The Prophet Jeremiah Part 9

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The Prophet Jeremiah Part 10

The Prophet Jeremiah Part 10

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Okay, I'm going to mute everybody. We are going to pray and we're going to get started. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word, we ask through your
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Holy Spirit that we might rightly understand what you have revealed there, so that we may be convicted truly of our sin and all the different ways in which we have deviated from your commands and what you have expressed your will to be, that we may have growing confidence in the mercy and grace of Christ because of his shed blood on the cross, and then through the power of the
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Holy Spirit, bearing fruit in keeping with repentance, grow in love and enjoy in peace and patience and good works towards others.
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We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so what we have planned for today, and that of course
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I'm looking at the chat window, currently it's my version of it is clean, which means, which is good for me, but just a reminder, questions are encouraged and they are welcome.
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I don't know, again, what it is with certain people, but they seem to be threatened by questions, and if I don't know the answer, the answer is,
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I'll look, I'll have to go figure it out. So we have been working our way through the book of Jeremiah.
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We are up to chapter 7, and when we began this study, which seems like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but that's generally how we work our way through books anyway, is that, you know, there's always those little rambling roads we go down, and that's fine.
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I made the claim that I think in our day and age, this is probably one of the more important books of the
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Bible to study, because the apostasy of Judah, as recorded for us in Scripture, you can see those themes playing out again in the apostasy leading up to the return of Christ.
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And I was talking with a good friend of mine, Justin Peters. Some of you guys know who
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Justin Peters is. I was talking with him earlier this week, and, you know, he called because, you know, he knew
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I was down with COVID, and I assured him, I said, it never got worse than a, like, a really mild head cold, and, you know, which was actually more annoying.
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It's like, I always felt like I was in the verge, but never quite got past the verge, and then the verge just stuck out for a few days.
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It's like, go away, you know, but, you know, he called to see how I was doing, and so one of the days, my voice wasn't strong enough to record a video, so I decided
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I'd just start filling the pipeline, doing what I do best, and that's slogging through hours and hours and hours of heresy, and at the end of it, my brain and my heart were hurt, and so I talked with Justin, and I said,
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Justin, you know, there's something that I'm noticing, you know, I've been doing this for several decades now, and that is that if you told me 10 years ago what
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I would be listening to, you know, in sermons and teachings by, you know, prominent churches,
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I would have told you that you were lying, that it couldn't possibly get that bad, and not only is the stuff that's being preached so over -the -top bizarre, okay, not only is it bizarre, one of the things
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I've noticed is a common theme in so many of these churches is that the Bible has, like, for all intents and purposes, disappeared.
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It's not there. I mean, 10 years ago, guys were making a point of actually, like, opening up a biblical text to try to at least give the pretense that they were preaching a sermon.
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You know, Rick Warren was famous when, you know, when he was at his highest with the purpose -driven life, that he would take all of these different translations and paraphrases to weave into his sermons, and it never made any sense, but at least he made some effort to make it at least appear like it was a
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Bible -flavored sermon. You know, people aren't doing that as much anymore. I mean, I was shocked by it, and, you know, and then kind of putting two and two together,
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I made an allusion to it in the sermon that the only thing I can think of when somebody tells me that I need to stop being a bigot because I don't believe a transgender dude is actually a woman and should have the right to compete in female sports, and, of course, the problem's me, apparently, the only thing
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I can describe this as is what 2 Thessalonians describes. This is the great delusion, okay, you know, because it would take, you know,
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I would literally have to be certifiable, you know, lost my mind and be, you know, like thinking that I'm having breakfast with Napoleon Bonaparte, you know, before I would ever believe that a dude is a woman.
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I mean, this is just nonsense, and, you know, and this is being held up and defended and thrown into our faces, you know, with all of these different athletic competitions, and it's like,
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I'm done, okay, you know, I can't, I don't live in the land of make -believe. I live in the actual world that God created, and but the thing is is that we have to remember that the strong delusion spoken of in 2
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Thessalonians is an actual judgment of God, and that people who are believing this nonsense, they are under God's judgment, and as Christians, then, that it should put a little afterburner into our jets, if you know what
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I mean, because the idea here is that the time is getting shorter and shorter, you know, and where this is heading, it's just going to be a bloodbath, okay, when you start denying reality on these kinds of levels, you are just one or two steps away from the
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Holocaust 2 .0. That's just how bad this kind of stuff is, and you say, you're just a crazy, you know, you're just being inflammatory.
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No, I'm being realistic, so all of that being said, Jeremiah is oh so relevant, so we will continue then with chapter 7.
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So the word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, stand in the gate of Yahweh's house.
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Now, you're going to see later in Jeremiah, Jeremiah, the actual prophet of God, will be forbidden from going to the temple anymore after a while.
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They're going to file a restraining order, an ancient world's version of a restraining order against Jeremiah. He will cancel
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Jeremiah, cancel, cancel, right, you know, and there's an irony to this, but this is before they gave him the restraining order.
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So stand in the house of Yahweh, in the gate of Yahweh's house. Proclaim there this word and say, now remember the context, in the temple of the
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Lord there is a male cult prostitution shrine, okay, it's part of the worship.
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They have brought in asherah poles, they have brought in incense altars to Baal, different images to the different deities, and what's really hilarious in, you know, when
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I do my research nowadays, there are entire books dedicated to the premise that the apostasy of Jeremiah's time reflects real judaism, and that judaism without asherah is some kind of an apostasy.
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I am not making that up, okay, and if you want like a title on this, there's a book called
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When God Had a Wife, and that's the whole premise of the book, it's this gnostic concept.
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So, you know, we're reading this going, this is apostasy, the pagans today are reading this going, well this is real judaism, okay, you know, it's just crazy.
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So thus says Yahweh, the Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel, amend your ways and your deeds and I'll let you dwell in this place.
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Do not trust in these deceptive words. This is the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh.
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So what they were basically doing is engaging in full -blown apostasy with this idea that, well, this is the temple of Yahweh and Yahweh would never destroy this temple, so we're, you know, we're safe as safe gets.
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Their trust is in the temple rather than in God, and if they were trusting in God, they would repent and amend their ways.
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If you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice with one another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then
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I will let you dwell in this place in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever. Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail.
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Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, we are delivered, only to go on doing all of these abominations.
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And so you'll note that when the Word of God disappears, you know, if you like kind of put it on, you know,
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I need an Excel spreadsheet from Duane, you know, you know, Word of God diminishes, then, you know, you have a chart where, you know, wickedness increases, right?
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Yeah, right. You know, so the idea then here is that, and we're seeing this in our own day, all right, so those of us old enough, right, y 'all remember the 70s and 80s?
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Some of you can, yeah, all right. Was the United States this wicked back then?
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You didn't hear about it. Okay, if it was this wicked, it was wicked in kind of, you know, in quiet, you know, in secret.
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You know, sure, there were people who were doing this, the same kind of wickedness that we're seeing today, but they didn't dare bring it out in public, and they would be, they would be, well, rebuked for such things.
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Now who's being rebuked? The people who are speaking out against it.
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There was a story from Finland. Did you see that story, Don, a story coming out of Finland about that member of parliament who's on trial?
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All right, there's, hang on a second here. I think I put it in my notes, which we won't even talk about my notes program.
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It's a mess. Okay, yeah, just ignore the dust.
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Ignore the lack of organization. You know, I think you'll understand.
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Let's see here. Yeah, it's a healing act.
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Here it is. Here's the story, and let me pull this up. I want you to think about this for a second.
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So the name of this is Church Times, and this is the article. Okay, so note, this is a religious publication.
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Finnish member of parliament in court for hate speech for quoting from the bible. Okay, a prominent
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Finnish member of parliament was in court in Helsinki this week, accused of hate speech after quoting from the bible.
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The former minister of the interior, and I cannot even begin to tell you what that gibberish is all about.
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We'll just call her Pavi. Okay, you know, it's got too many dots. All right,
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Pavi, a christian democrat member of parliament, was charged by the prosecutor general of Finland over a twitter post in which she criticized the evangelical
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Lutheran church of Finland's decision to work in partnership with the sexual equality organization.
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I want you to note what is the mitigating circumstance here. She's a christian, and on twitter she criticized the evangelical
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Lutheran church of Finland, which is basically as liberal as they get, and their decision to partner with the country's sexual equality organization, asking how it could reconcile shame and sin with pride.
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Her post was accompanied by a photograph of Romans chapter 1 verses 24 to 27.
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So she was taking the Lutheran church of Finland to task for what? The same thing that the church was doing in the time of Jeremiah the prophet.
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Okay, you got to remember the church, you know, and we're using the term of believers here, the church at the time of Jeremiah the prophet, they not only embraced homosexuality, they turned it into a religious practice that you could participate in at the temple.
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You can see Jeremiah on twitter. How do you reconcile this with, right? So the defense claims that the
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European convention on human rights prohibits a person from having to defend their faith before an authority.
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In Monday's opening court sessions, however, the public prosecutor argued that the case was not an issue of this woman's religious freedom, but whether her post violated the fundamental rights of others.
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So apparently people have a right to not hear what God says. Okay, I don't know, if somebody had told me this was going to happen 10 years ago,
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I would have said they're nuts. Yes, Don? Yeah, Agricola, right.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really, whoa.
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So there's a further hearing on the 14th of February for closing statements. Obviously, I think
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I'm going to be keeping an eye on this one because it's kind of one of those watershed moments. If this woman is found guilty and suffers, ends up prison time or major fine or whatever, this is going to have a chilling effect across the globe, right?
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And she was criticizing the church on twitter. Yeah, all right.
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Yeah. So behold, you trust in deceptive words.
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Yahweh says, will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, go after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before me in this house.
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And I just kind of wonder, you know, what are these Lutherans in Finland and other liberal Lutherans thinking when they are embracing homosexuality, a sin, a flat -out abomination, and then standing before God and claiming to worship
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Christ? There's a huge disconnect here, okay?
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Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares
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Yahweh. Go now to my place that was in Shiloh where I made my name dwell at first and see what
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I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. And now because you have done all these things, declares
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Yahweh, when I spoke to you persistently, you did not listen. And when
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I called you, you did not answer. Therefore, I will do to the house that is called by my name and in which you trust and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers as I did to Shiloh, and I will cast you out of my sight as I cast out all your kinsmen and all the offspring of Ephraim.
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So God's making an appeal basically saying, you think you're special here?
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You're trusting that I'm not going to destroy the temple. Well, Shiloh was one of the first places where the tabernacle dwelled, which was in the
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Northern Kingdom. Shiloh was a place for many, many years.
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The Lord, the tabernacle was there and offerings were made in Shiloh. And when the
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Northern Kingdom apostatized, guess what God did to Shiloh? Destroyed it.
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And his point is this, pay attention. Nothing's going to stay in my hand and don't trust that just because this temple that's called by my name is presently here that somehow
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I won't act in judgment. I'm going to do the exact same thing that I did to the
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Northern Kingdom and I'm going to do it to you if you persist in this sin. As for you, do not pray for this people or lift a cry up, a cry or prayer for them.
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Don't intercede with me. I'm not going to hear you. You know things have gotten pretty far down the apostasy road.
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God basically says, no point in praying for those people. I'm not going to relent, they're doomed.
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Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the father kindles fire and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven.
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It's a family affair here, right? And they pour out drink offerings to other gods in order to provoke me to anger.
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It is I whom they provoke, declares Yahweh. And here's the important bit. You listen to the liberals and listen, you know, it's just so unbecoming of you to really believe that God has anger, that God has wrath, you know, and this is how they talk, right?
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I need a latte. And so, you know, you're going to note that God does have anger.
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God has wrath. But you're going to note here, who's the instigator? We are.
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You keep poking God in the eye and provoking him to anger. He is patient, he is long -suffering, he's slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.
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He does part in iniquity. And you'll note that this chapter, you know, it's not just about God provoking him to anger. It begins with God saying, repent, amend your ways, you can stay.
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I'll forgive you. But this later part of the discourse in the same chapter is that they are continuing to provoke
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God to anger by casting his commandments behind them and teaching their children to participate in their idolatry.
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It is I whom they provoke, declares Yahweh. Is it not themselves to their own shame?
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Therefore, thus says Yahweh Elohim, behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place.
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Upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground, it will burn and it will not be quenched.
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Now, note here that when he's talking about fire in this way and a fire that is not being quenched, you can see that the destruction of Jerusalem, which will come, and the fire that will burn the city is then being used by God as a type and shadow of the burning that will never be quenched, and that's talking about the fires of hell.
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So thus says Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel, add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat the flesh.
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For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices, but this command
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I gave them, obey my voice and I will be your God and you shall be my people.
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And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you. But you did not obey or incline your ear, but walked in their own counsels, in your own counsels, and the stubbornness of their own evil hearts went backwards and not forward.
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Well, you're going to note here, following your own counsels, that's going to lead you down the wrong path.
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So when a church organization says, we've gotten together, we've discussed it, we've prayed about it, and we've come to the conclusion that polyamory is a completely legitimate thing for Christians, and that bank robbery is a completely valid vocation.
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If you're good at it, then the Lord bless you in your endeavor. It's nonsense. And you'll note that human counsels have this amazing ability to err and to collectively get each other's backs so that they can wander away from what
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God says. Again, one of my favorite websites in all of the world is despair .com.
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If you've never been there, in the corporate world there's these motivational posters that just end up in corporate buildings, and they're just terrible.
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But despair .com takes those and just flips them on their head. And so one of my favorite ones, it has a photograph of all these hands together in a huddle, and it says, committees, because none of us is as stupid as all of us.
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Great. He's just absolutely correct. And here, counsels.
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We're going to counsel each other, and we're going to walk in. Again, I keep coming back to, what was the church council meeting when somebody said,
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I make a motion that we open up a male cult prostitute brothel at the temple?
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Yeah, well, that sounds really, really pious. That's a great idea. I'm very pious.
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Do I have a second on that? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's pray about it. You only have to want to say, yes, we're going with that.
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Yeah, yeah, that's right. Right.
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One of my favorite examples of that, it was a commercial that only ran once. It was during either a
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Super Bowl, and it was for Nike. It was a woman running in the woods wearing
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Nike tennis shoes. But the scene, it was kind of dark and gloomy and ominous.
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So, it sounded like that she was saving her own life because she was wearing
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Nike shoes because she was being pursued. Oh, wow. And yet, that was presented in a boardroom, everybody said, yes, they nodded their heads, we're going with that.
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Right. Yeah, commercials, yeah. You can always tell the difference between a commercial created by a
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Fortune 500 corporation, as opposed to an upstart entrepreneurial endeavor.
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Because in the entrepreneurial lifecycle, startup companies, they have a flame and they have a freedom.
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All right. And I think back when Purple Mattress first came out, their commercials were an absolute scream, with Goldilocks and the
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Three Bears. It was just hilarious. But they've grown to the point where they've become super safe now with their commercials.
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But that's all part of the corporate lifecycle. So, an entrepreneurial endeavor, usually they stand out because they're breaking all the rules.
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But at some point, the corporate world sets in and bureaucracy and HR take over and suck all the fun out of it.
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When I was in the corporate world, I thrived in startups and I literally languished in anything that got past that corporate phase.
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I couldn't stand it. I liked the freedom too much. But that's a whole other topic.
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All right. Coming back here then, they did not obey or incline their ear. They walked in their own councils and the stubbornness of their evil hearts and they went backward, not forward.
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From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants, the prophets, to them day after day.
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And yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear. They stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.
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So, you shall speak to all these words to them, but they will not listen to you.
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I feel bad for Jeremiah. Part of his gig is that he's going to preach the word of the Lord and God's told him, they ain't going to listen to you.
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Well, what's the point? They might even kill you, Jeremiah. They're not going to listen to you.
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So, you shall call to them. They will not answer you. You shall say to them, this is the nation that did not obey the voice of Yahweh, their
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God. Did not accept discipline. Truth has perished. It is cut off from their lips.
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See, I just feel like taking those words out of context and putting them on Twitter. Truth has perished,
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Jeremiah 728. Maybe link it to some articles out there.
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Just see what people say. But is that not true in our day? It's really hard to find that truth stuff.
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All right, Rachel says, I was just thinking about this at 3 a .m. when I was awake, about if God chose
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Israel and he's the one that does the work to save us, then why was Israel so sinful that they wouldn't repent during the times of Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel?
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I'm currently reading in Ezekiel. Ezekiel's a tough hoe, by the way. So, the idea here is that you'll note that this is where we have a big difference with the reformed.
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The reformed will sit there and go, well, the reason why they didn't repent is because they were reprobate. And God didn't will to their repentance.
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And the Lucent sits there and goes, no, it's not God's will that any should perish. Repeat after me.
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It's not God's will that any should perish. So, we maintain two truths in paradox.
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One, God wills that everybody be saved, and everybody who is saved is saved by an act of God.
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Next part, everyone who perishes, it's their own fault. So, Rachel, when you ask the question, you know, this is a great question.
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And the best way I can describe it is that this is actually laid out for us quite clearly.
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Let me find our text here. All right, here's our text,
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Acts chapter 13. Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos.
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They came to Perga and Pamphylia, and John left them and returned to Jerusalem.
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But they went on from Perga and came to Antioch and Pisidia. So, this is in modern day Turkey. And on the
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Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue, sat down, and after reading from the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them saying, brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.
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So, Paul stood up, motioning with his hands. He said, men of Israel, you who fear God, listen, the
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God of this people, Israel, chose our fathers, made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt. With uplifted arm, he led them out of it.
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And for about 40 years, he put up with them in the wilderness. And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance.
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All this took about 450 years. And after that, he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. And then they asked for a king, and God gave them
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Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for 40 years. And when they had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said,
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I have found in David the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all of my will. Of this man's offspring,
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God has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus, as he has promised. Before his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.
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And as John was finishing his course, he said, what do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but behold, after me one is coming, the sandals of whose feet
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I am not worthy to untie. So note, this is an evangelistic sermon. He's preaching Christ. Christ as the fulfillment of the
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Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah, reminding them of the things that had taken place in their lifetime, short, just a few years earlier, regarding John the
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Baptist and the fact that Jesus was baptized. And so note, Paul continues with this evangelistic sermon, brothers, sons of the family of Abraham and those among you who fear
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God. To us has been sent the message of the salvation. Those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every
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Sabbath. They didn't understand him, even though they read him every Sabbath. They fulfilled them by condemning
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Jesus. And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed.
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And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, laid him in a tomb, but God raised him from the dead.
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And for many days, he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.
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And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he's fulfilled to us, their children, by raising
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Jesus also, as it is written in the second Psalm, you are my son, today I have begotten you. Now, I'm going to note something,
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Rachel, here. Qualitatively, there's nothing different about the response of some of these
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Jews to the Jews of Jeremiah's time. There's qualitatively no difference.
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So you're going to note, God has made his appeal through his prophets. His prophets are speaking his word.
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What's the problem? The problem is, is that some of these people are resisting the work of the
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Holy Spirit. They are refusing to repent. The fault lies with them in that regard, and you'll see it in the text.
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And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he's spoken in this way, I'll give you the holy and sure blessing of David.
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Therefore, he says also, in another Psalm, you will not let your holy one see corruption.
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For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, he fell asleep. He was laid with his fathers, and he saw corruption.
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But he whom God raised did not see corruption. So let it be known to you, and here's the best bit, that brothers, that through this man, the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
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And by him, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
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So beware, lest what is said in the prophets should come about. Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish.
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I'm doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you. So note here, he's basically, he doesn't leave off with, now everybody, close your eyes and bow your head.
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Somebody's off strumming on the keyboard, just as I am, without a plea. Now, if you'd like to ask Jesus into your heart, you know, then go ahead and raise that hand right now.
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I see that hand. I see that hand. I'm going to lead everybody in the Lord's prayer. He's not doing that.
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He leaves off with a firm warning. Beware. Okay. Then the text continues.
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So as they went out, the people begged, things might be told them the next Sabbath. And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many
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Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke to them, urged them to continue in the grace of God.
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So here we got a bunch of people who are believers now. They trust in Jesus and their urge to continue in the grace of God.
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The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and they began to contradict what was spoken by Paul.
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And they were reviling him. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly saying, it was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you.
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And watch where the fault lies. Since you thrust it aside and you judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we're turning to the
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Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us saying, I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the end of the earth.
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So whose fault is it that they persist in unbelief and rank ideology?
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Theirs. But at the same time, everybody who's saved is saved by a mighty act of God, the
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Holy Spirit, who regenerates and converts. So how is it that some believe when they hear the word and others persist in unbelief?
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I couldn't even begin to tell you. Because the scriptures don't give me the answer to that question.
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In fact, that question itself has a name theologically and it's called the Crux Theologorum, which means the theologian's cross.
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And I can tell you this definitively, every single theologian who's tried to solve that conundrum, because there are no biblical texts to solve it with, they have erred greatly and done a lot of violence and damage to the body of Christ by trying to solve that the
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Crux Theologorum. If you don't have a biblical text to tell you, you keep your mouth shut, all right?
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Where God speaks, you speak. Where God is silent, zip it and zip it good. Sorry, child of the 70s and 80s.
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All right, one of the questions that came out is, in Jeremiah 7 18 mentions the
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Queen of Heaven. Could you explain? Yeah, sure. Queen of Heaven is one of the titles for one of the false deities.
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And so one of the things that the Egyptians were very known for, and Gnosticism in general was known for, was their worship of what's called the
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Starry Host. And the Queen of Heaven is one of the great astrological
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Gnostic deities. And you'll note here that one of the fundamental concepts of ancient
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Gnosticism is this belief that you have to have both gods and goddesses.
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And so when they're offering sacrifices and baking cakes to the
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Queen of Heaven, the fundamental pagan and Gnostic belief is that God, Yahweh, needs a consort.
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And so they're doing that because they believe that Asherah, or one of the false deities of the
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Starry Host of Heaven of the Egyptians, is the rightful wife slash consort of Yahweh.
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And it's just such a mess. And notice Yahweh doesn't say, thanks, my wife was really hungry.
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She likes those little cakes. Yahweh doesn't say that. Okay, the
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Bennetts. I know what a Calvinist would say. They believe because they were predestined and elected.
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The problem is that there is no biblical text that says anybody's predestined to hell. Not a single text. And it's not, if there are explicit texts that say it's not
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God's will that any should perish. If you perish eternally, it is your own fault.
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You have no one to blame but yourself. And you are going to hell against God's express will to save you.
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That's the conundrum that we face. All right, good questions, good comments.
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Let's keep going on. All right, so truth is perished. It's cut off from their lips.
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So cut off your hair, cast it away, raise a lamentation on the bare heights. Yeah, by the way, baldness.
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If you cut your hair off, that's a sign that you're in deep distress. For the
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Lord is rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. The sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares
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Yahweh. They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name to defile it.
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Okay, has anything changed? Okay, you just look at the vast swath of liberal denominations and crazy bizarre churches, all right, and sit there and go, there's nothing new under the sun.
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Nothing, nothing. They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in fire.
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Now this is an allusion to the deity that the Bible always calls
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Molech. All right, have you ever heard the word Molech? I've said it before and I will continue to highlight this fact that anybody who worshiped did not call that deity by the name
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Molech. Molech is the Hebrew word for shame. Melech is the
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Hebrew word for king. So the worshipers of that deity, they would call him
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Melech, to say he was the king, all right, and the way the sacrifices worked, basically it was one of the most horrific forms of infanticide ever.
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They had this ginormous bronze statue of this false deity and his hands were out like this and they would basically build a bonfire under his arms and under his hands to the point where the bronze would begin to glow red and then they would take infant children and put them in the arms of Molech as the sacrifice.
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That's how they did it. So God's here talking about burning your sons and daughters in the fire, that's what this is referring to.
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And you'll note then in Scripture, Scripture mocks Melech.
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The Scripture refuses to call him by his real name. God always calls him
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Molech, never calls him Melech, all right. You know, well that's mocking, that's a mocking spirit.
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Yeah, well God's mocking you in your stupidity, all right. Yeah, you'll note
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God never shows respect to false deities, ever. One of my favorite stories is when the
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Ark of the Covenant was captured and taken to Ashkelon and taken into the
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Temple of Dagon, who is basically Ariel's father from the
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Little Mermaid, you know, half fish, half man kind of deity. And the next day after they had put the
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Ark of the Covenant inside the Temple of Dagon, poor Dagon was on his face. God just basically said, you know, just knocked him right over.
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So they lifted up poor Dagon and they put him back up. And the next day, boop, he was kicked over.
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And the poor guy, you know, he lost his arms and so he became stumpy, you know.
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So God showed no respect, no respect for Dagon. And God shows no respect for Molech either.
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And so this is an allusion then to the Valley of Hinnom where the sacrifices to Molech would take place.
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And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, which
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I did not command, nor did it come to my mind. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, when it will no more be called
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Topheth or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. For they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere.
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And the dead bodies of these people will be food for the birds of the air. By the way, the Valley of Hinnom to this day now is a cemetery.
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It's just, you know, full of dead bodies. And the dead bodies of these people will be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.
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None will frighten them away. And I will silence in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of Mer, the voice of Gladness, the voice of Bridegroom, the voice of the
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Bride. For the land shall become a waste." All right, let's see here.
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Let's add a little bit more. How are we doing on time? Good. What a change. All right. So at that time, declares
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Yahweh, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs.
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They'll be spread before the sun and the moon and all the hosts of heaven. Their tombs are going to be defiled even.
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You know, their bodies are going to be defiled. They will be spread before the sun and the moon, all the hosts of heaven, which they've loved and served, which they've gone after, which they've sought after and worshipped.
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So you're going to note that oftentimes when God acts in judgment, His judgments have a little bit of a zing of irony to them.
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All right, you want to worship the starry host of heaven? I'm going to have your grave defiled. And rather than you having a good
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Jewish burial and resting in peace, I'm going to take your bones. I'm going to scatter them before the host of heaven.
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You know, you love them so much? Fine. Your grave is going to be defiled and the stars of heaven can look at your bones.
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All right. They shall not be gathered. They will not be buried. They'll be as dung on the surface of the ground.
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Yikes. Okay. Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family and all the places where I've driven them, declares the
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Lord of armies. You shall say to them, thus says Yahweh, when men fall, do they not rise again?
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If one turns away, does he not return? Why then has this people turned away and perpetual backsliding?
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They hold fast to deceit. All right.
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Hang on a second here. I don't normally go to this website. All right.
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Hold fast to deceit. Check this one out. Protestia .com.
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All right. Do a little bit of work here. Let me see if I can find the article
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I was looking for. I hate all the ads on here. Hmm. Let's see here.
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I'm going to do a quick search for Kat Kerr. Let's see here.
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Let's do this. All right. Here we go. Okay. Kat Kerr claims nowhere does the
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Bible say prophets must apologize for false prophecies. Okay. Let's see here.
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She recently made a trip to heaven, she claims. In that trip to heaven, apparently there's a wild west portion of heaven.
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Did you know that? Let's see here. Let's see.
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This woman's just bought. Here it is. Charismatic prophetess reveals that there's an old west in heaven and John Wayne films movies there.
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Charismatic prophetess reveals existence of jello land in heaven and chocolate waterfalls in a candy house.
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I don't know. Let's see here.
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Apparently the Trinity has physical bodies in heaven. This woman has millions of views on her videos.
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Charismatic thinks that she's just the bee's knees. I had one person try to explain to me that she has a special bloodline and that explains her prophetic gifting.
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Okay. Yeah. They hold fast to deceit,
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I think is a good way of describing what's happening nowadays, right? And they refuse to return.
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They've paid attention and listened, but they've not spoken rightly. No man relents of his evil saying, what have
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I done? Everyone turns to his own course like a horse plunging headlong into battle. Even the stork in the heavens knows her time.
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The turtle dove swallow and crane keep the time of their coming, but my people know not the rules of Yahweh.
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How can you say we are wise and the law of Yahweh is with us, but behold the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.
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The wise men shall be put to shame. They shall be dismayed and taken. Behold, they have rejected the word of Yahweh.
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So what wisdom is in them? So you'll note that scribes, the scribes of the ancient world, these are people, the best learned among them, the book scribblers of the day, right?
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Even they are not wise while claiming to be wise. They claim to be wise. They became fools.
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Therefore, I will give their wives to others, their fields to conquerors, because from the least to greatest, everyone is greedy for unjust gain.
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Sow your seed offering right now. Prove to God that you have faith and he'll give you a breakthrough, right?
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And right now, if you act now, I will personally bless with my phlegm from COVID -19 a hanky that you can take to those who are sick and dying, and God will heal them of all of their diseases.
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Thus saith the rose, bro. And here's the thing, except for the
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COVID -19 part, there are guys who are doing that, right? Blessing prayer hankies and charging people to send them around the world, right?
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Everyone is greedy for unjust gain. From prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely.
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They've healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace.
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Wait a second, does that sound like a prophecy regarding the end of the world? They will be saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace, and when sudden destruction will come on them suddenly.
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You see the theme? It's the same. So, were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
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No, they were not at all ashamed, all right? They didn't know how to blush, all right?
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When Kenneth Copeland blew COVID -19 away and declared the end of the pandemic in March of 2020, 12 noon, by the way, 12 noon, a certain day of March, it's over, it's over.
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Did he blush? No, not at all. You know what he did?
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He just took those videos off his YouTube channel. They're not there anymore. He didn't blush or anything. Yeah, yeah.
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So, it's a cultural expectation that you're supposed to, quote, respect other people's religions.
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Except for Christianity, that can't be respected. So, this is a cultural norm, okay?
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But that doesn't mean that you set out to intentionally be as repugnant as possible.
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So, when somebody is believing falsely and they're trusting in false words, or they're committing abominations and saying that the
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Lord is blessing this, you say, have you not read? Take them back to the prophets.
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Take them back to the scriptures. The Bible is so clear on this. Well, you got to remember in the
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Old Testament, they weren't allowed to have mixed fabrics and eat shellfish. Therefore, we can do whatever we want.
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That's not an argument, but that's always the argument they put forward, right? So, you rebuke them firmly with the
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Word of God and tell them to repent. You're believing in false words. You're under a delusion.
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This is a deception, right? And you'll note that Jeremiah gives us some language here, you know?
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You really believe that there's a wild west town up in heaven? Okay, right?
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Yeah. So, they were ashamed when they committed abomination. No, were they ashamed?
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Not at all. They didn't know how to blush. Therefore, they shall fall among the fallen. When I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says
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Yahweh. When I would gather them, declares Yahweh, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree.
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Even the leaves are withered, and what I gave them has passed away from them. Now, listen carefully to this, because this is a cross -reference to one of the more difficult passages of Scripture to understand.
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So, Jesus, you know, during Holy Week, He sees a fig tree with no figs on it.
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He curses it, and it dies. And everyone goes, what on earth is that about?
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Listen again. When I would gather them, declares Yahweh, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree.
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Even the leaves are withered, and what I gave them has passed away from them. Jesus' actions invoke this very obscure text from Jeremiah, which shows that Jesus cursing that fig tree was
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Him saying, miraculously, that I came here expecting to see my word having produced fruit in you, and there was no fruit.
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And therefore, I'm going to, this place is going to pass away. And it did pass away with the sacking of Jerusalem in 70
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AD, but the ultimate proof of their lack of fruit is them killing God by crucifying
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Him. So, the idea here, Scripture interprets Scripture. When you take that very obscure thing of Christ cursing the fig tree, connecting it to a text like this, where God is speaking in judgment and what the expectation is, then you start to get a fuller picture of how that text works, because Christ in action did this.
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I came, I expected to see figs here, there were no figs, tree dead, I curse you, you're gone.
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And that's the whole point. Does silencing the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride refer to Jesus and His church?
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No. Louise, in that context, what God was talking about, so if you remember one of the things that Jesus says, that on the day of His return, just like on the day of the flood, people were marrying and giving in marriage, could you imagine actually scheduling your wedding for the day of the flood?
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Okay, you know, that would have really messed up the wedding cake, I'm thinking. But, you know, in understatement, but the point is, is that the picture is this.
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God is saying, repent, repent, disaster is coming, I'm going to act in judgment, repent, even now
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I'll forgive you, you can be saved. And people are, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, I've got a wedding to go to,
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I'm planning, my wedding is next week, what do you mean there's going to be a flood? And so you'll note that one of the consistent things is, is that despite the fact that God is calling to, sending prophets, sending messengers, preaching the word, telling them to repent so they don't have to face
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His judgment, they not only don't listen, they've got a party to go to, you know.
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And so they're otherwise occupied with merrymaking and good times and stuff like that.
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And so God saying, I'm going to bring that to an end, is basically saying, yeah, yeah, you guys were too busy to listen to me because you had a party to go to, well,
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I'm going to end all the parties, you know, they're not going to come to a screech and halt, right? All right, all right,
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Kat Kerr, never take anyone serious with bubblegum pink hair, uh -huh, how on earth would anyone listen to her?
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Answer, Rachel, strong delusion, okay? The reason why people listen to Kat Kerr is because they are under a strong delusion, they are under a punishment from God, and this should sober us up, because I'd be,
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I'd really think that human beings are generally that stupid, that is a supernatural stupidity.
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It's stupid natural, right? Yeah, Barb, sure, all right, yeah, special request, strong delusion, text on its way, 2
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Thessalonians chapter 2. I'll put it in its context, and this will be the last thing we'll do for our class today.
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Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the
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Lord has already come. In other words, don't listen to the left behind books. So let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the apostasy, the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called
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God or object of worship, so that he takes his place, his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be
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God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And you know that what is restraining him now, so that he may be revealed in his time, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.
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Only he who now restrains it will do so until he's out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the
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Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. Now, verse 9, the coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan, with all power and false signs and wonders.
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All right, that's the whole thing, that's the whole shtick of TBN, false signs, false wonders.
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I mean, there ain't nobody really getting healed in nothing, right? And with all wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved, therefore
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God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
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So I think a good way to think about this, you know, you look at Kat Kerr, you look at what's happening to women's sports,
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I don't think human beings are this stupid. I mean, it's so dumb on its face, it's ridiculous.
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The only explanation that I can come up with is this biblical explanation is that God is acting in judgment and sending such a strong delusion on them that it is a sign of his impending wrath, his impending judgment.
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This is a judgment on the church. So you look at Kat Kerr who's, you know, running around saying that John Wayne shoots
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Westerns up in Westernville up in heaven and that there's gumdrops and lollipop, you know, waterfalls and all this kind of goofy stuff and you sit there, how can anyone listen to this?
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Answer, the people who are listening to this are under God's judgment. They are believing something so patently stupid that the only explanation for it is that God is judging them.
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It's that strong. Sobers you up.
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All right. Okay, glad that no one sneezed on Stephen Ellis.
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the good news. All right, we're going to end here and Lord willing, we'll see you all next time.