Arminianism (Part 5)

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So let's do this, let's open the word together.
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We're gonna look at the last point on this subject of the free will.
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And this will finish up what we have done for the last few weeks.
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And what's interesting is I don't have, we're short on time today, but I don't have a ton to say to finish this up.
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So it kind of works out that we can kind of draw everything to a close with what I have to say today.
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And then we'll move on next week to Methodism, which was the, well, in the book, it's Wesleyan Theology.
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The Wesleys were responsible for what is modern day Methodist teaching.
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You're recording this, right? Yeah, yeah, they're recording.
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If I want, there's some people that were asking about free will.
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Yeah, there's the last couple weeks are on there.
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Look up, it says Arminianism though.
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It doesn't say free will just because I was keeping in line with what we're teaching.
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So it's Arminianism one, two, three, and this will be the fourth one.
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Yeah.
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Though able to make choices, man is not, or we are not completely autonomous, meaning that we are not fully self-governing, but that we are governed by our nature.
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And you might say, well, that's still my nature, so I'm self-governing.
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Well, no.
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Self-governing would mean that I am free to choose without any preconceived or preliminary notion.
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I'm free and unbridled or unfettered.
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We are fettered.
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We're fettered by nature and thus not free.
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Jesus said, he who sins is a slave to sin.
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He who is righteous is a slave to righteousness.
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Never does he say that there is freedom.
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We're either a slave to one or a slave to the other.
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So we're not completely autonomous.
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And then the sub points of that, mankind is sinful by nature.
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If we're sinful by nature, we're not free.
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God by his grace restrains the sinful nature of all men.
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Every person, even the worst person in history has had some type of restraint on his sinful nature.
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Even Hitler loved his mama.
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You know, that's the, at least we assume.
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You know, we don't know.
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We don't know.
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Hitler loved to paint.
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He was an artist.
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That's what he was, a failed artist.
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And, you know, before he became, you know.
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That's why he stole all the art.
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Yeah, yeah, he was, but he was, that was something he enjoyed.
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He enjoyed art.
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God by his grace restrains the sinful nature of all men in some ways.
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And maybe you could add that in as a thought.
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You know, it's not, not always, but he restrains all men in some ways.
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Letter C, God hardens the heart of some men.
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God does choose to judicially harden hearts, meaning that he removes the restraints that he has placed upon, the moral restraints that he has placed upon some men and allows their depravity to expose itself in very heinous and obvious ways.
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Like the aforementioned.
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Aforementioned Hitler.
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And even on a more personal kind of individual level, think of someone like Ted Bundy, you know.
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Ted Bundy was allowed to express a part of his depravity.
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He was, his heart was hardened and he was allowed to express a part of his depravity.
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That is, it is within the nature of man that he is broken sexually.
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You know, oftentimes we don't like to discuss sexuality and things like that, especially in mixed company because you kind of feel kind of embarrassed to talk about it.
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But the man is broken sexually.
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That's why men lust.
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That's why they commit adultery and these things.
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But someone who's a rapist expresses the worst kind of sexual brokenness because it's not only about the sex, but it's also about dominance and it's about injuring another person and having control and taking their life.
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A rapist who is a murderer is expressing a full forced, come on in, he expressing a full forced example of his depravity.
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That's a man whose heart has been the restraints of all propriety have been lifted.
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Recently, you all know I teach self-defense classes and I've been trying to help people understand the difference between sociopathy and psychopath, the sociopath and the psychopath.
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And while I'm not a psychologist and I don't play one on TV, when I'm teaching people about violence and how violence works, there's something called social violence and asocial violence.
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Social violence is, I'm walking through the Jiffy store or the convenient, I'm walking through the movie theater and I step on Mike's foot.
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Mike stands up and pushes me and I push him back.
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And he pushes me a little harder and I push him and then maybe he throws out an expletive and I throw out a series of expletives and we're going back and forth.
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That's called social violence.
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Killed by anger.
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Well, I was gonna say, we're giving him a Kung Fu chop.
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I'll give him a Kung Fu chop, right? What I mean by social violence is we're obeying a set of rules because if you stand up and push me, if I have no sense of propriety, I'm just gonna stick my thumb in your eye.
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I'm gonna hurt you.
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Why do men push each other in the chest? Because it's the least likely place to cause injury.
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It really is, it's a form.
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It's the same reason why deer butt each other with their antlers.
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If a deer wanted to hurt another deer, he'd hit him from the side and kill him.
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It's a dominance.
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It's social violence.
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It's not intended to injure.
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It's intended to gain ground and position.
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The sociopath and by extension, the psychopath and the difference in my mind is that a sociopath has no regard for social mores.
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The psychopath has disdain for social mores.
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So there's one man who doesn't care what society says, the other who's actively working against it.
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So there's just an extension of the same problem.
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The sociopath would have no problem sticking his thumb in the man's eye.
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This is a man who's restrained, has been removed, his heart is hardened.
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So that's just sort of explaining kind of from another area of my life when I'm teaching people, because how you deal with social violence is different than how you deal with asocial violence in self-defense situations.
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Social violence is the best thing to do is to use your verbal skills, decrease the activity with the person to walk away.
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Because if a person just wanted to gain ground, give him the ground.
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If he just wants to show that he's superior, let him be superior.
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If it means buying him another drink, if you spilled his drink, if it means moving to another seat in the theater, if that's all it means to let him save face, you do that and then you move on.
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This is way off the subject, but the point is asocial violence is different because the person there is not concerned with gaining ground, he's concerned with injuring someone or killing them.
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And thus you have to deal with that differently if you're wanting to protect yourself or your family.
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Man breaking in your house in the middle of the night with the intent to hurt you is not going to be talked out of it.
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No, please, please.
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On number eight, Warren asked this last week, mankind is sinful by nature.
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Yes.
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Because nature is created by God.
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We are sons and daughters of Adam.
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So while we do maintain the image of God, what we call the Imago Dei, we maintain the image of God, that image has been tainted by Adam's sin and that taint is given to all of his posterity.
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We inherit a sinful nature from Adam.
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It is something that is an inherited thing.
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This is why Ephesians 2 says, we are by nature, children of wrath.
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When you say our nature is created by God, yes, but our nature is also injured by our...
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Corrupted by.
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It's corrupted, that's a better word.
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It's corrupted by Adam's sin.
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Adam, when he sinned, acted as our federal head, meaning he acted as our representative.
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And thus when he brought judgment upon himself, he brought judgment upon himself and his family.
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We see this in scripture.
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We see like when Korah sinned, his whole family was judged.
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When Achan sinned, his whole family was judged.
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And we see what was referred to there as headship or federal headship.
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When Adam sinned, everyone who is in Adam, which is all of us, have been injured and corrupted by his sin.
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That's right.
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And that's why the virgin birth has a physical aspect to it because Christ is not of the seed of Adam.
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And he does not have that corrupt nature.
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Yes, now that is what we call the mystery of iniquity.
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Scripture actually addresses the mystery of iniquity.
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Wherein does iniquity come from? Because one could argue, well, yes, Adam was sinful, but he was encouraged to be sinful by his wife who was encouraged to be sinful by the devil.
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And so you have this sort of regression.
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But the question becomes, well, who then encouraged the devil? And the answer is no one.
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But he was a created being created by God with a certain amount of ability to choose.
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And he chose poorly.
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Right.
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That's a, boy, that's a, that's an understatement.
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I was actually quoting Indiana Jones.
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You remember Indiana Jones at Temple? You have chosen poorly.
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That's the, but, but yeah, the, the, the, My family is pretty close off.
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This shows how natural it just, it just came right out, I didn't even think about it.
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But the, the nature of man is sinful because that is the nature that we have inherited from our forefather, Adam.
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It doesn't mean we're no longer in the image of God, but that that image has been tarnished.
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I mentioned this a few weeks ago, and I don't, I don't remember if you, if you were here or not, but I mentioned about, there are some people who believe we no longer have the image of God.
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Did you, did you hear that part? Yeah, I don't agree with that.
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I do believe that we maintain the image of God.
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And I think I can prove this from Genesis nine.
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Genesis nine is when the death penalty is instituted.
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And the reason for the death penalty, according to Genesis nine, is that man who sheds the blood of another man, his blood should also be shed because in the image of God was man created.
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So what a man does when he murders another man is he, he lashes out against God by killing a person who bears God's image.
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So murder is not just an attack against a person, but it's an attack against the person who created that person, who is God.
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There's another reference in the New Testament.
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About the image of God? Yeah.
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I can't call it to mind, but I imagine there, there's peppered throughout the scripture, the references, but that's just one that to me proves the point because it's saying that anytime murder happens, it's most heinous because it's attacking someone who is bearing the image of God.
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Who was it? You slander your mother's sons who were made in the image of God.
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Is that the one? I know what you're talking about, but I can't, in my mind.
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Do they define image of God? Those who, those who.
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They just throw it out and not even say it.
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Well, those who, those who, they say Adam was made in the image of God and we are in the image of Adam, but they're not, yeah.
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They don't get into what is the image of God.
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They're not really defining it, yeah.
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And I think that, I think it is somewhat of a difficult thing to, to absolutely nail down what it means.
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We know it doesn't mean a physical attribute.
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We don't look like God in the sense of God is spirit and we don't look like him, but at the same time, I've heard the image of God defined as intellect, emotion, and will.
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That's the three things that defines man, intellect, emotion, and will.
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Those three things are the things that are most like God that we have.
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Say we don't know, but we're not like the animals and we're rational.
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We speak like God.
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Yeah, yeah, the rationality, huh? We speak like God.
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God speaks, we speak.
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I mean, who knows exactly what it is.
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The ability to communicate with God is one of the parts that I think is the most defining aspect of being made in his image is the fact that we can communicate with him through prayer.
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We can communicate through him intellectually, spiritually, which is something animals cannot do.
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And like you said, it separates our rationality.
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Our ability to communicate is what separates us from the other created beings who we might share DNA with, but we don't, we don't share.
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When I say share DNA, what I mean is if you look at animals, we're all similarly created.
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Living beings all share, you know, we all have circulatory, not all have circulatory systems, but all, you know, animals, there are certain characteristics of us that are animalistic in that we have flesh and we have circulatory systems.
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We breathe air, we eat food.
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We, you know, we do these things like animals do, but it's not, that doesn't make us an animal.
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They don't sin.
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They don't sin.
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That's right.
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They're very bad sometimes.
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Years ago, I heard a good illustration.
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It said that we have aspects of man.
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We have aspects of animal.
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We have aspects of angel.
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We have animal flesh.
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We have angel.
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We have spirit like an angel.
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And whenever we are living in the flesh, we're living like an animal.
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When we're living in the spirit, we're living like an angel.
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And that's the, that's just an interesting, just sort of, you know.
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And see, that's what I was thinking, that the paradox of all of this that always got to me was the fact that, you know, when it talks about the Lucifer was created the bright chair of the crowning, you know, angel, as it were, the bright and morning star like that.
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And he, and then, but sin was found in him.
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Iniquity was found in his heart.
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And so, like you say, if you want to go, well, where did it come from? Then we're right there.
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And so, again, it's showing God's sovereignty.
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He knew, I mean, obviously he would have known all that was going to happen, or he's not God.
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And so, you know, the questions just go back to an unanswerable point for us in all that.
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That's what I said.
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Because if Christ was slain before the foundation of the world.
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And so there was an understanding that, yeah.
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So I would say, again, man is sinful by nature.
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We attribute that to what Adam did.
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And Adam's sin could at least be attributed to the encouragement of he who is sin, you know, by nature, not sin by nature, but who is sin.
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This, the original sinner, who is Satan.
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We know that sin did not exist before that, at least in the sense that scripture doesn't tell us that sin existed before Satan.
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Satan would have been the first sinner.
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He's the father of lies.
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Jesus calls him the father of lies, meaning that this sin is, sin is a birth child of him.
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And yet, you know, that's how that came into being as the Bible refers to as the mystery of iniquity.
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And that's a phrase that, you know, people say, well, explain it to me.
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I said, well, there are parts of God's working out history that we don't understand.
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And there are parts that we're not necessarily going to understand in this life.
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And we have to be able to...
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Well, we have that Bible that we're called faith.
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Yeah, and we have to be able to appreciate that God knows more than we do on that.
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But I hope that does answer your question though on...
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Because...
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I'm still thinking it through.
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Huh? I'm still thinking it through.
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Well, here's the other thing.
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There are people who believe that every single person is created neutral because they're created by God.
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And if created neutral, then every person comes in this world, not as a sinner, but as a neutral being.
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And my question has always been, well, why does the Bible talk about nature of sin? Why does it talk about being born in sin? Why does it talk about being conceived in sin? But also, why is it if every person has been born neutral and without a proclivity to sin or without a sin nature, why is it that people...
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Why is it that we don't have an island somewhere where the non-sinners live? There's no place in the world where non-sinners exist.
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You can go to any island, any nation, any tribe, and you're going to find people who lie.
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You're going to find people who steal.
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You're going to find people who are self-righteous.
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You're going to find people who are lustful.
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You're going to find people who hate people, who exercise wrong judgments.
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Why is that universal? Because we're all sons and daughters of Adam.
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That's the reason for the universality of sin.
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Well, back to the question of free will.
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We have free will.
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God gave us our nature.
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Our nature is sinful.
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He didn't cause me to have a sinful nature.
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He just gave me free will.
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His grace changes my heart so I can respond to Him, but it's not His fault that I am a sinner, even though my nature is sinful.
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That's what I'm thinking.
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Okay.
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Well, as I said from the beginning...
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People don't want to blame God and redeem you.
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Okay, I see what you're saying.
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Well, the blame in Scripture for our nature is placed at the feet of Adam.
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That doesn't mean we're not responsible.
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The Hebrews talks about this very clearly, the fact that what the Father, in acting on behalf of the family, does affect the family.
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And while we may say, well, I don't think that that's right, that is the way that God has chosen to exercise His judicial judgment on the world, is that Adam's sin affects everyone.
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And this is why, you know, we know that there are people, little children who don't sin willingly, but yet still die.
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Why do they die? Because they have a sin nature.
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The Bible says the wages of sin is death.
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The Bible says that death entered the world through sin and death spread to all men because all men sin.
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And through that one man, Adam, sin and death reigned in all men.
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So, you know, that's a part that we are all, we are all under the curse of what Adam did and the only remedy.
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Here's the thing.
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If we're unwilling to accept that Adam acted in our place, we then have to be unwilling to accept that Christ acted in our place.
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Because Christ enacting in our place takes the judgment that Adam brought.
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By one man's sin and by one act of righteousness, the many were made righteous.
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Again, Romans 5 is where I would point people to as Romans 5 really fleshes this out in regard to the nature of Adam bringing death and the work of Christ bringing life.
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And where what Adam did destroyed what Christ did redeemed.
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And so is it true that I choose to sin? Absolutely.
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Am I choosing to do so because I am free? Well, I would argue that I am free to make choices but those choices are never separate from my nature and my nature is one of sin.
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And so I choose to do what is in accord with my nature, just like the animals choose to do what is in accord with their natures and whatever it is, animalistic thing.
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My choices are based on my nature and until God chooses to redeem my heart and give me a new nature, I will not choose to follow Christ.
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You already said that, you know, we won't follow Christ until God saves us, until God does that work in our hearts.
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And that's the last thing.
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It's funny, bring it all full circle.
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Letter D, God opens the hearts of some people.
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You can say some men, some people.
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God hardens the hearts of some men and God opens the hearts of some men.
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God does not open the hearts of all men.
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That is just biblical.
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But God does open the hearts of some men.
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One might even say the majority.
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Oh, sure.
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Yeah, God doesn't, yeah.
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God doesn't do that.
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It's like a double predestination.
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I don't know if I'd tell that to somebody who's not saved.
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Here are two Bible verses if you want to just place these in your notes.
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Acts 16, 14, we have Lydia, businesswoman, meets Paul and Barnabas, or Paul rather, not Paul and Barnabas, but meets Paul.
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And it says, the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.
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It was the Lord who opened her heart to hear what he had to say.
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It was the Lord who opened her heart to be able to believe it.
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How many people did Paul preach to that didn't give another ear to what he had to say? How many people hear what I preach and don't give another ear to what I have to say? How many people do you talk to that you share the gospel with, that you share your faith with, and they say, I don't want to hear that, or I don't care about that, or you're just a religious nut, or whatever, whatever, whatever, you know.
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And yet there have been times where you have been sharing the gospel with someone and you could see God working on their heart, and you've seen God change their heart.
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And the question would be, because in Arminian terms, the answer would be, well, it's purely this person who is spiritually more sensitive, or spiritually more able to discern truth, or whatever.
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But I say, no, we see the work of God in that person's life.
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And thus the attribution of the reason is not within the person, but within God.
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And that's really what separates, one of the things that separates Arminianism and Calvinism is the Arminian believes that the person who comes to Christ does so because of some type of goodness within him.
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Either he is more spiritually sensitive, either he's more open to spiritual things, or he is more pliable, whatever.
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But that the person who the Calvinist sees come to Christ, he sees a work of grace that God has done in opening the heart.
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And so, and I don't mean to be ugly about the Arminian, but the Arminian would at some point have a right to boast.
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I was spiritually more sensitive than my unsaved counterpart.
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We both went to the same church, both of the same sermon.
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I got saved and he didn't.
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So I must have been better somehow.
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I must have been more spiritually sensitive.
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I must have been more open.
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I must have been more able to hear the God's word.
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So in some sense, there's a sense of boasting, but in Romans four, it says, but where is our boasting? Yeah, I'm just saying.
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Your soil has to be good soil, but God makes your soil good soil.
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Yeah, and I think that parable is, that's the point that is often lost in that parable is the good soil is plowed by the, well, by the farmer, by the shepherd has plowed the soil.
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The people is ready to receive the seed.
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And anybody who really thinks about it, once you're saved, they can look back and see all the plowing that was done and see that it was nothing that they did.
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Yeah, they can see God, you know, what is it? Paul said, you know, I planted a polished water.
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God brought the increase.
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And so what is Paul saying? Yeah, there was plowing and seeding and all this going on, but it's God who causes it to grow.
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Yeah, you don't know about it at the time.
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Exactly.
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I think you just live in your life, you know, and then.
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I understand the.
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It's 10 to one.
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Yeah, I know, we gotta go, we gotta go.
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The other verse, if you want to write down, John 6, 44.
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No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.
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No one can come.
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If no one can come until God draws them, and in the same chapter, verse 65, says grants it to him.
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That just is a proof of the fact that God is the one who opens the hearts and not us.
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I apologize for holding you over.
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I know some of you need to get ready for church and do a few things before that.
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So I'll give you a break.
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Hope this has been helpful.
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This little excursus we've taken on free will.
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Next week, we will open up our books to Wesleyan theology, and we'll still be dealing with some of the same things because Wesleyan is essentially Arminianism, but it has a stronger push on the issue of personal holiness.
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So we'll deal with that as we continue in the weeks ahead.
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Yeah, well.
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There's too much that goes against it.
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We'll look at that too.
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Father, thank you for your word.
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Thank you for the truth.
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Help us to be more able to understand it.
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We know, Lord, that we learn when your spirit teaches us, and ultimately, you use these moments as teachable moments whereby your spirit speaks through your word.
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May we be ever subject to it.
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In Christ's name, amen.