadows of the

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Old Testament. A foreshadowing of Christ and his incarnation, him humbling himself and him defeating

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Satan for us. It's all there. He can't even see it.

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Anyway, I think I've made the point. If you found this episode of Fighting for the Faith to be helpful, informative, you learned something from it.

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For those of you who do, thank you. Until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.

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Amen. So nice to see that you made it to the end. Before you inevitably click on another video to continue binging our glorious content, you should know about some of our other offerings.

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