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Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, the 8th chapter.

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We'll be to Thee, O Lord. In those days when again a great crowd had gathered and they had nothing to eat,

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Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with Me now for three days and have nothing to eat.

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And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way, and some of them have come from far away.

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And His disciples answered Him, How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?

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And He asked them, How many loaves do you have? They said, Seven. He directed the crowd to sit down on the ground, and He took the seven loaves, and having given thanks,

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He broke them and gave them to His disciples and set before the people, and they set them before the crowd.

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And they had a few small fish, and having blessed them, He said that these also should be set before them.

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And they ate, and they were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces of leftover, seven baskets full, and there were about 4 ,000 people, and He sent them away.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Y 'all remember

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Sesame Street? Man, when I was growing up, that was like cutting -edge children's television, right?

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Remember this song? One of these things is not like the other. One of these things doesn't belong.

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Remember that? It would always be like a comparison thing. So they'll take, like, three kids' shoes and then put in an adult work boot.

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And it's like you have to figure out which one doesn't belong. As a kid, you sit there and go, I think it's the work boot.

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I think that is the one that doesn't belong. So you're going to note here, we're going to do a little comparative work today, and we're going to note that one of these things is not like the other.

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As we look at our gospel text today, you'll note it's another one of these miraculous food miracles, multiplication of food, feeding of a large crowd of people in the middle of nowhere.

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And if you know your Old Testament, this should invoke the Exodus, and there's a reason why. The Exodus is, if you would, a type and shadow map of our salvation.

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We are in our Exodus right now. You're sitting there going, how do you figure? Well, let me kind of walk you through some of the highlights.

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Remember when Exodus opens, the people of God find themselves enslaved to a false god king who wears a snake hat, you know, that Pharaoh guy, right?

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Yeah, yeah. And so God then, by ten mighty plagues of judgment, what does he do?

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He judges the false gods of Egypt, and he mightily releases the children of Israel from slavery.

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First order of business is what? Baptism. Okay, yeah, the Apostle Paul makes this very clear, that the children of Israel, they were baptized when they went through the

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Red Sea, and then begins the 40 -year wilderness wandering.

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And you sit there and go, how does that relate to us? Well, you'll note that Christ, by dying on the cross,

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Christ is our Passover lamb, by the way, and that whole Passover is connected all the way back to the

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Exodus itself. Christ, our Passover lamb, has been slain. We feast on him when we have the

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Lord's Supper. And that being the case, he is the one who has set us free from slavery to sin, death, and the devil, and now we are in our wilderness wandering as we head towards the real promised land, which is not a postage stamp -sized piece of property in the

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Middle East. There's a tiny little bit of property there, and man, everyone's fighting over that place.

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That's a type and shadow of the thing to come, the new heavens, the new earth. We're going to live forever on the new earth.

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All of that being said, you'll note that when the children of Israel got through the

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Red Sea and then began their wilderness wanderings, they were really known for grumbling.

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I always liken it to a really bad family vacation in a station wagon with a long, long way to drive.

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And there's discontent, there's anger, there's, are we there yet?

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No, we're not there yet. And of course, my mom, not my mom, my wife, when she would tell stories like this when she would travel, and she would ask her mom, are we almost there?

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Her mother would always say, five minutes, even if there were like three hours left. And that just could create all kinds of anxiety.

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But all that being said, we're going to take a look at two of these food miracles because God miraculously feeding a large multitude in the wilderness, that's

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Exodus stuff. And we're going to note, we're going to take a look at two accounts, one from the book of Exodus, one from the book of Numbers, and we're going to then compare that with our gospel text.

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And when we get to our gospel text, we're going to notice that something is missing. Wonderfully, something is missing.

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It's an important thing that that something is missing because you'll note that the children of Israel during the

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Exodus, not many of them really believed or trusted in Yahweh. And that's really kind of the problem.

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So in Exodus 16, the account reads this way. The children of Israel, they set out from Elim.

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Elim, by the way, is that oasis with the 70 palm trees, still exists to this day. It's just on the other side of the

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Gulf of Aqaba from Egypt. And it's got that, it's got palm trees to this day.

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You can look it up on Google Earth. You can actually kind of wander around. It's kind of neat. But all of that being said, then the congregation of the people of Israel, they came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt.

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So the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

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And the people of Israel said to them, Oh, would that we had died by the hand of Yahweh in the land of Egypt when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness in order to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

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Yeah, their recollections of slavery are already getting fuzzy. I've never heard of slaves like lounging around meat pots and just eating to the full and relaxing.

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Slavery is one of these things that a person really doesn't get the best things in life, and yet that's their recollection at this point.

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And note here, what are they doing? They're slandering God. This is very much akin to what the serpent did to God in the

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Garden of Eden. Serpent says, Did God really say, You shall not eat of any tree that's in the garden?

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And the question itself implies that God is horrible, that God is mean, that God is just an evil taskmaster.

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His intents are evil. He has no thing good in mind. And so already when the devil asks that question, he's slandering

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God with the question. And here the children of Israel, they are slandering God horrifically.

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But here's the thing. You'll note by acting in this way and saying these things that they are acting faithlessly.

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They show that they do not trust God. They don't have real faith in Him, and they believe and they project onto Him the most evil of intents.

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But how many of us do the same? When things don't go our way, we sit there and go,

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Well, my health isn't good, or maybe my marriage is in tatters at the moment, or maybe my boss, he's a real jerk, and then of course

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I always consider having to go to the gym. That's a form of torture. Why doesn't God just bless me with skinniness?

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Say the word and the pounds will come right off. And so you'll note whatever difficulties we have in this life, we have a tendency to become annoyed with God and to not trust that He has our best in mind.

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With gas prices skyrocketing, with inflation running out of control, have you noticed that you're making less money this year than you were last year?

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And it's going to take a little bit of time to figure out how to readjust our salaries to catch up with the inflation.

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All that being said, it may be difficult for you to pay your bills. You're just watching as your money supply is dwindling and your expenses are expanding, and you sit there and go,

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What are you doing, God? Are you trying to kill me here? We do this.

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We have a lot in common with these folks. Now, I always used to wonder, and after preparing this sermon

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I don't wonder anymore. I always used to wonder what God would have done had the children of Israel not grumbled.

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What would He have done? Because you'll note that it's hard to see God's true character in the midst of their slander.

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So God acts contrary to their slander. So Yahweh said to Moses, Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day that I might test them whether they will walk in my law or not.

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And on the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.

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And so Moses and Aaron, they went and told the congregation,

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Come near before Yahweh, for he has heard your grumbling. And as soon as Aaron spoke, the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the

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Lord appeared in the cloud. And Yahweh said to Moses, I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel, so say to them,

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At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread, and then you shall know that I am the

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Lord your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God. Now, that's kind of an important little sub -note here because when

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Jesus does the same thing, not only once but twice, notice that the

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Gospels contain two miraculous multiplication food miracles, that should tell us who

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Jesus is. But I digress. The text goes on to say, In the evening, quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning, dew lay around the camp, and when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine flake -like thing, fine as frost on the ground.

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And when the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, here's how it is in Hebrew, Manah, manah, manah, what is it?

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That's what manah means. You ever heard the word manah? Manah means what is it, and it's pronounced manah. So, manah, manah.

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And anyway, For they did not know what it was, and Moses said to them, It is the bread that the

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Lord has given you to eat. So there's account number one, all right? So we kind of got this worked out.

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People of Israel grumbled. Well, fast forward a little bit to Numbers chapter 11.

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We get a similar account. The details are slightly different, and there's one big difference.

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You'll see this here in a second. It says in verse four, The rabble that was among them, they had a strong craving, and the people of Israel, they wept again, and they said,

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Oh, that we had meat to eat. We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing.

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Of course it cost nothing. You were enslaved. You didn't even own yourselves. You were being fed like you were a pet, okay?

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Yeah, you get the idea here. This is just horrible. So they got this strong craving. Oh, we missed the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.

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But now our strength is dried up. There's nothing at all but this manah to look at, right?

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Huh. Remember Keith Green and his song, So You Want to Go Back to Egypt? It kind of reminds me of that, right?

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Yeah, this is horrible. But you're going to note there's a big craving going on. Now, my question is this.

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Had they asked kindly? If they had asked God kindly,

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Lord, we thank you for the manah that you give us. We thank you.

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However, is it possible, Lord, that in your mercy that you would add a little variety to our menu?

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We would like some cucumbers or some meat or some other thing to go along with the menu.

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But we do not despise what you have given us. And it's quite miraculous that you feed us the way you do.

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This entire multitude, over a million people in the middle of nowhere, and we are so honored and humbled by the fact that we can see your glory.

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We can see your visible presence with us night and day. And we would also like some meat as well.

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And we pray that you would forgive us if this is out of line to ask for.

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But we're not not thanking you. We would just like a little bit more. You think, what would

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God say in a situation like that, right? And you're going to note that many things that we desire in our lives, there's cravings for them, all right, and hunger itself and the desire to pay our bills.

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Or maybe you're single and you want to be married and you really desire to do this. But note here that what they've done, their desire has caused them again to slander

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God and to act faithlessly, to treat God as if his intent is evil or that he doesn't care about them at all.

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And so they are grumbling in a way that is patently sinful and beyond excuse at this point, considering all the ways that God has met their needs and shown them by his actions, his kindness and his mercy and his love toward them.

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In the same way then, we are tempted and we oftentimes do. Our cravings cause us to blame

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God for the things that we don't have and we are not satisfied with the good things that God has given us.

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You'll note that I'm still more than a million dollars away from being a millionaire and it always irks me that those rank pagans who have no fear of God, they fly around in private jets and things like this.

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Yeah, you get the idea, right? Would it be wise for me to sit there and go, well, what's the deal,

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God? Maybe not, maybe not. You see, we are taught to be content with the good gifts that God has given us.

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And in our day and age, we have a saying, the grass is always greener, right? The grass is always greener where?

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Just across the fence in the other yard, right? How is it that my neighbors' flowers, that they just bloom and this looks spectacular and in my yard, weeds.

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Why, why, right? I desire for people to look at my yard and go, ah, a slice of paradise.

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Instead, they think, this is what hell must look like, right? And so you'll note that rather than being content with the good gifts that God has given them, they are not content.

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They are discontent. They have a craving. And so God now is going to answer their grumbling, but he's gonna do so in a way that shows that he's acting in judgment.

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So Moses, he heard the people weeping throughout their clans, everyone at the door of his tent. And the anger of Yahweh blazed hotly.

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And Moses was displeased. Moses said to Yahweh, why have you dealt ill with your servant? Why have

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I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? Don't you remember when

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God met with Moses at the burning bush? Moses said, send someone else. He didn't even want the assignment, and now everyone's grumbling to him about the menu.

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And he is now, well, forwarding the grumbling. He says, did I conceive all this people?

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Did I give birth to them that you should say to me, carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing child?

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To the land that you swore to give them, give their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give to all of this people?

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Huh, that sounds a lot like our gospel text. It sounds a lot like the same question that the disciples ask when

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Jesus says that you need to feed them in the feeding of the 5 ,000. Where are we supposed to get enough of that, right?

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So, for they weep before me, saying, give us meat that we may eat. Am I able to carry all this people alone?

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The burden is too heavy for me. If you will treat me like this, kill me at once. If I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness.

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This assignment's so hard, Moses is all, just kill me. I just want this to be done with this, right?

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And you'll note that many times, many times, when we are made to suffer, you'll note that Christ says that we are to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow

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Christ to our death. That crosses are not fun things to carry.

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They hurt. They're heavy. They're difficult. And you're not permitted to take your cross off of you.

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And I don't know what you're suffering with. I don't know what God is working out in you where you are in a situation that despite your best efforts, despite all your money, despite all of your intent, you can't make this problem go away.

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You'll note that when we are in those situations, we have nothing else to do but to cry out to God to give us strength.

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And I assure you that if you don't have a heavy cross right now, one will be given to you eventually because we are all heading to the grave.

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I always like to point out my physical appearance is proof that we're not here for very long. You'll note that the skunk thing is getting bigger.

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It's just a matter of time before the skunk thing is gone and it's just a big shock of gray hair.

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It's coming. I'm trying to prepare you now. I'm trying to prepare myself. But all that being said, these are little reminders of the fact that we all are suffering the consequences of sin and receiving the wages of our sin which is death.

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And it comes to us slowly for some and all of a sudden for others. But all that being said,

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Moses, it says in this text, A wind then came from the Lord and sprang up and brought quail from the sea and let him fall beside the camp.

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About a day's journey on this side and a day's journey on the other side in the camp and about two cubits above the ground.

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The people rose all that day and all that night and all the next and they gathered the quail.

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Those who gathered least gathered ten homers and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp.

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While the meat was yet between their teeth before it was consumed, the anger of Yahweh was kindled against the people and the

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Lord struck down the people with a very great plague. Therefore the name of that place was called

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Kibrat Hata Ava because they buried the people who had the craving. And Kibrat Hata Ava, the people journeyed to Hazarath and they remained in Hazarath.

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Terrible outcome. God fed them but also God judged them. You want meat?

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I'll give you meat. It's not a good outcome. And again, you'll note acting faithlessly, slandering

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God, not being content with the good things that God has given them. They blaspheme

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God. They act faithlessly. And so you'll note that Paul tells us in 1

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Timothy, wise words for us as Christians. Godliness with contentment.

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This is great gain. We brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of it.

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This is most certainly true. If we have food and we have clothing with these, we will be content.

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But those who desire to be rich, and I would note desiring to be rich is a form of a craving.

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It's an idolatrous craving in many senses. And it doesn't have to be limited to just being rich.

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This can be all kinds of desires that lead us to exchange the eternal promises and gifts of God for the temporal pleasures of this fleeting and passing life.

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So Paul points out to the rich that those who desire to be rich, they fall into temptation.

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They fall into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that end up plunging people into ruin and destruction.

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This is all a form of idolatry, a breaking of the first commandment, the second commandment, the third commandment.

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It's all of them. For the love of money, it's like the craving of the children of Israel.

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It's a root of all kinds of evil. It's through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and they have pierced themselves with many pangs.

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And I would note that maybe your temptation isn't money. I'll single out the singles again here.

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The world we live in, have you noticed that if you're a Christian and you're single, it's hard to find someone to date.

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It really is. And I actually feel for the people who are young, who are faithful in their commitment to the faith.

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But here's the thing. Loneliness is a real thing. And many people, oftentimes,

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Christians, through their desire, their craving to no longer be single and to alleviate the loneliness that they have, they compromise and end up marrying somebody who doesn't share the same faith that they have.

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And as a result of it, they jeopardize their faith. And it's a very, very tragic thing.

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So you'll note, this isn't just limited to money. Any kind of craving for something that is contrary to the

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Word of God or that would lead you to act faithlessly, this is idolatry and sin. And it's a taking of God's Word and casting it behind your back and saying that you know better than God when you don't.

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Which then leads to our Gospel text. Remember, one of these things is not like the other. And it's in our

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Gospel text we see something quite fascinating. It says, In those days, when again the great crowd had gathered, they had nothing to eat.

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And Jesus called His disciples and called them to Him and said to them,

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I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now for three days and they have nothing to eat.

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Let that sell in for a second. Three days? Three days?

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These people have been with Christ for three days and they haven't had a pitch in? They haven't had a potluck?

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Many people have come and they've run out of food and they haven't eaten for days?

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Notice what's missing. There's no grumbling. There's not a mention at all that the people complained to Jesus that they had nothing to eat and that He needed to do something.

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Not a word was spoken against Christ. And as a result of it, we get to see what exactly

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God would have done in the Exodus had the children of Israel not grumbled and complained.

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And that is that He would have had compassion on them in the same way that God has had compassion on all of us.

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You'll note the Exodus tells us that we were born dead in trespasses and sins, enslaved to sin, death, and the devil.

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That's the whole point of our Epistle text talking about in our baptism we have been set free from slavery to sin and all of that because God has had compassion on us.

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God had so much love and compassion that He sent His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him, even if they've grumbled horribly against God and blamed

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Him for the misery that they are in, that He would forgive them of all of their sins so that anyone who believes in Him would not perish but instead would have eternal life.

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Christ has born our grumblings in His own body on the cross so that we can be forgiven.

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Have you ever had a conversation with a pagan and the pagan says, if God is good and if He's loving, then why does

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He permit all of this evil to happen in the world? It's like, are you kidding?

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Are you kidding? You're blaming God for that. Don't you think you should instead be blaming us?

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And notice I'm using all of us. You think God is the one responsible for the war in the Ukraine? We are.

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You think God is responsible for all the misery that we suffer in this human life? The broken relationships?

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The failed economies? The horribly inept politicians?

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You think God is responsible for that? We are. And so we don't have anything to complain against God.

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And you'll note this crowd in spending three days with Jesus, Jesus preaches and teaches and comforts and heals them for three days but He doesn't feed them even a morsel of food and there isn't a single complaint because everyone is listening by faith and trusting in the words that Christ is speaking.

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They're convicted of their sin. They're also confronted with who their God is and how loving and compassionate.

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God now moves and He has compassion on the crowd and He says, if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way and some of them will come, some of them have even come from far away.

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Now we can see the character of God clearly. It's not obscured by human slander.

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And so the disciples answered Jesus much the same way Moses answered God. How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?

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But if we remember from Exodus 16 that it is this kind of miracle that shows who their

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God is. And so Jesus divulges His deity when

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He has the people sit down and He takes the seven loaves and the few fish that they have and He blesses them and He distributes them and everybody ate and they were satisfied.

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It's amazing. They were utterly satisfied. You know, the

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Lutheran table prayer in the small catechism begins with a psalm and the psalm goes something like this.

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The eyes of all look to you, O Lord. You grant them their food at the proper time.

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You open up your hand and you satisfy the desires of every living thing.

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You know, the things that we desire oftentimes are the very things that we need.

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We need food. We need clothing. We need shelter. Do you think God doesn't know that?

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Of course He does. And this is the whole point of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in chapter 6 starting at 25.

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Jesus says, don't be anxious about your life, what you're going to eat, what you're going to drink, or about your body, what you're going to put on.

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Is not life more than food? And the body, is it not more than clothing?

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And if you know your Scriptures, you know that's true. You see, man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

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And for three days, those people got to be fed by Christ in their souls through the preaching and teaching and ministry of Christ, so much so that they didn't even complain at all about the fact that there was nothing in their belly.

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So Jesus says, look at the birds of the air. They neither sow, they don't reap, they don't gather into barns, yet your

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Heavenly Father, He feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they?

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Yeah, in my yard, we've got all kinds of little cute little birds. We have blue jays and these little chickadees.

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They're cute. They're just amazing to watch all the different and all the stuff going on, plus the squirrels.

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I'm tempted to get a pellet gun for them, but that's a different story. But all of that being said, you're going to note here, they are thriving and they don't have jobs.

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They don't have bank accounts. They're well taken care of and who is it that takes care of them?

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God. And are you not more valuable than the chickadees and the squirrels? So which of you, by being anxious, could add a single hour to his lifespan?

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What a great question because we now know from science and evidence -based things like this that anxiety doesn't lengthen your life.

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It shortens it a lot, not a little. Anxiety oftentimes is the underlying issue when it comes to different kinds of cancer.

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That's been proven. So Jesus says, Why are you anxious about your clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.

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They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

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But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and then tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you,

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O you of little faith? And there's the issue. O of little faith.

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Therefore, don't be anxious, saying, What are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? What are we going to wear?

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The Gentiles, they seek after all of these things. And your Heavenly Father, he knows that you need all of them.

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Instead, listen to the solution. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

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And let me explain what that is. The kingdom of God. Well, that's the kingdom where Jesus is king, right?

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Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords. But what about this phrase, and his righteousness? Seems like a little bit of an attachment, right?

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Oh, and his righteousness. And you sit there and go, I know what that means. That means I need to go out there and strive harder and do gooder and be a righteous dude.

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No, that's your righteousness. It's his righteousness.

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This is seeking first the kingdom of God and the righteousness that God gives you out of his great compassion and love for you by grace through faith.

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The righteousness of God, the righteousness of Christ, which clothes you and covers your sin and your faithlessness.

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Seek first the kingdom of God and the gospel is a good way of saying it. And note then, all these things will be added to you.

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All of them. You don't have to strive. Your God knows you need them. So, that being the case, coming back to our text, we see a great example in our gospel text of the compassion that Christ has and him taking the initiative to make sure that his people who have heard about the kingdom of God from him and about the righteousness of God through the lips of Christ for three days without anything in their belly,

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Jesus now feeds them to the full and they are completely satisfied.

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They took up broken pieces, left over seven baskets full, about 4 ,000 people ate that day.

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That's just the men. And then Jesus sent them away. So, the idea here is through this miracle,

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Jesus is letting you know that he is the one who feeds us, body and soul.

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If you would kind of think about it here, this miracle divulges who he is, God in human flesh.

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But that being the case, you'll note then our bodily food. Each year,

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Jesus causes the crops to grow on earth. I love the fact that we live out here in this rural area with all these farmers and farms around us, right?

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Because it always amazes me, every year you get these ginormous combines and farm implements that go out there and plant these tiny little seeds, right?

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You barely see them with a microscope. I need glasses anyway. But you get the idea. And what ends up happening after they put those seeds into the ground?

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God multiplies those seeds and they have a harvest later in the season.

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Have you ever stopped to think that that food multiplication miracle that Jesus took is just exactly the same miracle that Jesus performs for us year after year after year?

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We see it out here with our own eyes. And if you live in the city,

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I feel bad for you. It's fascinating to watch. And there's a great smell that goes along with being outside with these fields full of crops, right?

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It's amazing. And as we get close to the harvest, have you noticed how the smell changes just a little bit?

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It's a unique thing. And I never experienced that until I got out here. But here's the idea.

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Jesus causes the crops to grow. And it's these things that pertain to Him. He is the one who feeds us the same way year after year.

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And note, He does it out of His divine mercy and His compassion for all of His creation.

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He causes the sun to come up and the rains to fall on the just and the unjust out of His great mercy and love for those whom

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He has created. But we also note here that Christ feeds us with spiritual food.

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He feeds us with the manna of His Word. He teaches us. He comforts us and strengthens us with His Word.

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He enlightens and governs us by His Holy Spirit. And when we have the Lord's Supper, He even gives us

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His own very body and blood to eat and to drink so that our souls may be nourished and we might have comfort in the forgiveness of our sins despite our unworthiness.

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But also, one more thing. Jesus also promises to feed us with eternal food.

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There is a world to come and the first order of business when Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead.

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After everybody is sorted out, there is a big party and you all have been invited.

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And even God has made clear what's on the menu. Fine aged wine and meat with marrow.

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We know that God is going to feed us in the world to come. And we also learn from the book of Revelation that that tree of life that God had to bar the way to, it makes a reappearance in the book of Revelation.

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And we will eat and be satisfied from the tree of life in a world without end.

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So much here in this text. If you take the time to just compare and see why it is that one of these things is not like the other.

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See, one of them absolutely isn't like the other. No grumbling, no faithlessness and we see now the compassion and glory of God.

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So repent of your anxiety. Repent of your sinful cravings. Repent of blaming

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God for your misery. Christ has died for you. He loves you and he has offered you and given you eternal life as a gift.

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He feeds you body and soul and promises you the food of the earth to come.

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All is a gift because of his great love, mercy and compassion. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

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And again that address is We thank you for your support.

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