Don't Be a Wimp!

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter 12.
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We're continuing this morning in our study of the book of Hebrews.
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And I want to take a moment before we dive into the text to remind us all of the audience which the writer had in view when he was writing this letter.
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To understand a historical document properly, you have to have an idea to whom it was written and the context in which they lived.
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A letter written by General George Washington during the Revolutionary War might be very difficult to understand if we did not know that he was leading the colonies towards independence from England.
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It wouldn't make any sense to us if we did not have that particular historical context in which to frame the letter.
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Terms like lobster back and red coat, common terms of his day, would not make any sense to us today if we didn't understand the context in which he lived.
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So, so, the same thing can be said about the book of Hebrews.
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Understanding the condition of the recipients of this letter allows us to understand more about what the writer is saying.
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We've already seen that the writer has time and time again tried to remind his hearers and his readers that they do not need to depart from the faith.
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This was a very serious issue for him because as persecution was growing and many folks who originally were convicted about following Jesus were beginning to falter under the weight of oncoming difficulties.
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We've all seen this happen.
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Someone gets excited about following Christ, then the weight and pressure of actually living the Christian life becomes a burden to them and begins to draw them back away.
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It begins to become like an albatross hung around their neck.
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And the entire book of Hebrews rests on this simple idea.
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Why would you retreat from Christ when He is the only One who can save? That really is the entire book, the thesis of the book.
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Why would you retreat from Christ when Christ is who He is? Even if things are tough, Christ is the only way.
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Do not retreat, but keep the faith.
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These are the mantras of the book of Hebrews and that is the context which we find ourselves in as we read.
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So let's read this morning together.
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We're going to read verses 4-6 and then we'll give our exposition.
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Let's stand together.
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Hebrews 12, verse 4.
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In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
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And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him.
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For the Lord disciplines the one He loves and chastises every son whom He receives.
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Father, as we go into the text this morning to seek to plumb its depths, we pray, Lord, that You would first and foremost keep me from error as I am a fallible man capable of preaching error.
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I pray that You would protect me from that and protect the people from that.
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I pray also, Lord, that You would open their hearts to understand the Word.
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And Lord, that it would all be in accord with sound doctrine.
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Lord, we thank You for Your Word.
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We thank You for its clarity and that it speaks to us words of truth that we can understand.
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This morning we pray those truths would be applied to our hearts.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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I've been real excited in my studies the last few weeks because the passages have been using the language of athletics and that's sort of been in focus.
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And I know I don't look much like an athlete.
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I'm not your typical athletic type person.
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But I am interested in athletics.
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I coach.
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I teach karate.
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And as you're aware, the writer of Hebrews has already been using this metaphor, these sports metaphors already.
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He's used the race to describe the Christian life, talking about how the Christian life is somewhat of a marathon.
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And he's told us that we ought to run the race, realizing that we're surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses who are in effect cheering us on to victory.
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They're essentially watching us.
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They're rooting for us.
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They're wanting us to continue.
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Their lives stand to us as an example of perseverance that we can follow and look to for strength.
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And as I've noted, these types of metaphors are especially appealing to me.
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I felt a certain connection to what the writer is saying because I've often appealed to these same metaphors in life when I've talked to people.
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I've often used things like the sports that I've taught or the karate that I've taught to teach people about endurance, stamina, determination, intestinal fortitude, what we call guts.
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Have the guts to continue, strengthen, be strong and go forward.
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Because all of that's required in competition.
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All that's required in sports.
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It's required to have determination to compete and to get stronger and keep going.
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And the writer of Hebrews is using these same things to describe the Christian life.
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And this week's passage actually goes even further into a sports metaphor, even though that's not readily apparent when we first read the passage.
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You have to understand somewhat of the historical context and even somewhat of the Greek language to see that he's actually using a sports metaphor in this verse.
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If you look at verse 4, the writer says this, In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.
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Well, the key word that I want to look at this morning is the word struggle.
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That word struggle actually was a word that came from what were called the agonistic games.
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Agonistic games were those games which one person would compete against another person.
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They would agonize together or they would struggle together.
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One of the ones of the ancient world which we still have today was a form of boxing.
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A boxing match would be considered an agonistic game.
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Two men who were fighting one another and they were going after one another.
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They were struggling with one another for victory.
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In fact, the word, the Greek word here, antagonizominoi is where we get the word antagonize.
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And most of us think of antagonize as poking at someone or prodding someone or maybe annoying them or irritating them.
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That's what you think of when you think if I'm antagonizing you, that's what you're thinking.
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But actually, the root of the word antagonize simply means to struggle against someone.
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And one writer described it like this.
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I really like this quote, so I put it in my notes.
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The writer says, speaking of the antagonistic games or the agonistic games, he said, in those games, the boxers were accustomed to arm themselves for the fight with a kestis.
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This at first consisted of strong leather thongs which were wrapped around the hands and then extended to the wrist to give greater solidarity to the fist.
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Boxers still today wrap their hands up to give greater strength to their hands.
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Afterward, these were made to extend to the elbow and then to the shoulder.
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And finally, there were sewn pieces of lead and iron into them that they might strike a heavier and more destructive blow.
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The consequence was that those who were engaged in the fight were often covered with blood and that resistance unto blood showed a determined courage and a purpose not to yield.
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When a person has competed in a boxing match, it's natural for them to receive split lips, busted noses, cuts above the eyes.
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In fact, those of you who are familiar with boxing know that there's a person who sits in the corner.
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He's called a cut man.
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And a cut man is simply someone who, once you've been hit, he goes and dresses your wounds for you so that you can continue on in the battle.
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Now, the reason why I'm making all this so graphic this morning, I'm telling you because this is the picture that the writer of Hebrews wants the people to hear.
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He's giving them a rebuke in verse 4.
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That's why the title of the sermon is a gentle yet firm rebuke.
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Because he's saying to them, You haven't even started bleeding yet.
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Remember what the whole context of the book is? You're thinking of leaving.
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You're thinking of retreating.
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You're thinking of going back to your Judaism.
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You're thinking of departing from Christ.
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And yet you have not even struggled to the point of shedding blood.
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It's almost as if he's saying, Are you serious? You haven't even got a bloody nose or a split lip.
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And you're wanting to quit the fight now? Are you kidding? So if you take it in that way, because that's the way he's coming across here.
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He's rebuking them.
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He's saying, you've got this entire example of history.
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That's chapter 11.
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You've got this entire example of history.
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And what was the last part of chapter 11? You've got people who were killed for their faith.
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Cut in half.
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People who were put into prison.
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People who were done.
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All these horrible things were done to them.
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And then he says, And look to Christ.
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Consider Christ who endured the cross.
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Who suffered the shame.
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And yet you haven't even started bleeding.
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And you're thinking about backing off.
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Where is your intestinal fortitude? Where's your guts? It's really the brass tacks of what the writer is saying.
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And he's appealing to them back to that original reason for writing.
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Because his original reason for writing was to get them to consider this.
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Why would you depart from Christ? Especially when you haven't even faced real persecution yet.
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He's challenging them.
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He's saying, your forefathers endured hellish conditions.
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And your Savior endured the cross.
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You haven't endured anything yet.
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And the interesting thing is, at this point in history, they had endured some.
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But something this text does tell us is that at least at this point, for the writers, the people that are being written to here, the hearers rather, is that they had not been facing martyrdom yet.
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This tells us something about the time scope of the writing of Hebrews.
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If you think about it, because during the time of Nero, all Christians were facing death.
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All Christians were facing the potential of being burned or having their heads removed.
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All kinds of different horrible things.
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So, it gives us an idea because there are certain scholars that try to make the argument that certain books of the New Testament, particularly the Hebrews, was written well past the time of the apostles.
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But yet it is evidence like this, what we call internal evidence.
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Evidence within the writing which shows us this was written at a specific point in history where the time of persecution, the severest of persecution, which was death, had not yet found these people.
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It had not yet come to their doorstep.
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We know martyrdom was happening very early on.
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Stephen was martyred.
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James was martyred for his faith.
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But yet, severe persecution had not yet risen to encapsulate the entire church.
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So that gives us a little bit of a history of when this is written.
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And again, the writer is saying to them, cut the melodrama.
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I don't see any bodies.
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You're alive.
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Stand for the faith.
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Don't give up.
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Don't quit.
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And from here he goes on to quote the Old Testament.
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And he's attempting to bolster their strength in the face of coming persecution.
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But he does it with another rebuke.
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He's not just telling them what they want to hear.
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He's not one of these ear-tickling pastors who tells them how great they are.
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He's actually getting on to them a little bit.
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He's rebuking them a little bit in an attempt to cause them to see the reality of their situation.
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First, he said, you haven't even shed blood yet.
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And the second thing he says, and have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? Now, is that a rebuke? Well, absolutely that's a rebuke.
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Because what he's insinuating is that they have forgotten the very Scriptures upon which they stand.
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Jesus used this rebuke all the time.
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When Jesus was facing the Pharisees and the Pharisees said something wrong, what would Jesus say? Have you not read what the Scripture said to you when it said this? That was Jesus' way of saying, are you ignorant of what the Bible says? Have you not read it? Well, it's sort of the same thing the writer of Hebrews is saying here.
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He's saying, have you forgotten the exhortation where God actually calls you His sons? Have you forgotten that you by faith in Christ are the very children of God? I mean, really in that sense, it's a heart-cutting rebuke.
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Have you forgotten your position as sons and daughters of God? If you understood the Scripture, you would not even consider this whole idea of turning away.
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And then he quotes the Scripture.
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Scripture is actually quoted from Proverbs 3.
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We read that earlier in our opening text.
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It's translated a little different.
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If you went to Proverbs 3.11-12 and then you went here and you looked at the two, you'd notice there's a little bit different.
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But remember, the writer of Hebrews is often quoting not from the Hebrew Old Testament, but he's quoting from the Greek Septuagint.
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The Greek Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Old Testament Scriptures.
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So there are going to be times where the quotations, though similar, are not exactly the same because he's quoting from a translation.
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So there's always going to be translational differences that come about.
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But it's similar enough that you can read the two and know that they come from one another.
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He says, "...my son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him.
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For the Lord disciplines the one He loves and chastises every son whom He receives." Now, in the next week, two weeks, however long it takes, I'm actually going to do a study on divine discipline.
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We're going to talk about how God disciplines His children differently than He deals with the world.
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Because the Bible clearly says that He does.
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He disciplines those who are His.
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But this morning, I want to address another fact from this passage because I think it's the focus of what the writer is here saying.
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Because he's already said to them, listen, your persecution hasn't got to the point of you shedding blood.
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You're forgetting what the Scripture said to you.
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And what is the focus of what the Scripture says that's getting him to quote the Old Testament? The focus is that God addresses His people not as slaves, not as servants, not as underlings, not as any of those things.
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God addresses His people as sons.
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We may suffer in this life.
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Oh wait, let me back that up.
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We will suffer in this life.
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And we will suffer for being followers of Christ.
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The Scripture says so.
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We will at times in our life have moments where we are forced to suffer for following Christ.
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But we will never, ever be separated from the fatherly love of God.
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Romans 8.35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written, for your sake, we are being killed all the day long.
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We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
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No! In all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
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For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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Jesus said, My sheep hear My voice.
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And I know them.
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And they follow Me.
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I give them eternal life.
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And they will never perish.
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And no one will snatch them out of My hand.
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My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all.
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And no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand.
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I and My Father are one.
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The love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord is inseparable from us.
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One of the saddest things in this world is that some kids don't have good fathers.
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Would you agree with that? Some children do not have good fathers.
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And I say that for a multitude of reasons, but the one I consider most disheartening about that fact that some kids don't have good fathers is that often those same kids have a problem understanding the fatherly love of God.
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Children whose fathers ignore them, abandon them, abuse them, often paint the wrong mental image in the minds of their children about what a father should be.
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Whereas someone who has had a positive experience with their father will often have a really good understanding of what it means to be called the Son of God and to call God their Father.
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But, I remember actually, I was thinking about this this week.
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I remember when I was a teenager and I had a realization about God.
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I wasn't saved.
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And I know that sounds weird because I know the Bible says that unsaved people cannot discern spiritual things.
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I don't think I was discerning a spiritual truth at this point.
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I think I realized something about love.
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And it later would influence my Christianity.
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I was riding with my dad somewhere.
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In fact, I know right where we were when I had this epiphany.
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We were going down 95 and we were going right over there where that chemical plant is.
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Probably, they say your olfactory sense is the one that most likely is to be remembered and that's probably why I remember it because that chemical factory, everybody knows when you pass it.
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We were riding over there and I was riding with my dad in the car.
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And for some reason, I got to thinking about the fact that I knew, and I don't remember how old I was, but I don't know why I thought about this.
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I just remember this thought.
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I remember thinking that He would always love me.
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I don't remember why I thought it.
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I don't remember what inspired the thought.
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I just remember thinking...
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I remember looking over at Him and I remember thinking, you know what? There's nothing I can do ever that would make Him not love me.
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He'll be disappointed in me.
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He'll be upset with me.
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He might want to send me to my room or not want to eat dinner with me one night, but He'll always love me.
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And because He had always demonstrated that love to me before, I had confidence that He would continue to demonstrate that love throughout my life.
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And that's why I say, I had a really good experience growing up with my father so it made a lot of sense to me to have that statement in my mind.
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And I thought about it and you know what clicked at that time? And again, this was an unspiritual thought, but it was something that just sort of came to me.
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It dawned on me that that's why the Bible uses the word Father for God because that's how God relates to His people.
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He relates to His people with that same type of love that a father has for his children.
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Now again, I didn't have any theological understanding.
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I didn't have genuine faith.
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That would come later.
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But I knew and understood that my father loved me and that helped me understand how God could love someone and the type of love that God has for His children.
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If God calls us His son, He will always love us.
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Now some of you didn't have a good relationship with your father.
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Some of you may have had a very bad relationship with your father.
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And that analogy is difficult for you.
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Know this though.
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There is a love that perseveres and it's the love of God.
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But there's one thing we all need to remember and this is a serious theological truth.
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One of the most dangerous beliefs in the world is that everybody who is alive, every person in the world, are all children of God.
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I know you've heard it.
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You've heard it on the television programs.
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You've heard it on the Hands Across America banners.
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You've heard it everywhere.
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We're all God's children.
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Beloved, it is just not true.
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That is a universalistic statement which is not based on God's Word.
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We are not born into the family of God simply because we're human beings.
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We are born into the family of God by faith in Jesus Christ.
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The Bible says this, He came unto His own.
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Talking about Jesus.
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He came unto His own, and His own people did not receive Him.
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But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave them the right to become children of God.
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Not born of the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but born of God.
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That's why we can say when God says in this passage, when He talks about the love that He has for His children, He is specifically talking about His kids.
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Later in the passage, and we're going to look at this in the weeks to come, He says this, He says God disciplines those who are His, and if there is anyone who hasn't received discipline, then he is an illegitimate and not a true child of God.
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The text proves the statement I'm making that the world is filled with people who are not children of God.
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Because you are made a child of God once you have been born into the family of God by virtue of the Holy Spirit opening your heart to faith.
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And once you have been born into God's family, He treats you as His sons.
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That's the focus of this passage.
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If we're suffering for the sake of the Gospel, we should understand that that suffering is not all there is.
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Because none of us enjoy suffering.
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But because in doing so, we are demonstrating the relationship we have with God, we can count our suffering as a blessing.
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God loves us.
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We are His sons.
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Much the same way as an earthly father uses discipline for his children to grow and mature, God at the same time uses discipline for us to grow and mature.
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God uses times in our life to test us, to strengthen us, and to give us for which something to strive.
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This is why Romans 5 says, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given to us.
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You see, suffering has not been given to us to destroy us, but suffering has been given to us just the same way that we discipline our children, God allows us to go through times which discipline us, to test us, to strengthen us, and to give us something for which to strive.
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So what we have seen in this passage today are two simple rebukes, gentle rebukes, but rebukes nonetheless.
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Two rebukes are simple.
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Number one, you haven't even suffered to the point of bloodshed.
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And two, you're forgetting your place in the family of God.
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You haven't suffered until bloodshed, and you've forgotten who you are as a son of God.
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What I find most interesting about this passage, and this really got in my mind this week as I was thinking about this passage, is this parallels the church in America so much.
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If you haven't noticed that as I've been talking, I've been really leading up to this kind of final point here.
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This parallels the church in America so much because one of the things that we have not had to face in our nation yet is bloodshed over the Gospel.
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And if you think that that means that there's not bloodshed going on over the Gospel, then you are kidding yourself.
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Right now, Yusuf Nadarkhani in Iran is facing a death sentence for having preached the Gospel, having left Islam to preach the Gospel.
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He has now been tried, and the Iranian government has sentenced him to death.
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He has children at home.
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He has a wife at home.
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And they are not safe.
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He cannot be there to protect them because he is behind the walls of a jail awaiting the day that they bring him out for his execution.
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But in America, where freedom reigns supreme, the church is protected from such danger, at least for now.
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Yet there are some who complain that it's hard to be a Christian here.
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There are those who allow the difficulties and societal pressures and the public humiliation which comes in the media for them to say, oh, it's just too difficult to be a follower of Christ.
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You know, the writer of Hebrews would say, stop being a wimp.
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Stand up and fight the good fight.
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Furthermore, if and when we are forced to suffer for our faith, we mustn't think we're being abandoned by God.
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Pastor Nat Arconi is not abandoned by God right now.
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Neither will we be if and when we face persecution.
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If we are truly gods by faith, which is tested in times of trial, we will be confident that He will never allow our suffering to be in vain.
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He is our Father.
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He loves us.
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That doesn't mean we won't suffer.
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In fact, it may mean we will suffer more because the world will hate us.
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The world will reject us.
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But we must remember the words of Christ when we are faced with persecution because Jesus said these words, etch these words on your heart, beloved.
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If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before it hated you.
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Jesus said that.
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If the world hates you, know it hated Me first.
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If you are of the world, the world would love you as its own.
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But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world...
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Ultimately, if we are chosen of God, we can be certain times of suffering will come.
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Some greater than others.
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Some persecutions will be less.
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Some persecutions will be more.
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Look at the lives of the apostles.
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Peter was hung upside down on a cross.
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John lived to a rite of age.
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John did so on the Isle of Patmos for a lot of those years, but still, he didn't go upside down on a cross.
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Persecution is individual and it does go some harder for others.
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But at the same time, no matter what our cross to bear, we cannot allow it to cause us to shrink back from our faith.
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Instead, like a boxer who wears his scars as a reminder of perseverance, we too can look at our times of persecution as reminders to our souls that we love God and He loves us.
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Let's pray.
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Father, thank You for this opportunity to be about the business of studying Your Word.
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And I do pray, Lord, that this Word has been an encouragement to Your people.
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I pray, Lord, that as they heard the instruction of the Word, and as they heard this encouragement to not back down, to not surrender, but to fight the good fight to keep the faith, Lord, that it has been an encouraging and strengthening time.
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And Lord, if there are those here who do not know You as Savior, I pray, Lord, that they have heard the Gospel this morning, that Jesus Christ is the only salvation, and that they are sinners desperately needing that salvation.
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Lord, I pray that You would open their hearts to believe the truth.
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And Father, if there are those who have been wobbling in their faith, have been vacillating, I pray that this message has given them strength to persevere.
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In all these things, Lord, we pray and thank You.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.