Letters to the Churches Bunny Trail Part 3

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Letters to the Churches Part 4

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So let's pray and then we will get started. Eternal God and Father of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, grant us your Holy Spirit who writes the preached word into our hearts so that we may receive and believe it and be gladdened and comforted by it in eternity.

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Glorify your word in our hearts, make it so bright and warm that we may find pleasure in it and through your inspiration, think what is right.

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By your power, fulfill the word for the sake of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, amen. Okay, so a good question came up and I'll read it out and if you know your medical symbols, my stepfather is an

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ER doc and my mom was for many years an RN and then she became a nursing professor.

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And so a medical symbol, caduceus, it's called the staff of Hermes and it's really kind of become the symbol of the

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Hippocratic Oath but I know many doctors are no longer required to take the Hippocratic Oath, kind of an interesting thing.

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But so the question is, is there an influence? And this is where we would have to say if there is an influence,

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I would say it's a demonic copycat influence because I don't know if you've noticed this about the devil, he's incapable of actually creating anything and the only thing he can do is distort the things that are made.

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And so this symbol itself and the belief in Hermes is gonna come after Moses, long after Moses.

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So the chances that they were influenced by Moses to some degree or another is definitely there as a potential but proving that is a different thing altogether.

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So but it's, I always consider this to be kind of one of those pagan coincidences.

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You know, is it really a coincidence? You know, but you'll note that the pole that they put the serpent on for Moses, that by Moses, that didn't have wings or things like that but you get the idea.

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And there was only one. Yeah, so yeah, but a good question regarding that because definitely there seems like there would be a connection.

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But let me do this real quick here while we're on the internet. Today we're gonna start getting into the 10 plagues and this is going to give us an opportunity to note that this is another one of those

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Mount Carmel moments, if you would, the 10 plagues are. God has this funny way of like taking pagan deities and showing that they are powerless and that they don't exist.

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And this is an important thing is that in the days before there was NFL. Okay, here in the

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United States, I saw a map recently that somebody had taken of the United States and showed geographically where people root primarily for particular teams.

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So, you know, on the East Coast, you get the New England Patriots, which

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I don't understand how anybody would actually root for them. Yeah, the

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Buccaneer thing didn't, that didn't count, okay, you know. So, and then, you know, here in Minnesota, everything's really purple and I feel bad for the purple people because, you know, it seems like a thing in futility, but you get the idea here.

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And so I'm, you know, when I grew up in Southern California, we had the Rams and then the Rams left and then they brought the

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Raiders and the Raiders left. And so I was an NFL orphan.

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And so when we moved to Indiana, we adopted the Colts and I've been very sad ever since.

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But all of that being said is that you'll note that in different, depending on which region of the country you live in in the

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United States, that'll oftentimes have a heavy influence in which particular team you root for.

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And when we talk about the Christian faith being, okay, I'm gonna use a word that's gonna make everybody nervous.

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Are you ready? Catholic. Okay, you used the

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C word. Yeah, okay, it's small C, small C, Catholic. We mean that it's universal.

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And so in the ancient world, the fact that Yahweh would kick the tuchus of all of these false deities on their home turf is kind of a big deal, all right?

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Because this isn't supposed to happen. You know, this would be like, you know, beating the former New England Patriots in the

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Superbowl being played in Baston, you know? Yeah, hang on.

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So you're saying that Jesus is our God? No, when it comes, okay, yeah, so the question was, are you saying that our

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God is not in favor of diversity? Not religious diversity. You'll note that belief and worship of other deities is never something that God looks on kindly.

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It's highly frowned upon and God over and again demonstrates through all kinds of acts that these deities are false.

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They cannot hear you, they cannot help you, and God does not consider worship of these other deities to be worship of him via proxy.

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So if you ever hear somebody say, well, you can worship Allah and also, and that will count as worship towards the one true

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God, that, no, the first commandment is you will have no other gods, right? So I understand that our postmodern social justice progressives believe that you can do such things, but that they are lying, okay?

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So we're gonna note then as we get into this that we'll see some of these deities. And the first plague is the plague of turning the

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Nile into blood. And this is the deity in question, and the deity is Happy, who is, apparently

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Moses made him sad. But Happy, he's the

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Egyptian god of the Nile, and the Nile is not just a river in Egypt, I'm just saying.

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So, anyway, I'll be here all week. All right. Everyone here is looking at me like they're gonna stone me.

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All right, so this is the first deity that's, how should we say, going down, all right?

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And the idea here is that God, through these acts of judgment, you're gonna note that these are specifically spoken by God as the first deities as acts of judgment.

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And these same types of acts of judgment show up in the book of Revelation, and you're gonna note that what happens to the

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Egyptians is also one of the themes that we see in Revelation, that despite God causing these calamities, showing the consequences of man's sin and idolatry, that people don't repent.

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It makes no sense at all, as Christ said, light has come into the world and people love darkness, and that is the problem.

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So now, things are really gonna start warming up. That's the best way to put it. Okay, all right. Let's see here.

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Rice just said small c. He remembers, oh, good, good, that's, Louis says, like the giants did, twice, go big blue.

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Okay, see, I shouldn't have read that out. All right, moving on. Exodus 7. So, Yahweh said to Moses, see,

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I have made you like God to Pharaoh, you and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command, and your brother

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Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of this land. I think I pointed this out next week.

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I'll highlight it again here today, that when a prophet is one who speaks for God, a prophet is one who speaks for God, and we can see this clearly spelled out for us in the fact that Aaron gets to be

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Moses' prophet and Moses gets to be like God. That actually helps us a lot because today we got a lot of people proclaiming themselves to be prophets, and everything they say, none of it comes true.

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They're lying, they're falsely prophesying, they ain't speaking for God. So here's where, at its core, this is just a clear text that shows that a prophet is one who speaks for, or on behalf of God.

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So you speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land, but I will harden

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Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land, Pharaoh will not listen to you.

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And here you're gonna note that Pharaoh, again, is a stand -in for the Prince of Darkness, the serpent himself.

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Again, his headdress kind of explains that very clearly. But then you're gonna note that in the same way that Pharaoh hardens his heart, despite the fact that God multiplies his signs, multiplies his judgment, same with people today.

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I'm actually quite shocked that there has not been mass repentance on the part of humanity as a result of the

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COVID pandemic. There's been none of that, none of it. Did you say mass?

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Mass, mass, mass, mass repentance. I've seen mass, mass protests, okay?

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Mass are not a supplement for a sackcloth. But the idea here is that, you'll note we're a year into this thing.

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We are a year into this thing, and maybe there's light at the end of the tunnel. I don't know, it seems like some governments may not ever reopen, it's just weird.

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You just have that sinking feeling that nothing's ever gonna be the same. But the reality is that when you read the book of Revelation, the plagues, the pandemics, the illnesses, the diseases are only going to ramp up.

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So what we've seen in the pandemic over the last year, this is the warmup act, okay?

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This is the warmup, this is the lesser band, the headliners still coming.

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And so you'll note then that despite the fact that God is gonna multiply his signs, Pharaoh ain't gonna listen.

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And then I will lay my hand on Egypt, bring my host, my people, the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, and watch this theme, by great acts of judgment.

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Wait a second, isn't God bringing us out of this cursed earth, bringing out his host of believers, resurrecting them from the dead, by great acts of judgment?

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You're gonna see, Egypt is like a stand -in in the types and shadows for the sinful world, for the sinful, unbelieving world.

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And that's where you have the crossover and the overlap. So you have a good understanding of the plagues of Egypt, you'll at least have a very reasonable understanding of what's going on in Revelation.

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So the Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.

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Yeah, they will know. And same with the people at the end of the age.

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While God multiplies his acts of judgment, people will know that he's God, but they will curse him rather than repent.

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Louis says, why would people repent? Either one, pandemic was God's fault, or two, there's no

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God anyway. I considered so far the entire year of the pandemic to be one extended

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Lenten season. Because Christ is so clear in this, that when people came to him and said, they wanted to know his take on those fellows who

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Pilate had put to death and then taken their blood and mixed it with the sacrifices. And Jesus wasn't gonna give them the

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Tucker Carlson op -ed on it. He basically said to them, listen, do you think that they were worse sinners than you are?

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And you'll all likewise perish if you don't repent. And that's kind of the thing, all right?

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So Emmanuel, which is one of the congregations I serve in Radium, Minnesota, last week we lost a fellow to COVID pneumonia.

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And it's very tragic. It's tragic, and at the same time, he had a good death.

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That's the best way I can put it, because everybody at Emmanuel insisted on continuing having church services, knowing full well that somebody could get

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COVID and die. And they basically said, and the fellow who died, his attitude was, if I die,

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I'm gonna be with Christ. I don't care, let's keep meeting. He was one of our elders. And so he got, and now he's with Jesus, dang it,

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I'm not. You know, so kind of a good attitude. But the thing is, is that the whole time, everybody's been feeling antsy.

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Everybody's feeling locked up. You have all these people who just are going stir crazy. Well, pandemics are in God's hands.

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And in situations like this, this calls for us to repent of our own sins, not for the politicians to repent, for you to repent, for us to repent.

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And so what have the charismatics done? They've, you just look at the buffoonery of Kenneth Copeland and others who've decreed and declared the pandemic to be over, rather than falling on their knees and saying,

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God, have mercy on us. We're sinners, which is what this is calling for. So, all right, we continue.

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So Moses and Aaron, they did so. They did just as Yahweh commanded. And now Moses was 80 years old, Aaron 83 years old when they spoke to Pharaoh.

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So then Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, when Pharaoh says to you, prove yourselves by working a miracle, then you shall say to Aaron, take your staff, cast it down before Pharaoh so that it may become a serpent.

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Moses and Aaron did, went to Pharaoh, and did just as Yahweh commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.

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And then Pharaoh summoned his wise men and the sorcerers, and they and the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts.

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For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs.

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You'd think they'd sit there and go, uh -oh, right? But Pharaoh's heart was hardened. He wouldn't listen to them, as Yahweh had said.

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Then Yahweh said to Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened. He refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning. As he's going out to the water, stand on the bank of the

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Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent, and you shall say to him,

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Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews sent me to you, saying, let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness, but so far you have not obeyed.

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Thus says Yahweh, by this you shall know that I am Yahweh. Behold, with the staff that is in my hand,

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I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood. The fish in the

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Nile shall die, the Nile will stink, and the Egyptians will grow weary of drinking water from the

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Nile. And the Lord said to Moses, say to Aaron, take your staff, stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over the rivers, over their canals, over their ponds, over all their pools of water, so that they may become blood, and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in the vessels of wood and in the vessels of stone.

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So Moses and Aaron did as Yahweh commanded in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff, struck the water in the

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Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned to blood. And the fish in the Nile died, the

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Nile stank, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile, there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

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But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret art, so Pharaoh's heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them as Yahweh had said.

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Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart, and all the Egyptians dug along the

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Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the Nile. And then you'll note then in Revelation, let me see if we can pull this in here, so Hopi, one of the false gods, the god of the

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Nile, he's gone down, right? And so here when you look at Revelation 16, the second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing died that was in the sea.

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So here you get the same act of judgment, and this is really talking about, and this is where I wanna be careful so that people do not think that I've somehow become a granola -crunching earth muffin or something like that, but the idea here is that in the days ahead, the complaints that people have regarding so -called global warming are gonna be nothing compared to what's coming.

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And here's the thing, is that these are gonna be acts of judgment by God. We're talking about God is going to, as we get closer and closer to the return of Christ, cause mass death in the seas.

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You guys remember, it wasn't quite a decade ago, but almost, remember that oil rig, that the oil was just pouring?

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Well, not the Valdez, there was an oil rig offshore in the Gulf, and that thing went on for what, days, weeks, months, you know, before they can get that thing under control.

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And that's like a picture of what's going on here. These kinds, the

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Gulf of Mexico BP oil spill, 2010. So yeah, it was 11 years ago, wow.

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It doesn't seem like that long ago, but it really was. I mean, that was a complete disaster.

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And then, was it just recently, was it Indonesia got hit by a big old earthquake and a tsunami?

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Yeah? Yeah? And you'll note, remember when we had that last big tsunami in Southeast Asia?

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I mean, watching the videos on the internet of people being swept away by this ginormous tsunami surge, and how many people lost their lives.

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I mean, that was a huge amount of people. And the idea here is that each and every one of these, and you're gonna ever increasing in magnitude disaster.

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We're on the 10 year anniversary of the big one that hit Japan. That was a decade ago too.

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Yeah, the Fukushima, yeah. So this is what we're talking about here. We need to see these things through the biblical lens of God's judgment, all right?

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So when we learn about entire species of particular aquatic animals, whether they be fish or mammal or whatever, being brought to the brink of distinction and then extinction and beyond, and they cease to exist, of our fisheries in the oceans being depleted and things dying, this is all, that's kind of the whole picture that's being told here.

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And it's going to increase and increase and increase and get worse and worse and worse.

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And so even if we were to manage the earth as best as we can, and I would argue that many people really are committed to doing that and are, despite all of that,

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God's going to put his finger into the pot and he's going to tip the scales in favor of things going horribly bad as an act of judgment.

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So the next time you hear of a ginormous tsunami, an earthquake, or a major spill, or some catastrophe like this, note that the book of Revelations is teaching us that these things increase in frequency and magnitude as we get closer and closer to the return of Christ.

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And the response is, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. That's our response.

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It needs to be our response. All right, so happy bit the dust.

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Hang on a second here, hang on. So happy's not happy anymore. All right, let's see who comes next.

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Heket, the Egyptian goddess of fertility, water, renewal,

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Egyptian plague, frogs. All right, okay. So, I've heard so many bad sermons on this next text.

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Okay, we'll talk about, let's read it and then we'll talk about how it's twisted and then take a look what's going on here.

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So you'll note that God is totally equal opportunity judger when it comes to either male or female deities.

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And so we have a female Egyptian goddess who's gonna bite the dust here.

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So Yahweh said to Moses, go into Pharaoh, say to him, thus says Yahweh, let my people go, that they may serve me.

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But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all of your country with frogs. The Nile shall swarm with frogs that shall come up into your house and into your bedroom and onto your beds and into your houses of your servants and your people and into your ovens and into your kneading bowls.

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Now this is the days before they figured out that you can fry these things like chicken. So, they missed a frog harvest opportunity here.

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But anyway, so Yahweh said to Moses, say to Aaron, stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the canals, over the pools and make the frogs come up on the land of Egypt.

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So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. But the magicians did the same by their secret arts and made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.

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One has to wonder if they weren't just piggybacking on what God was doing here, right? So then

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Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron said, plead with Yahweh to take the frogs away from me and from my people and I will let the people go to sacrifice to Yahweh.

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So apparently this has gotten to the point where he can't just put this out of his mind and he needs some relief from the frogs.

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I mean, he was knee deep in frogs everywhere, so. No, really?

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He's been noisy. Oh, you guys, your reaction is gonna make me croak.

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He needs better material. I'm trying too hard.

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All right. Stop right here behind me. Yeah, all right. So Moses said to Pharaoh, be pleased to command me when

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I am to plead to you for your servants and for your people so that the frogs be cut off from your houses and be left only in the

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Nile. And he said, tomorrow. Moses said, be it as you say so that you may know that there is no one like Yahweh our

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God. The frogs shall go away from you and in your houses and your servants and your people and they shall be left only in the

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Nile. So Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh and Moses cried to Yahweh about the frogs as he had agreed with Pharaoh and Yahweh did according to the word of Moses.

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The frogs died out in the houses, the courtyards and the fields and they gathered them together in heaps and the land stank.

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But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them as Yahweh had said.

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So you're gonna note here, the Egyptian goddess Hekhet is powerless.

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Yeah, that's kind of a frog lady. Yeah, that's just weird. Yeah, she was powerless there.

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But I'm gonna tell you how bad preaching goes on this text while we're here. Have you ever heard the song

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One More Night with the Frogs? Okay, so the big popular way of teaching this is using a form of scripture twisting that I call

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Narcissus, where you narcissistically read yourself into the text. And so the way the sermons usually go, the general outline is that Pharaoh could have chosen any day to, he could have even chosen that exact same day to get relief from the frogs, but he chose for it to happen one more night.

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And so what frogs are you putting up with in your life when you can ask

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God to take those frogs away from you now? And there's a whole song called One More Night with the

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Frogs that people sing in churches, and it's just horrifyingly bad. The whole point of you picking the time was so that Pharaoh would know that it was

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Yahweh who did it. That was the whole point. You pick the time so that that's proof that it wasn't just something that happened by coincidence.

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Or whatever. If he had chosen a week from Thursday, the frogs would have stayed until then.

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That was the whole point. So and this is not about frogs in your life. It's just, you know.

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Well, the text doesn't say why he didn't choose today, okay? And the whole point was you pick the time because that's gonna be proof that Yahweh was the one who was acting.

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So all right, now let me go back up into the questions before we get too far here.

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Ugh. Okay, so, oh, good questions here. So God, through pastors, are declaring these judgments.

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Yes. Carlos, yes, you get it. Okay, so when

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God acts, a Christian pastor's supposed to go, this is God, pay attention. This is a call for us all to repent, okay?

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So Eric says, on the topic of judgment, what's the proper interpretation of judgment must begin in the house of God?

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Well, we're gonna apply our three rules for exegesis before we go anywhere. And so we're looking at 1

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Peter 4, 1 Peter 4. And the three rules are context, context, and context.

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All right, so beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you.

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Something strange, all right. Well, so a good way to think of it is that, all right, pay attention to what this text is saying.

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So are you being persecuted for being a Christian? All right, have you stopped to think yet that, you know, to kind of figure it out, it just really seems like the days are getting darker and that the governments are about to pass laws that make

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Christianity, Christians guilty of crimes against humanity, all right, for not embracing sexual diversity or whatever?

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It's all coming, right? All right, you should hear what's going on in Scotland. All right, all of that being said, all right, when these things happen, our reaction shouldn't be going, what's going on?

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I never saw this coming, what, huh, huh. No, it's, no, this is not, this is what we're supposed to expect.

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So this, when these trials come, nothing strange is happening to you. Instead, rejoice insofar as you share in Christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

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If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you, but let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or as an evildoer or as a meddler.

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If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.

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For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God and begins with us. What will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel?

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If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? So you'll note here, kind of the theme of judgment beginning with the household of God is that this is a form, the suffering that we go through is we have to consider ourselves to be blessed, but you're gonna note when those types of suffering and persecution show up, then judgment happening in the house of God, you're gonna note the people fall away.

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People fall away in the face of persecution and suffering like that, which demonstrates that their faith is, well, let's just say weak, not quite there.

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Yes, sir. Teaches kids white

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Christians are evil and the chant of Aztec gods. Yes, I saw that. Yes, so there's a

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Christian Post article about in the state of California, there's a school district requiring kids to take classes that teach that white

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Christians are evil and as a counter protest to the evil white Christian patriarchy, they actually in class require kids to chant to the

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Aztec deities. That requires human sacrifice. And the Aztec deities, by the way, do require human sacrifice.

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I wonder who's gonna be volunteering for that, but that's a different thing altogether. So you'll note that things are warming up, all right?

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So the idea that in the face of this kind of suffering, if you adopt and believe what scripture says rather than feeling like you're cursed, when you are made to suffer, you will recognize that you are blessed.

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But those who are in the house of God who don't really believe or when they face judgment like this, they're out.

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I would point out that if full scale persecution were to break out in the

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United States, if that were to happen, I really truly believe the first people who would fall away,

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Lakewood would disappear, all right? Because none of those people are, none of them have signed up to be persecuted or to suffer.

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They are told that if they can use their faith -filled words to magically create wonderful outcomes in their life, their

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Christianity is not a real Christianity. So when these types of persecution comes, it does create a form of judgment in the house of God in the sense that people fall away, whereas those who are true remain and see themselves as blessed in the face of stuff.

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Like, that's the context of that text, so. But Carlos, so is this part of reigning with Christ on earth and therefore executing judgment as his priest?

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So the idea then, Carlos, is that, kind of coming back to the theme is, is that since scripture gives us a way of interpreting events like this, and I always find it fascinating that there are people who are

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Christians who are sketchy, who have a hard time about this. Well, there was a natural disaster.

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Should we say it was an act of God? Yes, we should. Okay, the book of Revelation says that this is an act of God and what's the call then?

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Repent. But here's what ends up happening is you get some yahoo on TBN who, when an event happens, they try to pin it to one specific sin.

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Oh, the reason why this particular earthquake happened is because, and then just fill in the blank, right?

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And it's a particular sin. No, this is a result of our collective sin and this is a call for us all to collectively repent of our collective sins.

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So to somehow pin it on a particular thing. So in the past, I've seen guys who will say, oh, this sin is because America has legalized abortion.

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I admit that America has earned the wrath of God because of the millions of children that have been murdered here as a result of abortion.

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But to say that a specific act of God is a result of a particular sin is kind of missing the whole point, all right?

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And not only that, but what we can say is that, yeah, when a disaster like this happens, it should wake us up.

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I remember the Sunday after the 9 -11 attack. The churches were full and they should have been.

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And they should have been. But within three, four weeks, they were back to normal attendance levels, right?

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So the idea then is that we, revelation makes it clear. With ever increasing frequency and magnitude, these are the

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God's judgment on the earth for our sin, our rebellion, our unbelief.

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And the job of the Christian is to say, yeah, the reason why these things are happening is because of our sin, because of your sin, my sin.

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God is telling us to repent. God is calling us to recognize that we have sinned against him to not harden our heart against him.

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All right, Dana says, Matthew 16, but he replied, when it is evening, you say it'll be fair weather for the sky is red.

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In the morning, there will be a storm for the sky is red and threatening. Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky but cannot discern the sign of the times?

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Yeah, I think, Dana, that's a relevant text in this regard, all right?

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But keep in mind, we've been in the last days since Christ ascended. And have you noticed in our lifetime that things have definitely been ramped up?

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They have. And will they ramp up more? Yes.

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Christ describes what is coming at the end of the earth as birth pains, okay?

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I remember when Barb was pregnant for the first time and we didn't know what to expect. I remember all of that, okay?

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And I remember making some pretty boneheaded statements when she was in labor, okay? They hooked her up to a

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Richter scale. I think that's what that was, you know? So every time she would have a contraption, that's what we called them, contraptions, every time she would have a contraction,

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I'd look at the Richter scale and watch it peak out and let her know when things were gonna taper off.

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And one particular contraction, the Richter scale just jumped, the needle jumped. I said, whoa, here comes a big one.

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She goes, I know, you know? And the thing is is that the earth has been in labor since Christ's ascension.

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I don't know how many centimeters or centimeters we're at right now. I can just tell you the baby's coming, all right?

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And as we get closer and closer, the contractions get stronger and they get harder.

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And that's kind of the point that we're seeing here. We're seeing a redux, a repeat of some of the earlier judgments that we saw in the book of Revelation.

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And they're now taken from an intensity from where a third of the earth is impacted.

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Now in Revelation 16, all of the sea is impacted. Everything.

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Yes? The waves increased about fourfold.

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And that's using the same instrumentation system the entire time. Wow. Most of them are submarine, so you don't see them and you don't hear about them.

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Yeah. Most of them are small enough so that they don't really, frequency has jumped significantly.

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So the frequency of earthquakes on planet Earth in the last decade has jumped fourfold. Yeah, going back probably three decades.

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Three decades. It's three decades, the number of earthquakes, with the same instrumentation. Same instrumentation, it has increased fourfold in three decades.

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I mean, what happens often? Yeah, we don't want to talk about that because we're kind of downwind from that one.

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So here in North Dakota, we're not too far from Yellowstone, it's just a few states over. And there's a big old caldera.

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I always like to think that God's saving that for like the grand finale. You know how like at a fireworks display, they always save the big fireworks for the end?

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For the end of the 1812 Overture. Yeah, to the 1812 Overture. Da da da da da da da da da da.

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And there goes the caldera in Yosemite. The idea here then is this.

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We look at these events through the lens of Scripture. These are God's acts of judgment, and God is saying, repent.

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Yes. It's all the human's fault.

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Yes. And not even thinking that it's for God. Right, so that's part of the problem here that we're having in our day.

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Because everybody's saying, oh, the reason why we're having this is because of man -made global warming. I will admit that what's happening is a result of man's activity, sinful activity.

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But it's not because of the invention of the automobile. It's not because you aren't driving an electric car.

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That's not the issue. And I assure you that even if the whole world switches over to electric vehicles, you're still gonna have to make that electricity.

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But if the whole world switches over to electric vehicles, things are still going to get worse.

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Worse. And right now, people are noticing things are getting worse.

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And they're saying, we've got to become carbon neutral. You know. You know. Yeah, and they blame global warming for getting hotter, getting colder, and I'm pretty sure you're gonna start blaming it on an earthquake.

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Yep, yep. We have to kill a majority of the world to save the planet. Yeah, let's not go there.

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All right, so coming back then here. So you get the idea. And let me see here. So Tony C says,

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I'm green with envy after that one. Okay, so Pharaoh's magicians answered to the plague what a frog was to make more frogs.

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Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Wouldn't it be to like, you'd think they would've thought, well, let's find a way to get rid of them, right?

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So it's, okay, so One More Night with the Frogs, apparently a book written by Jesse Duplantis. Yes, yes.

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And I've heard Christine Kane preaching at a passion event using that same thing.

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Okay, we are ripe in judgment. Yes, that's right. The harvest is ripe, plentiful, the workers are few.

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Jen and I were just talking about this, but the world calls it global warming. That's right, they do. All right, pray for the tenacious faith, believe in patience, endurance, and forgiveness.

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Yep. Pagan's gonna peg, Stephen, if Yellowstone goes off, it's gonna affect the whole world, okay?

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You know, we could, for real, if Yellowstone ever went off, we are looking at probably a decade or more of really super cold weather, okay?

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And we're talking like major crop failures across the world because of that. So yeah, they won't be planting any beets here in Minnesota if Yellowstone goes off.

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We're gonna be digging ourself out of ash. All right. All right. Okay, okay, so they don't wanna use that three -letter word.

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That's right, sin, nobody wants to use that anymore. In fact, everyone's just, you know, people are completely oblivious to what's going on.

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This is why pastors need to say, hello, wake up, God's trying to get your attention, you're gonna die, okay?

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You're gonna perish, repent. All right, so how should we think those disasters as a call to repent when daily

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Christian life should be repentance even though they were not disasters? So, Askari, this is how we would think of it then, is that this is an appeal then to our unbelieving neighbors.

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This is an appeal to them, first and foremost, it is an appeal to us to remember that we will likewise perish, that there's no guarantee that we won't and that the wages of sin is death.

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And so trusting in Christ, we believe that we can die in a natural disaster and die well.

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But the idea then is that you'll note that for our unbelieving neighbors, the conversation should steer away from global warming to these are acts of God to get our attention, to show us our mortality, to show us the consequences of sin and show us despite all of our best efforts to manage and maintain the planet, that the planet itself is well in travail because of our sin.

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And this gives, so the idea then, when you preach Christ, you always have to preach law and gospel. And these natural disasters give us a very good way of preaching law and gospel, sin, grace, repentance and the forgiveness of sins because each and every one of us, whenever we see a disaster like that happen, we all kind of breathe a sigh of relief and say,

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I'm glad I wasn't there, right? And that's kind of a universal. And then you feel terrible for the people who are swept away in that because that just seems like a horrifying way to die.

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And then you look at the aftermath of these things and all these people who've lost loved ones who they don't even have bodies to bury and things like this.

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And you say, these are the consequences of our sin and the call of God in the face of this is to repent, to recognize our wickedness and to call out to him for mercy.

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And you preach the gospel that Christ has bled and died for them. And so I think we're, as Christians, we're missing these opportunities because we've gotten skittish in actually interpreting these things biblically or skittish because of the fact that other people have done such a poor job.

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I remember years ago when the ELCA voted to bless same -sex marriages.

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There was an act of God that happened that is quite fascinating with this. And you can look it up on the internet because this is still traceable.

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So the very hour, the very moment that they were voting and the

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ELCA had their convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was in the early summer. And I wanna say this was like 12, 13 years ago.

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So while they were actually voting to bless same -sex marriage, a category one tornado hit downtown

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Minneapolis, went down the street where the convention center was, where the

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ELCA was meeting and blew over all of their vendor tables and took the cross off the church across the street, which is where they were having their worship services.

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And that cross was left dangling upside down. And that tornado hit while they were voting, okay?

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So John Piper, who people know of John Piper, he did his pastoral ministry in Minneapolis, at the time said that that was an act of God.

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And the emergent church and the postmodern liberals, they just had a heyday, had a heyday with it.

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Basically saying, this is ridiculous. It was just a coincidence. It was just a random act.

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And I'm sitting there going, no, that was an actual act of God. Piper was right.

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But people within the Christian church thought that that was just silly, absolutely silly.

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And there's a video making the rounds of some fellow in a Christian church who was preaching about the, that God is gonna bless same sex marriages.

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And while he was making one of his points, there was a major lightning strike and the lights went out.

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And he said, that's not God showing his disapproval. Yes, it is. It is actually

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God showing his disapproval. You are foolish to think otherwise. Yeah.

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Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so August 19th, 2009 on the

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Desiring God website. The cross upside down. If that is an act of God, I have no idea what is.

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Because that tornado hit while they were voting. And they all scoff at the idea that that was an act of God's judgment.

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They scoff at it. The revelation teaches us to think otherwise. Yes, sir.

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If the world was to repent, the end of?

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Technically, no. So the question is, if the world, let's say that there was a mass repentance.

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The people, they came to their senses and they realized, oh my goodness, we brought this on ourselves. And next thing you know,

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Kong's fingers filled the bursting and all the sound churches have people showing up and Christianity gets rid of all the weirdos.

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And all around the world, people are now professing faith in Christ. Does that push back the day of judgment?

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No, because Christ is clear that the day of judgment has been set already by the

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Father, okay? So that day, whatever it is, it has already been set.

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But what God has a tendency, and this is where we should pay attention to something here, and God has this really interesting tendency where the closer he gets to actually moving in judgment, the smaller his church gets, the smaller the number of believers.

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It's a standard pattern. In fact, I'll show you this. Hang on, let me see if I can pull this up. And I'm gonna move this so I can see.

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Hang on a second here. In the Lutheran study Bible, in the introduction to the book of Jeremiah, you have some, you have one of the, you have

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Luther's commentary on the book of Jeremiah, and something he says is very fascinating, and one that we should pay attention to.

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The idea is this, is that God wouldn't push the day of judgment back, but if there was a repentance like that, the likelihood of the day of judgment following any time closely after that is not good.

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And there's a reason why. I'll explain in a second, hold on. All right, waiting for this. My apologies, I usually read on this with a dark mode, and I don't want to switch it at this point.

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But let me do this. I want to go to, Jeremiah was a bullfrog.

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Hang on a second here. Just a quick note.

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There's been a lot of fires in California, and that's where all the earthquakes. Yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, it, yeah, that sounds right. And it's right on the fault. No incidents. Yeah, well, I used to live there.

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Okay, hang on a second here. I gotta find my Lutheran study Bible real quick. Hang on a second.

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We didn't get snow days in Southern California. We would get days where the air would be so bad. Yep. And we'd have to stay home because the sun was orange.

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Yeah, no, the smog days in California were the terrible thing. All right, let's see here. Luther on Jeremiah.

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Okay, let's see if I have it highlighted. Looks like I don't. All right, so here's what Luther writes. Few comments are needed for an understanding of the prophet

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Jeremiah. If one will only pay attention to the events that took place under the kings and whose time he preached, for his preaching had reference to the condition of the land at that time.

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In the first place, the land was full of vices and idolatry. People slew the prophets and would have their own vices and idolatry go unrebuked.

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Therefore, the first part, down to the 20th chapter, is almost entirely rebuke and complaint of the wickedness of the

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Jews. In the second place, Jeremiah also foretold the punishment that was at hand, namely the destruction of Jerusalem and of the whole land and of the

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Babylonian captivity, indeed the punishment of all nations as well. Yet along with this, he gives comfort and promises that a definite time after the punishment is over, they shall be released and shall return to their land, to Jerusalem.

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So you kind of get the general theme here. And this was highly necessary for since this cruel hardship was to come upon the people, they were to be uprooted and carried away out of their land.

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Many pious souls, such as Daniel and others, would have been driven to despair of God and his promises, for they would not have been able to think otherwise.

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And then, let me see if I can find the actual part that I think is kind of salient.

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Here we go. This is it. So watch this. So we learn from Jeremiah, among others, that as usual, the nearer the punishment, the worse the people become, and that the more one preaches to them, the more they despise his preaching.

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Thus, we understand that when it is God's will to inflict punishment, he makes the people to become hardened so that they may be destroyed without any mercy and not appease

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God's wrath with any repentance. So the men of Sodom, long ago, had to not only despise the righteous lot, but even afflict him because he taught them, even though their own affliction was at the door.

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Likewise, Pharaoh, when about to be drowned in the Red Sea, had to oppress the children of Israel twice as much as before.

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And Jerusalem had to crucify God's son when its own final destruction was on the way.

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So it goes everywhere, even now. Now that the end of the world is approaching, the people rage and they rave most horribly against God.

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They blaspheme and they damn God's word, though they well know that it is God's word and it is the truth.

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Besides, so many fearful signs and wonders are appearing, both in the heavens and among all creatures, which threaten them terribly.

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It is indeed a wicked and miserable time, even worse than that of Jeremiah. So it will be and it must be.

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The people begin to feel secure and to sing peace all as well. They simply persecute everything that accords with the will of God, and they disregard all the threatening signs.

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All right, you'll note that's what's going on. Destruction suddenly then surprises them and destroys them before they know it.

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But Christ will be able to sustain his own, for whose sake he causes his word to shine forth in this shameful time of ours, just as at Babylon he sustained

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Daniel and those like him, for whose sake Jeremiah's prophecy had to shine forth. To the same dear

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Lord be praise and thanks for the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, over all and in eternity, amen.

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So you note that the closer we get to the judgment of God, the more the signs that appear, the more people rage and rave and dig in and say, leave us alone,

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God, we want to do things our own way. And I hate the fact that I was born a man, I want to be a woman.

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Sorry, I keep throwing that, you get the idea. God is so bigoted,

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I can't believe he makes people, he chooses their gender for them, man. Anyway, all right.

52:58

All right, so Moses and Pharaoh, they went out for Moses, they cried, and then the frogs went away.

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And I think this is where we're gonna leave today, all right? Because we'll pick up with the gnats next week, because there's a little bit of a subtlety that I have to explain regarding the gnats.

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But let me check the last question before we wrapped up, and then we'll see what's going on here.

53:22

So, okay, so this is a perfect example of the signs and wonders that do not make people believe, as the

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Charismatics and the NAR would have us believe. That's right, MJ. So here, do you see an act of God still?

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People remain in their unbelief, indeed they do. So a wicked and perverted generation seeks after a sign that is of the words of Jesus.

53:43

But yeah, all right, so they won't listen even if someone rises from the dead, that's correct too. So one of the reasons

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I was rejected, Elizabeth writes, I was rejected in church was because I would tell people these types of judgments were warnings from God.

53:57

God, Charismatics don't like that at all. Yeah, okay, too negative for them, that's right.

54:03

So the Sylvester family, Pastor, I don't think I've heard your opinion on the Holman Christian Standard Translation, now called the

54:09

Christian Standard Bible. We use it a lot in our previous church, but I find myself preferring the ESV now.

54:15

So the Holman Christian Bible is an okay translation. I fanged it a little wonky, and that's one of the reasons why

54:23

I never adopted it as a personal study

54:29

Bible, as opposed, and so I've been using the ESV now for well, like a decade and a half, and here's the thing, because I can read

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Greek and Hebrew, I always am able to correct it, but for years I taught from the NIV, and that was a headache and futility, man.

54:49

So I would say the Holman is definitely superior to the NIV, it's just, I find their translation work to be just, it's awkward in spots.

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It's not easily readable, and at the same time, I understand why they made the decisions they do.

55:03

So one of my seminary profs, he swears by that thing, and God bless him, but I don't usually like working that hard on an

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English translation, so that's just how I think about it. All right, so if God wants everyone to be saved, why does he harden their hearts?

55:22

Elizabeth, so this is where we have to pay close attention to something, and that is that I did a teaching on this about never wanting to go full

55:31

Burger King. The idea is this, is that you remember the old Burger King commercials, hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, all that kind of stuff, and on the whole point of the ad campaign was you can have it your way, is that God, he doesn't will for sinners to perish.

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He desires that all would be saved, and people who, in the face of God's judgments and acts that are clearly sent by God, persist in shaking their fists at God, they are the ones who continue to harden their hearts against God, that God at some point can, he doesn't always, but God at some point just says, fine, have it your way, okay?

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And so note that when God hardens somebody's heart, all he's doing is making it impossible for somebody to change their mind, and that they're the ones who have been hardening their hearts all along, and God says, okay,

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I'm gonna go full Burger King on you, you can have it your way, and when that happens, what

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God is doing here is he's judging the person for eternity by basically affirming their impenitence, and saying, fine,

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I'm gonna ratify it, you have it your way, you're damned. So, Jen says,

56:47

God is a gentleman who doesn't force. Oh, I disagree, Christ absolutely drags people into the kingdom, but that's a different thing altogether.

56:56

So, all right, so impossible to change their mind, the reprobate doctrine. The idea here is that people aren't born reprobates, but at some point,

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God says, you wanna be one? Go, all right, I'll affirm you in it. So, that's the idea.

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So, and we'll see that with Pharaoh. As we work through the next chapters, you'll see that it'll say, Pharaoh hardened his heart.

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Pharaoh hardened his heart. Pharaoh hardened his heart, and then it changes. God hardened

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Pharaoh's heart. So, you'll note that as we work through these, you'll see this develop, that Pharaoh hardens his heart,

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Pharaoh hardens his heart, and then God'll harden it. So, fine, have it your way, and that's the whole idea. So, we'll see this as we work our way through it.

57:38

Great questions, by the way. Yes, Mr. Clevin. I can tell you from some experience that people that aren't born

57:47

Lutherans, if they come to Lutheranism, they always come kicking and screaming because they can't believe it.

57:53

Oh, I know, I'm a Lutheran against my will. You know, I, oy, that's a whole other sermon.

58:01

But you're right, you know, if you're a confessional Lutheran, you're here because God did something that you didn't want him to do.

58:09

And it seems like, at least, that usually people, before they become Lutherans, they see one text, they're like, um, that's not what it means.

58:18

Yeah, I know. I gotta admit, I really like being a Lutheran because I don't ever have to twist texts anymore.

58:23

I can just take them, you know, interpret them properly. As a Nazarene, I always had to take biblical texts and say,

58:29

I know that it says that, but it doesn't really mean what it says. It means something totally different. And then I would explain how it means the opposite of the actual words that it's saying.

58:37

That was quite the game I had to play when I was a Nazarene. All right, all right, brothers and sisters,