Two Kingdoms Collide

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You would open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 12.
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I'm going to preach a passage that we actually just read, and I did that intentionally so we would have already read the context of the whole chapter.
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And I'm going to read verses 22 through 32, and if you would stand before you get comfortable.
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It says, And then a demon-possessed man, who was blind and mute, was brought to Jesus, and he healed him, so that the man who was mute, he spoke and saw.
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All the crowds were amazed, and they said, This man cannot be the son of David, can he? But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, This man cast out demons only by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.
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And knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and any city or house divided itself will not stand.
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And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself.
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How then will his kingdom stand? And if I, by Beelzebub, cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? And for this reason they will judge you.
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But I, if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
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Or how can anyone enter a strong man's house and carry away his property, unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house? He who is not with me is against me.
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And he who does not gather with me scatters.
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Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people.
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But blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven.
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Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him.
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But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him.
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In this age, or the age to come.
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Yikes! Let's go to the Lord in prayer one more time.
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Father God, as I stand once again before your people, your sheep, and open your word, and proclaim your truth, I pray that Father you would use your servant to preach your word with boldness, and with clarity, and with understanding.
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And let the oracles of God go across the ear waves of the men and women in this room, and lives be converted.
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In Christ's name, Amen.
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My oldest son, Zach, loved snakes growing up.
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We always had snakes at our house.
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They were either in aquariums.
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I'd at times go out there to go to work and pop open my cooler, and he would have left a snake there for me to see.
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And he loved them.
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And there was one thing we did learn about snakes, that when you begin to, if you grab them by their head, or just barely put your hand on their head, man, they'll get to squirming.
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And they'll get to flopping around.
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And they'll get to try to get away.
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Well, that's what's happening in this text.
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Jesus Christ, in the book of Matthew, has come on the scene.
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And he has just put his heel on the head of the serpent.
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And that serpent's beginning to flop around.
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And that serpent is Satan.
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And he is flopping around.
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And if we have read through the narratives so far, you have in chapter 4 the confrontation with Satan when Jesus goes off into the wilderness.
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In chapter 8, you have the never-before-seen, when Jesus casts out a demon, and they go, oh, wow, we've never seen this happen before.
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And then you also have the demoniac of Gadara, where Jesus steps his feet on the shores, and the demons run to him inside those men, and they fall down on their face, and they say, what are you going to do to us before our time? Satan knows.
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Jesus Christ is on the scene.
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And we have two kingdoms that are colliding.
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We have the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light.
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The kingdom of darkness has now been invaded by Jesus Christ, the Spirit-filled Messiah.
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And he is putting his heel on Satan's head.
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And it would be in chapter 9 that he casts out another demon.
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And they go, wow, this is awesome.
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And in the background you hear this, oh, he does that by the devil.
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So Jesus is already being called a sorcerer by his detractors.
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We'll begin in verse 22.
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It says, then a demon-possessed man, who was blind and mute, was brought to Jesus.
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Demon-possession is real.
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Maybe not like you see on TV, where the head spin around and her neck breaks, and it's spewing out green pea juice out of their mouth.
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Or like the exorcism of Emily Rose, where they're running backwards like a crab upstairs.
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But demon-possession is real.
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It was all in the Bible.
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And I do believe as Jesus came on the scene, and Satan, knowing that the Spirit-filled Messiah was there, he was beginning to want to fight against Jesus and the powers of light.
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But demon-possession is real.
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The word in Greek is diomazonomai.
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Kind of a cool sounding word.
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And if we were to translate it directly, it would be exactly what it sounds like, demonized.
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Now there are some systematic theologians who try to make the distinction between a person being demonized and a person being demon-possessed.
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Well, I want you to know the Bible does not make that distinction.
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If you are demonized, you are demon-possessed.
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And demon-possession does have the power to overtake a person's body and to do with it as it wills.
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So make no mistake, demon-possession is real.
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And it does happen today.
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But this particular demon-possessed man was brought to Jesus, and we know that what this demon-possessed person was being afflicted by this demon was he was blind and he was mute.
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And then you just get these words, he was brought to Jesus and he healed him.
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But we don't get any explanation.
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You know, sometimes Jesus told somebody to go wash themselves.
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Or he spit in the guy's eye.
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Well, he didn't really spit in his eye, he spit on the ground and he made some mud and he put it on his eyes and then the man saw.
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We don't get anything, it's just he healed him.
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As I read that, I went, well, of course! That's what Jesus does.
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I mean, imagine seeing Jesus' itinerary.
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He goes about, he preaches, he heals people and just starts casting out demons.
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Well, of course that's what he was doing.
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A demon-possessed man came to him and what did Jesus do? He stomped him out, cast out the demon, go! Just like he did to the pigs when he sent the demons to them at Gadara.
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But we know that what happened here, it says he healed him, it doesn't say he cast him out.
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But we know that he cast him out because it says this, so that the mute man spoke and saw.
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Man, that was probably the greatest day of that man's life.
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But you understand, that statement is just the background of what's fixing to take place.
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That man did not know, he was just background noise for something that was just going to, this is the greatest day of his life.
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A demon had just been cast out of him and he could see and he could speak.
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Now, healings like that still take place today, so I want you to understand just because someone's blind or mute or deaf that they're not demon-possessed.
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We know in this particular case, that was it.
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But I want you to know, Scott Phillips, our own missionary, me and him were talking one time, me and Sybil and his wife, we were out to lunch and we were talking and he said, man, let me tell you what happened.
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We went to this, this tribe was in an epidemic that was there.
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He said, we were going to use this as an opportunity to go over to where these tribal infections were and to take them some medicine so that we could open up the door to give them the gospel.
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So he gets over there, he says, and there's this guy that we're trying to give some, a young boy trying to minister to him with medicine, and he said, they came to me and says, hey man, he can't hear and he can't speak.
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He said, so they came back a few weeks later, ministered there, same situation.
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Well, while they were there, they left some men there to preach and to begin to try to take the gospel.
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Well, a number of years later, they came back to bring their book, the creator leaflet pages is what they call it.
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Y'all have seen the book when he was here.
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He said, they land over there, he gets there, he gets out, and this guy comes running to him and starts talking to him with clear speech.
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And he said, Mike, I was perplexed.
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And he said, all the guys that were with him during the mission were laughing at him.
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They were laughing at Scott.
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And he's like, hey man, we know what it is.
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We know.
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The guy couldn't speak and he couldn't hear, and now he's speaking and hearing.
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He said, ask him.
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And that young man said, Jesus Christ healed me.
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He said, that message that you brought healed me.
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Now, that was a number of years ago.
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That young man now is being trained up and is now preaching and teaching in his own village.
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Is that not awesome? Hey, and y'all have taken part in that with the money that we give to send Scott.
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I just want you to know, that's awesome.
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So it says in verse 23, that all the crowds were amazed.
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Well, of course they were.
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They just saw a demon-possessed man.
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The demon's gone.
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He can speak and see.
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But the word that's used here is not the same word that's used when Matthew usually uses the word marvel, or to be astounded.
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It's the word existenemy.
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And it means to be beside oneself.
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Laonita, which is my favorite lexicon.
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Why don't you tell me what yours is? But my favorite lexicon gives you the semantic domain.
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And it actually says that it means to, this is insane.
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This is crazy.
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This is unbelievable.
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And it actually says at the end of it, it actually means for one to be beside himself.
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So we, and it's only used twice.
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Twice.
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And it says that these people were beside themselves.
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And then they make this statement.
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And I know in the New American Standard, here's what it says.
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It says that man, that this man cannot be the son of man, can it? Now, probably every other translation doesn't say it that way.
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Mine, I use the New American Standard.
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It's just my preference.
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But the New American Standard missed it there.
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Because it's giving it a negative connotation of this cannot be the son of David, can it? All the other translations are, hey man, this is the son of David.
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They're making an affirmation that based on what Jesus has been doing since the time that he showed up on the scene, this is the long-awaited King David's son, the Messiah.
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And they were testifying that by looking at all that Jesus was doing.
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He was setting people free.
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He was making lame people walk.
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He was doing all the things that the Messianic age, they said, would be characteristics would come.
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And then in verse 24, but when the Pharisees heard this, they said, this man cast out demons only by Beelzebub.
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And he is the ruler of the demons.
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Now, understand that the Pharisees and the scribes, there's never been any disagreement up to any point that is what Jesus was doing legitimate.
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There was no mistake.
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You see a dead man get up, you say, yep, that was real.
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That was not magic.
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There was no slide of the hand.
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Jesus wasn't doing some magical trick in making blind people see.
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They knew this was real.
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Okay? This isn't like these faith healers you see on TV where a person gets up and then they're all like this, you know, trying to walk.
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Oh, have they been healed? No, no, no, no.
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When Jesus healed them, it says that they leaped like deer.
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It leaped like deer.
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When a dead person got up, there was no coming out, you know, waiting.
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No, their heart began to beat, their flesh became new, their eyes opened, their grave clothes busted off, and there they were.
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There was no disagreement.
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It's just now, how was it done? Faith healers, fake.
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They're not real.
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They're fake.
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I have stood in front of many of Arena and preached against, and I don't mind telling you who their names are.
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I don't care if it's Benny Hinn.
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I don't care if it's Kenneth Copeland.
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I don't care if it's Joel Osteen.
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I don't care if it's, what's the chick's name? Joyce.
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Yeah, all of them.
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She shouldn't even be recognized.
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All right.
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Stood out in front and preached.
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I'm not going to say the church, this man is deceased now.
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But how does Benny Hinn, who's supposed to be a faith healer, come and then the pastor dies of a sickness? It's because he's fake.
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It's not real.
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Jesus Christ is the real deal.
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He's on the scene and he ain't playing games.
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He's stomping out darkness, he's healing people, and he's showing that I am the long-awaited Messiah and I am here and I'm going to set the captives free.
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But they said he did it by Satan.
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They said he did it by a god called Beelzebub.
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That has Old Testament roots, and if you want to go back at some point and look in 2 Kings, and it had to do with Ahaziah, and he wanted to know if he was going to die, and he reached out to the wrong god, and God said, yep, you're going to die for reaching out to the wrong god.
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And he reached out to the god of Acheron.
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Well, that's who they said.
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And as it progressed in Jewish time, what wound up happening is the word Beelzebub became a synonym for Satan.
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And we know that because when Jesus goes on in verse 26, he says, you say I cast him out by Satan.
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That's basically what he says.
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So, when the Pharisees heard this, they said he did it by the ruler of the demons.
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And then it says, Jesus then, in verse 25, says, knowing their thoughts.
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It's interesting, you look at the distinction between verse 24.
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The Pharisees heard the people, okay? And then they responded, well, Jesus don't even hear nothing.
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He just knows what they're thinking.
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He says that he knows their thoughts, and Jesus said to them this.
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Now, he appeals to a logical conclusion, doesn't he? Any kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste.
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Any city or house divided against itself will not stand.
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The logical conclusion is this.
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If there's a divided kingdom, it ain't going to last.
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I mean, it don't take long to read a history book, civil war destroys countries.
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If there's not a resolution, the kingdom falls.
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If there's civil war within your home, I'm going to tell you, if you don't get a hold of it, your home will be an absolute train wreck.
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That's everything.
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Anything divided will fall.
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But then Jesus says, if Satan cast out Satan, he's divided against himself.
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How then will his kingdom stand? So Jesus appeals to the logical conclusion of, hey man, kingdoms divided against themselves don't last.
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Then he says, and if Satan cast out Satan, then man, Satan's destroyed himself.
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You should be happy.
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That means his kingdom's not going to last.
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He's destroying himself.
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Because he says, how then will his kingdom stand? That's appealed to the common sense of people, is it not? So Jesus used a logical conclusion, a common sense conclusion, and then this.
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He appeals to their inconsistency.
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In verse 27.
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If Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? Now, we do know this.
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The exorcists were real back then.
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Okay? I mean, like really trying to do stuff.
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They were really out doings, trying to cast out demons.
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We know that for a fact, because we do know, back in, I made a note, back in Luke chapter 9, if you remember, there was a man casting out demons in Jesus' name, and one of the sons of thunder, who are my favorite in the Bible, John comes up and he says, hey Jesus, check it out, there's a dude over there, and he's casting out people, demons in your name.
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You want him to tell him to shut it up and knock it off? And Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that, man.
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If he's not against us, he's doing what he's supposed to do.
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So we do know there was people that were out doing that.
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Hey, just to let you know, that was before he ever sent out the 70.
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So there was already people that had following Christ, and God had given them the power to go cast out demons, other than the 12, and other than the 72.
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So, and we also know in Acts 19, the seven sons of Sceva.
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Now these guys may have been a little sketchy.
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Now, in Acts 19, these men were supposedly exorcists.
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They went out and they tried to cast out demons through incantations, ritualistic, and the only way I know how to explain it would be more like a Roman Catholic today.
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Read these rites, do all this stuff, and it would cast out the demon, supposedly.
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Well, if you read Acts 19, they tried to appeal, because they do not have the power of Christ, they tried to appeal to what Paul was preaching, which we implore the demon, by the Son of God whom Paul preaches.
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And then what happens? Anybody remember? Oh wow, this has been a huge mistake.
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This demon says, Paul we know, and Jesus we know, but you we don't.
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And it says, it stripped the seven sons of Sceva naked, and sent them beat up down the road.
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Like, oh wow, they knew they made a mistake.
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So, exorcisms were real.
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So when he says this, excuse me, if I, by Beelzebub, cast out demons, by whom, I'm sorry, if I, by Beelzebub, cast out demons, by whom do your sons? Now, the sons are meaning those men.
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So these men that were out doing this, there was never no opposition to them.
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There was nobody coming to them saying, hey, those dudes are doing it by the devil.
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So now you've been inconsistent, because now you're saying that these men actually did it legitimately, but I am not.
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That's what he's saying.
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He said, well then who do they cast them out? And he puts them in a conundrum.
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And then he says this, and for this reason, they'll judge you.
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They're going to judge you.
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Not on the day of judgment, he means right now.
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So if you're saying, I'm doing it by the devil, then you need to go tell those men that they're doing it by the devil, and then they're going to judge you whether you're right or wrong.
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So, he confronts them in their inconsistency.
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So we see the appeal to logic, he stomps them out.
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Their appeal to their common sense, their common sense has gone out the window.
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And now he appeals to their inconsistency, their inconsistency, they're done with that too.
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So now, he says, but if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
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Imagine standing before the incarnate Son of the Living God with no fear, and saying he was an active agent of the devil.
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I don't know about y'all man, that's scary.
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No fear of God in these men.
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No fear of actually who was standing in front of him.
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No fear that Jesus, the very one that was making dead people could walk, Jesus could speak a word and incinerate them if he wanted to.
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He'd bzzzt if he wanted.
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But he didn't.
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He says, but if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
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Jesus Christ had already come on the scene in his own hometown, had stood up in the synagogue, and had opened the book, immediately to the book of Isaiah the scroll, to Isaiah 61.
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And he said, the Spirit of God has come upon me to preach the gospel to those who are in captive, and to set the captives free.
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They knew who this man was.
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They knew that this was the Spirit-anointed Son of God.
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Then, when he says, I do it by the Spirit of God, in Luke's translation, or the narrative of this, and you could go look if you want, it's in Luke 11, he says, if I cast out demons by the finger of God, I mean, think about that.
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Jesus just, oh, gone.
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Just like old booger, just gone.
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Well, demons unclean, boogers unclean, there's a connection.
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Okay, gone.
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Okay, gone.
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Just effortlessly.
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No tricks, just gone.
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Jesus Christ, when he said, if I do this by the finger of God, there is no way you can tell me that they did not know, when he said, I do this by the finger of God, that they did not register in their mind who were steeped in the law of Moses, that when Moses stood before, Moses and Aaron stood before Pharaoh, and they had done the frogs, and they had done the blood, remember the magicians were able to do all that, but then when Moses and Aaron come back, and they put lice on all body and beast, on every person on all the land, and they try to do it, you remember what the magician said? The magician says, this is the finger of God.
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That means it's divine.
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And there's no way that you can tell me that when Jesus did that, he wasn't appealing once again.
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Hey man, you are supposed to know what the Scripture says.
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But if I cast them out by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
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But these men are willfully blind.
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It's not like they just came into the world with a blindfold on.
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They had already seen what Jesus was doing.
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They took the blindfold and put it on over their eyes and blinded themselves willfully that this was the Messiah.
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And he gives them a condemnation.
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He gives them a further condemnation in the narrative.
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And if you go down into chapter 12, verse 38.
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He says this.
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Or the narrative.
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It says, And some of the scribes and the Pharisees said to him, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.
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That is ridiculous.
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Have they not seen enough signs? I mean, lame people are walking, dead people are coming up, blind people are seeing, leprosy skin is being made like new.
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And then they go, Well, we need another sign.
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And Jesus said, You won't get another sign.
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The only sign you're going to get is going to be just as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights.
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That's the only other sign they were going to get.
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Hey, and if you go on down and you continue to read that, he connects in verse 43 through that.
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He connects casting out this demon.
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Look here.
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He talks about that particular generation.
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Chapter 12, verse 43.
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It says, And when the unclean spirit is cast out of a man, it passes through waterless places, and it seeks rest, and it does not find it.
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Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came.
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And when it comes, it finds it unoccupied.
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It's swept and put in order.
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So, basically, he's saying, all right, I cast out this demon out of this group of people or out of this individual.
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If something doesn't replace it, then it's going to come back and find it clean and swept and in order, and he's going to do it again.
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And here's what he says.
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Verse 45.
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Then it goes along, and it takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than itself.
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And then they go in, and they live there, and their last state of the man becomes worse than the first.
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And here it is.
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Now, remember, he's talking to the Pharisees.
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So it will be for this generation.
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Do you understand what Jesus just said? I've cast out demons.
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I've cast out demons to show you men that this is the real deal, that the kingdom's here.
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You're going to reject it, and then now you're going to be in worse shape when I leave because you did not receive me, and this generation is going to be punished.
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And then he goes on to continue on, and he says, it will be more tolerable on that day for the perverts of Sodom and Gomorrah.
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Imagine hearing the Lord Jesus tell you that.
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It's going to be more tolerable for the perverts, for the homosexual ones, that I destroyed a whole civilization because of their immorality, than it will be for you.
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Let that sink in.
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And then he says this in verse 29, Or how can anyone enter the strongman's house and carry off his property unless he first binds the strongman, and then he will plunder his goods? Jesus is saying, all right, there was a strongman here.
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That strongman was Satan.
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It means someone else had to come along stronger than him and bind that man.
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If you just take that verse and you read that, you're like, hey man, this sounds like straight up home invasion robbery.
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Tell me it doesn't.
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You kick somebody's door in, you bind whoever the strongman is, and then what do you do? He used good words, man.
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Hear that? Plunder.
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He plunders, pilfers his goods.
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Jesus comes on the scene and he is going about showing him, showing the scribes and the Pharisees and showing all these people that I'm binding all this.
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But buddy, there's coming a day when he's going to be bound for good.
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And when Jesus heads to Calvary, he's going to stomp the head of the serpent and he's going to set the captives free and he's going to bind the strongman for good.
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And man, you know what? We're going to leave here today and we're going to baptize people today as a representation that the strongman has been bound by someone stronger.
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Jesus comes on the scene.
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He binds the strongman, which means he really ain't that strong to Jesus.
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And then he plunders his goods.
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Jesus made it very clear that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.
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They're not.
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It's a spiritual warfare.
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And Jesus is binding Satan through the power of the Spirit that he would not go and to deceive the nations anymore.
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And that as we preach the Gospel, as Satan is bound, and we go ye therefore to all the nations, baptizing, making disciples, and baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
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That's what we're doing and we're doing it because Jesus Christ has bound the strongman.
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And then we get to a rather more difficult passage.
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In verse 30, Jesus says, He who is not with me is against me.
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And he who is not gathering with me, he scatters.
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It's very clear from this passage.
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You do not need to do hermeneutical hopscotch.
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You don't need to do any type of exegetical skips to figure this out.
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There are only two ways.
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There is the way of God and every other way.
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There is the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness.
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There is black.
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There is white.
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That is it.
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There is no middle road.
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You're either with Christ or you're scattering.
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Now, whether he is meaning and where it says whether you gather with me, is he using shepherding as gathering sheep? I'm not sure.
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Certainly could be.
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Could it be as in bringing in the harvest? It certainly could be because both already in Matthew we hear him talking about being a shepherd and for gathering at the time of the harvest.
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Go look for the wheat for the harvest is ready and we need workers.
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Is that what he's talking about? I don't know, but we know this.
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He says, If you're not gathering, then you're scattering.
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So let me tell you, if you're sitting here today and there is not an act of purposefulness in your heart to gather men and women and boys and girls to the faith and knowledge of Jesus Christ, don't get mad at me.
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Get mad at Jesus.
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He says, You're scattering.
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Don't be mad at me.
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You can beat up the messenger, but I'm just going to tell you to talk to Jesus about it.
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Jesus says, You don't have to be in the act of scattering purposefully.
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Jesus said, Just don't do nothing.
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That's what he says.
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And then we get to the ominous words in verse 31 and 32.
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Now, right at the beginning, that's tough.
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That's a hard verse to swallow.
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And the next one is even harder to swallow.
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It says, Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy.
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We should be thankful right there.
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You see how wide that is? How wide of the range that people can be forgiven.
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I've said it before.
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I'll say it again.
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Disobedient brats.
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Yep.
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Forgiven.
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Adulterers.
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Forgiven.
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Liars.
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Forgiven.
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Put a gun in somebody's mouth, pull the trigger.
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Yep.
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Says be forgiven.
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And blasphemy can be forgiven.
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I don't know about y'all, but before I came to faith in Christ, I said a lot of things about the Lord Jesus Christ that I tremble at this day.
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He should have snuffed me out for the things that I said.
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And he still should.
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But he's gracious.
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He says, shall be forgiven people.
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So that's a wide range of forgiveness.
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But blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
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And then in verse 32, he says, whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven.
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But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him either in this age or the age to come.
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Those to me would probably have to go in the second most terrifying words in all of Scripture next to Matthew chapter 7 where he says, depart from me, I never knew you.
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That means right here that there's something that's so offensive to God that the blood of Jesus Christ will not cover it.
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That's it.
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This is in a historical context.
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Why did Jesus say this? And what did He mean? That's the answers we need to find.
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Jesus is speaking to men who had the knowledge of the truth.
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They had the oracles of God.
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Here, let me see if I can find here.
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They had this part.
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They had that part.
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They had enough revelation to know that when Jesus Christ came on the scene, He was the guy.
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Nobody else had ever come on the scene doing the miracles that He did.
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Hey, there's even sometimes in Scripture when Jesus kind of weird because we always talk about the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit and all that, but sometimes Jesus says this and I don't understand it.
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I'm just telling you so I'll confuse you more.
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He says, hey, if you don't want to believe that, believe because of the works.
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It's like, what? So believe it because I, okay, you don't want to believe me, but believe it because of what I just did.
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That's just, man, it just baffles me.
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And these men had all of these things right in front of them and in the same narrative when we read the whole chapter of the day, what did they say? They wanted to destroy Him.
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Not because of His works.
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They wanted to destroy Him because He was making a frontal assault on Judaism.
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They wanted a Christless kingdom.
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A Christless kingdom.
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How many churches do we have today have Christless churches stand in the pulpit week after week? Seven ways to have a better life or how to make your bank account grow or how to do all these stupid things that at the end of the day when they're tested with fire they will just torch.
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Instead of teaching men and women and boys and girls the oracles of God and teach them how to combat and this wicked generation to go, we are in this world but we are not of it and it's tough and we're going to get dirty and we're going to get stained but we're to walk away from this life into the next safe and secure.
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But no, we want to make this life comfortable.
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And men stand in the pulpits week after week to make a comfortable life.
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Jesus said, this is pretty uncomfortable.
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I wonder how many times this is being preached today.
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And He says, whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man you say, okay.
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So He's saying you can say something this is Jesus saying you can say something against me but you can't say nothing against the Holy Spirit.
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Now, I mean you should go what, I mean I'm not really getting it.
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Jesus understands at this point there were people even His own family that were speaking against Him.
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You remember we finished we read that whole chapter today we get to the end.
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Who was standing outside the house where He had cast out the demon? His mother.
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His brothers.
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His sisters.
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And if you go to the Luke account they were going hey, He's out of His mind.
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Can you imagine? Mary going don't, man Jesus is, He's out of His mind.
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Just let us come in there and get Him.
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And then His brothers who already were berating Him about when are you going to make yourself known now, dude? When are you going to bring yourself into the kingdom and let everybody know who you are? So Jesus is saying hey, you can say what you want about me at this point.
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That's going to be forgiven.
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But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit it will not be forgiven either Him in this life or in this case in the age or the age to come.
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Now, the Holy Spirit's work is to point to the person and work of Jesus Christ.
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When, just follow the progression.
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When Jesus came into the world what did He do? He pointed to the Father.
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When the Spirit comes in who does it testify to? It testifies to the Son.
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Now, historically I think that what Jesus is saying my conclusion is you want to reject what I am doing.
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Okay, that will be forgiven.
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But you reject the testimony of the Spirit who testifies of my work? You're not going to be forgiven.
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And that's applicable to today.
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The Holy Spirit is once Jesus Christ ascended on high and He sent the Holy Spirit as the comforter to His disciples and as the Spirit that would do what? It would convict the world of sin and unrighteousness.
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Jesus is saying when you have an understanding a clear perception of the truth and you make that willful turning of I know that Jesus Christ is the only way I know that He would be my only intercessor between God and man He's the only mediator but I'm going to give Him the fingers and go my way.
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That's a Christless kingdom.
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And Jesus said you die in that condition you will never be forgiven.
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That's tough.
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But that's what He's saying.
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There's only one other passage in Scripture where we hear someone saying they would not be forgiven in this life or the next.
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And it was Eli's sons in the Old Testament.
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Where they misled God's people.
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They did not teach God's people their word.
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They had sex with women at the tabernacle at the tabernacle opening.
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And then they extorted God's people.
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And as a condemnation to Eli He says Eli your son's sins will not be atoned for in this life or the next.
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It's apostasy.
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The whole nation of Israel was under apostasy.
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That's the historical context.
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Is apostasy real today? Sure.
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Two people's names probably some of you have never heard you're going to hear it two weeks in a row.
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Dan Barker and Bart Ehrman.
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Two men who were teachers of God's word.
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Professors of God's word.
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And now they actively go about trying to send men and women into apostasy.
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That's what it says.
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That's the men.
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And they will tell you we don't care.
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Another one fits in that category.
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His name is Richard Dawkins.
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He says if what the Bible says is true and the revelation of it is real then let God dump His wrath on me if He would like.
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Brian Mack will remember this.
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We went to London in 2012.
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We took a day from passing out tracts and preaching in London to go to Oxford.
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And as we were in Oxford there was another group of people there and I'm not going to say their names.
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Two well known evangelist podcaster guys.
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We wound up meeting up with them there.
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So we walked through Oxford.
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We got to go where Vladimir Hugh and Oliver Ridley were burned to death because of the Reformation.
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And while we were there they wanted to go stand in front of Richard Dawkins house.
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You remember that? Stupid.
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Stand in front of Richard Dawkins house and pray.
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I was like, man have you not read what the Bible says? The Bible says do not cast the pearl before the swine and do not throw what's holy to the dogs.
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And then when that didn't set in for that man, I said 1 John 5.16 says there is a sin leading unto death that leads not unto death but there is a sin that leads unto death and do not pray for that person.
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That is a point of no return.
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And the Scripture says don't pray for them.
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So I ask you today, who are you with? There are visitors here.
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There's actually quite a few people here I've never seen in my life.
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Glad you're here.
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But who are you with? Jesus made it very clear.
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If you're not gathering, you're scattering.
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I ask you this today.
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Do you understand that you have broken God's law? That your very existence is in the fence before a holy God? He said, I don't believe that.
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I'll even go to far as even say God loves you, but He should not.
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And if you think you deserve love, anybody in this room thinks God should love them.
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You don't understand grace.
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Because that means you deserve something that you do not deserve.
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The only thing we deserve, believer and unbeliever, is the wrath of a holy God that will consume His adversary.
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That's what we deserve.
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The only difference between the believer and the unbeliever is the believer puts faith and trust in the finished work of God, that their sins have been atoned for, and that their sins have been propitiated, and they trust in Jesus Christ as the only shield and the only way of salvation to not enter into eternal condemnation.
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And unbelievers can come in there.
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Jesus says, come unto Me, all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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That rest is found in putting all of your faith, all of your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And just as a man puts on a parachute, and he jumps out of an airplane, and he pops that parachute, and puts all of his weight and trust in that chute, that's how you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And I promise you, you will not die when you get to your destination.
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You jump without a parachute, I don't care how good a skydiver you are, it's over.
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The law of gravity is evident when you hit the concrete.
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So, believer, be thankful that the Holy Spirit came, and through the work of regeneration awakened your heart to find Jesus Christ glorious.
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To find Him as the only one who could save you from the wrath to come.
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Unbeliever, one with the obstinate heart, you should tremble in your seat.
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Because God is not a God to be trifled with.
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You look at the cross, and you look what He did to His own perfect Son.
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What do you think He'll do to you? Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
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Father God, thank you that your Son did not mince words.
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Thank you Lord that your Son made it very clear that He was the way, the truth, and the life.
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And that no man is going to come to the Father unless they come through Him.
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Father, thank you that your Son was a sacrifice for sinners.
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Father, thank you that as we prepare our hearts to take the table that we would remember that there is nothing about the bread in the cup in and of itself that's mystical or magical.
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But that bread is significant and it represents the crushed body.
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And that the blood that was poured out to its last drop for sinners.
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Oh Father, meet with us this time as we worship you through the ordinance of the table.
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In Christ's name.
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Amen.