Privilege To Pray

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The third stanza of that song we just heard says, My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought,
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My sin, not in part, but the whole, Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.
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Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. I was thinking, that sounded so beautiful,
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I can't wait to get to heaven where I can sing as beautifully as the flute was just played on the piano.
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If you don't know the behind -the -scenes background for Spafford's tune, after he lost his children at sea, he took a ride across the
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Atlantic Ocean, and the captain said, this is about the place where your children perished. And he sat down and he wrote that song,
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It is well with my soul. And how can your soul be well after you lose your children? When you know you don't have to bear your sins anymore.
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Praise the Lord, O my soul. Well, it is great to be back here at Bethlehem Bible Church.
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Thankful for the men who have preached the word in my absence, and for those ladies ministering to the ladies as well.
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You know, you go out of town and you visit other churches, and then you come back here and you think, our church isn't as bad as I thought it was.
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I got an email this week from Nate, I believe. And Nate said, you should have seen some of the churches that I've been at.
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And I thought, same with me. You go someplace and you think, just preach the word of God.
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Pastors aren't called to be orators or persuasive with words of wisdom. They are called to preach the text.
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Whenever I want to get really riled up, I just turn on 102 .5, Sunday mornings, the classical station in Boston.
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And instead of classical music, they have, I think it's, I won't even shame them by mentioning their name, but it's some liberal church in Boston.
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And I listened to the sermon. And I said, I just today want to hear the word Jesus, sin, or the
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Bible quoted in the 15 -minute sermon, and I heard none of those things. Just somebody stand up and say,
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I've determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him, what? Crucified.
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We serve a risen Savior and He needs to be proclaimed. And if our focus isn't upon Him, no wonder we're in the doldrums.
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Because when we look to ourselves, we don't see much, because we're still, although redeemed, we have that sin dwelling in us.
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And with too much introspection, things aren't good. And so today for worship, we come looking to the
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Lord and Savior and give Him praise and ascribe to Him wisdom and sovereignty and strength.
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And even now, beloved, may I remind you, as you listen to the sermon, as the word is preached, it is an act of what?
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Worship. You worship by listening. If you have an ear to hear, then you hear what God says through His word, not because of me.
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You get to know me well enough, you realize how frail and feeble I am. But the word of the
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Lord does not perish, and it does its work in those, Paul said to the church at Thessalonica, in those who believe.
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And just imagine, God loves us enough that He won't let us stay like we are. He says, here's perfection, my son, perfect perfection, the
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God -man, God incarnate. And my work's not done until you're glorified like Him, but on earth we'll continually be made more and more like Christ as you look upon the word of God.
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How do you have a better marriage? Sit underneath the teaching of God's word and study God's word. How do you work for your boss?
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I just saw somebody poke their husband. Study God's word. The key to Christian life is not here's five principles that work this week, it's look to the
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Lord. And even if work caves in, you'll still see God high and lifted up, and He's the one that deserves our attention.
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I think we have a good church. For those of you, by the way, wanting me to finish Ephesians today, we'll do that next week,
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Lord willing. But you know, you go out of town, you have some things on your heart, and so today's not exposition per se, it will be textually based, it will be biblically based, but it's not in Ephesians.
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And I was asking myself the question, are we a great church? I think we're a good church, but I don't think we're a great church.
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Sometimes people critique the church a little bit, and the men who are going to seminary have critiqued the church. Here's what we do well, and here's what we don't do well.
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Almost sheepishly, they show me their papers to say, well, you know, I want to be part of the solution, and these are some of the things
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I don't think we do well. And I said to one of the guys, if that's as short as your list is, you should see my list. I mean,
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I know we have not arrived. And if five years ago was ground zero, what do we do with the church?
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And so here's my philosophy. Healthy sheep reproduce. So how can you go out and begin to evangelize like mad?
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Well, we're not that great in evangelism, so you pour the ministries from the women's ministry at Dallas Brown and the men's ministry here led by the pulpit.
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You pour in the word of God, you teach morning, noon, and night, you teach the Bible every time you can, hence
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Bethlehem Bible Church, and you teach the Bible, and God begins to grow the foundation, and as the church grows in maturation, then the church is healthy, and then they reproduce, they evangelize more.
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And so I think we've got that first one. I don't want to say we've got it down, we've got it wired, we're perfect in that, but I think we all realize that the foundation that stands is
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Christ and His word through His apostolic messengers in the Old and New Testament. So we realize our foundation, and I think the
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Lord has blessed us. Don't you think so? With the amount of people that teach the word here, women, children, adults, men,
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I can't believe it, I've never been part of a church like this where I think we have now 10 men that I can send to different churches to go preach on Sunday.
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It's unheard of. I don't know how many people we have. Please, if you really want to rub me the wrong way, say, how large is our church?
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Have you done a head count lately? A head count, shmed count. I mean, I don't want to count. I don't want to know how many people
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I'm responsible for on the day of judgment. No. It's not about how many people come.
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You preach God's word and the church will grow, maybe by numbers, but certainly in maturation. And so you keep preaching, you keep preaching, you keep preaching, and you say,
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Lord, we fall short, but let's build on that foundation. If you had to answer this question, next to the word of God being preached at this church and other churches,
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I think we do that, we're good at that. We know, we understand. God has illumined our minds so we understand the sufficiency of Scripture, the authority of Scripture, the inerrancy of Scripture, the infallibility of Scripture.
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Scripture is central as Scripture proclaims Christ. What's the next building block of that foundation to make a good church a great church?
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What's another essential that we need to build upon here at the church that I don't think we've arrived at? And by the way, this isn't going to be a scolding message.
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Oh, how could you? This is going to be an exhortation message. And even if it was scolding, imagine 1
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Corinthians, how many chapters? 16. 2 Corinthians, how many chapters?
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13. 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians were written to the same church. You put 16 chapters and 13 chapters together, that's how many chapters?
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29 chapters written to a church to say, get with it. And why does God do that through Paul?
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He does that because he loves him. It's not an exhortation of how could you or how I can't believe that.
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It's an exhortation of we love you and we're going to give you God's word so you're corrected. So your mind thinks properly.
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You think this way, but you repent and now your mind thinks differently according to scripture. It's out of love. And so today, this is not scolding.
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This is not how could you. This is, if God is going to have this church in New England, don't you want this church to be great?
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I don't wanna be great. Well, I do. My pride says, Mike, you wanna be great. But I know biblically and theologically that the greatness should be shown through the bride of Christ here at the church.
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And so I want this church to be great. And we've got the foundation of the preaching of the word of God. And so what would you guess the second foundation must be?
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Fellowship, I think fellowship is good. Friendship, social calendars, coffee house.
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These things we all can do. Italian night. By the way, you need to come tonight because we had
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Indian night last quarter and we have the Indian food here and the going food over here.
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I mean, the American food over here. And I thought this table would have nothing and this table would have everything.
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You know, American chop suey, that kind of stuff. It was balanced out. And we had a great time of fellowship and then heard the word of God.
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And so please come tonight for Italian night and fellowship. Well, is that the building block after the word of God?
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What is essential to the church that we do, but we need to do better. And I want to encourage us to do that. Here's what
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I don't think we do that well. I don't think we understand the value of praying to God for great things.
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I think we understand someone's got a toe that's infected. Better pray for that. I think we understand.
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And by the way, I don't even make light of this. I have it in my notes and I've forgotten. I leave out of town and then we have the church attendance grows.
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We have Lydia who was born a couple of weeks when I was gone. And then yesterday to Tom and Felicia, Claire was born in Emerson hospital, nine pounds, 10 ounces.
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Church attendance is growing. We want to pray that the church grows. We want them to be saved. We want them to be added to the church.
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And we know God, thank you for those gifts. But how about praying to God for things that only he could do.
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So then when it happens, we all stand there and say, wow. I'm going to give you a biblical rationale, but why don't we turn to James chapter four, please.
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As I want to talk about preaching, no, praying to God for great things.
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We're going to start a new ministry. It's going to start this Wednesday, by the way, here at Bethlehem Bible Church at 6 .15.
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We have other prayer ministries, but at 6 .15 in the morning here at the church, Steve, I'm picking up my wife at the airport.
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So please lead that up. Otherwise I'd be here. 6 .15 this Sunday, we're going to come and we're going to pray for things that only
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God could do at this church and through us. And by the way, we need it. There are families in chaos.
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There are kids who are out of whack. There are friends of yours that need to be saved. Well, I'd like to have this church be a beacon in New England with a
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Bible Institute and maybe a seminary. There's all kinds of things we could pray for. More baptisms, not because we have a number, but because I want us to preach the gospel and see people saved.
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And then we come and rejoice and say, wow, God still saves people. So on Wednesdays at 6 .15, man or woman, you can come.
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We're just going to have four rules of this prayer meeting. These are the four rules. And you're already saying it's legalistic.
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Well, remember it's not legalism. If the pastor asks for something and you can't show me a Bible verse that says you can't do that.
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So these are the four rules. Rule number one, there'll be no sharing prayer requests. God knows our request.
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How many times have you been to a prayer meeting and it's an hour meeting and for 35 minutes you share? No prayer request given.
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Number two, you can't pray for yourself. You can pray for other people, but real love, the body loves one another, you have to pray for someone else.
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Number three, you have to pray for something that is so great that only God could do. So when that God does it, we all stand there and say,
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God, you're to be praised. Holy and righteous are you. Oh God, you're so wonderful. That might be salvation, that might be a variety of other things.
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And number four, if you are physically able, you have to be on your knees and on your face before this
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God whom we are entreating these great things. Now, you can pray in all kinds of ways, but sometimes your body matches, your soul and your spirit kind of match your body.
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And so we're just gonna get on our faces in the prayer room and we're just gonna pray from 6 .15 to 7 .15 and I want you to be there.
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I want you to be there to say, God, it's not about programs and fun and being busy, that's all part of the church, but we've got the word of God down.
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And I think now the second layer is we need the praying of the saints, not only individually, and I'm glad for that, not only in your
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Bible studies at home groups, I'm glad for that, not only with Jack and Bill and their men's group,
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I'm glad for all that, but we need to have more corporate prayer where we beseech this great
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God. And if you take a look at James chapter four, it's very interesting.
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He says at the very end, James is as great sermon as it were from the apostle
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James. And after he talks about lust and murder, and he says, you do not have because you do not ask.
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We wanna ask God to do great things through us. He's going to have to do it because we're not great in and of ourselves.
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Listen to what the Baptist preacher from London said last century. Brethren, we shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians.
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When's the last time you came to a prayer meeting for the church? Sometimes once a quarter we'll have them on Sunday nights.
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Dare I say that when we have Sunday night prayer, do you think attendance increases or decreases? What would you guess?
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It decreases. I don't want you to be afraid to pray and say, well,
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I've got to pray in King James English or they think I won't be spiritual. We already know you're not spiritual, so come and pray.
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I'm not spiritual either. You know, it's like, can you imagine my kids, you know, Gracie at four coming to daddy and I'm not gonna really listen to her or talk to her if she kind of has kind of broken four -year -old grammar.
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She's just talking to her dad and I want to honor that and I wanna talk to her. And Luke's not gonna get mad as a seven -year -old and say,
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I can't believe Haley's talking baby. Gracie's talking baby talk. No, we love one another.
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The object of our prayer is God, not how do we match up to the next guy. By the way, I should probably give a fifth rule, no preach praying.
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Dear God, you know these other people showed up at about 6 .15 and I was here at 6 .10 early. Oh God, convict them.
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You know how you do preach praying? Preach praying's only good for Easter and Christmas or if you get asked to pray at some unbeliever's house, then preach pray all you want.
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But at prayer meetings, God Almighty, you're the God who has a mighty right arm. You're the
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God, the Bible says, who answers prayer. You're the God who wants to hear from his people and hear through his apostolic messenger,
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James. He says in his own divine way, we understand the sovereignty of God, yet he says, as we believe the sovereignty of God has both the end and the means, here are the means.
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You do not have because you do not ask. By the way, on that note, could God be waiting to do great things or could he be promoting us to say,
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I want you to pray because through your prayers, I'm going to do great things. Scratch the waiting thing, I didn't mean that.
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But God is motivating the saints to pray and through those prayers,
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God has decreed, I'll do great things. Acts 2 .42 says, they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and what?
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Prayer. Colossians 4 .2, devote yourself to your work. Your career, devote yourself to your hobby.
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I got a road bike yesterday, pedal bike. I'm all excited about it.
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A couple of nights last week, I couldn't sleep thinking about it. I researched the kind, I was riding mountain bikes in California and oh,
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I need to get this kind and that kind and there's all these details. I just want a road bike and it's derailleurs and it's saddles and it's seats and Bob Dunn is telling me, don't call it a shirt, it's called a jersey.
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Don't call it a seat, it's called a saddle. I mean, my mind is just full and I took a ride yesterday.
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Steve called me to make sure I didn't die because it was so hot and I'm going to have to watch myself because here's how
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I do it. Well, I went for a two and a half hour ride yesterday and just had time to think and pray.
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Look at the glory of God and his creation. Now eventually, I'll get to that but yesterday, I didn't think of anything except does this one release the tension or does this one, where are the brakes again?
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What to do? I'm trying to figure out my little computer on board there. I said to my son, I got a computer on my new bike and he was imagining this
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Dell. Wow, dad, that is awesome. But if I'm not careful,
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I'm going to devote myself to something else. Pleasure's fine, relaxation's fine, vacation's fine.
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But if I ask you, what are you devoted to? Are we as a church body even remotely devoted to prayer and if not,
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God, we repent and we show up on Wednesday. If you can only make it for a half hour, fine. If you need to come a little earlier and just pray on your own, fine.
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It's not a legalism thing. It's not, oh God, we have to, but God says, well, yes, pray, but we get to.
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Prayer's a get to. Psalm 99 .6, they called upon Yahweh, God, his personal name and he snubbed them.
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He answered them, it says. And there's something about corporate prayer. You read Donald Whitney's book,
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Spiritual Disciplines of the Church and he gives several examples. Here's one, in 1727 in Saxony, they began the
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Lord's Watch, a church -wide prayer meeting where people coming at different times would pray morning, noon, and night, 24 hours a day and they kept up that for 100 years.
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By 1792, 65 years into it, 300 missionaries had gone out from that group that had prayed every day together.
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That's amazing to me. How about sinners in the hands of an angry God? When Jonathan Edwards preached that sermon at Northampton, Massachusetts, what was the response by his congregation?
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Falling in the aisles, repentance, crying to God. Oh, just another sermon by Pastor Edwards.
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He went down to Enfield, Connecticut, right there on the border, and he preached that sermon with the sermon title from Ezekiel, Their Feet Will Slide in Due Time.
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Revival started. Salvation of many souls. No one could figure out it's the same sermon, the same pastor, the same
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Bible text. And unbeknownst to everyone else, the church had been spending the whole night, the night before the sermon, in prayer because they were concerned for their community.
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I love that. Would you find it odd if you had children and they only came to you one at a time, alone?
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There's nothing biblical about this, but I can just see all the kids coming at once. And so all the local churches, we come to the
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Lord and say, God, do something great in our midst. We need to see you high and lifted up. We struggle with the world and sin and self, and God, do something great.
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If you look at the text, you have not because you do not ask. Our own self -sufficiency, our own efforts, our own determination, kind of the
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Marlboro men, rugged individualism. We don't have to ask. It's our own sweat, it's our own ingenuity.
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I wonder if the Holy Spirit left our church today, what would happen to it? I hope it would fall apart, don't you? Still running fine.
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Attendance is up, building fund is up, and cash is up. ABCs of Christianity.
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Buildings, tenants, and cash. And if you notice the text there, it says, ask, and that's the present tense, that's continual.
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Should be translated like this if we expand it. You do not have because you don't keep on asking.
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And it carries the idea of pleading, begging, imploring. Just like when Jesus said elsewhere in Matthew 7, ask and it shall be what?
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Given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be open to you.
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Whoever asks, receives. And he who seeks, finds. And to him who knocks, it shall be open. Or what man is there among you where his son shall ask for a loaf, and you'll give him a stone.
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Or if he shall ask for a fish, you'll give him a snake. He won't do that, will he? By the way, that's one of the most amazing thoughts about depravity of man.
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That even in our desire to give good things to our children, there's still sin that dwells in us.
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But if a sinful father will give things to his kids, how much more will God the Father give to his children? It says in verse three, you ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives.
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That's why we're not gonna ask for ourselves in this prayer meeting. We're gonna ask for other people. We don't wanna spend it on our pleasures.
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Turn your Bibles to Hebrews chapter four for a minute. And again, if you want an exposition, probably should get on the internet or get an
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MP3 or something. This is kind of just from my heart. Hebrews chapter four.
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I've said it once before and I'll say it again now. We should pray because we have to, yes, but because we get to.
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Can you imagine you get to pray? I think we need a good reminder that we actually get to pray. What happened when
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Adam and Eve sinned in the garden? Come right on up, have any requests you want.
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What did God do? He banned them from Eden, didn't he? No access sign put out as it were with that cherubim.
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What about the tabernacle area? Here's the tabernacle. And how many veils would a Jew have to go through?
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Well, any Jew couldn't do it, but the high priest. If the high priest wanted to go into the Holy of Holies where the glory of God was especially manifest, how many veils would he have to go through to get into the presence of God?
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Well, if you were a pagan Roman, you could just walk right up. Here's the thing of Diana and I'll just walk right in and stroll right into the
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Holy of Holies and I'm here. Aren't you glad I'm here, God? If you were a
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Greek pagan and you go to the Greek temple, you just stroll right in and kind of ride your Harley right up to the front.
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Yes, I'm here, God. Aren't you glad? But when it comes to the presence of God and his thrice called holiness, there were three veils all saying there's a separation between me, holy
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God, and the people. Yet we as Christians, how can it be?
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We can pray to God anytime we want. God, help me. God, I'm hurting. God, thank you for my new child.
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How can we do that? How do we have access as Romans chapter five says to God? The French call it entree.
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How do we have permanent favor with God and we can just stroll right in? A few of you do it and I'm not sure
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I want you to do it, but it's not my point. Some people don't knock when they come into my office. And so when people don't knock and they just come barging right in, first of all, it shouldn't be called an office.
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It probably should be called a study, but they come right in. I'm like, hi, how are you? I thought you were
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Luke. I thought you were Haley. I thought you were Gracie. I thought you were Maddie. I thought you were one of my kids.
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Decorum is you just knock before you come into our office and you just stroll like in like you're my family. Now, if you don't want to knock, that's fine.
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I won't hold it against you really, but I'll just use you as a sermon illustration later.
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Steve and I are good friends. Steve's the associate pastor. I hardly ever walk in without just kind of a little knock.
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I hear I'm coming. How about with God? Why is heaven a place that Jude says in his doxology a place where God says he's able to make you stand in his presence?
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Because other people, when they see the holiness of God and they realize their sin, they're on their faces, yet we, because of Christ's righteousness, because of Christ's perfect life, because of the great gift of justification where he counts us as righteous, he reckons to us the perfect life of Christ, we get to come in because we're a son, we're a daughter, we're adopted into the family, and we get to pray.
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Hebrews chapter four, verse 16, without getting into who wrote it and why, I taught this before, and so we'll just dive right into the passage as he writes to these
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Hebrews. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne.
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Stop right there. Have confidence to the throne. What would a Jew say if you went up to them 2 ,000 years ago and said, you need to have confidence when you go to the throne?
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When you go to the throne before the king, you just have confidence. Well, if we thought like a
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Hebrew did back in those days, we would realize that throne rooms were also called halls of justice.
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We would remember that they were called halls of judgment. First Kings seven says, and he made the hall of the throne where he was to judge the hall of judgment.
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Small little places, not these huge grand, grand, grandiose places, but small little places where you had all your eyes go straight to the throne.
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And the throne was lifted up, and the throne was high, and judgment would come from that. Jeremiah one says that from the throne,
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God pronounces judgments. A king who sits on the throne, Proverbs 20, it's called a throne of justice.
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Second Kings four talks about the throne itself. Please let us make a little walled up chamber and let us set a bed for him there and a table and a chair and a lamp stand.
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So you walk into this small throne hall, judgment hall. And down there a ways is this chair lifted up the actual throne seat.
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First Kings 10 says there were six steps to the throne and a round top to the throne and its rear and arms on each side of the seat.
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Second Chronicles nine adds in a footstool in gold attached to the throne. Now it becomes more ominous.
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Who could walk into a throne standing, smiling? I'm here, can I have your autograph
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King? First Kings 10, 20 and 12 lions were standing there on the six steps, on the one side and on the other.
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Reminds me of Pilgrim's Progress where he had to go through those lions, just the ferociousness of them.
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Why lions? How about this Proverbs 19, 12? The king's wrath is like the roaring of a lion.
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The throne room, judgment, justice. You were taken in as a prisoner if you were gonna be judged and sometimes they'd put a knife up underneath your neck so you would have to look at the king because typically your head would be down.
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Whatever the king said went and it was time for judgment. It wasn't time, here's some extra grain. It was judgment time.
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Your knees would be knocking. And to think of that king's throne on earth, how much more God's throne, listen to God's throne in the
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Bible. In the year of King Uzziah, Isaiah six. In the year of his death,
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I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted and the train of his robe filling the temple.
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Psalm nine, he has established his throne for judgment. He will judge the world in righteousness.
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From the throne, God tests righteousness and wickedness. Psalm 11. How about Revelation?
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This idea of the throne, what are we gonna do? Immediately, I was in the spirit and behold, the throne was standing in heaven and one, capital
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O, was sitting on the throne. Verse five, and from the throne proceed flashes of lightning, sounds and pearls of thunder, peals of thunder, and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne.
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Lightning, thundering, judgment and justice. Volcano's about ready to blow its top.
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Before the throne, there was, as it were, a sea of glass like crystal. Verse eight, and four living creatures, each of them had six wings, did not cease to say what?
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Holy, holy, holy. Now look at Hebrews chapter 4 .12.
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To kind of tie this up, you say, where are you going? Remember, the whole idea that I'm trying to get at is we get to pray.
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We use this verse out of context all the time, but you see here in terms of the intensity of all this, for the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword and piercing as far as division of soul, spirit, joints, marrow, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
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Do you mean you can stroll into the presence of holy God and he knows everything about you? There's no strolling.
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Verse 13, to make it even worse, and there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open.
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Open means gymna, means naked. You're there standing there naked. You can't hide anything. You can't say, well, you know, you don't quite understand.
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There's no kind of carnival skinny mirror kind of thing. You know, you see those mirrors like that that make you look better.
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Laid bare. To the eyes of him, laid bare is this idea. You're gonna kill a goat or a lamb.
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What do you do with the neck? You just go to a field someplace with a knife and run around and try to stab it?
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Kind of like a, you know, grease pig game. No, you grab hold of it. You wrap the thing down and you strap it down and then somebody takes the neck and pulls the neck way out there, exposing those veins, the jugular vein and the carotid artery.
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And so it's open and laid bare for the easy slice. And God says sinners are before God and we're undone.
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What do we do? Praise the
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Lord. Look at verse 14. It doesn't end there. On our own, we don't want
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God's presence. It's unthinkable. It's unnerving. It's nightmarish. But here, look at the consolation.
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Luther said about these verses, after terrifying us, the apostle now comforts us. After pouring wine into the wound, he now pours in oil.
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Here comes the oil of comfort. Since then, we have a great high priest, literally a great priest.
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No Old Testament priest has ever called this. There's merciful and high priests, but not great priests, who's passed through the heavens.
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Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have, verse 15, a high priest who cannot sympathize.
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He does sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin.
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He's close. He's not remote. He's not too far away. As the song says, Jesus knows all about your what?
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Troubles. We have confidence in this high priest's ability. He has compassion to the point of helping.
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And then let us read Hebrews 4 .16. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of judgment.
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This is the only place in the Bible where it's not a throne of judgment. It's a throne of what? Grace. And if you have a throne of grace, guess what is dispensed from the throne of grace?
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Grace. How many of you people need grace? I do on a continual basis. We've been saved by grace.
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And by the way, we are still sanctified by grace. We don't wanna be foolish Galatians and be bewitched.
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Yes, sanctification is hard work, but it's the grace of God as well. Isn't that great?
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It's one of my favorite verses in all the Bible. And if you're a Jew, you're gonna think throne. I can't believe it.
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He's righteous. I can never do it. But it's a throne of grace that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.
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If I wanted to convict you, I would say, how much need do you really think you have if you don't ever pray or don't hardly pray?
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How much need do we think we have corporately if the saints hardly get together for corporate prayer? God will listen.
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God will hear us. Psalm 11 says, the upright will behold his face. We don't have to have our heads down when we come to God.
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Yes, confession is good, but we can say, God, we need your help. We need you. We can't do it without you.
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Four rules for the prayer meeting this Wednesday. You know what? I hope that we have so many people we have to come in here to the sanctuary. Whatever you call it.
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I don't know what you call it. Let's put a bunch of saints in here and therefore the saints will reflect what the building is and then the sanctuary can be sanctified through the saints.
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How about that? No prayer requests for yourself. No sharing prayer requests with other people.
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You have to pray what? That God may be exalted. God, show yourself. It's like when
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Elijah was on the top of Mount Olives. He was also gonna be on other mountains, the
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Mount of Transfiguration. So which mountain was Elijah on? But when he's on the top of the mountains of Carmel, it was not one mountain, it was a whole series of mountains.
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He was on there. What did he say? He said, God, get them. Well, he said that maybe too, but he said,
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God, show yourself. Show yourself. Show the people who you are. I've said before,
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I asked Sinclair Ferguson, what is God doing right now in heaven? Matter of fact, years later in Scotland, I asked him,
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I said, I so loved the answer to the question I asked you at the R .C. Sproul Conference in Pasadena.
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He said, what was the question? I said, what is God doing right now? He said, well, what was my answer? And I said, you said,
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Dr. Ferguson, that God is simultaneously exercising all of his attributes.
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Sinclair said to me, that was a pretty good answer. God, show your attributes in this place.
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We've got kid problems, we've got marriage problems, we've got all these other things and how about let's pray this way. Instead of God, save my kid.
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Instead of God, help the youth group. Instead of God, help my marriage. Instead of God, help me get a new job.
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Instead of God, help me have a good attitude at work. Whether I go to work or as I say, wake up at work.
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Oh God, help me with my attitude at church. There's some people I don't like and I'm bitter towards them. Whatever the list may be.
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Help me with my loving my neighbor. My neighbor's all whacked out. How about this? God, yes, we need help in our marriage but would you do something in our marriage so that only you could get the credit for it and people would say,
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God has done something in that life and I see a man loving his wife like Christ loved the church.
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God, help my marriage so I could preach Christ. That's what we need. God, save my son so the world redounds to the glory of your grace as you would save a sinner.
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I mean, I think this way so that's why I'm trying to implore you. I think too small when we're saying we're in it for the glory of God.
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One day that glory of God that's gonna be in the heaven and there's gonna be no need of a son because the God, the glory God is there.
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And I'm probably the worst at this but I think we probably need in our little suburban white church to have some people, some men who are willing to get their suit knees dirtied as we pray down in humble confession and contrition and imploring this
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God that when we ask he gives us according to his will and he dispenses always and forever grace to his people.
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Would you come and pray? Well, as usual, if I have two points,
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I don't have time for the second point. We'll make it fast.
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By the way, if we want other programs and things of the church, then let's pray to God that he would give us those things.
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I'll never forget the time when MacArthur said their church was kind of growing and I just am amazed our church is growing in maturation and number.
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People coming from the website and tapes and Bible Institute, I think we have 24 people signed up for the Bible Institute. Friends are coming and people are preaching the gospel and I just walk in and I think the place is full on Sunday and it's summertime.
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We do fall short in areas, but I would rather give up every other area if we could get exposition and the desire to live out what we've learned and prayer.
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MacArthur said to the church one time, you know what, everything in this entire church, every program is canceled except the preaching of God's word,
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Bible studies and prayer meetings, everything else is canceled because we're too much thinking about the church as everything else.
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It's a consumer mentality. I go to that church because I like the music. I go to that church because my kids like it.
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I go to that church because all kinds of other things instead of it's beseech
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God. Nobody really wants to be involved in kind of a loser deal. I want
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New England to be used. I wanna be like Jonathan Edwards. God, give me New England or I die. God, give us a ministry at this church that goes outside these borders.
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Twice in the last about 10 days, other churches have called us and said, could you send some preachers there where our pastor is gone and we need pulpit supply.
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God, let our church just be used in a great way. But what's going to come with that if God grants his bride to be great?
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It's going to include suffering. Would you turn your Bibles to 1
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Corinthians chapter 10, please? I'm learning, if you want me to be more homiletic,
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I'm learning that we as a church should cry out to God for great things in our corporate prayer meetings. Secondly, I'm learning that God, if he makes us great, he's going to include suffering because that's the biblical prescription.
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1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13, personal confession. I used to think about this verse all wrong, in a wrong way, wrongly.
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Now let me teach it the right way. It's like an evangelical catchphrase.
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1 Corinthians 10, 13. No temptations overtake you, but such a common demand. God's faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted, be one in what you're able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also so that you will be able to endure it.
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And I've had some of you, even in my own study, handing out a little Jay Adams tract about trials.
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I can't remember what it's called. God and trials or something. We've had suffering at this church, slander and insults for our twins dying.
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Even just recently, Daniel O 'Brien's mom dies, Doug Bilton's, Kari Bartlett's, my mom.
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There's all kinds of suffering. And the way I used to teach this verse is this way.
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God won't give you more than you can handle. How many people have heard that? That's almost like God will help those who help themselves.
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Well, I repent, please forgive me. That verse has nothing to do with God won't give you more than you can handle.
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I'm not joking. What's the context here? There's a context of verse 13 and it's one through 12.
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And even if I didn't have any of the context of Moses and what his people did and how that was the basis for the warnings of the
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Corinthians. If you just jump down to verse seven, do not be idolaters as some of them were as it is written that people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play, stood up to sexually play.
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Nor let us act immorally as some of them did and 23 ,000 fell on one day.
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More fell the next day, by the way. Nor let us try the Lord as some of them did and were destroyed by the serpents.
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Nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. Furthermore, look at verse 14.
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If we want context, therefore my beloved flee from what? Idolatry.
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The passage has nothing to do with being in a trial, having God give you more than you can handle. The context is that if you're in a temptation, a sinful temptation, a pornography or thinking the wrong thing,
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God won't give you more of the temptation that you can handle. But I dare say that in trials, in the
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Christian life, in the Christian church, God gives his people more than they can handle. And I'll go to 2
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Corinthians 2 .1 please to make my point.
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First the negative. Remember the context is temptation with idolatry. Sin could be a broader application.
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Now let's go to a passage that shows the Apostle Paul crushed despairing of life. And I unfortunately have taught in my own life and have even felt it before.
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My mom dies a slow painful death and I feel kind of crushed. And I think, you know, but God wouldn't give me more than I'm able to bear.
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But sometimes he does. In this particular case he did. And now let me show you this case.
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But there's good news still. Hang in there. 2 Corinthians 1 .3.
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And these are for the people that are crushed and despairing and I just want to tell you, it's okay. Blessed be the
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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. What a great bunch of names for God.
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Blessed means like a eulogy to speak well of. God is to be spoken well of. He's the Father of mercies.
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What a name. He's the God of all comfort. Oh, it sounds like David saying his mercies are great.
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Sounds like the Psalmist saying, oh Lord, you're a God of mercy. Verse four, who comforts us in all our affliction.
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With a purpose, so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted.
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My dad died of cancer in 89. He was 55 years old. I was talking to a man. He said, you know, my dad just died of cancer and he was 55.
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He'd never come in for counseling. And guess what he did? He came in. Because the comfort with which
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God comforted me, I could comfort him. For just as the sufferings of ours, verse five, are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.
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But if we're afflicted, it's for your comfort, Corinth, and salvation. Or if we're comforted, it's for your comfort, which is effective and patient enduring of the same sufferings with which we also suffer.
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Then he says in verse eight, they knew a little bit about it, but they didn't know the degree. For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren.
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I want you to know a further explanation of the trial I've been in, Corinth, which came to us in Asia.
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We don't know what it was. Maybe it was at Ephesus. That was in Asia. Maybe the Jews were against it. Maybe it was plots from them.
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Maybe it was the wild beast that Paul referred to in 1 Corinthians 15. That we were burdened excessively, but God wouldn't give us more than we could take.
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And we were burdened excessively beyond our what? Have you been in a trial? Are you in now?
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You go, it's over my head. I can't take it. I'm drowning. I can't make it. And I think too often
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I was like, yeah, but God, he'll give you the way out through endurance and he's not gonna give you more than you can take. And I go right to 1
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Corinthians 10, verse 13. Sadly, beyond our strength that we had despaired of life.
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Literally, he said, we were pressed out of measure. We were so pressed to the point of hyperbole.
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It's the Greek where we get the word in Greek, hyperbole. Excessive burden. We can't take it.
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Utterly, unbearably crushed. No hope, despaired.
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There's not even exit strategy. I don't see any exit door, Paul said. There's no way out. I'm in a room and I can't get out.
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It's a labyrinth. I've got so much despair. I'm crushed. There's no way out. MacArthur said he was unbearably crushed to the point of depression.
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Despaired literally means no passage, no way out, no exit. Paul saw no escape from the desperate situation that threatened his life.
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Now, those are different translations in verse 13. He said, indeed, we have the sentence of death within ourselves. Could it be,
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Paul said, I'd just soon die. I'm looking forward to the guillotine. That's the only way out. Maybe he really was sentenced to death, but God intervened.
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But there's no way for me to get out. I've got it heaped up upon my head. I can't breathe. What's the purpose?
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If God is going to give you individually, or us a church, because I think if we're going to be a great church, do you think
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Satan will just clap his hands? Way to go, bravo. If we're gonna be great, we're gonna have to suffer to get there, because that's how all greatness is achieved, through humility and suffering.
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Philippians 2 and 1 Peter, the whole book. What's the point when you're so downtrodden, when you don't know any way out?
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And I'm not talking about we did something stupid, therefore we were in a jam. Verse nine, so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in the kind of God who raises the dead.
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Literally, but in God who raises the dead. Verse nine, indeed we had the sentence of death within ourselves, so we would not trust in ourselves.
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No reliance on self. God, I have no way out. I can't get out. There's no exit. I have the end of my human rope. You see verse 10?
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Who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, he on whom we have set our hope, and he will deliver us.
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Maybe not on earth, but maybe later. What's the answer to, God put you in a trial that you can't take?
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What's the good news? He'll get you out of it? Well, eventually, maybe that means heaven, but here's the good news, that God will never leave you while you're there.
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That's why God has called Emmanuel, God with us. That's why God says to Israel in Isaiah chapter 49, shout for joy,
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O heavens, and rejoice, O earth. Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains, for the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his afflicted.
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Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me. And then listen to these words, you'll never forget them.
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Scoparis is in the Billingsleys, especially. Can a woman forget her nursing child, and have no compassion on the son of her womb?
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You gonna be able to forget that, Mark? Three o 'clock in the morning, four o 'clock in the morning, five o 'clock.
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If a mom won't forget the crying of the baby, how much is God gonna forget you? He's not, and he's going to be with you.
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I will not leave you, nor forsake you. I'm with you. Here's the great I am. I'm always with you.
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There's a friend that sticks closer than a brother. See, the issue is, when you're underneath one of these trials, and you think there's no way out, and I'm crushed, it's sometimes more than you can handle.
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So God prunes you from saying, I have self -righteousness. I can do things on my own. I can take care of these issues, and I can get my own little way out, and I've got my little flow chart, and I've got my little date timer.
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I've got my own wits. But you say, God, I am crushed beyond despair. I have no way out, and I'm just gonna have to say,
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God, you said you love me. Forever you love me, and always you'll love me. Then I'm gonna have to just trust that you'll never desert me, nor forsake me, as Hebrews chapter 13 says.
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I'm gonna have to trust that Psalm 37, where he says he does not forsake his godly ones that preserve forever.
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And I'm gonna just have to trust that your grace is going to be sufficient for me, and you being close to me will be enough.
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And so, beloved, if we want a great church, I think we have to say prayer must be a priority, and along with greatness, where Christ is proclaimed in such a way, we're going to suffer, and we might have to suffer to this point of despair, yet will
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God leave us? He's not going to leave us. And so I rejoice in that. I kind of feel a big burden off my back, because it's almost like I can despair in a godly way instead of saying,
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I think God won't give me more than I'm able to take, but I can't take it. I can't handle this anymore. God, what?
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And when my mother died, I didn't say, God, how could you? I hate you, God. But I did say,
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God. You know, sometimes you've ever been to the end of the rope, and you just go, I can't even really pray. I just have to go, oh, help, help.
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And so God crushes us, so then we say, you know what? My hope is in the Lord, who gave himself for me.
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It's not about anything else. And so I know many of you suffer, and God may have given you more than you could handle, but he is there with you.
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That's why all the lament psalms end with a psalm of trust to God, a refrain of trust.
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God, I'm gonna trust you, even if you kill me. I said, when my mom died, God, what am I gonna say, I hate you?
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I said, the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, what? Blessed be the name of the Lord, and God, I know you're close.
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I know you're right there for me. I know that there's a friend that sticks closer than a brother, and God, I'm hurting, help me.
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And if you're a God of all mercies and a God of all comfort, it's not going to be in a stiff -arm way because the
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God of the universe, second person in the Trinity, cloaked human flesh so he might sympathize with our, what, weaknesses.
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That's why it's the God -man and not Allah. He'll never leave us.
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If ever God loved you, he'll love you forever. I'm convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
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Lord. I look forward to what
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God might do through this church. I'll see you on Wednesday morning, 6 .15, or Steve will see you.
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I'll be there next week. Let's pray. Oh God, our help in ages past, our hope in years to come.
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God, we acknowledge today that you're the Alpha and the Omega and that we deserve suffering. We deserve punishment.
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We deserve eternal hell. But as Paul said in Ephesians, but God, rich in mercy.
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And Lord, we're thankful that if you have decided to love us, you've placed us in Christ, you will be there when we suffer.
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Lord, would you motivate myself and these dear people to pray? And for those who can't on Wednesday, maybe other ministries can start.
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And Lord, would you just help us to seek your face and that you would let us praise you as we watch you work.
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Lord, we acknowledge that you're working all the time. Would you help us to be clean of our sins practically? And then watching to see what you might do through the ordained means of prayer here at Bethlehem Bible Church.
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Guard us from pride, and that's part of suffering, I know, Lord. And guard us from boasting. And may our boast here at this church be the
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Lord Christ saves sinners. And Lord, would you help us to pray for your kingdom to come, for your name to be glorified here in Massachusetts and in our midst, in marriages, in our children who need to be saved, in the birth of new babies.
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Lord, it's all about how great you are, how great thou art. And now Father, help us to respond to your word, your revelation, by singing unto you.