It's More Difficult Than You Think

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Rosebrook. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 13th chapter.

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Jesus put another parable before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.

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But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the weed and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also.

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And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?

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How then does it have weeds? And he said to them, An enemy has done this. So the servants said to him,

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Then do you want us to go and gather them? But he said, No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.

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Let both grow together until the harvest. And at the harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned.

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Gather the weed into my barn. And then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him saying,

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Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field. He answered, The one who sows the good seed is the son of man.

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The field is the world. The good seed is the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one.

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And the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age. And the reapers are angels.

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Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age.

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The son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace.

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In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then all the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father.

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He who has ears, let him hear. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus.

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Amen. Alright, Jesus has put another parable before us. And this one takes a little bit of work to think it through.

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You'll note that when asked about what this parable meant, Jesus pretty much kind of just defined all of the different symbols and what they were pointing to, and then gave a very quick, broad, brushed stroke regarding the day of judgment and the final fate of humanity.

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I think some of the better drama, if you would, is actually in the parable itself, rather than in its decoding.

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Here's how the parable goes. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.

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This harkens back to the book of Genesis. Remember when God created all the things in the book of Genesis?

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He said, let there be light, and there was light, and then he created everything. He created the sun, the moon, the stars.

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He created human beings and beasts and creepy critters. I don't think God created spiders.

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I think that was Satan. But that's a different thing altogether. My theology may be wonky there, but whatever spiders were before the fall, they were not what they are now.

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That I know. This is most certainly true. But you'll note that when God created everything, it says, when

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God saw that it was tov, it was good, and then at the very end, he declares everything to be tov ma 'od.

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And what does Satan do? Satan comes into the Garden of Eden, and he says these fateful words in the form of a question.

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Did God really say, uh -oh, and we're off to the races with that question, right?

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Because what's at stake, what's being questioned, what's being challenged? The veracity of God's words,

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God's character himself, does God tell us the truth or not? And according to Satan, in the way the question was way loaded,

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God, well, his words can't really be trusted. Did he really say that?

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Is that what he really meant? And of course, our first parents went for it. And that's where the sowing takes place.

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And you'll note humanity then from that point on is decisively contrasted in a binary set, if you would.

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Those who believe and those who do not believe. And believe me when I tell you this, you are either a believer or you are an unbeliever.

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It's the same as being pregnant for a woman. You are either pregnant or you are not pregnant. There is no in -between pregnancy bit, okay?

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That you are one or the other at one point, and that's period, how this works, same thing.

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But that being the case, we human beings, well, kind of like the angels in the parable, have got a little bit of a problem.

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And it has to do with identifying who's who, because oftentimes we look at the wrong things.

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So as the parable then continues, he says, sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came, sowed weeds among the wheat, went away.

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So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. Here's the issue.

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The weeds that this enemy sowed, they look, these weeds look just like wheat.

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You cannot distinguish them until the harvest. There's no way to do it.

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Do the weeds look like the wheat or do the wheat look like the weeds? It's all really confusing if you think about it.

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And so the angels here, Christ says that these are angels, they're offering to come and solve the problem.

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But the thing is, is that they don't have the ability at that time to identify who's who and what's what.

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So master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds? So he said to them, an enemy has done this.

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So a servant said to him, do you want us to go and gather them? He said, no, no, no, no. Lest in gathering the weeds, you root up the wheat along with them.

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Let both grow together until the harvest. And at harvest time,

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I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first, bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.

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You see, up until the day of judgment, it's a little bit difficult, challenging to identify who's who and what's what.

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And here's the reason why, because we human beings are always looking at the wrong things.

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We have this uncanny ability to identify things incorrectly, all right?

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I should know, I have a YouTube channel, and many times people come on there and leave comments to the effect that I am

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Satan and I need to be rebuked, okay? Now I assure you, I do not use a pitchfork and I do not have horns or a tail or anything like that.

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But the point is that they don't properly understand and they don't identify things. And you'll note that we human beings really have that problem.

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I can't even find things in my wife's kitchen, all right? If I'm looking for something and I ask her, honey,

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I'm looking for such and such a thing, she'll say it's over in that cabinet over there. I kid you not,

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I can open up that cabinet, scan it for minutes, and not be able to identify and find and locate the thing that she says is right there in front of me.

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So I will go back to her and I will say, honey, I can't find that thing where you said it would be.

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And I kid you not, every time it happens, it's really embarrassing. She walks over to the cabinet, opens it up, and goes, whoop, and just grabs it right there, okay?

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If men can't find things in the kitchen, do you think that we are properly at every time going to be able to identify who's who when it comes to the kingdom of God?

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And you'll note, the reason why we struggle is because, again, we look at the wrong thing. You sit there and you go, just look at that person.

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I know they come to church, you know, they come to church, but man, their life is a complete and utter mess, right?

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They would get better results in their life if they would just really believe in Jesus. But do they not believe in Jesus?

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Well, their life wouldn't be such a mess if they did, really, right?

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That's kind of the problem, and if you don't believe me on this, consider what the Old Testament does for us.

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In the Old Testament, we get the story of Jacob and Esau. In the

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Old Testament, we also get the story of Jacob and his wives, plural, wives, plural, and the whole thing is a sordid, immoral mess, right?

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What we know about Jacob's birth, he's a twin with his twin Esau, and he was born second, which means he doesn't get all the honorifics of being the firstborn.

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He's the second place guy, which basically means he practically gets nothing, but he was grabbing the heel of his brother when he was born, and as a result of it, he gets the

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Hebrew name Yaakov, the heel grabber, and it has kind of this idea behind it that he's a deceiver, right?

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And as the boys, when they grow up, all right, Jacob's a mama's boy. He likes hanging out in the tents and kind of cooking and stuff like this.

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His brother Esau, he's a man's man. He likes to hunt and fish and do all this kind of stuff. Dad loves

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Esau. Mommy loves Jacob, right? The whole family is utterly dysfunctional.

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Sounds like mine. To be honest, it sounds like yours too. I've pastored you guys long enough to know, right?

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And here's the thing. What happens? Esau goes hunting, and he comes back, and of course, he is starving.

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And so what does Jacob think? All right, my brother's down. I'll take advantage of him. Fine, I'll give you a bowl of soup if you sell me your birthright.

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Well, it's a birthright to me if I'm dead because I'm starving to death. So what does he do? He sells his birthright for a bowl of soup, okay?

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No soup's worth that. I don't really like soup that much. I can't imagine selling anything for soup, right? But this guy sells his birthright for it, but on the other end of it, who's the one who took advantage of his brother when he was in dire need?

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Jacob. And you're gonna note something here. Is Jacob in the scripture held up as a guy that we should basically say, stay away from being anything like him?

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He's a terrible, awful, no good person burning in hell right now. No. And you sit there and go, how can that be?

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Because you're looking at the wrong thing. As the story progresses, as the story progresses, his father, who can't see anymore, decides that he's going to give the big blessing to his oldest son,

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Esau, sends him off on a journey to go hunting and bring him back food that he likes.

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And what happens is that mommy and Jacob decide that they're gonna deceive daddy. And in the first case of recorded identity theft in all of human history, think about it.

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Okay. Here. If Jacob did what he did back then, today, he'd be in prison, right?

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Identity thieves, when they're caught, they're criminals. This is a felony. He impersonates his brother.

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His dad falls for it, gives him the blessing. And then Esau decides, after he finds out what had happened, is this guy not properly named

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Yaakov? Of course he is. What a deceiver he is. He's come up with a solution. He's going to murder his brother.

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Isn't that what happened to the first two brothers, right? What a completely messed up, screwed up family.

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And what a completely immoral jerk Jacob is. So what does he do?

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Mommy lets him know, oh, your brother's gonna kill you. Go to my brother Laban, right?

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So what does he do? He is on the run. He leaves in order to save his own skin.

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God shows up to him, shows up and prophesies blessing over him at Bethel.

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And then when he arrives in Haran, listen to how this story goes.

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And I'm gonna ask you the question, who are the saints here, right? Who are the people burning in hell in this story?

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Just kind of see if you can sort this out. And based on what? It says, when Jacob went on his journey, he came to the land of the people of the east, and he looked and he saw a well in the field, and behold, three flocks of sheep lying beside it.

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This is Genesis 29. For out of that well, the flocks were watered. The stone on the well's mouth was large, and when all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone from the mouth of the well to water the sheep and put the stone back in its place over the mouth of the well.

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Jacob said to them, my brothers, where do you come from? They said, well, we are from Haran. He said to them, do you know

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Laban, the son of Nahor? And they said, well, we know him. He said to them, it is well with him.

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Is it well with him? They said, it is well. And see, Rachel, his daughter, is coming with the sheep. Now, a little bit of a note here.

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Jacob is really old by today's standards at this point in the story. He's not a young man, 40s, maybe 50s.

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And Rachel, probably a 15 or 16 -year -old girl, okay? You kind of have to kind of put this into the mix here because we

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Americans in the 21st century, we're not keen on these large gap relationships, right?

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In the ancient world, that was no big deal because it was an older man who was established who then had the ability to have a wife, right?

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But back then, this wasn't a problem. For this, to us today, we sit there and go, what is going on here?

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He's some kind of a perv, right? And so he sees Rachel. He sees

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Rachel and he says, behold, it is still high day and it's not time for the livestock to be gathered together.

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Water the sheep and go pasture them. But they said, we cannot until all the flocks are gathered together and the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well.

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Then we will water the sheep. So while he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep for she was a shepherdess.

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And as soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother,

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Jacob came near, rolled the stone from the well's mouth, watered the flock of Laban and his mother's brother.

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Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud and Jacob told Rachel all that he was her father's kinsman and that he was

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Rebecca's son. And so she ran and told her father. Kind of a creepy start to this particular relationship, okay?

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Yeah, they're practically strangers and he's kissing her and weeping on her and this is a little odd, right?

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As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son, he ran to meet him, embraced him, kissed him and brought him to his house.

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Jacob told Laban all these things and Laban said to him, surely you are bone of my flesh and he stayed with him for a month.

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Then Laban said to Jacob, well, because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing, tell me what shall your wages be?

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Now Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah, the name of the younger was Rachel.

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Leah's eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. Let me help you out here.

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To say that Leah's eyes were weak was a kind way of saying she was hard to look at, right?

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Sounds, this is like a soap opera, right? Days of our lives has nothing on this story.

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So Jacob loved Rachel, of course she was beautiful. She was beautiful to look at in form and appearance and he said to Laban, I'll serve you for seven years for your younger daughter,

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Rachel. Laban said, it's better that I give her to you than I should give her to any other man, so stay with me.

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So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love that he had for her.

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So then Jacob said to Laban, give me my wife that I may go into her. That's a little odd thing to say to your future father -in -law.

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Yeah, I'd like you to give me my wife so that I can have sex with her. I've waited for seven years.

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Again, where are your priorities, dude? Okay, I got it, got it. So Laban gathered together all the people of the place, made a feast, but in the evening he took his daughter

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Leah and brought her to Jacob and Jacob went into her.

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Now there's a lot going on here, but I want you to kind of think this out, okay? Brides wear veils, even back then they wore veils.

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So Leah knows exactly what is going on.

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Rachel knows what's going on because this is Rachel's wedding day.

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Have you all ever dealt with a bride, okay? Have you ever had any time with a bride?

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I've done a few weddings, okay? Brides are a little bit uptight, okay? They're focused on making sure that everything is, here's the word, perfect, right?

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Where's Rachel? She's nowhere to be seen. Where's Leah?

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She's covered up and she's engaging in the second recorded instance of identity theft in Scripture, right?

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Whose identity has she assumed? Her younger sister's, right? And so the wine is flowing, the music is playing loud, the lights in the tent have been dimmed.

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He didn't even notice when he gave her their first kiss during the wedding ceremony that who he was kissing.

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They go into the bridal chamber, they consummate the marriage and he still doesn't know.

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One has to wonder, did he cry out, Rachel, Rachel, while they were together? And did she say, oh yes, my love, it is me,

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Rachel? She was going along with it the whole time. Does this sound like Christian behavior to you?

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No, right? These are the patriarchs. These are the patriarchs.

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So the text goes on to say, in the morning, so the sun comes up, the rooster's crowing, and there's

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Jacob in marital bliss, thinking, oh, it was a wonderful night,

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I finally, finally have Rachel. He looks over and, ah, right?

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The blood curdling scream from hell. The text just simply says, behold, it was

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Leah. Right? Behold, it was

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Leah. So you can see Jacob still in his bathrobe, storms in to talk to Laban.

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What is this that you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel?

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Why then have you deceived me? The deceiver now is deceived. This is a great story.

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What a mess! You'll note that Jacob is not held up as a pious man who prays,

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Lord, thus thou is thus, this kind of stuff, right? No, this guy is a deceiver who's been deceived, all right?

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And this whole thing is gonna get worse. He says, well, it's not done so in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn.

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So complete the week of this one. You're married to her. You know, you did the deed. So we'll give you the other also in return for serving me for another seven years.

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Wow! Wow is this screwed up. So Jacob did so and completed her week.

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Then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. And again, Rachel had to be in on what was going on.

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How do you keep a bride away from her own wedding, right? Laban gave also his female servant

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Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her servant. So Jacob went into Rachel also and he loved

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Rachel more than Leah and served Laban for another seven years. But listen to what this text says.

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When Yahweh saw that Leah was hated, they didn't even have marriage counseling, right?

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They didn't have marriage counseling at all. How is this marriage supposed to succeed, right?

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And just think of the complete injustice of this whole situation. Who's to blame for all of this?

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I think there's enough blame to go around for everybody. Leah's to blame. Laban's to blame. Rachel's to blame.

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Jacob's to blame. There's nothing but blame, blame, blame, blame, blame, blame, blame. And so what ends up happening is that Leah herself is hated.

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And I want you to kind of think about this. In our own marriages, and those of you desiring to get married sometime in the future, pay attention here for a second.

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Every single marriage is still under the curse of Genesis 3. And I'm not saying that in order to down talk marriage.

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Marriage is an important thing. Marriage is very important. But if you think that that hollow bit in your heart is going to be filled by your spouse, you are way deceived.

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What God has done to marriage is He's broken it and then taken two sinners and put them in close proximity to each other, right?

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Under the same roof. You are co -sinners together. And when it talks about how we suffer in this life, those of you who are married, you know what

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I'm telling you is true here. This is not for a punchline. This is not a joke. It is in our marriages that we suffer the most.

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And how many of us have cried out to God, oh, it's Leah, regarding our own spouse.

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What have you done to me, God? He was supposed to bring me happiness and joy.

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Instead, he passes gas all the time and sits on the sofa and controls the remote control and never lets me pick a show, right?

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And he scratches himself, right? God, what is it that you've done to me?

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She was supposed to bring me happiness and joy, and every time I turn around, she's disrespecting me and telling me

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I'm an idiot because I can't find anything in the kitchen, right?

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And so you're going to note then that it's easy for us, and all of this is kind of in the context.

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Where's the Christian bits in all of this? Because you know what? God's holy law stands over all of it and says, sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner.

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No, no, you're a sinner too. You sit there and go, oh, it's not that bad for me. You are out of your mind, sinner, right?

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And where's the part where the law sits there and goes, oh, there, there, there's the one, the precious one who's finally got their act together, who's doing it right.

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They're behaving like a Christian should by obeying my law. None of us, not a single one of us.

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Because here's the thing, before the harvest, the wheat looks a lot like the weeds, and the weeds look a lot like the wheat, especially if you're just looking on the outward appearance of it all.

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But it says in Scripture that it's with the heart one believes. God looks on the heart.

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Now, for the sinner, this is not a good thing, because without faith it is impossible to please

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God. And not difficult, impossible. You can't do it. Without faith, it's impossible to please

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God. So it's with the heart one believes, it is with the heart one trusts, and it's with the mouth one confesses.

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But as we learned just a couple of weeks ago, the apostle Paul laments his own life and says, the things

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I don't want to do, I do. The things I want to do,

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I don't do them. That's you, that's me, that's in every relationship possible.

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Things are a complete mess. But I want you to think about this for a second. God saw that Leah was hated in her own marriage.

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She wasn't tolerated, she was hated. She was despised in her own marriage.

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But what did God do? He opened her womb, and Rachel was barren.

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Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben. Verse 2 said, because the

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Lord has looked upon my affliction, for now my husband will love me.

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Reuben means, see, a son. His name is a plea to God, and even to her own husband.

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Please love me, right? She conceived again, and she bore a son, and said, because the

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Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also. So she named him

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Simeon. Simeon is the Hebrew word for heard. God has heard, he's given me a son, because he's seen that I am hated.

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And again, she conceived and bore a son, and said, now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have borne him three sons, therefore she named him

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Levi. Levi is the Hebrew word that means attached. And then she conceived again, and bore a son, and this time, she said, this time

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I will praise Yahweh, therefore she called his name Judah. And then she ceased bearing. You think you got it all figured out?

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Leah participating in this deception, what should she have gotten from God? God should have basically said, you got what you deserved.

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You participated in complete deception, you shouldn't even be married to Jacob. Instead, God honors her marriage, looks upon her affliction and her suffering, and the fact that her own husband hates her, but he's still faithful enough to sleep with her.

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And which of the two wives is the one who bears Judah? It's Leah, not

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Rachel. If Jacob had not been married to Leah, we wouldn't have

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Christ. You think you got it figured out now?

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And you'll note in the book of Ruth, best chick flick ever, right, book of Ruth, when

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Ruth finally marries Boaz, there's a blessing spoken over her.

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May she be like Leah and Rachel, who built the house of Israel, right?

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Now look at your own life. Don't tell me your life isn't a mess like this, it is, so is mine.

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It completely is a mess. Each and every day we sin greatly and we sin much, and we hurt each other deeply.

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If we were to just simply look at outward appearances, do you think for a second that the world would basically say, those folks at Kongsvinger, oh man, they are legitimately the saintliest people on planet earth.

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You're a motley crew of sinners, I heard you confess your sin. And Emmanuel's here too, they're just as bad as Kongsvinger, right?

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That's the point that Jesus is making here. You can't tell the difference sometimes, because we judge by mere appearances.

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And in our epistle text, consider what it says, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

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Don't let that sentence just fly right over your head like the swallows in the summertime. Take it to heart, this life is hard.

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Dare I say it, it sucks. Can you say that? Yeah, I've lived long enough to know that it does.

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I've had plenty of fights with my wife, with my children, with my coworkers, with myself, with my

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God. This whole life is a mess. And in case you haven't figured it out, I'll keep pointing it out,

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I'm falling apart. I've been here for almost 10 years, I look a lot worse than I did 10 years ago.

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In the next 10 years, it's not looking good, folks, it's just, it's looking bad, right? But I don't consider the sufferings of this present time are worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed for us.

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For the creation itself waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. And already,

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Jesus is the first fruit of that. Jesus is the son of God, God of God, light of light, very

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God of very God, as we confessed in the Nicene Creed earlier. But it was for us, for our salvation, that he came to earth and he died in your place and mine.

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He himself grew up in a dysfunctional family, like every one of us.

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Jesus' own brothers and mother didn't believe he was the Messiah. At one point in Jesus' ministry, they wanted to collect him up and take him to the funny farm because they thought he'd lost his mind, right?

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Because they were judging not correctly either. But when Jesus appears in glory on the harvest, the day of the harvest of souls, then and only then will the true sons of God be revealed.

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And if you're looking for them based upon those who are law -keeping, you're missing the point.

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It is only those who are forgiven of their sins, who cry out to God for mercy, who confess that they have inflicted suffering on other people by their sins and have suffered at the hands of other sinners, and recognize that they have participated in the complete mess of a circus show that we've created here on planet earth because of our sin.

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And even the creation itself is looking to God, going, how much longer are we going to have to put up with these yahoos, right?

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The earth itself knows what has happened to us and what we are doing.

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And so it says, because of our sin, God has subjected the entire universe to futility.

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But he did so in hope. So that the creation itself will finally be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

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True freedom comes when Christ returns and puts sin out of commission altogether, sends

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Satan into the lake of fire, and those who persist in sin and unbelief as well.

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But we ourselves, Paul writes, we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, the

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Spirit that was given to us by grace through faith, all because of God's great love and mercy for us as a gift, we who have the firstfruits of the

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Spirit, we even now, we groan inwardly as we wait, hang on a second here, sometimes

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I get myself worked up, as we eagerly await for adoption as sons and the redemption of our bodies.

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It is this hope, in this hope that we are saved. The hope that is seen is not hoped for.

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Who hopes for what he sees? But we, if we hope for what we do not see, then we wait for it with patience.

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And in the meantime, as messed up as our lives are, as sinful as we still are, and as much as we struggle against our own sin, the

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Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we don't know what to pray for as we ought, but the

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Spirit himself constantly is interceding for us with groanings that are too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what is in the mind of the

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Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So brothers and sisters, do not make judgments based on mere appearances.

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And don't look to the law to try to figure out who is who. The only way you can figure that out is by starting with yourself and asking this simple question, do

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I believe? Because we are saved by faith.

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Do you believe that Christ has bled and died for all of your sins, including the sins that you are most embarrassed about that you committed just yesterday or last week?

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Do you believe that Christ's mercy covers over every argument that you've had with your spouse? Do you believe that Jesus's mercy covers over every failure to be a good parent that you did when you were raising your kids?

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Do you believe that Christ's mercy is sufficient for the relationships that you've ruined by your stubborn obstinacy and failure to forgive?

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When you start putting it in terms like that, you kind of start to see it. We all need a

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Savior. And that's what God has given us in Christ, a Savior.

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A Savior who's bled and died for all of our trespasses, all of our transgressions. And He has reconciled us to God through His death on the cross.

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And you'll note the expectation that is clearly stated in Scripture that because we have been reconciled to God, we ought to be reconciled to each other.

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How good are you at that, by the way? How many friendships, relationships, even relationships with people here at church or in the community have fallen apart because of your refusal to be reconciled to those who you think have sinned against you?

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Maybe you've sinned against them. When we read the story of Jacob, we got people sinning against people all over the place.

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And yet these are the ones held up to us as the patriarchs of the faith.

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The one who sows the good seed is the son of man.

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The field is the world. The good seed are the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one.

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The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the clothes of the age. And the reapers are the angels.

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And just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the clothes of the age. The son of man will send his angels.

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They will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers. That should tell you something here.

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Every single human being is that, a sinner and a lawbreaker who's caused sin, who's created causes of sin, who's sinned, right?

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How then are we supposed to stand if the angels are going to gather up all the lawbreakers? It is only because of what

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Christ has done that any of us have a hope of being saved at all. Because he has bled and died in our place.

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He became the lawbreaker that you and I are so that we can be clothed in his righteousness and be seen as the saints that God makes us.

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All is a gift. The lawbreakers who do not have faith are thrown into the fiery furnace, and in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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But then the righteous will finally shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

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He who has ears to hear, let him hear. In the name of Jesus. Amen. 470th

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