Sunday School - Living In God's Kingdom Part 4

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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Sunday School - Back To Basics Part 5

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Sure. That's true.

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That's right. Any other covenants that you can think of? Marriage. That's true.

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That's true. Marriage. You know, there are so many examples of covenants, relationships.

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And they're usually, they're usually a commitment that's made in the context of a relationship.

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Right? And so, and there are formal relationships, there's informal ones, and then there's, you know, there's different kinds of relationships.

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But this is the most important covenant, the most important relationship that there is. It's between you and your creator.

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Now, I want to ask you this question. What comes to your mind when you think of the word God?

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G -O -D. What's the first thing that pops into your head? Sovereign. Sovereign.

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Okay. What else? Supreme. Supreme. Almighty. What else?

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Anything else just pops into your head when you think of the word God? Power. Power.

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Oh, good ones. Now, what if I told you those are all wrong?

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We have loaded this word, God, coming from the

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Germanic pronunciation of the Greek and Hebrew words, and that this word,

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God, has become so loaded that I think it's lost a lot of its meaning. In particular, when we speak to unbelievers, and we ask them,

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I think, one of the silliest questions, I think one of the silliest questions you can ask an unbeliever is this, do you believe in God?

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You know why that's a silly question? Because of course they believe in God. Of course they do.

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What God do they believe in is the question. Which God? Because the scripture says, yea, they be many lords and many gods, but unto us there is but one

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God, and unto us there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and we through him.

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And so the question is not, do you believe in God, because even atheists believe in God. They believe in a

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God, whether it's science, whether it's evolution, whether it's Charles Darwin, whether it's themselves, everyone believes in a

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God, because what is a God? What does that word God mean? What is the actual meaning of that word?

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Anyone know? What does that word actually mean? We use it all the time, don't we?

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We use it every day. We read it in our Bibles, we say it when we pray, we talk about, we use that word when we talk about the

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Creator, but what does the word God, G -O -D, mean? What does it actually mean?

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Anyone know? It's not what you think. When you look at the Hebrew for Elohim or El, it just simply means strong one.

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That's all it means, strong one. Not almighty, not sovereign, not all these big fancy words.

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It just means someone who's strong. When you go a little bit deeper into the word, and what it, etymology of the word, and the evolution of it, and what it actually entails, it's actually a little bit more than that, too, though.

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It's not simply strong one, but it's the one strong enough to make the rules, okay?

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The one strong enough to make the rules is God. No wonder, then, in Scripture, other people, individuals, entities are called gods,

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Elohims, okay? For instance, when we were reading through Exodus, Exodus 7, verse 1 says that,

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Yahweh speaking to Moses, I will make you unto Elohim, God, to Pharaoh, okay?

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Because who's making the rules in that relationship? It was Moses, okay?

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See? He was the one making the rules, by which he, Pharaoh, had to abide by, okay?

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Let my people go, and if you don't follow the rules, there's going to be consequences. You see that, that theme? In the book of Judges, men are called gods.

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The Judges, human Judges, were called Elohims. Why? Because they were the ones making the rules, by which people lived by, okay?

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Satan is called a god. First, 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 4, he's the god of his age, who's blind to the minds of the believers.

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Satan certainly makes a lot of the rules by which people live by, okay? So the one who is strong enough to make the rules is considered a god.

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What sets Yahweh, the God of the Bible, apart, is that He is the only unique God.

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He's the only Creator God. He's the only Sovereign God. Which is why, when you look at the Old Testament, God is,

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Yahweh is referred to as Yahweh Elohim, or Yehovah Elohim, Yehovah El Gibor, Yehovah El Shaddai.

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It's not just God, but it's God with a title describing His uniqueness amongst all the other gods.

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So when we think of God, we think of the one true God, we think of the only Creator God.

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So when someone says to you, there's actually many gods, we think, heresy. This guy's a polytheist.

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This guy thinks that there's a bunch of other gods. But we have to understand, what does the word God mean? The strong one, the one strong enough to make the rules.

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So the word God in Scripture does not only refer to the Supreme Being, Yahweh, it often refers to other beings as well, who have authority, who have power.

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Are you guys tracking so far? You're not going to throw me out of the church yet, right? Go for it.

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I suppose you're going to go into this, because the difference that comes to my mind right away, because there are gods, and you will be gods.

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It says in Psalm... Chapter 8. Yeah. You will be gods. So it does have that idea.

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The uniqueness of our God is not just that He's the powerful one amongst them, but He's uncreated.

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Yeah, or summited to. Yeah, that's exactly right. The God of the Bible, Yahweh, is, think,

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He's species unique. He's a one of a kind. He cannot be duplicated. He cannot be condensed down.

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He is truly unique amongst the gods, which is what the Bible says. I think it's Psalm 45, that Yahweh is unique among the gods.

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The Bible says, I think it is in Psalm 82, in fact, I think as well, where it says that Yahweh is the

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God of gods. That would be kind of redundant if there was only one being who was considered

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God. It would be kind of a redundant statement. He's the one who is over all the gods, all those who claim authority, all those who are strong, all those who make the rules.

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God is above all of them, Yahweh, the true God, which is why oftentimes in the

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Hebrew, when it's referring to Yahweh, it uses the article, the definite article, ha, in the

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Hebrew, to the God. And so that's unique because often in the

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Hebrew when it's referring to other gods, it doesn't use a definite article. But it uses a definite article usually in relation to Yahweh because it's denoting the fact that he is the unique one.

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So some translations will even, I think the NIV did this, I'm not sure if the newer NIV did this, but the older NIV had this, where it would often, when that prefix was there, it would translate him as the sovereign lord.

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Because it's, again, the emphasis is to denote the fact that he is unique, that he is different than all the other gods.

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And so the sovereign lord, I think, is the way the NIV translated that phrase in the Old Testament.

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Any questions so far? Are we tracking? And so again, I'm not saying that there's other

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Yahwehs, that there's other creators, but in the most basic understanding of the word

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Elohim, the word God, there are other gods. Okay? Again, that might make us, we're monotheists, so that makes us feel a little bit uncomfortable when we hear that.

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But monotheism isn't the exclusion of beliefs in other deities as being actual entities because the

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Bible says that the entities that the nations worship are very real. Did you know that? What the nations worship, they're real entities.

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But you know what they are, according to Galatians 4? You know what

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Paul says about them? That the nations worship and sacrifice, they're actually sacrificing and worshipping what?

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Demons. Demons. Okay? They're real. They're real spiritual beings. These are real creatures.

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And so, you know, don't get it twisted. This is – there are other entities out there.

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Okay? Demonic in nature. Yeah. Not particularly, no.

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What was the question? Demons and what? Fallen angels. Yeah. So when you use the word demonic, for instance, demonic has more than one connotation in the

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Bible. So it can be referring to the demon entities, whether they be fallen angels or disembodied nephilims.

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Or it can just be a reference to the satanic system, the powers and principalities which are demonic.

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Demonic just is a word which simply means the word – what does the word demon mean again in Hebrew?

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Satan is the accuser and slanderer. So it just means little slanderers is what it means.

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Right? And so something that's demonic – I mean slander is demonic in its basic form.

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So anything that is slanderous against God's kingdom is considered demonic. Right? And so that term can be used loosely in that way.

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Yes? So this is like Baal. Yeah. With a capital B, that's the abomination that Ahab and other kings and the northern tribes worshipped.

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But there's a place – I can't put my finger quite on the address. There's a place where God, as an adjective, says he's a

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Baal, and it simply means master. It means master. So it's like God? Exactly. So these are titles. So Baal, the

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Hebrew word for Baal, just simply means master. But it's used in a certain context.

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We know it's referring to the deity that was worshipped by the Canaanites and the other nomadic tribes.

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Or it was a reference to Yahweh as the true master of his people. Educational.

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That's right. So the – and we see this a lot in the use of the language in the ancient context where certain terms are used which we would assume would not be used of Yahweh but are used of Yahweh.

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I'll give you an example as well in the New Testament. In Revelation chapter 2 – let's go there for a moment.

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I'm going to blow your mind with this fun fact here. I can't wait to get into Revelation with you guys.

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It's going to be fun. Revelation chapter 2. Starting in verse 12.

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This is the word to the church in Pergamum. Jesus – this is what it says.

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This is again Revelation 2 verse 12. So Jesus gives us a physical location.

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He's talking about the church in Pergamum. And then he says, I know where you dwell. Who else dwells there in Pergamum according to Jesus?

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Satan. What a curious thing. Have you ever thought about that? Satan has a throne.

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He dwells somewhere physical. Like what does that mean? Did you know that if you were to go to ancient Pergamum, there is a massive temple dedicated to God's Zeus.

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And there was a – in that temple, there was literally a giant marble statue of Zeus on the throne.

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You know what Jesus is doing? He's equating Zeus with Satan. He says,

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I know where you dwell. You dwell in that city. In the city of Pergamum. Where that temple was erected, dedicated to the

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God Zeus, who is actually Satan. That's really interesting.

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Again, Paul says, what the nations worship and sacrifice, they worship and sacrifice unto demons.

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Right? These are real spiritual powers. These are real spiritual entities.

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Okay? And so the spiritual world is very interesting and unique and complex. There are other gods, lowercase g, who are not the one true sovereign

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God, creator of all things. They are false gods. They're not true gods.

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Which is why in Isaiah, as we're going through with Pastor Conley, God mocks the gods of the nations.

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Calls them dumb. Calls them wood. Calls them all these things because they can't create. Because they can't bring things into existence like He can.

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He's the only true, unique God. It's Yahweh. Right? And so when we understand that, again, what does the word

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God mean? What does it mean? The one that makes the rules?

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Yeah. So basic, at its most basic level, the word God in Hebrew just means strong one.

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But you go a little bit deeper into it, it basically means the one strong enough to make the rules.

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So anyone who makes rules, who has authority, is kind of like a god, a little god. Right? Which is why we get corrupted when we get authority.

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Right? We get this power and, wow, I can make the rules. And sometimes it gets to our head.

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And we become tyrannical little gods. And that's the story of humankind in reality, isn't it?

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From the garden all the way to the end of Revelation. It's the battle of a tyrannical spirit who thinks that they're powerful enough.

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They're the ones who can make the rules that everyone else can live by. But there's only one God, one true

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God, that can truly make the rules by which we are to live by. And that's Yahweh.

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And so here's the focus on today's teaching. Is God is not only referred to a supreme being.

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Who doesn't have one of these? But it's the one who, it's not just the one who is powerful or supreme.

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God is not referred only to the supreme being. But God refers to the one who makes the rules by which we can live by.

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So the Bible teaches us that if we live by God's rules, He becomes our

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God and we become His people in a covenantal sense. There's one sense in which

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God is your God whether you want it or not. Why? Because He's the only true God. He's the sovereign

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God. He's the one who made you, who fashioned you. And so Yahweh is God whether you like it or not.

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God's deity, His divine nature is not dependent upon your recognition of it.

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That's very important. But in a covenantal sense, God becomes,

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Yahweh becomes your God. If you are under His rule and dominion. If you are under His rules.

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Remember that God means the one who is strong enough to make the rules. So if we obey God's rules, then

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He becomes our God. And we become His people. We see this theme throughout the scriptures.

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And we'll look at some of the scriptural evidence for that. But if we don't obey

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His rules, then He's not our God in a covenantal sense. And we are not

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His people. Even so, Yahweh is still the

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Lord God Almighty. But He may not be our God. And that's an important distinction.

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Yeah. Say that last part again.

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What would you have to say to that crowd?

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That's wrong. It's not true. Of course we have to repent. It's a good indication that they don't understand the

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Bible. And that they're not. Yahweh may not be their God. So that's pretty important.

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The gospel is a gospel of repentance. What did John the Baptist preach? What did Jesus preach? What did the Apostle Peter preach in Pentecost?

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Repent. That's right. What Jesus didn't do was change our minds.

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That's right. And so, Exodus 20, verses 2, 3, and 5, it says,

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I'm the Lord, your God. So God, Yahweh. Anytime you see the word Lord, capital L -O -R -D, it's

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Yahweh in the Hebrew. Or Yehovah in the Hebrew. It's such a grammaton. It's the unique name of God. Which is, again,

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I went over this several weeks ago in our Back to Basics series. This is one of my pet peeves.

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Why I don't like it when we don't translate the divine name properly. Because he just seems like another God. Like another title.

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God, Lord. We just use a lot of titles for God. But God has set himself apart uniquely by giving us his name.

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Yahweh. Yehovah. Jehovah. So he's not just a nameless, faceless

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God like the other gods and nations. He's actually given us his covenant name. The name that he is.

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It's self -given. It's self -revelatory. And so when we use titles like Lord and God, without truly understanding them,

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I think we're missing a lot of context and a lot of deep theological implications here. So God says,

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I am Yahweh, your God. So I'm Yahweh, I'm your Elohim. That's important.

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Because there are lots of other gods out there who make rules. But here's Yahweh making his rules to his people.

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Which have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. And you shall have no other Elohims, gods, before me.

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You shall not bow down yourself to them nor serve them. For I am

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Yahweh, your God. Exodus 6 -7. And I will take you to me for a people.

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This is God's covenant arrangement. He says, I'm going to make you my people. And I will be to you a God. And you shall know that I am the

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Lord, Yahweh, your God. See the covenant, the relationship that God is building with his people.

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Exodus 16 -12. After I will do these things, then you shall know that I am the

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Lord, your God. This is a very popular phrase that God uses throughout the Bible.

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He uses it in Exodus. He uses it really throughout the Old Testament. Particularly in the book of Ezekiel.

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You read the prophecy of Ezekiel. Yahweh is always, after he proclaims a word of judgment or a word of grandeur of himself.

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He'll say, then the nations shall know that I am Yahweh. Then you shall know that I am Yahweh. We see that phraseology used a lot.

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That God is saying, through this act, you guys will know who I am. That I'm the true God. That I'm the unique God.

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I'm the one that's set apart. And so God uses this phrase quite a bit. That you shall know.

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You shall know. It's going to be evident. It's going to be apparent. That I am the true God. Exodus 29 .46

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says, then they shall know that I am the Lord, their God. And I am the

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Lord, their God. So is Yahweh the God? In what sense is

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Yahweh not everyone's God? In what sense is

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Yahweh not everyone's God? Because notice the imperative here. You shall know. I'll be their

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God. A particular people. This is, I'm going to be everyone's

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God. And everyone's going to. No, he's having a very particular setting apart of his people here.

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So in what sense is Yahweh not everyone's God? That's right?

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Anyone else? They don't subject themselves?

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Yeah. Particularly, they're not subjecting themselves to his rules.

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To his law. To his rule as the king of God's kingdom. Is Queen Elizabeth, or I guess

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King Charles, is he your king? No. Why not?

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Why is he not your king? Because he's a fool. Why isn't he your king?

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Because we're not under his dominion. You're not under his dominion. You're not under his commonwealth. You're not under his reign.

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You're not under his law. Okay? It's very important. You're not under his law.

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Therefore, he's not your king. Okay? Yahweh is king. Certainly.

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But are you his subject? Are you his willing subject or are you his enemy? Okay? Remember, there's only two conditions for mankind.

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You're either in Christ or in Adam. You're either God's child or you are God's enemy.

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Right? And the beauty of the Christmas story is that God, through Jesus, makes his enemies his children.

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John Chapter 1. That it says all those who did receive him, he gave them the right to become the children of God.

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And so we have that right through faith in Jesus Christ. But not everyone has that right. Not everyone becomes a child of God.

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Not everyone comes under the proper lordship and headship of Jesus Christ. And so there's a very real sense in which

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Yahweh is not everyone's God. Clearly. Clearly. Again, don't misunderstand what

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I'm saying though. I'm not saying he's not God. I'm just saying he's not everyone's

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God. And that's apparent. Okay? That's apparent in the world. That's most people. They don't worship

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Yahweh. A lot of Christians don't even know if they worship Yahweh. They don't even know God's name for goodness sake.

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Right? And so this is why it's so important that we get to know the God of the Bible. That we understand that he is a covenant -making

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God. And there's conditions when you enter into a covenant. Right?

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Were there conditions when you got married? Were there conditions when you signed a contract for a job or a house?

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Of course. There's always conditions. God says to his people

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Israel. He says, I have brought you out of the land of Egypt out of bondage. And one of the conditions is what?

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You should have no other what? Gods. You should have no other Elohims.

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Which is to say, you're not to follow anyone else's rules. And where the Israelites often got in trouble is when they started to serve other gods.

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And listen to another set of rules. Right? Notice how, for instance, the scriptures that Pastor Conley is going through in the evenings.

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The Israelites are making an alliance with foreign nations. They're making alliances with the

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Egyptians. You know, with everyone other than Yahweh. And Yahweh says, no, don't do that. Follow my rules.

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Follow my instruction. Listen to me and you'll live. But if you trust in yourself, you trust in chariots, you're going to die.

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Okay? They were following a different set of rules. Isn't that interesting? And so that's why it says in scripture that we are to follow

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Yahweh. We're not to bow down to any other god. Not to worship any other god but him.

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And, again, that obviously means that there are other gods to follow. Other ones' rules to follow.

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Let me think. So when the scripture talks so often about how Israel followed other gods and bowed down to them.

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If I'm understanding what you're saying, we don't have to necessarily think that they physically went to an idol or a god and bowed down before it.

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But they followed its rules. That's right. They followed another set of rules. That's right. Is that tied together?

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So notice how that's entirely tied together when you see the Israelites fall into idolatry and into false worship.

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They began to take among themselves foreign wives, pagan practice. They began to start offering to idols, pagan practice, different rules, different laws.

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So what's interesting is that I was just reading this a couple months ago. There was an ancient archaeological dig that was somewhere in Israel.

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And they found the oldest depiction of Yahweh. Okay? So there was a – and this is about probably 6th or 7th century

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B .C. So after King David and Solomon. So this is right before the destruction of the temple, actually, of the first temple in 586

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B .C. And what the archaeologists were trying to claim was there was a picture – a depiction of Yahweh.

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And it was a very crude depiction of Yahweh. It made him look like a man. And he was naked and had male parts.

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It was really kind of vulgar. But they were saying how, oh, we see the earliest depictions of Yahweh shows that the

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Israelite religion was really no different than the pagans. In a kind of a negative connotation.

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I'm like, you fools. Have you not read the scriptures? Why did God bring judgment upon the Israelites? Because of that.

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Because of their idolatry. Because of them trying to make Yahweh like one of other gods.

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Right? And so it's just really interesting. I'll show you a picture later.

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But, yeah, it's really interesting. And that's exactly where the Israelites got in trouble. They were trying to make

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Yahweh like the other gods. When he is the only true God. He's the only unique God.

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The New Testament uses this phrase about Jesus Christ, in fact, in John 1, verse 18. It says no one has ever seen

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God but the only begotten God. In the Greek it's monogenesis theos. He has revealed the

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Father. He who is in the bosom of the Father has revealed him. And the word monogenesis theos, it can be translated only begotten.

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Or, as like the NIV, I think, and the ESV translate it, one and only. One and unique.

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He's unique. He's the only God who has taken on flesh. And so Christ is referred to as a unique God.

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Just as Yahweh is referred to as a unique God amongst the nations. Any questions so far?

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Yeah. You had your hand up. So just to do a quick recap, God means what again?

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The word God. Strong one. But even deeper than that? The one who's strong enough to make the rules.

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So there are, the Scripture says, Old and New Testament, there are many gods. There's many strong ones out there.

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The word God doesn't simply mean supreme creator. And that's where we go wrong a lot of times.

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That's our connotation. We've so loaded that word God with so many extra things that when we hear someone say that there are other gods, we think heretic and polytheist.

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But polytheism is the worship of multiple gods, not the acknowledgement of other gods. It's just the worship of other gods. And so the

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New Testament is crystal clear when Paul refers to powers, princes, principalities, authorities, that there are other cosmic, powerful forces at work in the world, many of which who are opposed to the rule of God.

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Say it again? How is it different from henotheism? Henotheism? So the acknowledgement of other gods?

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Define that for everybody. Yeah, define that. Right before this, you only worship one god.

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Yeah, we don't do that. It's obvious. It's a huge difference. We only worship one god, a triune god,

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Father, Son, and Spirit. And that's the only true god. Okay?

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True in that this is the only creator god. This is the only sovereign god. This is the only god who can speak things into existence.

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But again, other gods, the word God meaning strong ones, there are other strong ones. Okay? Moses is referred to as God unto

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Pharaoh in Exodus 7, verse 1. Why? Because Moses was the one making the rules by which Pharaoh had to abide by.

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The judges in the Old Testament were also called gods because they were the ones making the rules by which people had to live by.

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And oftentimes, it's in a negative connotation as well that there's other gods because really there's only one god who we should have, whose rules we should follow.

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And that's Yahweh's. Right? And so the gods of the nations, Paul says, these are real entities, but they're demons.

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They're demonic in origin. Okay? Yeah? Now God is not just the better god or a more practical choice for us.

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He's the unique god. That's right. He's not just in competition with these others trying to show himself as just a clearer choice.

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But they exist because of him. That's right. Those gods would not exist had God not only decreed them but actually created them.

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That's right. It's got to be understood. Absolutely. Absolutely. Which is why I brought up earlier Revelation 2, verse 12 and 13 where Christ addresses the church in Pergamum.

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And he says, I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. That's a clear, clear equation that Jesus is making, equating

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Satan with Zeus because this is the place where the throne of Zeus was in the ancient world.

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This was – they literally had a temple with Zeus on it. Have you ever seen like the movie Hercules? Right? The cartoon one?

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And you have Hercules going to his father Zeus in that temple. That's that. Okay? That's Pergamum.

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Okay? And that's exactly where Jesus says that's where Satan's throne is, which is

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Jesus equating the worship of Zeus with the worship of Satan. That that entity who people thought and worshipped as Zeus was a real entity but he wasn't

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Zeus. It was Satan masquerading, which is why the Bible says that Satan masquerades. In 2

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Corinthians chapter 11, as an angel of light, he masquerades as an angel of light.

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And so he's a masquerader. He's deceptive. And so, yeah.

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Any questions on that so far? I know this is kind of a – maybe a newer concept for some of us because we don't really get too deep into the words and the weeds here.

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But I like to give you guys a proper understanding of what these things mean.

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Let's move on to the next page in Deuteronomy chapter 4, 35 and 39.

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It says, In order that you might know that the Lord, that's Yahweh, He is

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God. Know therefore this day and consider it in your heart that the Lord, Yahweh, He is

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God, in heaven above and upon the earth beneath. When you look at the early writings of the scriptures, the

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Torah, you know, the first five books of the Bible, you have a lot of world building. So if you read any good book, you have world building, which is, you know, the author is trying to get you into the mindset, into the – he's trying to build characters up and locations up.

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And in a sense, God is doing that in the first five books of the Bible. Because the Israelites being in bondage in Egypt, being surrounded by foreign gods,

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God has to remind them that Yahweh, that the true God that they're now serving is not simply a

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God who is powerful or sovereign over one element of creation.

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Okay? So for instance, the pantheon of gods in the ancient pagan world, they were gods for everything.

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There was a god for the sky. There was a god for the water. There was a god for mercury. There was a god for basically everything that you can think of.

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There was a particular god for that. God of love. God of war. God of all these things. Yet, when the

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Bible talks about Yahweh, it talks about Him in all – kind of in all encompassing terms.

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So it says, consider in your heart that Yahweh, He is God in heaven above and then in the earth beneath.

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Showing that there's nothing that He is not God over. Does that make sense?

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Say, okay, all these other nations have these little particular gods over all these particular aspects of creation.

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Yahweh, He's not like that. He's over everything. Okay? He's a unique God.

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So you see the uniqueness of Yahweh as God is revealing Himself that He's not like the other gods.

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Does that make sense? Which is why in Deuteronomy 7, verse 9, it says, Know therefore the

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Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, which keeps covenants and mercy with them, that love

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Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations. So, again,

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God isn't – or Yahweh isn't everyone's God. He's the God of those who keep what?

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His covenant, His commandments. Who keep His commandments to a thousand generations. That's the condition.

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Okay? That's the condition. Obviously in Christ and the new covenants, it's even greater because it's not based upon our performance, but rather upon the performance of another, namely

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Jesus Christ. That through faith in Jesus Christ, we now become sons of God by faith in Him.

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He has transferred us from darkness to light. He's given us a new hope, a new inheritance, a better inheritance.

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And He's truly our God. And when we're faithless, He remains faithful. That's one of the great things about being in the new covenants, that God, He keeps

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His love towards us to a thousand generations, even when we are ridiculous in our sins.

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And so God is a faithful God. He keeps His covenant. That's unlike the other gods of the nations who would – if you know anything about pagan religion, these gods were not very faithful.

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Let's put it that way. There's – you just pick the mythology, whether it's

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Egyptian mythology, Greek mythology, Roman mythology. These gods are almost like – in Spanish we have telenovelas or soap operas, like soap operas, right?

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And, you know, this one's cheating on that one. And then this one's having – you know, is killing this one's brother.

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And it's just a pandemonium. It's really a reflection of man and his depravity.

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But Yahweh and the God that we're presented with in Scripture, He's so different. That's one of the points I want to get across to you.

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Yahweh is so different than the other so -called gods.

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He's so different. He's so unique. And one of the unique features of Yahweh, of this

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God, is that He's a faithful God. He's a God who makes and keeps covenants, unlike the gods of the nations.

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It's no wonder that, you know, thousands of years later we're not worshiping Zeus. We're not worshiping

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Jupiter. We're not worshiping Horus or worshiping the God of the

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Bible. Because He's a faithful God. 1

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Kings 8, verse 6, it says, In order that all the people may know that the Lord is God. We see this terminology used several times in the

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Bible. We see it again in Psalm 100, verse 3. Do you know that the Lord, He is God?

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It is He that has made us, and we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Again, that phrase, you shall know that He is

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God. Or that you will know that the Lord is God. In what way does

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God demonstrate Himself so that people may know that He's God? What are some ways that God does that?

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That He demonstrates Himself? What are some ways which

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God demonstrates, that Yahweh demonstrates that He is God? Do you think in the context of like common grace where He shows to all?

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It can be. It was the rain that falls and the wheat that grows. It would be from Him.

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If I understand your question. That's one way. Again, the question is, how does

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Yahweh demonstrate that He is God? He can justify us.

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He does it in Jesus. I think you're spot on.

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That's the chief way which God revealed Himself is through the man, Jesus Christ. The image of the invisible

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God. The firstborn of all creation through whom He made all things. Jesus is the chief revelation of God.

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Any other ways that Yahweh demonstrates that He is God? Just piggyback.

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He demonstrates He's God because only God can withstand the wrath of God. That's true.

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Amen. James? Calling us out from sinfulness? Yeah. His work in salvation?

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Yes. That's right. Yes. Yes. He's given us

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His word. You know, we're jumping over a very basic one too. How about creation? Right? We actually take that one for granted because, again, as Christians growing up in the

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West, you know, again, that word God is just so loaded. We think you use that word

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God. You hear it. You think of, okay, the God, the Creator, the one who made everything.

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But that's not a given in the East, for instance. If you go to a Hindu country or you go to a pagan country or you go to any other country where there is a multitude of gods, there are lots of gods.

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Not all of them are creators. Not all of them have creative power or creative aspects to them.

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And that is very much true of the ancient world context as well where the gods of the nations, they weren't all creators.

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They didn't all have that power. And yet one of the ways that God demonstrates or that Yahweh demonstrates that He is a true

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God is that He claims in Scripture He's the one true Creator. That's why it's not uncommon to find these statements in Scripture.

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I think of Isaiah 45, for instance, Isaiah 44, where it says, I'm Yahweh. I created all these things.

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I made all these things. I fashioned them with my hands. Who was with me? Isaiah 44, 24. He says, I'm the

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Lord. I stretched out the heavens by myself. He makes these dramatic claims of authorship, of creatorship, because it's not a given that the other gods in the nations had that same ability, had that same power, or even claimed to.

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And so Yahweh is claiming to be unique in so many ways. He's the Creator.

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He's a redemptive God. He's a covenant God. He's a God who has a relationship with His people. He's a

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God who is going to break into the world through Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ is the chief revelation of God to humanity in that God made a way for us to be forgiven of sins through the incarnation of His Son, who is fully

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God. Jesus coming into the world. This is the Christmas story. This is what people are celebrating today, hopefully.

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And so that's the beauty of Christmas. It's truly that God breaks into the world through Jesus Christ.

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And that way, we can know that the Lord is God and that we are His people.

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I keep hearkening back to John 1, that those whom He saves,

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He gave them the right to be sons of God. He gives them the right through faith in Jesus Christ.

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Jeremiah 24, 7 says, And I will give them a heart to know Me. So this is another way in which God reveals

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Himself and is different from the other gods. He says, I will give them a heart to know Me, and I am the

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Lord, Yahweh, and they shall be My people, and I will be their God. You know, the

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Bible uses that phrase a lot, starting, I think, in Exodus, all the way to Revelation.

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You have this phraseology used a lot. They shall be My people. I will be their God. It's one of the ways that the book of Revelation ends, in fact.

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In Revelation 21, verse 4, you have this grand vision of the future. You have this new heavens, new earth that are being established.

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And from the throne room of God comes the voice of God Himself. And He says these words,

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I will wipe away every tear from their eye, death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning or crying or pain.

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All the former things have passed away, and they shall be My people, and I will be their

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God. Okay? That's how Revelation ends, is with that grand vision of this new creation, new heavens, new earth.

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God will wipe away every tear, and truly the fruition of God's promise all the way back in Exodus of God dwelling with His people will come true to the greatest degree, that God will dwell with man through Jesus Christ.

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And this is how we see this promise being foreshadowed even here in Scripture, that God is going to give us people a new what?

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What does God have to give us? New heart. We need a new heart in order to know

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God, in order to serve God, in order to know Yahweh. And we shall be in that way when God gives

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His people a new heart. They shall be My people, and I'll be their God. See the relationship, the covenant, the one who makes the rules.

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God's not only going to say, hey, you need to follow My rules. No, He says, I'm going to give you the heart so that you can follow

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My rules. Okay? That's the beauty of regeneration. That's the beauty of the new birth, of being born again, is not only does

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God command you to follow and obey His rules, He gives you the heart to be able to do it.

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It's just amazing. The other gods could not come close. The other gods all lack this.

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They can't do what Yahweh does. This is really unique amongst

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Yahweh and amongst the covenant that He makes with His people. So just absolutely incredible.

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Again, I've alluded quite a few times to this other statement. Ezekiel uses it quite a bit. Ezekiel 13, 9 says, for instance, that you should know that I am the

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Lord Yahweh, your God. I am the Lord God. Okay?

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And it's usually in the context where God is saying, you're going to see My works, whether it's a work of judgment, whether it's a work of salvation, whether it's a work of deliverance.

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Whatever it is that I'm doing, these will be signs to you that I am truly your God, that I am truly

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Yahweh. Fun fact in Ezekiel 13, 9, when it says that you should know that I am the

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Lord God, if you're reading it like I have here from the KJV, Lord is not capitalized, but G -O -D is capitalized.

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You know why? It must not be the

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Tetragrammaton behind it. The Tetragrammaton is there, actually. And what's unique about that is that sometimes the translators will have this phrase in the

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Hebrew where it uses the title Lord, which is Adonai, in conjunction with the divine name.

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So you'll have an accurate translation would be the Lord Yahweh God.

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But because they usually translate Yahweh as Lord, they have to translate it as Lord God, capital

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G -O -D, and the capital G -O -D is the stand -in for the

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Tetragrammaton. It makes no sense. It makes no sense. I don't know why translators do that.

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I know why they do it. There's no good reason why they should be doing it. ESV does that? Oh, ESV, all of them do.

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Except for the LSB and the New Jerusalem Bible. The ones who translate the

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Tetragrammaton faithfully, they don't do that. Same mistake. But you'll see sometimes in your Bible where it's not the

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L -O -R -D that's capitalized, it's the G -O -D that's capitalized. But anytime you see whether it's

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Lord or God that's capitalized, that's usually a sign in the manuscript that that's Yahweh or the

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Tetragrammaton. So a proper way of translating that would actually be

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I am the Lord Yahweh God. I'm the Lord Yahweh God.

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So it's a beautiful title they use. I'm Lord, I'm Sovereign, I'm Yahweh, the name that I've revealed myself by, and I'm also your

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God. So it's all encompassing. And so when translators don't translate that faithfully, you're missing out on the intention that God had in revealing the grandeur of his position in relation to his people.

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He's Lord, he's Yahweh, and he's God. It's really a powerful statement.

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And notice what it says in Ezekiel 20, verse 20. It says, and you will, and if you hollow my Sabbaths, which is, you know what the word hollow in the

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King James means? To what? To make holy, that's right.

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So we remember in the Lord's Prayer, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. That means to make your name holy or to sanctify.

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And so Yahweh says to his people, if you hollow, if you sanctify, keep holy my Sabbaths, and they shall be proof between me and you that you may know that I am the

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Lord your God. Again, that unique status of that covenant is saying, if you do this, it's gonna be proof, it's gonna be evidence that I am truly your

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God because you're following my rules. You're following my Sabbaths, my commandments.

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It's gonna be proof between me and you, evidence between me and you, that you may know that I am

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Yahweh your Elohim, your God. Okay? Because again, whose rules are we to follow?

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Who's the one strong enough to make the rules by which we live by? God. It's Yahweh.

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Yahweh God is the God that we are to follow and keep his Sabbaths holy, keep his commandments.

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But God is gonna give us, according to Jeremiah 24 -7, he's gonna give us a heart to follow his rules.

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He's gonna give us a new heart to love to obey his commands. And in that way, we should know that we are his people and he is our

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God. Any last thoughts or questions on the teaching this morning? I know, again, it may make you feel a little bit uncomfortable, some of the things

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I'm throwing at you, but surely ask questions if you have them. Yeah, sure.

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Yeah, I've seen some different Bible languages used to translate things a little differently.

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No, no. Yeah. So I'll give you an example.

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In Spanish, you know the three most spoken languages in the world? Chinese, Spanish, and then

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English. And the most popular Bible in the Spanish -speaking world is called the

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Reina Valera, which is basically the equivalent of the King James, basically. It's very old

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Spanish. They use old Spanish vernaculars. But it used the name Jehovah in the

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Old Testament. Now, the newer Bibles that have come out since, they have the equivalent to the

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NIV and stuff in Spanish now, and they don't use the name Jehovah or Jehovah. They use the name

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Señor, which means Lord, right? And those are actually much more inferior translations.

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And thankfully, still the dominant translation is Reina Valera, which is the one that uses the divine name at least.

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Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, when you read

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Aramaic, like Allah, or Arabic, you get the word

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Allah that's used. And Allah just means God. So Allah in itself is not a name for the

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Muslim god. It's just the generic name or title of deity in the Arabic language.

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And so if you talk to a Christian in Arabic, they might say,

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I worship Allah, and you might be really confused by that. But, again, we've overloaded these terms

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God so much to the point where we're making category errors when we use them.

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And so any other thoughts or questions on the teaching today? If you didn't get a paper,

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I'll get you one after class so you can have that for your notes. So God is the one who is the one strong enough to make the rules by which we live by.

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That's what the word God means. And so there are many gods, but unto us, 1

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Corinthians 8, there is but one God, the Father, and unto us there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are and we through him.

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So let me pray. Lord, thank you that you've given us your word this morning to examine, to know that you are

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God, that you are truly the one strong enough to not only make the rules by which we're to live by, but you're the only one whose arm is strong enough to save.

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You're the only one who is strong enough to deliver your people from so terrible a fate, from damnation and condemnation that is rightly deserved in ours by means of our trespasses and our inherited nature from Adam.

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And yet you, in your infinite kindness and wisdom and love, have made a way for us to be forgiven by means of your incarnation into this world, that through the person and work of Jesus Christ, you've made a new and a better way for us to have forgiveness of our trespasses and entrance into this faith and grace in which we now stand.

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So, Lord, we do pray, God, that you'd work in us that which is pleasing in your sight. And may we remember today of all days that you're truly the reason for this season.