Resurrection Sunday 2022 | Matt. 27:33-28:20 (04/17/2022)

Park Meadows Church

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Turn to Matthew 27, verse 33, if you would.

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Brother Bill had, he and I parallel each other on our Sunday school in the main service a lot, and he had planned to do a similar passage, only his was,

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I appreciate he switched back to Jonah today, because it would have been almost the same message, probably, parallel passages, of course.

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So Matthew 27, starting with about verse 33.

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Really, I'm just gonna read this, and I'll make a few comments, so let's just read it together.

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And when they were come unto a place, oh, you know what? I was missing my glasses, and I found them by stepping on them, so that's good.

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So there they are, look like they're okay. Verse 33, and when they were come unto a place called

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Golgotha, that is to say, the place of a skull, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall, and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink it.

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First, few, many, many, many times I read this when I was a new

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Christian, I thought it just didn't taste good, because it's vinegar, right? That's not the deal, that's not the deal.

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Gall, if you look up what that is, it has poppies in it, it was to numb the pain, and make you high, where you couldn't feel the pain,

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Jesus didn't want that, as he died for us, so he refused to drink it. Think about that, would have numbed the pain, but he wouldn't take it.

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And by the way, this place of the skull, if you ever get a chance to go to Israel, go, it's the most amazing thing.

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Charlotte and I were able to go twice with Dr. Freeman years ago, and it was so wonderful.

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We took my mom one time, and her mom a different time, and it was a great trip.

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But when you go to the place we're gonna read about in a moment, where they put his body, you can look up to the left, and you'll see a hill, and it looks just like a skull.

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It's still there today, and it looks just like a skull. And that's where the cross was, the three very far walk down the hill to where the tomb is, if you can picture that.

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And the place where the tomb is, is beautiful, Darwin, and beautiful area.

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And you can actually go into the tomb, and it's empty. It's been empty for over 2000 years, and so that's what we're reading about.

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So this place of the skull, verse 35, and they crucified him and parted his garments.

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And it's always interesting to me and Matthew how matter of fact that is.

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It doesn't give the details, but when you read all the

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Gospels, you get more of the details, but it just says they crucified him, what that entails, after having carried his cross by himself most of the way until he didn't have the strength, because they'd beaten him beyond recognition before that.

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But now he's in this place, he's lifted up above the rest of the people, and that cross was slammed down into that hut and pulled every sinew loose in his body.

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And sitting down, they watched him, and they began to mocking. And the next several verses, they're talking about all kinds of different, including the high priest or Savior, saying, if you're who you say you are, come down.

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Maybe Elijah will come and save you, or whatever, spitting on him, at him.

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And in verse 39, it says, and they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads.

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These were just passersby, just people from the town came out to watch a good crucifixion. And they're mocking the

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Son of God, and saying, thou that destroyed the temple and built it back in three days, save yourself.

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If you'd be the Son of God, come down from that cross. Well, that was

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Satan tempting him again, wasn't it? Because he could have. He could have come down from that cross, and no telling what would have happened to those people, but one thing we do know is if he had come down from that cross, they and all of us would have died and gone to hell.

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So the chief priest begins to mocking, saying he saved others, he can't save himself.

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And then in verse 45, it says, now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.

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So three hours of darkness. I was talking to Charlotte on the way over this morning. And I said, do you think that was a total to the

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Son? And she said, I think that was God. Preach, sister. At about the ninth hour,

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Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.

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My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And I'll tell you what that proves.

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That proves the substitutionary death of Christ is the greatest doctrine that ever existed on the face of the earth.

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You know how we know that proves it? Because the Father turned his head from him and separated himself from the

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Son of God who had been with him for all ever, any way you want to say it, before time began, the

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Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit existed in that form and was unity, one

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God, and for the first time in all of eternity and time, the

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Son of God was separated from the Father entirely. And separation from God, the

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Father, is the same thing as hell. And so he suffered hell for us during these moments.

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I've said it so many times, but if you take any number and you multiply it times infinity, it's an infinitely large number.

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You know that, right? The answer is infinity. So if you take an infinite being like Jesus and you multiply it by however minutes or hours he was separated from the

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Father, that's infinite hell that he suffered for us. And I can't explain that in human terms, what that might mean.

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I don't know. It's horrifying to think about. But he did it for us, for us.

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While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Some of them that stood there when they heard that he said this, thought he was crying out for Elijah to come and save him.

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And they mocked him for that. And then straightway, one of those people ran and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar.

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And this time it didn't have the gall in it. Put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. Now, have you ever noticed that?

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That he wouldn't drink it when it was vinegar and poppies, opium, but he did drink it when it was just from a fruit of the vine, grapes.

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And Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, he yielded up the ghost. You may have heard people say that about other human beings when they went to be with the

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Lord. Well, he gave up the ghost. And that's actually a misnomer because no one can give up the ghost, it's taken.

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But for Jesus, it was absolutely true because he couldn't die unless he himself, by his own will, chose to let that happen or to make that happen is the way

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Brother Otis would say it. And so he chose to make that happen for you and for me and for every brother and sister who ever lived since Adam and Eve and whoever will live until the

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Lord comes back again. And probably for every human being that ever lives, age unto age unto age beyond the thousand year millennial kingdom, off into eternity future.

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So he gave up his life for us. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom and the earth did quake and the rocks were rent and the graves were open and many bodies of the saints, which slept, that's the way

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Jesus would say it, talking about they're dead in the grave. Many of the bodies of these dead persons who were believers, arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection.

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Now that's interesting to read that that way because it kind of, it's in the present tense while he's still hanging on the cross is when the graves were open, but it says they came out of the grave only after his resurrection.

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They couldn't come out first. Did you ever notice that Bill? I never noticed that until this week.

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I mean, I should have, but I didn't, but now I did. And it's awesome to think about, they didn't come out of the grave before he did.

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So they came out when he did. Think about that. So the graves were open at that time.

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Apparently the earthquake had something to do with that. The graves were open, but when Jesus rose from the grave three days later on resurrection

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Sunday, we would call it Easter. It's not a great word for it, but you know what I'm talking about. On that day, those open graves, the bodies came out of them, of many, not all of them, but the ones who were saints.

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In other words, the saved people who belonged to the Lord from before the foundation of the world. Some of them came out and walked around the city.

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Do you think that caused a stir? Do you think the news of that spread far and wide? It's still today people talking about, over 2000 years later.

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And notice that it says here that he cried with a loud voice and the temple, the curtain that divided the rest of the temple from the

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Holy of Holies, where no man could go but one once a year, the high priest, where the Shekinah glory was.

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That's more than an inch thick. You couldn't tear it. 10 men couldn't grab it and tear it.

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And it tore from the top to the bottom. So there were no humans up there. So who do you think tore it?

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The father tore it. And that was the end of Judaism. At the time that Jesus gave up the ghost was exactly at the same to the minute, the same second that the high priest plunged that knife into the sacrificial lamb for Israel.

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And it was the last sacrifice that ever happened from then till today. Go figure. If there's anything that proves

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God exists, it's the Jew. You look at the record, Jew, none of it makes any sense at all.

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All of the world's focus is on Israel, this little bitty, tiny country that wouldn't matter otherwise, except God says this matters.

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In fact, everybody's always watching that part of the world. And I see people, this is very interesting, but the things that are happening with Russia and Ukraine have gotten a lot of people thinking about the end times and prepping, rightfully so.

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It's really interesting. Places I go, Charlotte and I were in a little place looking, it was a nursery, and looking for some plants for around the yard and stuff.

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And the woman who was managing it, I just noticed she had some seeds in some jars.

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And I said, how long would those last if they're dry? She said, forever. You can take them out 20 years from now and plant them, they would grow.

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And I said, really, that's what I was wanting to know. And she said, yeah, I'd take the extra ones, I'd take them home and I'd keep them just to be ready in case

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I need food because things are changing. She just told me that out of the blue for no reason, right?

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And I'm thinking, yeah, God is getting a lot of people ready for something, isn't he? And of course, we know what it is.

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A lot of people don't know what it is, but they still sense it. Well, so that day, and for every child of God from that moment forward, especially from after Pentecost on, especially from the time that Jesus rose from the grave, and then after Pentecost when the church, that time on the

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Bible says all of us, all of God's children can come boldly before the throne of grace.

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We can come boldly before the father because he ended the need for the human priest.

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Most religions today and so many denominations that call themselves Christians still, either there's a priest of some kind.

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It's even the church itself, the church history, the formulas that the church has made up for how to be saved, the preacher, the altar.

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I leave it here because the kids like to play on it. It's not biblical to have an altar in a church. That's Old Testament.

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You don't need an altar. Jesus is the altar and the offering on the altar.

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It's just for the kids to play over, right? So we've got so many things of Judaism that we bring into our

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Christianity, legalism, and we need to get it all out. Not so much in this local church here, but so many churches around do, but this is the proof of it right here in verse 51.

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Graves were opened and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared unto many people.

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That was in all the newspapers in the day, I'm sure. Now Tyrian and they that were with him watching

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Jesus saw the earthquake and those things that were done. They feared greatly saying, truly, this is the son of God.

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Some of those guys got saved that day. Isn't that amazing? Some of the ones that nailed the nails into his hands perhaps were saved that day.

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And when the evening was come, there came a rich man. You know how the world, Hollywood in particular, rich people are evil, right?

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And all the big companies are just evil. And every movie you see, it portrays the companies and the guys that run those companies as evil.

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And it's just everywhere trying to make people think that pursuit of money is evil. And yet the Bible says that God's people, not only says you should pursue money because you got to lay aside for your kids and your grandkids.

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Man, that's adding up for me, Katie. I shouldn't blame you. Ashton, it's adding up for me,

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Ben, you guys, you know? So you got to have, if you're going to do that.

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So God's always been about accumulating and blessing his people with wealth. But so many preachers have said it's evil.

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We're not even trying to do it anymore. You can't get it without trying. I mean, it's not just God puts it in your lap.

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It's you plus God is working together in his family business. But anyway, rich people are evil.

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Really? Well, you know what rich people can do? They can give to other people because they got way more than they need.

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And God's whole economy depends on that. The way God sets up the economy depends on that.

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You give it to your church, the church can help people that don't have it, people that need. You'd give it to them straight yourself.

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Look what this man gave. He had spent his money and his time to hew a grave out of the side of a mountain, which

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I saw it is rock. It's just pure rock. And that had to take a lot of money and a lot of time and workers to get that done.

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And this rich man of Arimathea named Joseph, who also was

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Jesus' disciple. Oh, rich people can get saved? Really? See, didn't Jesus teach all richness is evil?

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Only if you take it out of context because it's got to match this scripture, does it not?

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It's got to fit with this one. And here's this disciple of Jesus who's probably enormously rich.

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And he gives his, well, let's see what he does. This man, oh, you know what money also does?

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I know this doesn't seem to be a day to preach on this, but it's in the passage I'm preaching, okay?

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Money gives you influence. The Bible says that in the book of Proverbs.

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More Christians need to gain wealth so we can take over. You know, we need to get

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Elon Musk to the Lord. We can't get him there. That's old -fashioned language prior to Brother Otis, right?

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You can't get him there, but we can push a little, couldn't we? You know, we can give him the gospel and push a little.

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If that man were to get saved, you realize he just put an offer to buy Twitter. And he says he wants to turn it into a trusted, honest voice for the whole world.

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What's that all about? How long have I been saying, guys, people need to get wealthy so they can control

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Hollywood. They can control the music industry and control the East Coast colleges. People with money control those colleges because they can't run without their money.

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I guarantee those professors are not giving the money to run the evil ones that are evil liberals teaching there is no

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God. They're not paying for all that. So there you have it. We need to have that happen, the

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Lord willing, but if he's coming back soon, it doesn't matter now anyways, probably too late to fix all that.

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And maybe we're, you know, we know everything that happens is God's will. And perhaps it's been brought that direction so that we can have the great apostasy or falling away from the truth that must occur before the antichrist arises and people follow him.

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And no better place to bring a great apostasy than in our great universities across this country, teaching untruths to our young people, even in elementary schools, trying to teach them stuff they never need to know about in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth grade and all of this garbage.

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Oh man, I wouldn't read any of it if I didn't have to read some of it for the Wall Street stuff I do. But I mean,

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I hear it. It's amazing what they're doing, teaching these little kids. And so God is using all these evil people to prepare the whole world to have a great falling away from the truth.

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And we see that happening. Well, this rich man went to Pilate and he had influence or he'd never been speaking to Pilate.

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You do realize that, right? I mean, we just read through this at just Sunday school, right? No, think about in the real world, like if you could go get an audience with the governor of Texas, could you do that like tomorrow?

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Because think about it, Jesus just died. You can't leave him laying there three weeks to get an audience with the governor. You gotta be able to go like, right now

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I need to talk to him. And he was able to, Bill. Think about that. So he walks into Pilate's office because he had probably supported

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Pilate's running for office, right? Didn't work that way back then probably.

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But he probably supported him in many ways. So he had his ear and he begs for the body of Jesus.

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And then Pilate commanded that the body be delivered to Joseph.

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And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and took it.

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And then we see the women come and they begin to take care. Verse 60, and he laid

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Jesus, this rich man, Joseph, laid Jesus in his own tomb, which he had hewn out of the rock and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher and departed.

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Now don't think for one second that this rich man chipped through that rock by himself.

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He paid people to do it, right? He probably had, I would say, at least 20 to 30 men to make that tomb in the rock.

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I've seen that it's in the side of the mountain and it's not in the dirt side of the mountain, it's in the rock. And the stone that was rolled in front to seal the door could not be rolled by one man.

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The same workers that he hired to hew the grave had to, many of them, probably as many as 10 men to roll this rock.

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And we know that from the very Greek and some of the parallel passages of this, calls it a great rock. And in the

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Greek, it means like a gigantic rock. So no one person could move it. It would take, I don't know, 10 to 20 people to roll this rock in front of the tomb.

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And he had that done by his men and they rolled it in front, a great stone.

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There's the word right there in verse 60, that word great, great, mega. The word mega comes from it.

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A mega stone to the door of the sepulcher and departed. And there was Mary Magdalene and the other

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Mary sitting over against the sepulcher. Which other Mary was this, by the way? You're right.

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So you had the one Mary, the other which had been a prostitute filled with demons that Jesus healed.

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And she became one of his closest disciples of all of them.

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And these two were still there. All the rest, many of them, besides John, had fled the scene for fear of being killed, right?

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But these women were here taking care of the body. And Joseph didn't flee. The rich man was there, the rich disciple.

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And now the next day that followed the day of the preparation, that's when they put herbs and things on the body and wound it with the cloth like the

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Egyptians used to do. And the Jews picked that up when they were slaves in Egypt is where they learned the skillsets to do that.

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And they wrapped Jesus's body. It's called the day of preparation, which is usually the day after someone passes away or in Jesus's case, gave up the ghost.

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And the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate. And then they,

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I'm not gonna get into this part, but they said, look, this man's a deceiver. He claimed he's been raised from the dead.

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So I want you to put armed Roman guards out there for three days. And so Pilate granted it.

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Well, guess what that proved? It proved that no one stole his body because those guards are under pain of death if anything breaks the seal.

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And it even says here, look at verse 66. So they went and made the sepulchre sure.

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That means they put the Roman guard at the sepulchre and they sealed the stone, which meant they put the

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Roman seal of wax on the part of it on the edge of the stone, part on the edge of the mountain. So that if you move that rock, it would break that seal.

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That's under pain of death. So this was guarded by the nation of Rome so that no one could steal the body, which proved his resurrection, which is ironic.

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Oh boy, man tries to thwart God all the time, doesn't man? But man is not going to be able to thwart the sovereign

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God. He uses these evil people for his own purposes, in this case, to prove the resurrection.

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So they made it sure they put the Roman seal on the stone and they set a watch of Roman guards there.

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Now chapter 28, verse one, in the end of the Sabbath, this happens three days later.

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Jesus was in the grave three days and three nights. Do the math on that. There's no way that he died on Friday like the

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Roman Catholics say that he did good Friday. He did not, he didn't die on Friday because you have to have three full, three days and three nights in the grave.

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But at the end of that, on the first day of the week, which is the Lord's day, which is why we worship on Sunday, no matter what the legalizers say to worship on Saturday, we ain't going to do it.

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You know, died with the law, nailed to the cross. We walk with the Lord, worship him every day.

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So every day is a Sabbath. We rest in Christ every day, every day is a Sabbath, but we choose to come together on the

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Lord's day as was the practice of the early church. And it's easily proved by reading early church fathers, no matter what they say.

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Oh, the Catholics invented that. No, they didn't. They were doing it long before Constantine made

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Christianity the Roman religion. That did mess some things up, but long before that they were worshiping on Sunday.

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And so we see that on Sunday, resurrection Sunday, the end of the

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Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.

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And behold, there was a great earthquake. I want you to watch this. See it, view it in your mind's eye.

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A great earthquake as these two women approached this grave with the huge stone.

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And they looked at that stone, a mega stone, and they knew it would take maybe 10, 25 men to move this stone, and here we have two women.

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And they want to see what happened to Jesus. He said he would raise three days later.

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No other disciples showed up to see if he did. Isn't that interesting? But these two women did, but they couldn't tell because the stone was in the way, and look what happened.

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And behold, there was a great earthquake for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door.

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You know why? He did not roll that stone back so Jesus could get out. Jesus was already gone, right?

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He was out. He had already been down to Shoal and set free the captives, the

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Jewish believers, and went to heaven and sprinkled his blood on the throne and turned it into a mercy seat.

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Then he went back and got all the Jewish saints and took them to heaven because for the first time they actually could be in heaven because the blood was there and they're there.

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Then he comes back. He's done a lot of things in those three days. So the angel didn't have to open or move that stone so he could get out.

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He was already out. He moved it so the women could get in. Why? Because they're eyewitnesses.

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And so the angel moves the stone that no one, two, three, 10, 20 men could move, certainly not two women, and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it.

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I love to picture that. Can you picture that? Well, it sure freaked out some gardeners.

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They were shaking in their wet britches. And the two women were looking up there.

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They probably expected it. Who knows? I mean, these were women of faith, I'm telling you. And so he's sitting up there, this angel sitting upon the stone.

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His countenance was like lightning and his raiment as white as snow. Picture that. It really happened in the physical world where we could see it with our eyes, hear it, feel it.

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And for fear of him, the keepers did shake, the gardeners. Huh, they didn't know what was going on because they weren't believers until now.

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And maybe now they are, right? Who knows? Save some with fear, the Bible says. And they became as dead men.

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They literally fainted. These big, strong men working out in the garden, fainted, the two women standing there just looking at it, smiling probably.

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Isn't that a funny picture? Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek

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Jesus, talking to the two women, which was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen.

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And he said, come and see the place where the Lord used to lay. And they did.

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And then go quickly and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead. And behold, he goeth before you,

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Jesus, is already walking down the road ahead of you. To Galilee, there shall you see him.

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And that's what Bill's gonna talk about in his Sunday school class. You can do that next Sunday. Seriously, that'd be great.

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Lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy, and did run to bring his disciples word.

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Verse 16, then the 11, and I'm gonna skip some of that just for sake of time, so drop down to 16.

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And then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them to go.

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He had told them to go there before he was crucified. And when they saw him, he did appear to them, and they worshiped him, but some doubted.

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What was the main one's name that doubted? Thomas, right? And Jesus came and spake unto the, well, it probably wasn't

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Thomas. Thomas doubted at the time when he didn't see him, but there were others who doubted. It was like, it's what

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Dave Huber tells that story, your son tells the story a lot about, you know, something's too good to be true.

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And he says, I backhanded him. I never backhanded your son, but then it preaches better. He's like a preacher.

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I think Dave's tall, he just doesn't know it, but he's like, he says he backhanded me. And he said, what do you mean something too good to be true?

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Well, Jesus died for you. That's too good to be true, but it's true, right? You remember that story? Well, so here they are.

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And it is such an amazing thing. There were people that just didn't believe that was really

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Jesus, because they saw him or heard about him dying. Most of them weren't there, they were afraid. They heard about him dying.

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And Jesus came and spake unto them saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth. Now look at this. This is the great commission to us.

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For 2000 years, this great commission to the church. Go you therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have taught you.

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And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

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And he is with us today, isn't he? And our job from that time until this time has been to spread the good news of the story we just read.

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That's our job. We can't save people. We can tell them the good news of the story we just read.

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And we can tell them how Jesus is alive and we know it because he's changed our lives, right?

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We've seen him, felt him, and we know him personally and he's changed our lives. And that's the story that we tell.

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And there'll come a day in the not too distant future where three and a half years into the tribulation period, the

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Lord will relieve the church of this duty and take it away from her. And she will be instructed to go and hide at that point.

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She must be hidden during the last three and a half years or you'll have your head removed from your body if you get caught.

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So you'll go to the hills and hide for three and a half years and it will be up to others at that point to witness.

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There'll be 144 ,000 Jewish that will be preaching the gospel. There will be two

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Jewish prophets who will be in the streets of Jerusalem prophesying for three and a half years and witnessing.

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And then there'll be a messenger from heaven which could be an angelic being. I'm not sure what it is.

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Something, some messenger from heaven, perhaps an angel circling the world in orbit, orbiting the world, witnessing.

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So the church is not needed at that point. And she hasn't done her job very well in these last 20 years anyway.

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The last actually a hundred years, we've not done the job very well and we're getting weaker and weaker and we will be relieved of this duty.

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There's a scripture that makes me believe that in the book of Revelation, but I'm not gonna preach about that today, but she will then be allowed to hide.

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So that's what's happening. And there's where we were getting. Now, let me stop. Now, I wanna ask you this question.

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A lot of us in here grew up Baptist. Some of us grew up Presbyterian. Those of us who grew up Baptist studied the

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Presbyterian doctrine, you know, theology, because they're the strongest that I can find anyway.

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Not too many strong Baptists. There's a few, not too many. I did love W .A. Criswell on the modern side.

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His study Bible was fantastic, very scholarly man. But most of the great theology works are from the

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Presbyterians or the Bible church people who are a branch off of that, a conservative branch. And so, like in this particular room, there aren't too many

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Pentecostals or Charismatics. We don't believe in tongue speaking.

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We don't believe that is a gift that's operative right now. We don't believe in faith healing. If what you mean by that is that I, David Mitchell, the pastor have to touch you to infuse this power of God so you can be healed.

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I don't buy it. I don't believe any of you can touch someone and heal them. I believe even by the time of the book of James in the

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New Testament, that had ceased. And at that point, the instruction was to call for the elders and have them anoint with medicinal oils and to pray for the person.

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That's what we do in this church. And we usually let the doctor apply the medicines, but we do the praying.

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And guess what? So my question is, can God heal? Everybody in the house said, amen.

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If not, do it again. How many of you believe God can heal, right? Everybody in the house believes that.

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And even the children said, amen. So, yes, and we're accused that we don't believe in that, but what we don't believe in is mockery and fakery.

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All right. And you say, well, brother David, don't be so forward with that because they're good brothers and sisters too.

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A lot of them are sweet people, I will say, but they don't study to show themselves approved.

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I don't believe in when they do. They do harm to the scripture because they take it out of context to prove the things that they've been.

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They don't read church history where even by 300 AD, these things had ceased. And early church fathers say that they no longer existed in the church.

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So you have to study. I understand that. But the truth is, that does not keep

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God from healing at all. It's been God that did the healing. He just chose to do it for apostles and New Testament prophets for a season until through the book of Acts and any book written later after that, you don't even see stuff like that happen.

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If you go, some of the earlier books in the New Testament, like Corinthians and so forth, but any book written after say about 55

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AD, like Ephesians, Galatians, Romans, none of those talk about that stuff like that, tongue speaking and all that.

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It began to cease off the scene. So we know that from scripture. We know it from church history, but the truth is

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God still heals. Look at Luke chapter 13, verse 10. I want to give one example of how

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Jesus did not need any human help to heal people. God does not need human help to heal people.

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He allows us to work with him in his family business through prayer. That is our part.

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That is our work in the healing. Our part is prayer. God's part is to bring the dunamis, which is the power.

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And the reason I bring it up today is because if you study carefully, you'll see that the power for a person to be healed, either their soul healed in the act of their regeneration, their salvation, or their body healed in a healing such as Sharon's had several times.

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I've observed that. Raymond has had that. There are many others in this room that God don't even want to talk about.

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Ron would take care of the rest of the day that God has raised up through answered prayers and so forth.

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But he does not need human help from the pastor or a deacon or anybody to do that.

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We do help. We pray from our homes. We might even come to your home and pray. If it gets bad enough, we'll come and pray with you to encourage you.

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But it's God that does the healing. It's God that brings the dunamis, this resurrection power to raise you up, either your spirit or your body, whichever the case is needed.

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Luke 13 10 says, and Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. Why was he teaching on Saturday?

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Because it was still the Jewish economy. Jesus lived in Jewish times, not Christian times.

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The church didn't start until after Jesus was already in heaven and Pentecost happened and he sent the

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Holy Spirit. After that, we worship on the Lord's day. But the Jews, they worshiped on Saturday and Jesus was in there teaching the word of God.

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And behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity for 18 years and was bowed together and just all bent over and couldn't hardly walk.

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And she couldn't even lift herself up. And this passage reminded me of my mom after she had the stroke last week.

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Well, first she fell. And I'll tell you a little bit about the details on that in a minute.

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But she just couldn't no longer move herself. Dave Huber and I had to carry her through her house out and put her in the car to rush her to the hospital.

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She couldn't even help with her own legs. They just weren't working. Reminded me of this woman. This woman was in similar shape and Jesus laid his hands on her.

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And this word in the Greek is a powerful word, not so much in English. Well, it's kind of immediately, kind of sounds like boom.

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It's just, you know, but in Greek, it's even more stronger, stronger, not more stronger.

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It's stronger. And she was made straight immediately. So she was all bowed over and she just straightened up and stood healed immediately.

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That's how long it took for Jesus to do this. And she glorified God, not some man, not some faith healer.

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I find it interesting that faith healers have always got the story. They're always gonna tell about the people that they heal.

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They're gonna tell you the story about it and tell you that, you know, they touched them and boy, that leg grew two inches longer and then their back was healed.

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And why do I need to know you were involved? Why don't you just say, why didn't you just say God healed a person? It's never that way.

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I shouldn't say never, but usually the person wants the glory. Well, when Jesus healed somebody, he got the glory, right?

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God got the glory. And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation because that Jesus had healed on the

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Sabbath. Wow. And they said to the people, there are six days in which men ought to work.

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Here's legalism working. In them, therefore, come and be healed and not on the

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Sabbath day. This was the religious leaders of the day in their great wisdom.

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And the Lord then answered him and said, you hypocrite, don't you teach every one of you that on the

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Sabbath day, if your ox fell in a ditch, that you're allowed to go get the ox out of the ditch.

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This is a human being. This is a woman of it. This is a child of God, your sister.

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How do you think they felt when he got done with them? And I'll tell you, he wasn't gentle with the Pharisees.

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He was gentle with everyone else that I can see in the record. Not with the false religious people.

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He was stern with them. I remember one time he whipped them with a whip and ran them out of the building.

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That's not even teaching you get your ox out of the ditch. And ought not this woman being a daughter of Abraham whom

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Satan has bound. Now there's some interesting information. A lot of illness comes from Satan who brings it to discourage

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God's people. And it works. It discourages God's people. I'm glad I came to church today to get encouraged.

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I needed it. Bad. And ought not this woman being a daughter of Abraham whom

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Satan has bound. Lo, these 18 years be loosed from this bond on the

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Sabbath day. He had to ask them that question. Religious leaders of the day.

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And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed, I guess so.

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And all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Jesus.

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And then Jesus went on and told a lot of parables, including the parable of the mustard seed about how the church would be in the future and so forth.

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But let me ask you this. Does he heal everybody? Does he always choose to heal?

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Faith healer, Jesus is supposed to heal everybody. Everyone is supposed to always be well, always be rich and never die.

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I don't understand. I've never met a faith healer yet that I couldn't ask him, how come your great grandmother's in the grave?

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Or your grandmother? Why didn't you raise them up? If you have those apostolic gifts, you can not only heal, you can raise them from the dead.

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Why didn't you? Why did Oral Roberts build a hospital? Why don't faith healers?

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I mean, I'm sitting up there with my mother, Katie is, all of us in the family, she has not been alone since she's been in that hospital, praise the

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Lord, because you've got to watch the people that work there. They're good people though. Don't let me, don't take me wrong. Wonderful people at Baylor over in Waco.

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But you still got to help them. Why, I have not seen one single faith healer come room to room in that hospital and heal my mother.

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Where are they? If they believe what they said on their tailbone and do anything, any day of the week, other than go heal.

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I mean, if I had that gift, ladies and gentlemen, you would not see me. I had a dream once where I had it.

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We had 500 people in this little room right here. And thank goodness God gave me the gift of healing because I had forgotten to prepare a sermon that day, which has never happened, of course.

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I mean, I got ammunition everywhere. But that day, 500 people show up out of nowhere and I walk out and say, man, this is the one day

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I didn't study. And I was horrified. And I got up there, I did not know what to say.

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And it's like the Lord moved me. There were some ill people and I just went out there and touched them and they were healed. I never felt better in my life.

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I didn't want to wake up from that dream. And then when I did, I went back to sleep to try to dream it again.

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So if I were a faith healer, you would not see me. I would be in, I'd be in Baylor Dallas, it's bigger.

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And then I'd go over to Presbyterian Hospital and then the Methodist Hospital. I make my way from city to city and I'd heal them all.

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And those doctors would hate me and they'd be wanting to stone me just like these people because it put them out of business. But, right?

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I don't need to say anything else. But it ain't happening for some interesting reason. When do they choose to heal?

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On television in front of the people that have the love offerings ready to hand out. That's the only place.

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Now I know they probably do go to the hospitals for some of their loved ones. I mean, I'll be honest with you.

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When brother Rocky was dying, my mentor other than brother Otis, my mentor was laying there dying on a respirator.

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I was so desperate that I went and got a Jewish believer friend who was a charismatic and said, would you pray for him to be healed?

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Cause I'm not a healer. And you claim to be, would you come with me? I took him to Dallas and he prayed. I watched him pray over Rocky.

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Rocky was dead within two hours. He probably died two hours quicker because he didn't like the fact that I brought that dude in the room.

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Right? Right? Anyway, but Jesus can heal, can't he? He doesn't need humans to do anything than what he told us to do in the book of James.

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And that is to pray. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man or woman availeth much because it's working together with God's dunamis, his power.

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And so my question is, does he heal everybody? Turn to Luke chapter four. And the spirit of the

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Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, Jesus said.

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Jesus is preaching, okay? He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the

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Lord. And he's quoting from the Old Testament scripture but he doesn't quote the whole scripture. He stopped short halfway through it because the rest of the scripture talks about the second coming.

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And this part talked about the first advent and he stopped there and he closed the book.

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And I'm sure they wondered, why'd you stop there? Don't you imagine? He closed the book and he gave it to the minister and he sat down.

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And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on this man because he taught like no other man.

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And he began to say unto them, this day is this scripture fulfilled.

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Whoa, because the scripture was talking about the Messiah. He said, I'm he in so many words.

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This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Notice that he left out the part about the second coming because it wasn't fulfilled that day.

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It's gonna be filled in our day, I think. And all bear him witness and wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth.

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What words were coming out of his mouth? He was just reading the scripture. Nothing fancy, no poems, no hymns.

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I'm talking about quoting the words of the hymn. I like the singing, I'm not talking about that. But I mean, he wasn't quoting poems or hymns.

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He wasn't quoting interesting stories at this point. He did believe in telling stories, but in the synagogue, he was just reading the

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Bible. And they were amazed at the power of it because there is power in the Bible when an anointed person reads it.

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And when anybody reads it, but you put an anointed person in front of a bunch of people and just read the scripture, it can change the town.

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It can, it's happened before. And they said, but isn't this Joseph's son?

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He's just a man that grew up. We know who his parents are. He just claimed to be the Messiah, did he not?

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And he said unto them, you will surely say unto me this proverb, physician, heal yourself.

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That was a prophecy of when he was on the cross. Remember? He prophesied it before it happened.

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He said, you're gonna tell me in the future to heal myself, right? Do also here in your country.

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And he said, truly I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country, but I tell you the truth.

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Listen, now listen to this. This is an amazing teaching. This sort of ends the argument about faith healers, as far as I'm concerned, because look what

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Jesus says. Many widows, he's telling them a familiar story that the Jews knew about. Many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, a famine, no rain, right?

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There was a great famine throughout all the land. But now listen to this. He said, there were many widows who had no money, couldn't grow any crops, no rain, hungry, destitute, dying.

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And he said, there were many of them, right? And look what Jesus says. This is him teaching in the synagogue. This is his

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Sunday school lesson that day or Saturday school. But unto none of them was

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Elijah sent. Now, who is it that sent Elijah? God.

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God is sovereign. He sends all of us to the places we go. And we only go places he sends us, because he is sovereign.

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He's in control of everything we do, everything we think, every thought we have, except for the bad ones.

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And Satan can do that if we're in the flesh. But you know what? Did you know that the sovereign

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God even brought that to pass? It's all part of his plan to let you be who you're gonna be and let

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God be who he's gonna be. You ain't gonna be perfect and he is gonna be perfect. And he's gonna get the glory when you do get it right.

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All of that is part of God's plan. He's pleased with his plan. And so Jesus says, the great sender of God's men did not send him to any of these widows.

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He said, he only sent him to Sarepta, this one widow in the city of Sidon, unto a woman that was the widow.

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So God only sent to help one woman out of all the women that were destitute.

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Jesus just told that. And God's the one who chose to do it that way. Now look at verse 27, not enough.

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So he's gonna give another example. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elijah the prophet.

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And none of them was cleansed except one and his name was Naaman from Syria. And they remembered the story.

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And his point is he didn't heal them all. He just healed one of them. And his point is

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God is the one who chooses who gets healed and who doesn't. Not man, not a faith healer, not even a prophet.

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The prophet Elijah himself could not choose who he would heal. God told him and sent him to the person that he would heal.

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It's always been that way, always will. Anyone says different is a fake. And all day in the synagogue when they heard this were filled with wrath.

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Why? Because they're humanists just like most people in most churches around us today.

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They want the man to get all of the credit. Want the man to be doing it all and you need the church and you need me because I'm more spiritual than you because I'm the one healing you.

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You're not healing me, I'm healing you. So I'm bigger and better and more spiritual. Check off more of the list supposed to do.

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I've prayed and fasted because obviously if you haven't you can't heal people and you can't speak in tongues like I can.

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Do you see the pride in it? It's all mannish. It's not how

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God does it. And yet the world's full of it. And all day in the synagogue when they heard these things they were filled with wrath.

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Man hates it when you tell him God chooses to heal who he wants to. He chooses to save who he wants to.

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He chooses to send who he wants to where he wants to send them. God is sovereign and they hate it.

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They're filled with wrath. And rose up and thrust Jesus, God, out of the city.

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So these same people that God out of the church already. Do you see it?

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Do you see what I'm saying? This is not me making this up, is it? You remember Jesus saying, I'll take the candlestick and remove it.

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And that picture is that I'm not in that building anymore. It's just an institution with people in it calling itself a church. And they thrust

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Jesus out of the city. They didn't want him there because he was the real thing. And they led him into the brow of a hill where on their city was built that they might cast him down headlong and kill him.

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But he passing through the midst of them went his own way. And he came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee.

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And he taught them in the Sabbath day. So what did Jesus do? They were taught his doctrine or his word was with power.

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He focused on this right here. Not on the faith healing. He focused on this right here.

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Praise God. That's what this church focuses on and many other little churches and some big ones like MacArthur's in different pockets around the world.

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This is the focus right here. Not the stuff we are doing. We're not the focus.

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We're God's children working together with him in his vineyard. And God does the healing and he gets the glory.

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And so they were astonished at the Bible teaching that Jesus did is how this little story sort of the end of it.

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So verse 33 says, and in the synagogue, there was a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil, a demon and cried out with a loud voice saying, leave us alone.

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And guess what Jesus did with him? He heals him. And he cast the demons out.

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And verse 36 says, and they were all amazed and spake among themselves saying, what word is this?

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So it wasn't so much the healing of the man they focused on. It was the word that came out of Jesus's mouth. It was this again.

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What word is this man speaking? It's the words they focused on. The word of God is what heals in essence.

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It's what created the universe. Everything we see was from the word of God. What a word is this.

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For with authority and power, he commanded the unclean spirits and they came out. And the fame of him went into every place of the country round about.

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So why were they angry? Verse 38, and he arose out of the synagogue and entered into Simon's house.

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Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever and they besought him about her.

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And he stood over her and he rebuked the fever. So here it was not a demon, it was an illness.

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He rebuked the fever and it left her. And immediately she arose and ministered unto the people.

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And this is what I hope my mom can do. And now when the sun was setting all day that had any sick and the birth diseases brought them to him and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them.

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God can do just fine without us. I mean, we need to pray, but he doesn't need a human to help him heal anyone.

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Jesus can handle this. And the devils also came out of many crying out and saying, thou art

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Christ, the son of God. And he rebuked them and allowed them not to speak. For he knew, for the demon knew that Jesus was the

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Christ. So why doesn't God heal everybody? Well, look at John chapter five, verse 15.

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The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus which had made him whole. And therefore did the

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Jews persecute Jesus and sought to slay him because he had done those things on the Sabbath day.

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They even tried to kill the man that was healed. But Jesus answered them, my father works here and I work.

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You got that? Even Jesus didn't do it by himself. He worked together with the father.

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Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his father making himself equal with God.

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Jews knew who he claimed to be, didn't they? Then answered Jesus and said to them, truly, truly,

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I say unto you, the son can do nothing by himself, but what he sees the father do.

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For what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the son likewise. So the father had healed that man already.

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And that's the man the father told Jesus to put his hands on because the father had already healed him because he's not in time, is he?

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And Jesus knew this and that's who he healed. He didn't heal anyone else in that particular room right at that moment.

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So he doesn't heal everybody. He heals who the father says, I want you to save that person.

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I want you to save that person. I want you to heal this person and because it'll bring glory to me because they'll know that it was not man that did it, right?

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So it's all according to the sovereign will of God. And even Jesus Christ never did anything that the father did not tell him to do that thing.

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He didn't just go do stuff he wanted to do. He shows him all things that the father does and he will show him greater works than these that you might marvel.

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For as the father raised up the dead and quickens them, brings life to him, even so the son brings life to who he will.

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It's all according to God's will. And then if you wanted to ask the question, can men still heal like an apostle or prophet?

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You got passages like 1 Corinthians 13, 8 through 14, 1. You got passages like Hebrews 1, 1 and you got the book of James that indicate that those gifts ceased from being operative.

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And a lot of people don't like it that we teach that, but we just read in the Bible, okay? Just read in the

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Bible. So let me tell you a little story about some dunamis, okay?

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My mom, when she fell, when was it exactly?

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About a little over a week ago. Was it Friday, on a Friday? Yeah, yeah.

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She fell on a Friday, might've been Thursday night actually. And she broke her arm, probably laid there most of the night and we found her the next morning.

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And when we helped her up, she couldn't use her legs normally.

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She could walk a little bit, but her left leg didn't want to move forward, but we just thought she was weak because she laid on it all night, you know?

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And we thought the arm was sprained because I took her hand and turned it, said, does that hurt? You know, you got two bones there.

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If one of them's broken, that hurts. And she said, nope, doesn't hurt. And we felt around and she said, no, it doesn't hurt.

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It's not, she said, it's not broken. It was swollen and we thought we'd put a splint on it.

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Well, she began to lower strength and two days later, I think

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Katie was with her up at the house and she took a nap at about two o 'clock.

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And Katie even sent me a picture on my phone. She said, dad, maybe you and Dave should come down. Let's pick her up in my carrier and put her on bed because she was sitting up, but she was sleeping like this.

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And she does that though. So I said, no, Katie, she always likes to, she doesn't like to go to bed during the day or take naps.

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She just likes to sit in the chair and watch Downton Abbey and she'll snooze a little bit and then wake up and watch it. So just let her stay there.

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So Katie did. And at about 5 .30, something told me, you need to go up there and check on that.

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So I guess that's something, it's the Holy Ghost, right? And so I go up there and we woke her up and it wasn't easy.

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And her hand looked like this all of a sudden, which had never been like that. And her left side of her face was drooped down and she was slurring and she couldn't make sense out of stuff.

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We stood her up and she could put weight on her legs, but her left leg wouldn't move at all.

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And her left arm wasn't moving all of a sudden. And we really freaked out at that point.

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And we didn't want to call 9 -1 -1 because she would go to Mahea Hospital. I didn't want to take her there if it was a stroke.

01:00:03

And so Dave and I picked her up and carried her to the car, took her to Waco. And so they determined, they did check the arm out.

01:00:13

It had a crack, a little crack. It's her right arm. She's left -handed, but it was her right arm has a crack. So they had to put a splint on there and they determined that she had a stroke.

01:00:25

And it was in the part that affected her left arm and her left leg and the left side of her face.

01:00:32

We later came to find the muscles that help you swallow were compromised, the soft tissues in the top of her mouth and sort of back in her throat were just kind of limp.

01:00:43

And so she began to sound like she was snoring even when she was awake. You know, it sounded like sleep apnea, especially when she was sleeping, but even when she was awake.

01:00:54

And it was just hard to, it was very hard to watch and hear. And so she couldn't speak well.

01:01:05

She slurred everything. She could speak though. She could hardly stay awake. She just mainly wanted to sleep.

01:01:13

And this was this way up until two days ago. I was there, or is it three now?

01:01:19

It's another day now. So three days ago, I was, had spent the night with her and I was there the next morning and I got so discouraged.

01:01:28

I couldn't even wake her up. And the doctors had told us if you can't get her to eat and drink, she'll never go home.

01:01:36

Well, we would try, but she can't hardly swallow. So you put these little bitty bites of this food and it just gets stuck.

01:01:46

And even the water would get stuck and it's so discouraging and I couldn't get her.

01:01:51

And then she'd fall right to sleep. And now I'm afraid, well, if I try to feed her while she's that sleepy, she'll choke. And if it goes down in the lung, if it's food and it goes in the lungs, you get pneumonia and die.

01:02:02

So every time she does eat, you have to wash her, have a suction thing, suck all the possible crumbs and stuff out.

01:02:08

And then hydrogen peroxide diluted on a stick and you wash the inside of her mouth out.

01:02:14

And then if she drinks water and it goes in her lungs, it won't necessarily kill her because water won't hurt you as bad. But that's what we're dealing with.

01:02:21

Well, this particular day, three mornings ago, it was just so bad. I called Charlotte and I said, I'm just down.

01:02:28

I just feel terrible. I just don't think, I don't think she's going to make it. And that particular day, it was

01:02:34

Ben's turn. Katie's spent lots of time with her. All of us have spent lots of time with her.

01:02:40

She's never been without one of us in the room, night or day. But it was Ben's turn to come up that particular night.

01:02:47

And he got there and I was just telling him how discouraged I was. She couldn't move her arm and leg on the left side.

01:02:56

I mean, the left side of her face was fallen. Her tongue was swollen. Her left eye was drooped open and just looked bad.

01:03:04

She sounded like she was snoring even when she was awake. And at night, she would go 30 seconds without breathing at all and like that.

01:03:14

And that particular night, I believe it was the night before Ben got there.

01:03:20

I was, woke up in the middle of the night because her breathing stopped. And when that would stop, it'd wake me up.

01:03:27

And she took a deep breath and I'm watching her.

01:03:33

And all of a sudden, remember she's got a broken arm with a very heavy cast like it's a splint really, but they did put, you know, some of the plaster stuff.

01:03:44

It's heavy and her left arm won't move, right? And I'm watching her in the middle of night and she's laying on the bed and both arms go like that.

01:03:54

And I said, Lord, you're taking her. She sees you. Scared me.

01:04:03

I don't know why. I know where she's going. But I ran over there, took her.

01:04:10

She put it back down and took her hand and that broken arm, because the other hand didn't have any strength. She grabbed,

01:04:16

I was holding her hand like this and she squeezed so tight, her fingernails cut into my skin, but I wasn't gonna let go.

01:04:23

And she did that for about five minutes. And then she relaxed and went back to sleep.

01:04:29

And I went and got on the couch and said, Lord, you know, I felt angels in the room.

01:04:35

I thought you were taking her. I'm not ready. I prayed.

01:04:41

I just said, I'm not ready. I should be, but I'm not ready. So that happened that night.

01:04:51

I was so down. Ben shows how she eats, how you do the water, you know, and how the breathing sounded.

01:05:02

I mentioned to Ben that we were, I think, no, we were still in the room. And I said, you know, the doctor mentioned the

01:05:08

CPAP machine. Some of you know what that is for sleep apnea. He said it might help, but he said the kind we have here at the hospital are too powerful, really.

01:05:17

He said they actually can be used as ventilators and it can force so much air in her that she might hyperventilate.

01:05:25

And it scared me. I didn't sound like, and I knew my mom does not like anything medical, doctors, hospitals, nothing.

01:05:34

I knew she wouldn't want a mask. And I said, well, the doctor's discouraged us to spend two nights at the place and they customize it.

01:05:45

We can't do that here. So I was afraid of it. But Ben and I walked out and we just mentioned it to that new nurse that night.

01:05:54

And she said, well, I honestly think you should try it.

01:06:00

And she said, I'll tell you what I'll do. I know about a lot about them. I've dealt with them a lot.

01:06:06

I will go in there and personally sit with her, get her adapted to it. And if it doesn't, if she, immediately.

01:06:13

And I'll sit there the whole time and take care of it. But I think you should try it. And Ben and I looked at each other and said, man, if she'll do that,

01:06:21

I think maybe we should try it. Cause it looked like Nana was working herself to death just trying to breathe for several days like that.

01:06:30

The doctors didn't want her to use that device. Well, anyway, I went home and slept all night and breathed normally.

01:06:42

And the next day, which was two days ago, she had the best day. She was awake.

01:06:47

She ate. You were there that next day. Katie was able to feed her an entire plate of food. This did not happen.

01:06:53

We never got past six bites, right? Or just a few little bites and a little bit of liquid.

01:06:59

She ate almost the whole plate full for lunch and supper that night.

01:07:07

She was sending us pictures of these plates with most of the food gone so we could all see it. She was talking.

01:07:13

She was not slurring as much. She can move her left arm and left leg a little bit now. And I just sent

01:07:21

Katie a text. I said, this is just out and out amazing, miraculous answered prayer. He raised her up.

01:07:27

Now we don't know for how long, but maybe until he gets me ready. I don't know.

01:07:34

I know we go by his will, not mine, but I do believe he can do both at the same time.

01:07:40

He can get us ready and get them ready. And I wasn't ready that night.

01:07:49

And I told him that he listens to us.

01:08:04

Sinners that we are. So now she can stay awake.

01:08:15

She can speak. She can drink. She can eat. She doesn't sound like she's snoring at all during the day.

01:08:20

She's breathing normally. She can move her left side leg and her arm and I don't think she's out of the woods yet, but it's such a turnaround.

01:08:37

I saw God's hand. Ephesians chapter one, verse 19 says, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power?

01:08:46

And that's the Greek word dunamis. It's the same power that raised Jesus from the grave. Same word that's used when it talked about he raised from the grave.

01:08:53

What is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe? According to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Jesus when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.

01:09:13

That's, he can use it to save a soul. He can use it to raise someone up physically.

01:09:22

Many of us in this room have been by the Lord. We have many testimonies of the

01:09:27

Lord healing us, taking care of us. And now we have another one with my mom. Far above all principality and power and might, far above any dominion in every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.

01:09:44

Jesus is above all that and hath put all things under Jesus' feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.

01:09:59

And you, you hath he quickened who were dead and trespasses sins.

01:10:06

Isn't that something? He used that power to save us. He uses it to heal us. When in fact, a lot of times he chooses to.

01:10:14

More times than not he chooses to, or we wouldn't be sitting here. And he did such a wonderful work in my mom's life.

01:10:23

And all of us are so thankful. I wanted to share that with you. And I didn't want to put that in an email. So that's why I didn't give you an update yet, but it's going to be my turn as soon as I leave here again.

01:10:33

So I'll go relieve Paul and see how she's doing today. But she was a little tired yesterday because the previous day she was just almost, you know, talking and eating and doing things she couldn't even do, even stood up.

01:10:48

You know, they stood her up beside the bed. And yesterday she was tired again, but she was still a whole lot better.

01:10:53

So thank you for your prayers. Thank the Lord for his son, Jesus Christ, and the substitutionary death on the cross for his people.

01:11:03

And most of all, for the fact that he is risen. He's at the right hand of the father, but he still shares that dunamis with us.

01:11:10

And he is sitting in the room with you, watching and listening all the time, and keeping us under his wing like his little chicks.

01:11:19

And it's so wonderful. Let's pray. Let's stand while we pray together and be dismissed. Father, we thank you for your son,

01:11:29

Jesus, today of all days. We thank you, Father, for sending that power through your

01:11:35

Holy Spirit to raise him up from the dead and for his love for his own, right up until the end of his physical life on this earth, the holiest place in heaven, and sprinkled it there and turned it into a mercy seat that all of his people might be there when they go to be with you.

01:11:56

And Lord, thank you for the power to heal, for the power to save souls and to do work in this world and move the hearts of kings one way or the other at his will.

01:12:08

Lord, thank you for granting all that power to your son, Jesus Christ. And Lord, we know that you're gonna send your son back to save us again.

01:12:20

In this case, it'll be physically, to save us from Armageddon itself.

01:12:27

And Lord, we await that day, and we know many things will have to happen before that, but they can happen quickly.

01:12:34

We know that too. And so, help us until you come back for us.

01:12:41

And Lord, we pray for my mom again this morning as you continue to keep your hand on her.