Revelation 8:1-9:21(Where Prayer Ends Up, Jeff Kliewer)

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Where Prayer Ends Up Revelation 8:1-9:21 April 19, 2020

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Good morning, my name is Michael Stocklin, I'm one of the elders here at Cornerstone Church and I lead worship.
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We want to welcome you to our Sunday morning service, virtually, and I want to be sure that if you're visiting with us, you know that we have an online contact form that you can fill out that allows us to communicate to you a thank you for joining us.
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You can go to that website and fill out the form. We won't do anything with your information, but just send you a thank you card.
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We really appreciate when you do that. The other thing I wanted to let you know is we are sending emails,
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Pastor Jeff, the church office, the elders, about just different things that are happening. It could be a prayer request or something like that.
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Just keep an eye out for emails. We may send a little bit more than we normally do when we gather, but this is a way we can communicate the announcements and prayer requests and things that are happening within the church body.
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Thank you for joining us this morning and let's look our eyes to worship. Gather together to lift up your name, to call on our
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Savior, to fall on your grace. Hear the joyful sound of our offering, as your saints bow down, as your people sing.
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We will rise with you, lifted on your wings, and the world will see that our
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God saves. Our God saves.
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There is hope in your name.
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In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the
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Spirit, Lord, we come. Gather together to lift up your name, to call on our
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Savior, to fall on your grace. Hear the joyful sound of our offering, as your saints bow down, as your people sing.
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We will rise with you, lifted on your wings, and the world will see that our
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God saves. Our God saves.
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There is hope in your name.
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Morning turns to songs of praise.
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Our God saves. Our God saves.
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Our God saves. Our God saves. Our God saves.
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Our God saves. Good morning and welcome again to Cornerstone Church to our virtual worship service.
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It's a blessing to have you here with us. You're not in our seats, but I know that you're here with us.
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Because we're all in the presence of God. Actually, Jeff and I are here together because he's doing the camera.
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We're our social distance apart. Wherever two or three are gathered together, there am I in your midst.
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We know that God is here right now. And he is also here as we come together on our
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Sunday morning. So we're glad to have you. We welcome you here with us. Psalm 21 is one of David's psalms.
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It's actually a psalm celebrating the sovereignty of God. It's a great psalm.
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Coming out of this quarantine, I imagine many of you are like Sandy and I.
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We're starting to consider what's it going to look like when we come out of quarantine. We started to list some things that we're excited about.
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We're excited about seeing our children and our grandchildren in person. To be able to hold them and play with them.
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We're experiencing them in Zoom, but it's not a substitute for actually being with them.
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We're looking forward to seeing our church family in person. To be in direct fellowship with you, our church family, and the rest of our friends.
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To be able to be with them. Sandy and I are looking forward to going out to breakfast. We love to do that.
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We have plans for a staycation. With our children and our grandchildren coming to our house for a week this summer.
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With lots of activities and lots of things to do. I imagine you have a similar list.
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These are things that we're looking forward to that can bring us joy. But here's the thing. As much as these are awesome and it's great to look forward to them.
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And it's going to be great to experience them. We have God. Because of that, we get to experience a joy and unlimited blessings.
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Even though we're in quarantine and at all times. And here's the thing about those joys. They satisfy.
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Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, in the passage we know as the Beatitudes. Matthew 5, verse 6.
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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. The things that we look forward to doing are going to be fun.
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But the things that we can do, that we get to do, in experiencing our Lord. That is pure satisfaction.
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Reading in Psalm 21, getting to verse 6, I read these words. For thou dost make him most blessed forever.
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Thou dost make him joyful with gladness in thy presence.
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You know, we just celebrated Resurrection Sunday. A most blessed and amazing day. We as believers, however, we get to celebrate every day, all the time.
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And we get to experience his blessings, his joy. From Psalm 21, verse 6, there's two things
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I want to observe and I want to bring up. One is that the joy that we get to experience through Jesus, through God, is everlasting.
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It doesn't end just because of something being brought to completion. Our joy is everlasting.
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And the second one is that it is pure joy. It is his joy. There's nothing artificial about it.
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Our presence with God, it brings pure joy. The end of the Psalm closes with this phrase, and it's amazing.
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Be thou exalted, O Lord. So we're in quarantine, but we're with God.
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Pastor Jeff put down a list of things that he recommends that you make daily habits. Things like time in prayer.
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Things like time in the Word. Do these things. They will bring the most amazing joy you could ever experience.
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Amen to that. Coming to our announcements, there's a few things I'd like to bring up.
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The first one, very important. Eleanor Webster, as most of you should know already, serving as a frontline nurse in the hospital, taking care of people who have come down with the
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COVID. God has seen that, well, she has it too. And so now she is at home, she's recovering, and she desires your prayers.
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Pray for Eleanor that she would come cleanly out of this thing quickly.
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And also for Bill, that he would be protected from it as well. The second is, and I announced it last week, it was
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Resurrection Sunday, we didn't get to do our baptism. And I want to encourage you again that if you're considering baptism, contact myself, contact
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Pastor Jeff, contact one of the elders. We would love to talk to you and get you prepared and get you in line for baptism.
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When we come out of quarantine and the date will be set, what a great way to celebrate coming out of quarantine and coming back together in fellowship, but with a baptism.
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It will be an amazing time. So if you're considering it, please contact myself, Pastor Jeff, one of the elders.
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Which brings me to our need for you to be in prayer for your board. This weekend we're going to be having our retreat.
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We're going to have to do it by Zoom, but we have a lot of important topics to talk about. We're here to serve you and we are here to be ministers for the
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Kingdom of God. And we need your prayer. We need prayer for wisdom so that the things we talk about will be honoring to God and will be the right decisions to be made.
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A week from tomorrow will be our annual meeting. It's been scheduled. Well, we're on quarantine, so here's the plan.
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There's three steps to it. First, later this week you are going to get from Pastor Jeff an email with all of the annual reports from all the ministry leads.
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So that you can look at them, you can read them. It will include Pastor Jeff's, it will include youth, it will include children, men's, women's, the treasury, the financial report.
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All of it will be there. You'll have a chance to look at it. Then on Monday, we will put out a
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Zoom meeting notice. And we will do the meeting with each of the ministry leads giving their report by Zoom.
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So you can hear from them, interact with them if you desire, ask questions if you desire.
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Now there will be at least one item that needs a vote. That will be acceptance of the annual treasurer's report.
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So we're going to do that similar to what we did with the election meeting. This week you will receive in the mail a ballot.
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The members will receive a ballot to accept or not accept the treasurer's report.
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And as we did with the election meeting, we ask you to fill that out after the meeting. Mail it back in no later than Friday so that we can accumulate the results.
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And we will have met our needs for an annual meeting. One of the things that's going to be coming out of our retreat, and specifically we ask your prayer for this, is how do we as a church come out of the quarantine?
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It's not going to be, Dr. Fauci said a few days ago, coming out of quarantine is not going to be turning a switch from off to on.
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We have to understand how to do this and how to do this in the right way. So pray that we have wisdom on how to come out of the quarantine once we're allowed to by the government.
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So now let me turn to prayer. Father, Lord, we come before you as your children.
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We come before you just amazed in the relationship that we can have with you.
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We come before you celebrating your sovereign power. We come before you wanting to proclaim as David did,
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Be thou exalted, O Lord. We come before you humbly, but we come before you with excitement because we know as we are here, we are empowered by your
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Holy Spirit and we can grow closer, closer to you. Now, dear Lord, we lift up Eleanor Webster.
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We pray that you would help her recover quickly and completely from this coronavirus.
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Protect Bill also during this time and all who are suffering from either the coronavirus or other maladies that are impacting them during this time, a stressful time.
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Be with them, be with their families and be with all the frontline workers who work with them.
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Father, we pray for our testimony, especially during this time, our ability to see neighbors, our ability to talk to family, our ability to talk to friends.
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I pray also for our spiritual walk. Pastor Jeff put out some recommendations for habits.
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What a great way to strengthen our spiritual walk. So I pray for that, Lord. And also for wisdom and guidance as we come out of quarantine.
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With even a baptism service, we pray, Lord, that you would prepare the way for us to come back together directly into fellowship.
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We pray, Lord, for wisdom for our country's leaders, for decisions that are going to be made in the weeks to come and also for the protection in the future from this virus.
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Now, Lord, as we come together, we pray that your Holy Spirit would anoint Pastor Jeff as he takes us into the land of trumpets in Revelations 8.
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Speak through him powerfully, Lord. Let his words come into our hearts, prepare our hearts to hear that we might grow closer to you for your glory.
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We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Good morning,
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Cornerstone. We are Gary and Terri Kamlin, your missionaries in Portugal, and we're coming to you live, up close and personal from our living room.
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Our main ministry is at the Portuguese Bible Institute, and like is the case all over the world, we've had to adapt and make changes due to the current situation.
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All of our classes and events are online now. In fact, in two weeks,
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April 24th and 25th, we had a previously scheduled Bible conference, and we will be doing that online.
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And we would appreciate prayers for the logistics of all of that because it's a new experience for all of us, and we're trying to do the best that we possibly can to help the
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Portuguese evangelical community with Bible teaching during a time like this.
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And also, all of our classes are online, as I mentioned, and next week we actually start two new courses that we're opening up and offering to the general
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Christian public. One is Christian Social Ethics, and the other is
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Evangelism and Discipleship. The response to these has been very good, and again, we would appreciate prayers for this, for the professors involved, that we might be able to serve the general
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Christian community in the best possible way. We'd also appreciate prayer for our church ministry.
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Our church is online, and we prepare Sunday school lessons as well as our morning worship online.
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And the advantage to this is that we are seeing people attend church who normally wouldn't be there.
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We're seeing family members who are unsaved who are listening in with the rest of the family and hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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For us too, this online ministry of churches like you have has been a blessing because we are now able to be a part of Cornerstone's morning worship.
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And that has been so great for us to join in with you. Thank you so much for your ministry, for your support, for your prayers, and we appreciate it.
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In light of the fact that Easter just passed and we had a great celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I would just like to leave you with one verse from Romans 5 -1 that talks about the privileges that we have and the result of our great salvation.
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It says in Romans 5 -1, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our
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Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't it wonderful to know in times like these that the biggest question has really been answered.
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We have peace with God. Thank you, Cornerstone, and God bless you all.
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Bye! Savior, He can move the mountains.
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My God is mighty to save. He is mighty to save.
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Forever author of salvation. He rose and conquered the grave.
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Jesus conquered the grave. So take me as you find me.
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All my fears of failure. Fill my life again.
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Everything I believe in. Now I surrender.
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Oh, I surrender all, Lord. Savior, He can move the mountains.
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My God is mighty to save. He is mighty to save.
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Forever author of salvation. He rose and conquered the grave.
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Jesus conquered the grave. Shine your light and let the whole world see.
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We're singing for the glory of the risen King.
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Jesus, shine your light and let the whole world see.
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We're singing for the glory of the risen King.
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Savior, He can move the mountains. My God is mighty to save.
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He is mighty to save. Forever author of salvation.
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He rose and conquered the grave. Jesus conquered the grave.
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Love those words. That chorus where he says forever the author of salvation. He rose and conquered the grave.
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Jesus conquered the grave. Let's pray together. Lord, we are humbled to come before you this morning.
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We come with our voices and we come with our hearts ready to receive from you what you want to teach us.
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We're ready with our voices to sing praises to your name. Your name is powerful and mighty.
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You're able to raise from the dead, seated on the throne, waiting for that day, that perfect day when you will come and make everything right.
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We want to worship you continually in our hearts.
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There is a truth older than the ages.
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There is a promise of things yet to come.
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There is one born for our salvation.
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Jesus. There is a light that overwhelms the darkness.
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There is a kingdom where there's freedom from the chains that bind us.
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Jesus. Jesus. He walks on the waters.
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He speaks to the sea. He stands in the fire beside me.
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He rose like the mighty Jesus.
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There's a name I call in times of trouble. There is a song that comforts in the night.
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There's a voice that calms a storm that rages.
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He is Jesus. Jesus. He walks on the waters.
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He speaks to the sea. He stands in the fire.
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He rose like the mighty
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Jesus. There's a name
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I call in times of trouble.
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There's a voice that calms a storm that rages.
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Jesus. Through those times of troubles, he's standing in the fire right beside you.
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God is able. He will. He is almighty
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God. Greater than all we seek.
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Greater than all we ask. He has done great things.
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Lifted up. Defeated the grave.
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Raised to life. Our God is able. In his name we overcome.
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He is on our side.
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He will make a way. Far above all we know.
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Far above all we hope. Has done great things.
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Lifted up. Raised to life.
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Our God is able. In his name we overcome.
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For the Lord our God is able.
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He will go before. He will never leave us.
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He will never leave us. He has open arms.
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He will never fail us. Fail us.
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Lifted up. He defeated the grave.
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Raised to life. Our God is able. In his name we overcome.
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For the Lord is able.
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For the Lord our God is able.
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For the Lord our God is able.
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Good morning. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we ask that you would teach us this morning how to pray.
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Motivate us to pray. Remind us how much it pleases you when we seek your face and call upon your name.
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We pray that you would stir up in your church the desire to pray.
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Give us times of refreshing. That we would call upon your name and see mighty answers to prayer.
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Lord, we see the day approaching and we ask, Lord, that we now would be vigilant in prayer.
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In Jesus' name, amen. In World War II, my grandfather was a runner whose assignment it was to take a message from one station to another on the front lines of the battle.
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In the Battle of the Bulge, which was probably the most intense fighting of all of World War II, the
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American troops were pushing through the German lines. And at that point in time, the fighting was fierce, obviously, and ferocious as the
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Germans were trying to hold on. My grandfather was given an assignment to run from one post to another with a message, which he did.
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And he saw much death, he saw casualties on both sides as he delivered that message.
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When he got home from the war, of course, as all families did, there were amazing celebrations.
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The whole family coming together, that Billy Wagner has come home, he made it home safe.
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But there was one thing that Uncle Fred wanted to do before the party could go on.
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He said, Billy, get your journal and meet me here in the living room.
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And so Uncle Fred went and got his journal and came back and he said, I need to know what you were doing on one particular day.
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It was night in America, it was day in Europe. That day of Bill Wagner's run in the
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Battle of the Bulge, the most intense fighting that he saw throughout the duration of World War II, was the same night that Uncle Fred was awakened in the night and began to pray for Bill Wagner.
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He prayed from midnight all the way until the break of dawn. And then he felt peace and took a nap.
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They compared journals and saw that it was the precise time that Bill was at his greatest danger.
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God uses prayer. And I wonder, how many times have you and I been rescued by the prayers of someone we know without even knowing it?
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Just a couple of months ago, I went to pick up a prescription at CVS.
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And I think I was a little more stressed out than usual. I tend to be kind of a laid back person. I don't get really stressed out, but I think my stress level was a bit high that day.
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And as I was sitting there waiting on the prescription, I noticed the blood pressure machine off to the side.
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So I went over and just thought, hey, take my blood pressure, see how things are going. And the blood pressure said 144 over 80, which on that little scale that they put on the machine is very high.
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That's like hypertension, like extreme hypertension. Not good, level two kind of thing. So I thought, well, that's not good.
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Let me sit here for a minute, take some deep breaths, try again. Well, I kept taking my blood pressure. And throughout the time of waiting on that prescription, my blood pressure was up in the 140s, the top number.
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So problem, problem. But I just prayed and went home. The amazing thing is the next day,
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I called my parents. And I could hear my mom talking to my dad in the background, and I was speaking to my father on the phone.
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And what she wanted to know was how my blood pressure was.
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I had never told anyone that my blood pressure was elevated. I don't think
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I had checked my blood pressure for years, except for maybe at a doctor's checkup. But somehow, she had been awakened in the night and prayed through the night for my blood pressure and was wanting to know if it came back to normal.
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Of course, I went back over to that CVS, tested my blood pressure, and it was 100 % back to normal.
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She prayed through the night. And I don't know how she could have known, apart from her relationship with God.
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She does have the same kind of spiritual gifts of prayer that Uncle Fred had. But how many times have we been rescued by the prayers of someone who loves us without our even knowing it?
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Well, we don't know, do we? If we knew that, then we would know. But we don't know the power of prayer.
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God knows, and God is pleased to answer prayer.
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Today, we're talking about prayer. Turn with me, if you will, to Revelation 8. We pick up, and the main idea that the sermon will be about today is the end of prayer.
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Not when prayer comes to an end, because later on in the book, you'll still see salvation and presumably believers are praying.
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But what is the end to which we pray? What are we praying? To what end are we praying?
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Well, first of all, we are always praying, on behalf of people, anyway, for their rescue and for their good.
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We're not praying for their condemnation. Even our enemies, we pray for their salvation. So we're praying for the good of people, the salvation of human beings made in the image of God.
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We're praying for rescue. But there is another end to which we pray that we learn about in Revelation 8, and that is the condemnation of the wicked.
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We will see God turn and use prayer as one of the bases of condemnation of the wicked.
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So we'll see that. I think we saw some of that in the story of Sodom with Abraham as he pled for the city.
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If there's even 50 people in the city spirit, and then 45 and 40 and 30, 20, 10, each time
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God answered that prayer and said, yes, if there's even 50 or even 40, 30, 20, if there's even 10 people in this city,
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I will spare it. But when the angels came, there were not even 10. And the prayer, the intercession of Abraham became part of God's basis of condemnation of this wicked city.
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In a similar way, the prayers of the saints here become fuel to the fire as God unleashes wrath on the earth.
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It's a terrifying passage of scripture. Not really a bedtime story, and it's increasingly so as we go through the seven trumpets.
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But let's read it. Chapter 8, verse 1 and 2, and the big idea here is prayer, we're looking at today.
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Prayer as a rescue for sinners, but then God using prayer as condemnation of the wicked.
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But finally and ultimately, that prayer is the pleasure of God. We pray toward the end of pleasing
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God. That is the ultimate, that is the main reason why we pray.
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So you'll see this in the cloud of smoke, this aroma that pleases God. Let's read it. Revelation chapter 8, verse 1.
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When the lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
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Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God and seven trumpets were given to them. So before the seven trumpets are opened, are blown, there's silence.
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It says there was silence. Imagine if I held this pause for 30 minutes.
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You would never forget this sermon. If I stood here for 30 minutes, that would feel like an eternity, just staring at the camera.
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You just see this preacher just looking at you for 30 minutes. That is the solemnity of the moment.
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It is a solemn, serious moment because the judgment that's coming on the earth is unspeakable.
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It's a moment of silence for 30 minutes, which in the midst of the heavenly worship that goes on day and night, that's a stark contrast from the hallelujah that was happening in Revelation chapter seven with these revival fires that had brought in the masses to worship
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God. Now everybody is just quiet. And the seven angels prepared to blow their trumpets.
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Now, the seven trumpets are kind of like within the seventh seal.
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So in chapter six, we saw the opening of six seals of judgment. The seventh seal would presumably be the end, but instead of it bringing everything to conclusion, as we would hope, instead it opens up seven trumpets.
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And when the last angel blows the seventh trumpet, it looks like that's what opens the seven bowls of wrath.
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So it's kind of like a marionette doll that within one doll, there's a smaller doll and a smaller doll and a smaller doll.
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You keep opening it up. And that's how it is here with the trumpets as they're blown.
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So what happens? Before they blow their trumpets, verse three to five, another angel. So this is not one of the seven trumpets yet.
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It's another little interlude. And it's about prayer. Another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer.
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And he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne.
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And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints rose before God from the hand of the angel.
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Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth.
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And there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. So the first thing to notice is this is some kind of priestly ceremony in the throne room where the angel is acting like a priest and brings incense and prayer to the altar.
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And what would happen is when incense, say frankincense, was thrown on the fire of the altar, it would create a giant poof, a giant cloud of smoke, of incense filling the throne room.
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And that smell was pleasing to the king, to God.
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God delighted in the fragrance that's released from the incense. So this is the picture here.
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It is one of pleasure to God. And that, brothers and sisters, is the ultimate reason for prayer.
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When you wake up in the morning before your kids and you go downstairs and you kneel, in the solitude of that moment, you please him.
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When you're alone in your prayer closet talking with him, your father, he's pleased.
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He sees what is done in secret and he delights in the prayer of his people.
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He's pleased with prayer and so it rises to him like incense. Every prayer you've ever prayed, as you cry out to him, as a genuine cry of your heart, redeemed in Christ.
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This is the prayers of saints. A saint, by the way, is not one of the extra special holy ones that, say, a different church would recognize as being set apart from the rest of us ordinary
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Christians. No, saints are ordinary Christians. We're those who have been declared righteous on the merits of another, the merits of Jesus Christ.
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And therefore, we are saints. We're holy, declared holy. And we're becoming holy as he sanctifies us and one day we'll be glorified and be with him in heaven without sin any longer and therefore be his holy ones.
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We are saints. And he delights in the prayers of the saints. You know, he also delights to answer prayer.
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All through the Bible, we see that God is the God who delights to answer prayer.
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He shows himself to be the living and true God vis -a -vis the idols of the nations that are carved of wood and made of stone, that cannot hear and cannot answer prayer.
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God is the God who answers prayer. He loves to answer the sinner's prayer.
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And I know people have pointed out, there is no sinner's prayer in the Bible. God, I admit I'm a sinner.
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I repent of my sins. I believe in Jesus who died and rose. Now come into my heart, take away my sins and save me.
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That prayer, that script that we kind of go through is not in the Bible. But don't make too much of that point because all through the
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Bible, we see sinners crying out to God for salvation.
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If that's what you mean by the sinner's prayer, it's all over the Bible. Psalm 119 verse 94, the sinner says,
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I am yours, save me. That's the cry of the sinful heart. Me, a sinner, saying to God, I am yours, save me.
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Romans says, anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. If you know yourself to be a sinner, you recognize that you are wicked, that you are guilty of theft and sexual immorality and sorceries and murders.
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Even if you've never physically killed someone, the attitude of your heart with anger and hatred toward another is murderous.
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If you recognize that and you say, God, have mercy on me, save me, because of Jesus, Jesus, save me.
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He hears that prayer. He delights to save. In fact, he promises to do it. Anyone who calls upon the name of the
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Lord will be saved. So, dear listener, I want to tell you something about our God, the
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Christian God, hears the sinner's prayer. When you call to him, save me, he promises to do it.
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Now, you've got to come with a genuine heart. It has to be genuine and believing in Christ, the
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Savior, but looking to Jesus, the one who died and he bled on the cross for sinners like us.
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You call to him and he saves you. Look to him and be saved, all you nations of the earth.
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So, this is how God is with prayer, but notice the transition here in verse five. Now, at the end of time, after all of these months and years and decades of our lives,
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Christians calling out for our mother to be saved, our father to be saved. Some have prayed for 20 years for a loved one.
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All of these prayers have risen like incense to God and he's delighted to save so many. Now, in the last seven years, here as the tribulation is intense,
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God is beginning to pour wrath on the earth and prayer becomes part of his judgment.
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Verse five, the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar. The censer is like a fire pan with a long handle.
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So, he scoops up fire from the altar and kind of like a lacrosse player, he hurls it, throws it down on the earth and there were peals of thunder, rumblings.
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That word in the Greek for rumblings is phonai. Phonai is used here and a few other places in Revelation, usually with the peals of thunder and the flashes of lightning.
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The King James version of the Bible translates that word phonai, rumblings, as voices.
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It's almost like many voices melded together, eerily, rumbling.
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I think it's the prayer of the saints. Every little girl who said, daddy, my father in heaven, please heal my mom.
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Or the little kid that says, God, please stop daddy from hitting mommy. Or the one who calls out in pain,
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God, my body is broken, rescue me. Every prayer offered through the years is echoed together in this chorus, these voices that are resounding in the earth.
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The reason I do think that voices is an appropriate translation there is the only other place where that word phonai is used is in Luke 23, 23.
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And it's the group voices coming to Pontius Pilate saying crucify him, crucify him, crucify him.
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The phonai, the rumbling, all the voices melded together. Now this falls on the earth.
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In Revelation 8, 5, it's eerie. But it's appropriate to what comes next because it's part of God's wrath that having been prayed for, this is kind of an end to prayer in the sense that all of the
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Christians who have prayed throughout the generations, now the people who are left don't have them any longer.
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This is the world when prayer has fallen silent. This is judgment now, verse 6 and following.
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Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them. The first angel blew his trumpet and there followed hail and fire mixed with blood.
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And these were thrown upon the earth and a third of the earth was burned up and a third of the trees were burned up and all green grass was burned up.
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The second angel blew his trumpet. Something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea and a third of the sea became blood.
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It's kind of like in the days of Pharaoh and the plague on Egypt when the Nile River became blood.
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A third of the living creatures in the sea died and a third of the ships were destroyed. A third angel blew his trumpet and a great star fell from heaven blazing like a torch and it, mark that word it for later, fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water.
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The name of the star is Wormwood, which means bitter. A third of the waters became wormwood and many people died from the water because it had been made bitter.
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The fourth angel blew his trumpet and a third of the sun was struck and a third of the moon and a third of the stars so that a third of their light might be darkened and a third of the day might be kept from shining and likewise a third of the night.
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A lot of thirds here. Well, in progress, judgment is coming on the earth and one third of the light of the world is darkened.
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Two thirds remaining. People are still able to live in these conditions with two thirds of the vegetation still alive, two thirds of the drinking water, two thirds of the seas still teeming with fish that people could pull out for food.
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People can still live under these circumstances. It looks like these are natural disasters.
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Whatever the star that looks like a mountain that falls into the sea and ruins the seas, it looks like it's some kind of natural thing.
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Maybe it's man -made, some kind of weapon, some kind of nuclear bomb or something. We're not really sure.
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When Chernobyl melted down, there is an etymology of that word that connects with wormwood and so people thought that this was the trumpet blow of Revelation 8, 11, but unlikely.
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More likely, it's something that's future because we do take a futurist interpretation to this.
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Fourth angel, he strikes the sun, the moon, the stars. In other words, things become dark.
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So the first four trumpets are devastating but there's a marker here at verse 13 where things are not only devastating going forward, they become increasingly supernatural.
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The demonic becomes manifest. Now we live in a time where demons are active around us but they mask themselves and hide like submarines underwater.
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They don't tend to come up to show themselves. So the ordinary demonic is around us all the time when sexual immorality is taking place, there is demonic activity going on with that.
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And you can see that manifest at times in certain ways with the drag queen story hours and the growling and really bizarre things that you'll see at some of the parades like that.
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You'll see demonic activity but there's an ordinary demonic that we're used to. When someone steals something, that theft is demonic.
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When someone murders, that rage and that killing, the taking of a human life made in the image of God, that's a demonic act but it's an ordinary demonic.
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It looks natural but from this point forward in the text, things become very supernatural.
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So parents, this would not be the best place to go for bedtime, okay? Chapter nine, not night night material here.
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In fact, notice in verse 13 where we are, Revelation 8, 13, the eagle is talking.
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He's not just screeching some eagle sound, he's speaking English or probably
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Greek. He's speaking in the language of the people below. This is getting very supernatural from this point forward and I think that's the marker there, the talking eagle.
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I was over at Michael's dropping off the camera and he told me about an eagle that they have bald eagles that fly around and circle their house.
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Michael, I hope that's okay for me to share. It's awesome, you see these bald eagles. They told me one time a bald eagle had grabbed a turtle but the turtle defended itself and bit the eagle's leg and so the eagle had to drop the turtle and it went off screeching into the tree and for a period of time, half an hour, an hour, it just screeched and howled, basically saying, woe is me, nobody knows the trouble
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I've seen. The eagle is screeching but from our perspective, all we hear is its angry screechy sound.
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This angel is actually speaking, I'm sorry, this eagle is actually speaking, woe, not woe is me, woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth.
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Okay, you need to take notice if you see something like that. This is a marker that things are getting very supernatural and things are gonna go downhill real quickly for the people of earth.
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It's meant to be a warning. It's meant to be somber. Verse one of chapter nine, the fifth angel blew his trumpet and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.
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Now earlier in chapter eight, verse 10, a star fell from heaven but it wasn't described with the personal pronoun he, it was described as it.
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This is some natural thing that looks like a star but it's not a demon because here in verse nine, the star that falls from heaven is called he.
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Compare that with 18, the it star. He was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.
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So this is a demonic being, we're gonna learn his name is Abaddon or Apollyon, whether you're using
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Hebrew or Greek but here in verse one, he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.
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He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.
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Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth.
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They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads which refers back to chapter seven, the 144 ,000 that are sealed and protected.
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Now these locusts can't touch them. In Joel chapter one, locusts are a plague from God that the
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Israelites are supposed to notice and in fact teach their children. It says I think in chapter one verse three about how the locusts came and what the hopping locusts left behind, the chewing locusts ate and then the next kind of locusts came until there was no vegetation left.
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These locusts unlike those don't feed on the green things.
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They don't feed on vegetation. They're attacking human beings. So the level of judgment here has gone to a whole different level.
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They're tormenting human beings. They were allowed to torment them for five months but not to kill them and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone.
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Oh brothers and sisters have compassion on the lost. If you're a Christian hearing this, love demands that you tell the ones that you love that Jesus is a savior from coming wrath.
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How can you let your loved one go into the wrath of God without warning them that there's wrath escape in Christ?
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Preach Christ crucified and risen as wrath escape. He's offering that freely now.
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The torment here is like a scorpion stinging someone and in those days people will seek death and will not find it.
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They will long to die but death will flee from them. In appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle.
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On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold. Their faces were like human faces. Their hair like women's hair and their teeth like lion's teeth.
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You don't want to mess with these things. Notice that their hair is like women's hair which means that there is a standard biblically for what women's hair ought to be.
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Women ought to try to look feminine and men should try to look masculine. In our world with this metrosexual dress kind of thing those distinctions between gender in appearance seem to be something that people are trying to avoid when in fact men should try to look like men.
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That's why I wear a beard. That's manly. You got to wear a beard. There's other ways as well but we're to attempt to look as God made us to be.
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Men should look like men. Women should look like women. On their heads these have womanly hair and teeth are like lion's.
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Not a very attractive woman here. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron and the noise of their wings was like the noise of mini chariots with horses running or rushing into battle.
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They have tails and stings like scorpions and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails.
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Some people have said that these might be a technology that's yet future or maybe perhaps drones that can strike people.
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I think these are demonic because the powers in their tongues that these seem to be very supernatural beings and we've made this transition in chapter 8 verse 13 to where the demonic is now manifest all over the earth.
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These demons are being released to show what they've always been and here you'll notice in verse 11 they have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit his name in Hebrew is
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Abaddon and in Greek he is called Apollyon. So this trumpet judgment is even harsher than the others.
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Some have killed many people but death was the end until final judgment.
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Here there is the desire to die but people are tortured and tormented and unable to die.
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I can only imagine how painful these stings of the locusts are. That woe is past verse 12.
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Behold two woes are still to come. Verse 13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet release the four angels who are bound at the great river
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Euphrates. Who in the river are these guys?
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These angel dudes. You don't want to know. The point is to see them here in the text in order that you would never see them in real life.
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The mercy of God is extended in revealing the coming judgment in order that we would flee that judgment and find refuge in the ark as Noah found refuge in the ark.
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Interestingly I forgot to mention this earlier but Noah called for 120 years for people to believe the message he was preaching.
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And in Hebrews 11 7 we're told that in that preaching and in that prayer that he offered he condemned the world.
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He offered mercy and he desired mercy and he invited people into the ark but because he offered it and he showed that it can be done that faith in God is possible he took himself and his family into the ark.
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That contrast became part of the condemnation of those who were left behind. In this world today there is sheep and goats and part of the condemnation of the goat is that the sheep were calling and offering and praying for the salvation of the goat that God would make the goat a sheep.
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But part of the judgment that you see in Revelation chapter 8 verse 5 going back there is that these now become part of the basis of why
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God judges the world. And how? Part of the basis. So returning now
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I don't know why I went back there I had just forgotten it earlier so I thought I'd swing back around. The point though here is that the judgment that's being poured out is harsh but escapable.
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Now is the day of salvation. And this gets real ugly. The four angels who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, the year were released to kill a third of mankind.
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Don't just gloss over verse 15. Here again I don't know how people miss this. The compatibilism is the theological word.
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That God's sovereign decree which includes evil includes Isaiah 45 verse 7 that he has decreed both good and raw.
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Evil, calamity. To the month, to the year, to the day, to the hour.
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God is in control. It's compatible with the responsibility of wicked beings for their own decisions.
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The hardness of heart of the sinner who willfully with a true and genuine will, a creaturely will rejects
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God. That's compatible with God's decree over all things. Anyway you see it in verse 15.
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Now verse 16. The number of mounted troops was twice 10 ,000 times 10 ,000. I heard the number.
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Do the math. 200 million. For the first time in history there is a country on earth capable of fielding a 200 million person army.
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That country is China. Now I'm not saying that China is the nation of this text.
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I'm just saying. And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them.
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They wore breastplates the color of fire and sapphire and of sulfur. So that red. Communist red
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China. It could be but I'm not saying that that is the case. But certainly the stage is set.
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When this was written there were no nations that could field a 200 million person army. But these four angels that come from the rivers now bring with them this war and these armies raise up.
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They're motivated and inspired demonically to go forth conquering and killing. It says they wore breastplates the color of fire, sapphire and sulfur and the heads of the horses were like lion's heads and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.
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This does look like technology to me. Some kind of bombs and missiles. Things that when the apostle
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John was writing in 95 AD he could not understand what he was seeing in the vision.
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What are these things that the people are writing that can shoot forth fire?
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Well we who live in 2020 understand that that's war machines.
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That's tanks. That's nuclear devices. Kills a third of the world.
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By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths.
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For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails for their tails are like serpents with heads and by means of them they wound.
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Finally in verse 20 and 21 yet after all six trumpets have blown there's a seventh to come which will release
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I think the the bowls of judgment. Bowls of wrath. Here in 20 and 21 the hardness of man's heart the willfulness of man even under this kind of judgment knowing that it's coming from God will be so stubborn against him that a man will yet remain unrepentant and not turn to God.
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The only way a sinner can come to repentance is by the grace of God enlivening the heart because the will of man is so strong.
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Some people say well in your theology you don't believe in free will. I say
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I believe in creaturely will and I believe it's so real and so strong and so bent against God in enmity and hatred towards God that it would never turn to God apart from grace.
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But God he is the God that extends mercy. Verse 20 and 21 the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood.
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Many people who are worshiping material things living for the things of this earth they don't realize that behind every idol is a demon.
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1 Corinthians 10 I believe it is or 11 teaches us that which cannot see or hear or walk nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries.
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Brothers and sisters all forms of sorcery are evil. Avoid sorcery of every kind tarot cards any kind of occultic objects or practices or their sexual immorality which is also demonic or their thefts.
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Even still they do not repent and this is the basis of their judgment. They're judged for their own wickedness their own sin as we see here.
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So in closing is it possible to pray someone into the kingdom of God?
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I don't know but it is up to us to try.
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And now is the time to try. If you know someone who is not yet born again you born again
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Christian need to be on your knees praying for them. If you're saved if you've been given the gift of eternal life and you live in a fallen world where a majority of people do not believe in the name that is above every name pray for souls.
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Pray that God would use you to bring sinners to salvation. I remember praying for this one teenager when
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I was a youth pastor in Florida between the years 2000 and 2003.
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I prayed for this kid. He came from a broken family and my heart really went out to him. I prayed for him and I remember when he came to faith what a joy that was.
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And I remember baptizing him how he came out of the water and just hugged me and just held on.
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I just saw on Facebook reconnected with him just about a year ago and have been seeing his
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Facebook post come up. And now I see he just had his wife just had a child.
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And they're raising their children to know Jesus Christ. The joy of praying for the lost and seeing people come to faith and then to see them learn to pray and then raise up a godly generation that knows the
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Lord. All of this comes from prayer. Prayer is an instrument that God uses.
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So in his sovereign decree he is sovereign over these things. We can't control whom he saves.
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However, prayer is an instrument he chooses to use. So from our perspective where we live we ought to fall on our faces before him and please him with prayer.
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Because he uses that to save. Like Elisha when he was with his friend
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Gehazi. Gehazi couldn't see the armies of God that surrounded the armies of the enemy.
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All he could see was the wickedness of the Syrian army surrounding the city bent to destroy them.
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And Elisha said, God open his eyes that he may see. And Gehazi's eyes were open to see the fiery chariots of God surrounding the armies of the enemy.
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And when those armies of the enemy came into the city to capture Elisha and to kill him and Gehazi, Elisha prayed, blind them
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Lord. And God answered prayer. He delights to answer prayer. And that army was led forth in procession to Samaria, handed over to the king of Israel.
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But Elisha commanded that they not be killed but instead be given a feast and sent home.
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And from that day on, never again did the Syrians attack the
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Israelites in Samaria. Put an end to it. Prayer puts an end to sin.
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It delivers sinners. Prayer is powerful. It is God's tool that he uses for deliverance and for salvation.
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Pray as one who believes in the power of prayer. Go to God in prayer.
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Let's close now by praying. God, you are the living
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God. You hear the prayers of your people. And right now from home to home your people are calling on you.
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Right now we remember people in our lives that don't yet know salvation in Jesus Christ.
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We picture their faces. We think of their names. God, be merciful and save them.
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Save them from the coming wrath, from the trumpet judgments. Rescue them now in this day of salvation.
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We pray that you would use us to send salvation to the ends of the earth.
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We pray right now that you would reignite in us the desire to pray, to please you in prayer.
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That you would use our prayers as instruments of your mercy in the world.
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So we pray for our missionaries at the ends of the earth that they would boldly bring the gospel as they ought.
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We pray for ourselves that we would clearly and boldly preach Christ and him crucified.
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And in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Once was lost.
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I walked away. The road was dark.
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I could not see. My hope was gone.
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The pain was real. But your mercy.
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You saw my steps. You felt my fears.
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You heard my cries. You caught my tears.
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Arms open wide. You ran to me.
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With your mercy. Your mercy.
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Your mercy. I stand before my
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King and bow my heart to sing. You saved me.
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You raised me. You died so I could live.
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No greater love than this. Your mercy. You give me life beyond the grave.
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My deepest shame is cast away.
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You sing a song that covers me.
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It's your mercy. Your mercy.
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Your mercy. I stand before my
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King and bow my heart to sing. You saved me.
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You raised me. You died so I could live.
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No greater love than this. Your mercy. Your mercy.
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Your loving kindness leads me to repentance.
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Loving kindness leads me to repentance.
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Lord, let your kindness lead us to repentance.
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Lord, let your kindness lead us to repentance.
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Your mercy. Your mercy. I stand before my
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King and bow my heart to sing. You saved me.
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You raised me. You died so I could live.
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No greater love than this. Your mercy. Your mercy.
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I stand before my King and bow my heart to sing.
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You saved me. You raised me.
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You died so I could live. No greater love than this.
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Your mercy. Your mercy.
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your mercy. Your mercy.