Book of Luke - Ch. 7, Vs. 19-35 (04/05/2020)

Park Meadows Church

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It is amazing, the technology, and it's also amazing how uncomfortable

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I am doing this. But in any case, it gives us an opportunity to meet with a virtual meeting, and I think we should begin with a word of prayer.

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Thank you, Lord Jesus, for giving us this time, this place, and this technology to assemble together to worship you, to worship you by reading your

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Holy Scripture. Thank you for giving us the

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Holy Spirit to guide us into understanding not only the meaning of the word, but the message that you have for us.

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And we trust that you will give each of us the message that you want us to have.

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And most of all, we thank you for giving us your Son to redeem us, to let his righteousness take the place.

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Bless us and keep us. Go through the services today. Grant us your goodwill.

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In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We're going to begin with chapter seven, verse 16.

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I'll begin reading. And there came a fear on all. They glorified

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God, saying that a great prophet is risen up among us, and that God had visited his people.

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And this rumor of him went forth throughout all of Judea, and throughout all the regions round about.

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And the disciples of John showed him all of these things. And my first question is, what things?

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Now, if you're following the scripture in your Bible, you can peek ahead and look at verse 22 and see some of the things that they showed him.

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I'm gonna mention a few, and if I forget some, we can get to the chapter in verse 22 in a couple of moments and we'll know what they all are.

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But he cast out demons. He raised the dead. He healed the sick.

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He made the blind see. He made the lame walk. He cured leprosy. He did many things, and people saw him doing it.

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Those are some of the things that they saw. Verse 18, and John calling unto him, two of his disciples sent them to Jesus, saying,

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Art thou he that should come, or look we for another? John the

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Baptist had introduced Christ as the one who would bring a fierce judgment and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

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I'm gonna read Matthew 3, starting with verse 1, and you can go there and read along with me if you would, please.

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In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying,

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Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. If there's some way to underline that message,

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I want you to do that, and we're going to look at what Jesus says later, and we'll see that the message that John gave is exactly the same as the message that Jesus gave.

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Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Verse 3, for this is he that was spoken of by the prophet

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Isaiah, saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the

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Lord, make his paths straight. And the same

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John had his raiment of camel hair and a leather girdle about his loins, and his meat was locust and wild honey.

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Then went out to him Jerusalem and all of Judea and all the region round about Jordan.

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And all were baptized of him in the Jordan. Many of the Pharisees and Sadducees came to his baptism.

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And I'm not mentioning here that his baptism was one of water.

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And so John, when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them,

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O generation of vipers, who have warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bring forth, therefore, fruits, meat for repentance.

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And think not to say within yourself, we have Abraham for our father. For I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto

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Abraham. And now also the ax is laid unto the root of the tree. Therefore, every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is shewn down and cast into the fire.

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I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. But he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes

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I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the

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Holy Ghost and with fire. Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into the garner.

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But he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Okay, what he's doing, he's coming,

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John says he's coming to rule and to judge. He was confused,

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John was, by the turn of events. John was imprisoned, and Christ was carrying out a ministry of healing, not judgment.

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He was in Galilee, far from Jerusalem, the city of the king. And he wasn't finding a completely warm welcome there.

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John wondered if he had misunderstood Jesus's agenda.

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But it would be wrong to assume, or to interpret this as a wavering of his faith.

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Now back to Luke. When the men were coming to him, they said,

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John the Baptist hath sent us unto thee, saying, are they he that should come, or shall we look for another?

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And at that same hour, he killed many of their infirmities and plagues and evil spirits.

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And unto many that were blind, he gave sight. So we're gonna look at verse 22 in just a second.

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But in this verse, we've got infirmities, plagues, evil spirits, and many that were blind, he gave sight.

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So those are some of the things that John's disciples saw Jesus doing.

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And then Jesus answered and said unto them, the messengers, go your way and tell

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John the things that you have seen and heard, how the blind see, the lame walk, the leopards are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and to the poor the gospel is preached.

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John's disciples were to report to John that Jesus was doing precisely what the scripture foretold of the

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Messiah, even though the scheme of the prophetic fulfillment was not unfolding quite the way

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John had envisioned. I wanna read

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Isaiah 61, verse one. The spirit of the

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Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek.

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He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.

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That was verse one. And to proclaim the acceptable year of the

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Lord. Now, right in the middle of that verse, there's a comma.

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Now, in another place where Jesus is reciting this, where he read the same scripture in the temple, he stopped at that comma, put a period there and closed the book and taught about it.

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But after that comma is an important differentiation, the day of vengeance of our

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God and to comfort all that mourn. You see, not all of the

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Lord's assignment was finished at the cross.

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He's got one thing left to do. And that is to establish his kingdom and to judge it.

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And in fact, that's where brother David was last week, when he was talking about the establishment of the second kingdom.

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Of his not second kingdom, his kingdom. Verse 21, and blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.

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Jesus came as the Messiah, but not yet as the king. Not yet as the king who should judge the quick and the dead.

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That's for the second coming. In fact, Paul will tell Timothy to prepare the church to be ready for that still future event.

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Not only future to Paul and Timothy and John, but also still future to us.

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And here's what he said. I charge thee, this is Paul talking to Timothy.

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I charge thee therefore before God and before Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.

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So when is the Lord going to do this? At his appearing and at the establishment of his kingdom.

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Now Paul tells Timothy in the meantime, preach the word. Be instant in season out of season.

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Reprove, rebuke, exhort with a long suffering and doctrine.

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Now we're back to Luke verse 24. And when the messengers of John were departed, he, that's

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Jesus, began to speak unto the people concerning John. What went ye out into the wilderness for to see?

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A reed shaken in the wind. He's asking them, did you go out to see a man who would bend with every breeze?

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Or would you go out to see a well -rooted man who knew what he believed and stuck with it? But what went out ye for to see?

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A man clothed in soft. Behold, they which are gorgeously apparel and live delicately are in the king's court.

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They're not in the wilderness. If what you seek is a man clothed in soft raiment and gorgeously apparel, living delicately, you'll find those in the king's courts, not in the wilderness.

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But what went out for you to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet.

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Stop it. This is he of whom it is written. Behold, I shall send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare the way before thee.

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This was a quote from Micah 3, verse one, the last book in the

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Old Testament, as we have learned. Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me.

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And the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come unto his temple, even the messenger of this covenant whom you delight.

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Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord. For I say unto you, among those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the

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Baptist, but he that is the least of the kingdom of God is greater than he.

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Now last week, or not last week, a couple of weeks ago, we discussed this verse in detail.

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And there's two aspects to this. One, there's not a greater prophet than John the

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Baptist. Oh, we had Moses. We even had Noah. We even had

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Enoch. All were prophets. We had Isaiah, Jeremiah. We had

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Daniel, the prophet that Jesus loved. We had

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Malachi. We had Jonah. And not a one of those prophets was greater than John the

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Baptist. In fact, John the Baptist was greater than all of those. What John the

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Baptist, what did John the Baptist have that all the rest of those prophets didn't have? Anybody got a comment?

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Okay. What he had that no one else had was he was permanently indwelt by the

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Holy Spirit. He was indwelt before his birth when he leaped in his mother's womb.

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And he was indwelt with the Holy Spirit all the way through to his life. But then there's another aspect of this question.

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But there's not a greater prophet than John the Baptist, but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than John the

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Baptist. Well, what in the world does that mean? I believe, and you can just take this as my presumption, and we know that presumptions are bad things to have, but we can have, we know this.

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Everyone that's in the kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God, is living in the kingdom, ruled by Jesus, with Jesus.

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That's something that John could only look forward to. That's something that we now can only look forward to.

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There will come a time when we're all there. There'll come a time when John's there. There'll come a time when all the prophets

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I mentioned earlier are there. But right now, it is only Jesus that is there.

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The kingdom has not yet been established. That's my belief as the reason why there is no greater prophet than John the

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Baptist, and the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John. Let's go on.

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And all the people that heard him and the publicans justified God being baptized with the baptism of John.

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But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of God against them being not baptized of him.

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And Jesus said unto, and Jesus said, where unto then shall

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I liken the men of this generation? They're like children.

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If the message is one of rejoicing, they don't like it. On the other hand, if it's one of judgment, they don't like that either.

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They're like the children sitting in a marketplace and calling one to another saying, we have piped unto you and you have not danced.

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For John the Baptist came, neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, he hath a devil.

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The son of man is come eating, drinking, and you say, behold, a gluttonous man, and a wine -bibber, friend of the publicans and sinners.

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John the Baptist in his commentary explains it this way.

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This passage explains why John's style of ministry differed so dramatically from Jesus's approach, although their message was the same.

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The message was, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. I always wondered myself why

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John the Baptist had his style of ministry and Jesus had an entirely different one. And MacArthur explains it clearly.

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These methods, the differences in the methods took away all the Pharisees' excuses.

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The very thing they had professed to want to see in Jesus, rigid abstinence and a

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Spartan lifestyle, was what characterized the ministry of John.

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Yet they had rejected him too. The real problem lay in the corruption of their own hearts, but they would not acknowledge that.

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Give me just a second, I've managed to slide my text over just a bit and I can't see it all now,

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I'm good. But, okay, the real problem lay in the corruption of their own hearts, but they would not acknowledge that.

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They wanted to blame either Jesus for not being Spartan enough, or John for being too

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Spartan. It didn't matter whatever path the Lord took, whatever path

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John took, they were going to reject him. Wisdom is justified in all of our children.

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It's not justified. In all of those that are not.

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Jesus described himself as a stumbling block to the Jews. And part of the reason is that they had the religion that they had established of their own making, and it stood in the way of the one true way to Christ.

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It was the purpose of the story last week of the man that built his house upon the stone as compared to the one who built his house upon the sand.

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The one built on the stone survived the floods. The one that built his house upon the sand, the floods destroyed.

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The religion of the Jews had come to a point where it was a magnificent structure, but based upon humanism, based upon sand, not based upon the scripture.

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And that's one of the things that we need to do as we go through these services. Base all of our work on the scripture, on God's word, on Jesus Christ, because we know that the only way to God the

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Father is through Jesus Christ. Now, that went a little bit faster than I meant for it to go.

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I'm going to offer a quick prayer, and then I'm gonna turn it back over to Brother Dave.

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Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for all of this that you have done for us. Thank you for the blessings that you have given us.

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Thank you for your blessings. Even in this time of stress, we are separated one from another, but you gave us the technology to get together and speak and worship together.

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We are confined to our quarters, but in the confinement, we're able to reach out across the horizon to lands far away, miles away, thousands of miles away, and contact people that otherwise we would not be able to visit with.

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Thank you for all the things that you've done. Forgive us of our sins. Place Jesus's righteousness upon us.

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And thank you for already having put our unrighteousness upon him, for he already dying for us and nailing our sins to the cross.

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In Jesus's name we pray, amen. Okay, now

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I'm ready for - Thank you,

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Brother Bill. Appreciate it. Do I need to stop my video now? You sure can, yep. And mute my screen as well.

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You got it. Okay, I'm gonna mute it first. There you go.

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Thank you, sir. That's a great message from Brother Bill. Some pretty cool discussion going on about John the

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Baptist as well. Pretty awesome. I'm glad you guys were able to join us for Sunday school this morning.

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We'll be having David Mitchell, our pastor, come up and give the main message today here in a little bit.

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But first, we're going to have his son, Paul Mitchell. He'll be playing some live music for us.

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It's a special treat that we've got for you guys. Paul has been in the music industry for pretty much his whole life, right?

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But he has once in a while been able to come up from the Austin area where he lives and play some music for our church.

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And it's just a great blessing when he does that. So we are going to have

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Paul join us here now and we're gonna have some live music, which is gonna be awesome.

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This is feeling more and more like church, isn't it? We're practicing social distancing as we've been recommended to do, but thank the

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Lord that he is able to connect us all, even virtually. There's Brother Paul.

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Hey, Dave, can you hear me? Loud and clear. Thank you, sir. A little reverb going on.

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Sounds funny when I talk. If you're ready, I'll go ahead and play a little bit. Go for it.

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Thanks. Can you hear that? All right. ♪

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Every blessing to my heart to sing the grace ♪ ♪

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Of mercy never ceasing call for songs of loudest praise ♪ ♪

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Teach me some melodies some by flinging tongues above ♪ ♪

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Praise the mountain fixed upon it mountain that redeemed me ♪ ♪

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Here I'll raise my Ebenezer and by his help

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I've come ♪ ♪

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Like a pleasure safely to arrive at home ♪ ♪

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Jesus saw me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God ♪ ♪

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He to rescue me from danger and from the grave of sin ♪ ♪

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Sent to post his precious blood ♪ ♪

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Freed from sin

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I shall see that lovely face ♪ ♪

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Clothed in the blood washed linen how

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I'll sing the wondrous grace ♪ ♪

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Come my Lord no longer tell me take my ransomed soul away ♪ ♪

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Send an angel now to carry me to realms of endless praise ♪ ♪

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Every blessing to my heart to sing a lullaby ♪ ♪

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To grace streams of mercy never ceasing ♪ ♪

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Call for songs of loudest praise ♪ ♪

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Teach me some melodious sonnet sung by flaming tongues above ♪ ♪

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Praise the mountain fixed upon it ♪ ♪

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Mountain that redeemed me ♪

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Thank you, Paul. Man, that was great. You're a master of sound.

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Did it work okay? I don't know how you make the sound sound that great through a webinar like that.

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It was great. That's an experiment for me. Very well done.

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Thank you, sir. So, David Mitchell, your dad is going to join us here in just a minute.

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But did you want to say anything before you take off for us? Oh, sure.

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I'll turn that reverb off for a minute. I know all you guys have thought about so many things with what's going on.

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I think one thing that God has taught me in all this, well, one obvious one is that it quickly shows you what your priorities are, and that's family.

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Yeah. Yeah, I've just never felt that so strongly in my life that pretty much everything else feels not important at all right now compared to those that we love, our family.

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And the other thing is that God has been teaching me to stop procrastinating all these things that I've been wanting to do over time, some important, some just not important things, but always just that mentality of like, well,

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I'll get to it, I'll get to it, I'll get to it. But instead it's just like, well, if you can do it right now, just do it.

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Just little simple things that, you know, some weren't even important, but now

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I can't do it because it's not safe for me to go run this errand or that errand, and I don't know.

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That's one lesson I've learned through all this is like stop procrastinating, and, you know, use your time wisely and work hard and surround yourself with family.

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Yeah. It's kind of true. Like it's funny because, you know, a lot of us work at Tradeway.

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Many of you know us from Tradeway. And life can get so busy. It can get going so fast, and it felt like life was zooming by, right?

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Yeah. I mean, wow, it was going so fast, and it was like God just said, nope, slow it down.

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And in a lot of ways that's exactly what happened. It felt like life just slowed down almost to a halt, and he locked us in the house with our family, which is where we all want to be anyway, right?

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Yeah. It's really been obviously hidden blessings in all of this stuff, and that's definitely one of them is that getting to spend a lot of time with family.

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It's been amazing. Yeah. So good. Well, thanks for being on with us, Paul. We sure appreciate it.

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Yeah. I'm going to sign off for now so I can get dad's stuff back how it should be, and then