Ichabod 2013: The Glory Has Departed

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel.
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Hold your place at 1 Samuel chapter 4 and verse 10.
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This past week, our nation watched as the President of the United States again took his oath of office and thus began another four-year term.
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It was a surreal moment for many of us as we watched folks in our nation respond with loud praise and applause to the many ungodly statements which were made during the inaugural address.
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What caught my ear so quickly was when the President proclaimed his support for the profanation of marriage and essentially declared homosexuality to be the next civil rights issue, thus painting conservative churches as biased, bigoted, and ultimately oppressive.
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This whole scene also included a prayer which was originally supposed to be given by one pastor, but after finding that he was not in keeping with the liberal agenda and the current trend in politics, he was then replaced with another who would more likely toe the party line.
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The prayer that he offered included a request for God's blessings on all people including, and I quote, gay or straight, end quote, thus solidifying the message of the President that those who stand opposed to the sin of homosexuality are terribly out of step with this new direction and in American leadership in general.
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Beloved, this whole scene has struck me to my core.
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I was thinking about that this Wednesday evening when we had our service.
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We are doing a survey of the Old Testament on Wednesday nights, and I began to think about the prophets of the Old Testament.
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Those men spoke out against the sinfulness of their day.
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They spoke out against their nation.
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They spoke out against their own people.
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And beloved, we need men to do the same thing today.
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We need to shake free the shackles of political correctness and the fear which has for so long bound our hands, and we need to take a stand for God and for His word.
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Most of you know very well that it is the Christian's duty according to Scripture to obey the governing authorities, as the Bible says in Romans chapter 13.
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Yet we also know well that we are to obey the government only so long as those authorities do not force us to violate our commitment to Christ.
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The apostles themselves proclaim to their leaders that given the decision to obey God or men, they must obey God.
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And beloved, I see our nation going down a road which I am fearful will soon lead to our having to make those very difficult decisions that the freedom to proclaim the truth as we do now have may be eventually taken from us and those who continue to preach the truth will suffer for it as Peter and John did and as many others have.
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And look, and still down to this day, people are still suffering and we need to be prepared.
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And beloved, this is not some outrageous or arcane notion.
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This is, in fact, the reality that many people live under in many nations around our world today who attempt to preach the truth.
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It was only recently that another pastor was arrested in Iran for simply being a Christian and preaching the gospel.
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There are nations all over the world where Christianity and the gospel are at odds with the law of the land.
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And the words of the gospel have become hate speech in many countries.
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And it is coming here, I fear.
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We've already seen it in some places around our own land where it has become not just out of vogue, but quite impossible to preach the truth about the sin of certain things which are sins like homosexuality without not only being called a bigot, but being called hateful.
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And there's legislation that is attempting to silence those voices.
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Now, some of you may accuse me of crying wolf or being an alarmist.
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However, I would be shirking my own duties as a pastor if I did not preach against sin.
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The truth must come from the pulpit because it will not come from anywhere else.
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And if the pulpits are silent, then everything will be silent.
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So if you're afraid that what I'm saying may offend someone, please remember that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah and all of the other prophets offended their own people in their own day, in their own land.
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And yet they were not afraid.
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And I'm not attempting to put myself on par with any prophet.
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But what I am saying is that we need people today to take the same stand.
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We need people today who are not afraid to speak the truth, to proclaim the truth, to broadcast the truth before it's too late.
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The title of the message today is Ichabod 2013.
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That's not a Bible book or verse, but it is a different title, I'm sure, than most of you are used to.
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It doesn't really say a whole lot, but hopefully by the end of the message, it will make more sense.
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I've chosen this title, not because it's obscure, but because I hope that you will understand this word Ichabod and how it applies to us in our day as we go through this message.
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Let's stand.
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We're going to read 1st Samuel 4.
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We're going to read verse 10-22 together.
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Beginning at verse 10, it says, So the Philistines fought and Israel was defeated and they fled every man to his home.
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And there was a very great, great slaughter for there fell of Israel 30,000 foot soldiers.
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The ark of God was captured and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas died.
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A man of Benjamin ran from the battle line and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes torn and with dirt on his head.
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When he arrived, Eli was sitting on the seat by the road watching for his heart trembled for the ark of God.
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And when the man came into the city and told the news, all the city cried out.
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When Eli heard the sound of the outcry, he said, What is this uproar? Then the man hurried and came and told Eli.
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Now, Eli was 98 years old and his eyes were set so that he could not see.
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And the man said to Eli, I am he who has come from the battle.
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I fled from the battle today.
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And he said, How did it go, my son? He who brought the news answered and said, Israel has fled before the Philistines and there has also been a great defeat among the people.
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Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead and the ark of God has been captured.
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As soon as he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell over backward from his seat by the side of the gate and his neck was broken and he died for the man was old and heavy.
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He had judged Israel 40 years.
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Now, his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant, about to give birth.
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And when she heard the news that the ark of God was captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed and gave birth for her pains came upon her.
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And about the time of her death, the woman attending her said to her, Do not be afraid for you have born a son.
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But she did not answer or pay attention.
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And she named the child Ichabod, saying the glory has departed from Israel because the ark of God has been captured and because of her father-in-law and her husband.
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And she said the glory has departed from Israel for the ark of God has been captured.
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Our Father and our God, as we seek to engage the subject today of the pure depravity which has found its way into our nation and into its leadership, I pray for strength and encouragement to preach.
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I pray that you would keep me from error.
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And I pray, O Lord, that you would bless your people with open hearts to hear the truth and understand the truth and apply it.
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And Lord God, that our church may understand this is my prayer in Jesus name.
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Now, any time we go back into the Old Testament and we read a story from the Old Testament and use it to make application to today, it's important that we unpack its context so that we understand that we are not misunderstanding its meaning.
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At this time in Israel's history, they were under the rule of a judge.
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This was a time when the judges were the leaders in Israel.
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We are familiar with the way Israel's history went.
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They went from being patriarchal to being led by the law of God through Moses and then through the leaders which came after him.
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And then the men and women who were called judges who led Israel.
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And then finally, there was a monarchy beginning with King Saul, King David, Solomon and the rest.
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At this time, the the judge of Israel, the leader in Israel's name was Eli.
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Eli had two sons.
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Their names were Hophni and Phinehas.
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And these two boys who were leaders under their father, their father was great in age.
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He couldn't see.
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So he had these two sons who were leaders underneath him.
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And yet the word of God tells us these two men were blasphemers.
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That these two men were not good men, they were not godly men.
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And during this time, Israel had gone out to battle the Philistines, which were a pagan people.
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And under the leadership of Eli, God had allowed them to experience defeat.
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And it was a great defeat.
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And in this defeat, these two blasphemers, these two men who had been leading the people of God astray, along with many other soldiers, died.
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They had brought the Ark of the Covenant with them into battle.
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Why would they bring the Ark of the Covenant with them into battle? They brought the Ark of the Covenant with them into battle because they believed that this was a way to secure victory.
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If they had the presence of God with them, if they had the piece of furniture which was supposed to house the very spirit of God, which was the Ark of the Covenant.
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And I don't call it furniture in the sense of it being derogatory.
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It just was it was an article of furniture from the temple.
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It was an article of furniture from the tabernacle.
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There was no temple at this point, the tabernacle.
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It was an article of worship and it represented the presence of God.
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And if we bring this into battle with us, we can't fail.
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Well, they found out that that was not the case.
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Even though they had the Ark of the Covenant, that vessel which held the Shekinah, the glory of God, even though they had that vessel with them, they did not succeed in battle.
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Their plan backfired.
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They lost the battle.
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They were killed in battle.
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And even worse, they lost the Ark itself.
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That which they brought to ensure victory was stolen from them in defeat.
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Because of this, as we read in the story, a man runs back to tell the story.
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He runs back to bring everyone the bad news of what has happened.
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And upon hearing the bad news, Eli, who was old and he was heavy, falls back from his chair and dies.
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In the midst of the story, we find that Phineas has a wife who was pregnant.
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And upon hearing the news, she goes into what seems from the text to be an early labor.
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But the child is going to survive this serious and potentially life threatening situation.
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The child has been birthed and he will live.
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But the mother is not joyous.
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The mother looks to this son who she has just given birth to, and she realized that he has been born on a day of great pain in the nation.
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Her husband was dead.
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His brother was dead.
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Her father-in-law was dead.
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Thirty thousand foot soldiers dead.
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And the presence of God, the very glory of God has been lost.
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Thus we read in verse 21, And she named the child Ichabod, saying the glory has departed from Israel.
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Names are very important in cultures, particularly the culture of the Israelites.
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And for the most part, when we look through the Bible, we see everybody's name had a meaning of some sort.
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Ezra means the Lord helps.
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And of course, it was Ezra who helped with the bringing the people out of exile.
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Jesus means Yahweh saves.
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And of course, we know how that applies to the life of Jesus Christ.
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And in this instance, this mother having the opportunity to name her son on this day of darkness and the people and the life of Israel did not give her son a positive name, but instead she chooses to call him Ichabod.
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The word Ichabod is from the root word for glory.
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Kabod in Hebrew is glory.
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But just like in our language, if you set the prefix with the antithesis at the beginning, you make it the opposite.
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Like if I take the word theist, that means a person who believes in God.
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If I set the prefix A in front of theist, what does it become? Atheist, a person who doesn't believe in God.
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Well, the same way here in Hebrew, you have Kabod is glory, but she doesn't call him glory.
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She says Ichabod, no glory for the glory has departed.
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Now, some may question.
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So what? Why choose such an obscure passage to preach when I'm looking at the subject of national depravity? Why look at this passage of all passages to preach when I have brought to you the concern that I have for our nation this morning? Well, I did so because I believe that within this story is a message for our nation today.
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I believe that America has been for some time experiencing the times of Ichabod, and by that I mean that when we look out on our country, we can see firsthand how the glory of God has departed.
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There was a time there was never a time.
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Let me back up.
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There was never a time in our nation where we were purely Christian nation.
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That's that's not historically accurate.
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But there was a time when from the national level, we understood that we were endowed by a creator with certain unalienable rights, that there was a power greater than just our own and society and government, that there was, in fact, a law giver.
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And we see the momentous murals and the monuments that remind us of our forefathers beliefs in a creator, in a God who is sovereign.
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We go to Washington and we look and we see stone carvings of Moses and the commandments.
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But beloved, the glory has departed.
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So this morning, I want to share with you four places where we see Ichabod in our land, four places where the glory has departed.
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The first, and as I said before, if you want to take notes, there are four places.
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The first we see Ichabod in our government.
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There was a time many years ago when the government of the United States was, I believe, concerned with right from wrong.
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And the determination of right from wrong was founded primarily on the scripture and the word of God.
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We even see the documents signed by our founding fathers, a commitment to the truths of scripture.
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But America's foundations on these sacred texts have begun to crumble.
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We see the glory departed.
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Today, any politician who affirms his platform based upon biblical principles is crucified in the media and in the press.
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We see instead politicians who are glorified for their indiscretions, who are glorified for that which they do wrong rather than for that which they do right.
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Most people do not know this, but it is a historical fact.
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Bill Clinton's job approval ratings went up during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
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Not a doubt.
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It's in the records.
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His job approval ratings went up during the scandal.
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Why is this? Because, beloved, sinful people want sin-filled leaders.
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They want a government with no moral compass.
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They want a government that's just like them and has the same foibles and faux pas and problems, because then they can't feel the burden of responsibility any longer.
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America, the government that we have, is supposed to be a beacon of light in the world, but the glory has departed.
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It has departed because we have announced as a nation we do not want God in our government.
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And by the way, I'm a proponent, and this may surprise some of you, I actually am a proponent of the separation of church and state.
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I believe the state should stay out of the church.
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I really do.
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And likewise, I don't believe that any church should have the right to govern the state.
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However, that doesn't mean I believe in the separation of God and government, and there is a difference.
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I don't believe the church should have the authority of the state, neither do I believe the state in the authority of the church, but I do believe that the government cannot deny God without penalty.
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And that's what we've done.
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As a nation, we have denied that there is a God.
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And instead, we hold science up as the new God, capable of telling us where we've come from, where we're going, and why.
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The once shining city upon a hill has become a place where God is not welcome and his word is disdained.
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And as such, the glory has departed.
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But we don't just see Ichabod in the government, beloved.
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We also see Ichabod in our schools.
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There wasn't too many years ago, the worst problem that any teacher had to worry about was a boy sneaking a frog into the classroom.
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Possibly letting it loose on a girl's desk.
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But now we see schools where the conversation of the modern day is how many armed guards do we need? Not do we need them, we know we need them, now it's how many? I still work part time in the public school system, but when I worked there full time, I was security at a local high school.
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I wasn't the only one, I worked in the security for a local high school.
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It was my job to check children for weapons on certain days when there were tensions mounting because there was a likely riot going to happen.
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Between competing sex in the school, between competing personalities in the school that were leading these massive fights.
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I came home with split lips, cut up arms, and my wife can testify, and I handle myself fairly well.
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But it's hard, and I'm sure Adam can tell you, when there's four or five guys, it's hard to be Superman.
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Why is this? Why do we see what we see in our nation? Again, the presence of God has been expelled from the school.
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When I go into the school and I work as a substitute teacher, I cannot even look up on the internet any website, because I have my computer with me, if I'm looking up, I can't look up using the school's computer system, I can't look up anything that has anything to do with Jesus, God, or the Bible.
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It blanks it out as if it's pornography.
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Doesn't it, Tony? What has been the result? Well, our children learn in the public schools the following things.
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Sexual experimentation is okay, as long as you have protection.
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Mankind's not a special creation, he's just an animal.
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Science can explain the origins of the universe, the purpose, and all of this, apart from God.
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And every wrong a person does is not a sinful action that they're responsible for, but it's simply the result of their upbringing, culture, environment, etc.
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We have changed our school system to mirror the idea of secular man, which is this is all we have and all we're ever going to have.
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And this is how we teach our children in our schools.
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And ultimately, each of these things are false, according to God.
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God teaches us in His Word that sex is designed not for experimentation, but for something to be enjoyed between a man and his wife.
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That man is a special creation, that he was created in God's image, he's not just a grown-up animal.
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That God is the purpose and the creator of the universe, and the wrongs that we do, we are responsible for, and they're called sin.
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And you know, we don't even talk about sin anymore.
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Do you know what sin is now? Sin is stuff we enjoy.
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Oh, that chocolate was sinful.
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Don't we? It's how we talk about sin.
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It's a pleasure, not a vice.
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And God has been expelled from the schools, and as a result, we've seen the glory depart from there.
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There's no glory in our government, there's no glory in our schools.
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But we also see Ichabod in our homes.
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We see Ichabod in our homes and our families.
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There was a time when being married and having children meant something in our nation, and it was a good thing, and to have a large family was a blessing.
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There was a sense of responsibility from a man to his wife and parents to their children.
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But today, one out of every two marriages ends in divorce, on an approximate scale.
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Fifty percent.
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We see thousands of children who are orphaned by dads and moms who don't care or desire to take care of them.
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Some forego having their children being orphaned by simply having them not be born and have them murdered in the womb because of convenience sake, and we see 3,300 of those every day.
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Statistics are terrible with the family, and it's the same across the board.
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You know, God has told us to stay out of the government.
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We see Ichabod there.
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God has told us to stay out of the school.
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We see Ichabod there.
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But God has also kept out of our homes, and we see Ichabod there more and more and more all the time.
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How rare is it to find a family who prays together? How rare is it to find a family who studies the Bible together? Even the ones who are in church, how rare is it to find families who attend church together regularly? Edward Elson, in an article for Christianity Today, wrote the following, and I quote, In early America, home was the sanctuary of worship.
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The father was the priest of his household.
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The open Bible was the source book for Christian worship, the textbook for his education, and the inspiration for the establishment of his political institutions.
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We have not outlived the need for the open book, for the message of God in and through the family, and for the spiritual discipline of prayer.
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Perhaps there would be better people now at the home.
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We are still honored as a sanctuary of worship.
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End quote.
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There was a time when God was honored in our homes, but many have spurned God in our own day, and He has become the uninvited guest, and the glory has departed.
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Finally, we have seen Ichabod in our government, we have seen Ichabod in our schools, we have seen Ichabod in the homes, but the one that hurts most, I think, the one that is most challenging, is we see Ichabod in the church.
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There are whole denominations that come together for worship, who deny every part of the Bible that would say anything of the miraculous, that would say anything of sin, that would say anything divisive in nature, that have taken the Bible, and taken out their penknife, and they've cut out whole sections, and they feel not the worst for doing so.
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They teach things that are absolutely opposed to the Bible, and they do not care.
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Jack, you went to the National Assembly of the Disciples of Christ.
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You walk in, and excuse me, I have to say, you walk in the room, there's handing out condoms.
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This was more than a decade ago.
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When I first started as pastor here, within my first month, they must have known I was coming, I got a letter from a local church.
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Let me back up.
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I got a letter from an institution in Jacksonville.
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It was a small card, and it read the following.
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It says, you're invited to welcome, come and worship with us, and welcome our new pastor, James Smith and his husband, Steve.
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Beloved, I wasn't invited to anything.
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That was an announcement.
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We're here.
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Just wanted you to know.
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The glory has departed many churches and denominations long ago.
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But beloved, don't think for a second that there's only Ichabod and those left-wing, radical, anti-Bible churches.
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The glory has departed even from the good old-fashioned southern churches that say they believe the Bible.
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You know why? One word.
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Compromise.
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And I don't mean compromising on musical style.
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I don't mean compromising on dress, who wears a tie and who doesn't.
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I don't mean compromising on architecture or the size of the building or the color of the carpet.
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I mean they have compromised on sin.
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We have become afraid in the church to say what is sinful, to say what is not.
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We've become afraid to the point that we won't call sin, sin anymore.
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We use words like mistake, lapse in judgment, faux pas, anything we can to avoid the word sin.
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And as a result, people come to Jesus, so to speak, and never even hear the word repentance.
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Leaders are not chosen for biblical qualification.
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They're chosen for what they might bring in in their experience and their ability to push the business of the church.
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We're told to do whatever we can to fill the seats because we can't have empty seats.
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Do whatever we can to keep the baptismal waters flowing because we want this water flowing.
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Beloved, you don't think I could fill this church in a minute? If I started talking like Osteen and some of these other characters who refuse to preach the gospel, I could do it, but I won't.
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I have families come to me sometimes and their children are very, very young and we talk about baptism and we talk about it and we pray about it.
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Sometimes we baptize them, sometimes we don't.
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But I know churches that, in a second, to put another baptismal mark on the world.
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You know why I discourage small children from being baptized? Because I was baptized when I was eight and I shouldn't have been.
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And by experience, I know that I was too young.
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But if I just wanted to impress you guys by having baptism, after we got enough kids in here, I could talk everybody into it eventually.
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If I wanted to sell the tale I could sell the tale.
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And I have no problem.
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What has been the result? We find the church in America that is powerless because the glory has departed.
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All around our nation, all around our country, we see Ichabod.
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We see no glory.
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Because many people in our nation have chosen to say that God and His word are unwelcome participants in the goings on of life.
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would have intended or envisioned, and certainly it is not according to God's word.
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And if I could offer up any advice to the people of God for our broken nation, and I say this not just to our church, but to those will hear this broadcasted, we as God's people need to pray for our land and we need to pray for one thing, national, genuine repentance.
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People tell me all the time, well, I heard this politician and he said, God bless America.
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I don't want to hear it anymore.
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All I want to hear is God bless America with repentance, because without it, we will not see the blessings of God.
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Can you ask God to bless 33,000 or 3300 dead children every day? Can you ask God to bless the debauchery that happens every day? Can you ask God to bless the sanctioning of the deprivation of marriage or the degradation of marriage? Rather, no, we ask God for one blessing.
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Bless us, God, with repentance, because without it, without repentance on a national level, we will not see the blessings of God.
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We will only see his judgment.
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And by the way, we're already seeing.
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People ask me all the time, does the rampant growth in homosexuality and its acceptance in a nation bring about God's judgment? No, it's the result of God's judgment.
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Romans chapter one says, And God gave them over to a debased mind.
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And the result of God giving them over to a debased mind was what? They gave up the natural affection.
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The women gave up natural affection for women and lusted after each other.
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Men did the same thing.
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And it goes into this long litany of terrible sins that result, not that bring the judgment of God, but are the result of the judgment of God.
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Beloved, we have to pray for repentance.
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It's all we can do.
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And we preach the truth and not be afraid to stand for it.
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We need national repentance.
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We've had it.
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We have seen the Great Awakening.
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And it can happen again.
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So, beloved, it begins in the church, begins in the pulpit and in the people.
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It begins in the prayers of the saints.
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So let's pray.
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Our Father and our God, we know that your nation, this nation, has found its way terribly off track.
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We know that the glory has departed from our government, from our schools, from our homes and even from our churches.
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And God, we pray for your mercy.
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We pray for national repentance, starting at the very highest levels.
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We know, O Lord, historically, repentance has tended to follow great judgment.
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And, Lord, if that is your will, we pray to be able to weather the judgment.
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We pray to be able to stand in times of difficulty.
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When rights are taken, when the truth is hidden, when lives are at stake, give us the commitment to stand.
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In Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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Beloved, stand as we sing.
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And if you have need for prayer, please come.