Book of Galatians - Ch. 5, Vs. 1-26 (07/08/2001)

Park Meadows Church

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Everybody open their Bible to Galatians 5 .1. Paul tells us, along with the

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Galatians, to stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith

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Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

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David, what is the liberty or yoke of bondage?

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He's going to make that as strong as he knows how in this chapter, that we are free from the law.

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What God does in time is only what he proposed in eternity, his own will being the lone cause of all his acts and his works.

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God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and changeably, for ordained whatsoever comes to pass.

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It's perfectly divinely true that God has ordained for his own glory whatever comes to pass.

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Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

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Don't be entangled with the yoke of bondage.

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Don't be entangled with the law. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you that if you be circumcised,

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Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

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Now Paul got very, very strong in his denouncement of this.

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People were doing something. The priests of the land were doing something.

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The town of Passon was the home worship in honor of whom bodily mutilations was practiced.

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The priests of Cybele castrated themselves. This was a recognized form of heathen self -devotion to the

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God and was not shunned in ordinary conversation. In Philippians 3, 2,

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Paul speaks of the Judaizers as the concision, same thing as here.

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Paul is saying if they think that circumcision is good to gain salvation, then to go all of the way would be even more powerful for salvation.

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To go all of the way. This is the most severe statement by Paul.

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So we can understand the great danger of believing that we must add to the work of Christ to have salvation.

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Our words are so weak. I can see Paul beside himself almost here in insisting that the people not add to the work of salvation.

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It is so easy to fall into that trap as many of the present -day preacher people have.

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God needs no help. He needs nothing from us.

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He saves those that he wishes to be saved when he wishes to be saved. It's the most powerful statement

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Paul makes and it's most sincere to think that God can save by himself.

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We think we have to help him. Christ has become of no effect unto you whosoever you are justified by the law.

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You are fallen from grace. What is the agent of your salvation?

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Let me just ask you, what is it? Greg? Joy? What's the agent of your salvation?

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Bill? David? The agent of your salvation.

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What agent is it that saves you? Clarence? Dianne?

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All right. The agent of your salvation is

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Christ. God alone decided who. His decision never made.

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He had those that were his with him before there was ever anything. It is only by the blood, the faith,

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Christ gives it to us. We have to receive it. We don't have to receive it.

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It is ours whether we receive it or not, but chances are you wanted to by the time you were saved.

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Christ has become of no effect unto you whosoever of you are justified by the law.

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You are fallen from grace. Bill, what's the mean fallen from grace? Does that relieve us of any responsibility?

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All right. These that have substituted something else.

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Paul's talking specifically about bodily mutilations.

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You are substituting the law for Christ as the agent of your salvation.

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You're substituting the law as the agent of your salvation. How ridiculous is that,

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David? That's something we can see, something we can do, something

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I can handle. Is to do something. That has absolutely nothing to do with it,

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Jim. For we through the spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

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Now this righteousness is for daily living. One is saved by grace, but it is not grace that saves you.

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Explain that, Greg. Diane?

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All right. Clarence?

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All right. That's true, but it's not the grace that saves you.

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That's right. Jesus Christ saved you. Grace is the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life.

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The divine influence on your heart and its reflection in your life.

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For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.

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All of those who seek to be justified by the law are those who are separated from Christ. In other words, these are the seed of Satan.

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Now I must qualify that. Before salvation we were not the seed of Satan, we were servants of Satan, but there was no difference in looking at us.

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Paul is speaking about our life as a Christian, not about salvation. If you are saved and try to live by the law instead of faith,

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Christ is not effective in your life. The indwelling

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Holy Spirit is still present, but the power of the Holy Spirit is not. If you are truly saved and you're trying to live by the law or something else, personally

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I don't see how that can be, but if you were, these

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Galatians were depriving themselves of the daily grace by faith.

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Every day, every minute, every moment, we live by faith.

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Just because the process of sanctification is temporarily retarded does not mean that justification is taken away.

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If that were the case, then salvation would depend upon works, and it cannot be.

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You did run well, who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth?

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You've known the truth. Who cut in? Who cut you off? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.

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Who was it that called them? God. Then their being persuaded that it is by the law did not come from God.

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Do some preachers of today hinder the race you're running?

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A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. I have confidence in you through the Lord that you will be none otherwise minded, but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be.

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Bear is pastizol, a grievous result of the judgment of God.

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Bear his transgression. And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do

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I yet suffer persecution? Then as the offense of the cross ceased, Paul says, if I'm preaching circumcision, why are they still persecuting me?

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I would they were even cut off from trouble that which trouble you. I would have them that trouble you not only circumcised, but castrated.

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Paul is speaking exactly where the people live. For brethren, you have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

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For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

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John, who is your neighbor? What? Everyone?

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What? Everyone in whom you come in contact.

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There's only those you can do something about. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another.

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You're eating away, you're going to consume each other. I can't imagine a church.

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Well, I can imagine a present -day church, but one like this, where we bite each other, where we try to dig up something on each other, that's not

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Christian love. David, we have a good sermon for, a good title for a sermon here, cannibal,

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Christian cannibals. This I say then, walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

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Now, what kind of walk is this? What are we talking about walk,

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Joy? All right.

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All right, Clarence, how do we walk in the spirit? All right.

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Bill, we have more problems facing us today than Adam did. It's expressed in many different ways, but it was just as hard for him.

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But he started on the righteous side. We didn't walk in the spirit.

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You have the works of the flesh, and you have the fruit of the spirit. Works and fruit.

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You are a spiritual person. Since the fruit is produced by the spirit, who owns the fruit,

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David? The root owns the fruit. The fruit's owned by God.

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Now, does he have right to dispense that fruit however he sees fit,

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Greg? Absolutely. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit.

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There's a battle all of the time. And the spirit against the flesh, these are contrary one to another, so that ye cannot do the things that you would.

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Now, these are contrary. What's the word contrary mean? Opposing.

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One opposes the other. So don't try to make it a physical fight.

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You'll lose. But if you be led of the spirit, you are not under the law.

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Now, all of those that are not under the spirit are under law.

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Those that claim to be under the spirit, but they let the law guide them, they're still under the law.

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The works of the flesh are manifest. What's manifest mean, Bill? Right.

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The works of the flesh are these. Now, he's going to name them. Adultery.

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What is adultery? Clarence? How could

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Jesus call the Pharisees an adulterous nation? All right.

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It's taking the love that belongs to one and giving it to another is adultery. Fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like.

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If I left anything out, he says included in that. Of which

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I tell you before, as I have told you, as I told you in times past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

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There's a good scripture for your afternoon service, David. Those that do these things are not

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Christian. Now, it all hinges on the word do. Those that do such things, they're doing them, those that do such things, even one thing of this list, how?

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You just go out and do it once? Habitually. What does habitually mean?

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All right. We get our word breathing from the same root.

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It's just like breathing. Now, do you habitually do any of these? Don't answer, but I take it for granted you do not.

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If you're a spiritual person, you wouldn't be here if you weren't. But these people that habitually do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

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Inherit means what, Joy? Well, all right, after the death.

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There has to be a death for you to inherit anything. It was the death of Christ. The kingdom of God.

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What is it, David? What is the kingdom of God? Kingdom means authority.

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It does not mean a piece of real estate. It means authority. So we are under the authority of God.

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But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

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Against such there is no law. Now, what does he mean against such there is no law,

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Bill? Well, these things that you've heard, if they were not being judged out there, there's never any assumption that you're good, you're faithful, you're gentle.

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All right. Against such there is no law.

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And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

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Those that belong to Christ have crucified the flesh.

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Now, have crucified, past tense, imperative, was it up to you whether you crucified the flesh?

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They that are Christ have crucified the flesh. Whose responsibility was it to crucify the flesh?

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Christ. Christ crucified your flesh. You were placed into him at death,

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Romans 6, 3. It has been done.

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It has been crucified. We're to renew it every day.

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We're to remember it every day. We're to practice it every day.

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David. Likewise, you reckon ye also yourselves to be dead.

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That's the part that this verse 24 refers to where it says those that are

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Christ have crucified the flesh. It doesn't really mean they crucify their flesh.

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It means they're reckoning. Reckoning it to be true is right. Crucify their flesh to be died.

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That reckoning is a faith word. It is nothing but speech. We must reckon that to be true daily.

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But there is a verse where Paul said, I die daily. It doesn't really mean to crucify your flesh.

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It means that you believe in God. David believed in God when God said, I've killed him already.

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A lot of people get confused. I die daily.

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They think that means we crucify our flesh. They don't. You can't. You've got to be true all the time.

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You know, God is faithful. I know that he does that. It's something that we reckon to be true.

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We believe it. It's a faith. I don't think it's a faith that we walk in.

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We just crucify our flesh. But that would be a forgiveness of that. It's a service.

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I don't know. Fred. If you can crucify the flesh daily, you have tremendous power, because overnight it had to resurrect and you had to crucify it.

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So it does not mean that you crucify the flesh daily, but it does mean that you reckon it crucified.

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You count it to your account that it is.

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If you want to show the effects of that blessing, you want to show some of its fruits.

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Now, if you have received that blessing, and you have in some sense become disjointed from it or moved away from it, then you are replacing strife with that security.

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If you will show the manifestations of that other side of it, the adultery, the sedations, the witchcraft, all those, the anger, the bickering, all of those things will turn out obviously, because that is in your manly nature.

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That's not your spiritual nature. But that doesn't mean that just because those things are coming out of you, that you're not a child of God.

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That's right. That's right. That's right.

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That's right. Absolutely. Absolutely.

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Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's right.

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That's right. That's right, Joy. which if means we do, and if we do, then we should walk into that period, and the way we walk into that period is to throw the fruit, the basket, and throw it.

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And that gives us this picture that he wants us to show the world, the lost world.

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I think the end result, when we look at the acres of stripes, that tends to come out.

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His child would recognize that. That was really hard. He will try probably first in our ignorance to do something about it, and then we can't do it.

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And then we go back to the Lord on our knees and say, you know, it's only you.

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And then again, it takes us to him in that, I would bring you back to the fruit of the spirit area, where that's present.

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And that's why we don't refuse to do it. We recognize that it's gone, and hopefully we can grasp it last.

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Hopefully we tip the first head of the fire of those bad ones, and we're down to the struggling, which his eyes are still dimmer.

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So, I don't know what I'm saying. We're moving down. Hopefully I'm not showing you adultery in the end.

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I mean, that's murder in the end. Stoikami, kamo is used, and it means a daily walk.

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It means this. We've got Kiki running around.

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She's learned to walk. I remember when she couldn't walk. I remember when she began to take a few steps, and we were all so glad and so happy that she took a few steps.

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Then she got to where she didn't have to hold on to your hand, and she took a few more steps.

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Now she runs all over the place. That's the kind of walk that this is talking about.

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You have to learn to walk with Christ. So, first, you can't walk.

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You're a Christian, but you can't walk. And he helps you. He holds you up and balances you.

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Then he gets to where he can hold your hand and you can walk. Then he gets to where you can walk on your own.

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Exactly the same word is used. So, the word walk means walking daily and more and more and more.

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The last verse, let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another and envying one another.

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So, what's envy mean, Bill? Well, it's when you do something that belongs to someone else.

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And the fact that you don't do it is a bad part of it. The bad part is you don't want to do that. You want to take something that belongs to someone else and throw it back down.

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All right. Go ahead. Let us not be desirous of vainglory.

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What's that mean, Joey? I would say any glory we have of ourself is vainglory.

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It must be Christ. Envying one another.

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Provoking one another. If I provoke you, David, what have I done? I made a mistake is what

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I did. All right. Anything that you have thought of now that you want to touch on as we've got two or three minutes?

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The law, getting a grade, getting it. Not using whoever gets it.

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Providing it. Providing it. That's good.

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Real good. Anything else? Well, we'll do it.

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Bill, dismiss us, please. Thank you.