02-07-2021

Park Meadows Church

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Well, let's get started this morning. We've been talking about Romans chapter 9, and notice it says not in your

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Sunday school quarterly. That's kind of tongue -in -cheek, but the whole time I was growing up Southern Baptist, they would skip this chapter, wouldn't teach it, and I always wondered why until I later at the age of 24 got saved, started studying the

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Bible, and I realized it's because it's controversial to some people who don't want to believe the whole

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Bible, but we can't pick and choose. We have to believe the Word of God as God wrote it, and in the sense that He wrote it, which means we have to take everything in context.

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We have to compare everything to the whole of the Bible. We have to ask the question, who's being spoken to in this book or this epistle, and is there even a secondary application to us or not, because sometimes there's not, and sometimes there is, and we have to keep all the

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Bible interpretation rules if we're going to get it right, and then still we have to have the Holy Spirit's interpreter.

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We'll still get it wrong, right? So he is the great teacher, but we've been in Romans chapter 9 and started out here and pointed out that it's interesting that Paul reiterated three different times that he's telling the truth, which is interesting, isn't it, because he's under the inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit. In fact, the fourth thing he says, or I'm sorry, the third thing he says is the Holy Spirit bears witness with my conscience that I'm telling the truth.

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You see, it's inspired Scripture, but the fourth thing he said was that my heart is sorrowful, and we've discussed this a couple of times through the last few

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Sundays is the reason he's sorrowful is because he wants all his Jewish brothers and sisters to be saved, and yet he knows

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God's will is that they've been blinded for the most part so that the Gentiles can come in and be saved, and yet he said,

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I would give up my own salvation if I could in order for them to be saved, which he can't do that, but he was willing, and that's kind of an interesting thing to think about, but that's what was causing the heaviness of heart and the sorrow, but there's something else that I think was causing it is that he knew he was about to launch into a doctrinal teaching with the church at Rome that was so unpopular that when

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Jesus taught it, people left him forever, walked away from him, and never followed him again, and tried to kill him every time he taught it, so Paul is sorrowful because if they'll do that to the greatest teacher who ever lived who was

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God in the flesh, what are they going to do to me when I teach this because I'm about to teach it, so think about how he set that up in verses one and two kind of important, and we will review this, but these are the places where Jesus taught the sovereignty of God.

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He taught the doctrine of election, that no one comes to him unless the father draws them, and that only those that God knew before the foundation of the world, the ones that he draws and so forth, and when

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Jesus taught it, first of all, they said this is a hard saying in John 6 verse 60, and 61,

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Jesus could read their hearts. He said, oh, is this offending you? He knew it. He could hear their minds, right, and then he taught predestination and election as clearly as anyone ever taught it in verse 65, and he said, therefore said

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I to you that no man can come to me except it were given to him by my father. That's election. The word election means, it means to choose, so God chose who his children would be before he created the universe.

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He chose who his son's bride would be, if you want to put it that way, before he created the universe, and most

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Christian circles today do not. They totally reject this teaching, which is because they're led by false preachers, all right?

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I mean, let's just get down to what it really is. A false preacher will never teach this, because humanism hates this, because this puts

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God in control of who gets saved, and mankind wants man to be in control of all religion, so Jesus said the end times have many false prophets.

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There you have it. We're in the end times, so you have many false prophets, so you say, well, this, some of these things you show us,

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Brother David, they're confusing. Well, they're confusing because we've heard so much bad preaching and wrong preaching for our whole lives, and our families say things that aren't right.

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We've heard so much of that that when we see clear scripture, it seems confusing, but if you just read the scripture itself, it's never confusing.

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It's just very clear. I won't say never. There's maybe five to ten difficult passages that I've come across in the whole

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Bible where you have to really study maybe for a period, some of them, a period of years, but, you know, that's not many out of the whole

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Bible, is it? Most of the passages in scripture are for the farmer, I like to say, and for the child.

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They're just written for the common man, and that's how God wrote the scripture in most cases.

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This is very clear. I mean, why do you need a PhD to understand that when Jesus says that no man can come to me unless the father draws him or unless the father, it's given to them by the father.

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That is not difficult to understand unless you have a PhD telling you it doesn't really mean that, and then it gets confusing.

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You say, well, surely he's a godly man. No, Jesus said surely he's a false prophet. Okay, and I'm not just saying if they disagree with David Mitchell, they're a false prophet.

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You know, Charlotte was up, she loves this story. She was up early one morning, as every morning, having a quiet time.

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I walk in, and I teach these passages every time I come to them.

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I don't shy away from them, and the more you understand the sovereignty of God, the more you see it in every passage, almost every page of scripture.

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It's there because God is sovereign, and so I teach it all the time, and she's especially happy that morning, and I said, why are you so happy, and she said, you didn't make all this up, and she was reading

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Charles Spurgeon, and she was reading a form teachers that wrote 150 years ago, 250 years ago, and that's exactly how she said it.

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It was awesome. She doesn't think she said it that way, but that's how I remember it, so I didn't make this stuff up, and it may not be a true story, but it preaches really good.

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No, it's sort of how it happened, but so from that time on, they went back from Jesus.

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They didn't walk with him anymore, so is that a popular teaching that God's in control? No, never has been, never will be, and Paul knows it, and that's why

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Paul says, I'm sorrowful, okay, so then said Jesus to the 12, his apostles, well, are you going to leave too, because I just taught this, and they didn't, but they weren't real happy with the teaching, and here are the teachings that he's talking about, predestination, salvation is a gift that you can't earn.

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Why is that hated? You would think the world would love that. That is in fact the good news, the gospel, but the world hates it, because the world,

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Satan is the little g god of this world, and he sets up all world religions, and all different sects of quote

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Christianity that aren't true to scripture. He sets all that up too. He runs most of the seminaries, and he runs most of the major universities, if not all in the

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United States, across the world, and the public school systems, and the government, all that's part of the world system, and he's the god of it.

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Don't think he's not. He is, because God allowed it, and God has delegated some things to him, to cause

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God's timing to come out exactly like he says it will, and Armageddon will hit the exact day

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God wants it to, and he uses Satan, and Satan's people to accelerate that, and he uses

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God's people, us, to slow it down, so it gets like the Lord is driving with his foot on the accelerator sometimes, his foot on the brake sometimes, so that time comes out exactly like he's seen it happen, because he's predestinated when it's going to happen.

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So, and yet he uses all of us, and Satan, and all his people to drive the car, so to speak, and I'm sure it's a

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Tesla, but something funny just popped my mind, but I can't say it.

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Anyway, Colin's car was making a funny noise last night, but anyway, so God is, you know, you look at something like COVID, that's

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God pushing the accelerator a little bit, going faster towards the end, and then it's not a bad thing.

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The prayer of the Christian has always been come quickly, Lord Jesus. We're talking about the second coming, so he pushes the gas down a little bit, and then he says, you know, earthquakes, killing more people is a sign.

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Jesus said what happened. Why? Satan's the little g -god of this world. I mean, don't blame that on God, blame it on Satan, and blame it on humans for sinning, and bringing sin into the world, but Jesus said, yes, it's going to happen, and then guess what he named?

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Pestilences. That's like COVID, and then he said, frightful things are going to happen in the heavens.

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That's meteors hitting populated areas of the earth, and killing millions of people. That's coming next, but then he said, guess what?

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But before that, you're going to have loved ones, and kin folks, and family turning people in to be arrested and killed, and did you know that the

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FBI has already received over a hundred thousand tips from family members turning their family in that they saw on TV at the

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Capitol building? So that was never fulfilled in America until January the 6th, and between then and now.

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Hundreds of thousands of people turning their, like 30 year olds turning their mom in, for example, because they saw her marching for freedom of speech, but turning her in as a criminal, and they get arrested, by the way.

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Now, when have young people ever thought that it's a great idea, and it honors your mother and father to turn them in for any reason whatsoever?

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You know, you can pray for them, but you don't get to turn them in. Not by God's word you don't. It's just, it's fulfilled prophecy.

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We're in the end times. So, imputation where God gives us his, the righteousness of his son, the world hates that.

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Eternal security, the world's always hated the fact that when you're truly God's child, you can never lose that. You can't be unborn after you're born into his family.

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You can't be unborn, but so many Christian sects teach that you can, and then eternal love of God to his eternally known children for knowledge.

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They hate that. So, these are the things, and they, and then it says in the same passage, the Jews sought to kill

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Jesus after he taught these things. So, his own people quit following him, and the Jews tried to kill him. Then you go out there into Luke, same thing happens.

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People were filled with wrath when he taught these beautiful doctrines over here, we talked about. They're filled with wrath, and they rise up.

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They try to throw him off of a cliff and kill Jesus, but he escapes by walking right through their midst.

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Isn't that something? They hate this doctrine, and Paul knows it, and then in John, there's another example where he teaches these things, and it says at the bottom down there in verse, chapter 10 of John, verse 31, then the

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Jews took up stones to kill him. Same response. So, there's three different examples. So, Paul knows these things because Jesus taught him for on and off for three years out in the wilderness, and he received well as God teaching truth to humans, and when he taught this truth that I am in control and you're not, people tried to kill him all three times.

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Isn't that something? So, yeah, Paul's a little bit sorrowful because he doesn't know what they'll do to him when he teaches it. He's not near the teacher

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Jesus was, is he? And neither are you, by the way, and so when you tell your neighbors and friends these truths, they will not like you.

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They might turn you into the FBI, right? You never know. The day is coming. The day is coming where it won't be because you exercise your figure of freedom.

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I said figure of speech. Did I say that a while ago? It's freedom of speech. Constitutional, right?

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You exercise that, and they call you a criminal. It'll be just because you're a

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Christian they call you a criminal. In fact, you're the type person that did molest the capitol building, and Christians did that now.

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They've said that's Christians that did that, right? So, you're the trouble causer. You would have absolute peace in the world with no

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Christians and no Jews, and you know Hitler told that story once, and how many of them did they kill?

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Over eight million just in four years. So, Jesus prophesied that before the meteors hit and kill multitudes of millions of people, they're going to start arresting you.

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So, you know, think about that. Church, wake up. Get ready for that. What do you do to avoid that?

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Well, you don't be in the major cities. That's number one, and you be careful which kin folks you talk to.

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That's number two. You know, let the angels witness to them at this point,

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I guess, but anyway. So, here you have same response. So, then in John chapter 9, last

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Sunday, Paul begins to teach this doctrine, this great wonderful doctrine of the sovereignty of God, and he said to the

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Jews. Now, he's talking, think about who he's talking to. You got, as I said last time, three kinds of humans, but those three kinds are divided into two groups of people.

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So, that's a lot of group kind of people he's talking to. You've got goats who are people who will never get saved, lost people who will never get saved, because Jesus didn't put them here.

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Satan did. They're called tares. You got lost sheep who do belong to the

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Lord, but they're not saved yet, and then you got saved sheep, and then all of those three groups among Jews and among Gentiles all in the same room, and that's who he's preaching to.

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So, in this sermon, who did he always speak to first? Remember from last time?

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Who does he speak to first? Always to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile, and he's certainly speaking to the

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Jews, because they know these stories of Abraham, and they said, look, just because you're from Abraham doesn't make you saved, because only through Isaac was the promise.

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Ishmael didn't get the promise, and he starts to teach this, and people are asking the question, well, why is that fair?

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They're both just little boys, little defenseless children. How, I mean, that's not fair.

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Well, see, that's the first thought Satan puts in your mind when you deal with the fact that God's in control and we're not, is that that's not fair.

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It would be far more fair if we were in control. If we could decide everybody to get saved and everybody doesn't, it would work so much better.

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In fact, all we would have to do to lead the whole world of Christ is just live a perfect life and never make mistakes, never say anything bad or wrong, and be perfectly

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Christ -like, and then everyone could be saved. So, would you like it to be that way? Young kids wouldn't even get saved, and your spouse sure wouldn't, right?

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Because you can't live a perfect life, but that's how the world thinks it should be, and that's worldly religion, is it's all about man, what the church does, and what the religious group does.

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That's the group of people that killed Jesus, by the way, the Pharisees. So, it's not like that.

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A loving, all -knowing, all -wise God, the God of the universe, chooses who gets saved, and he chooses them because he wants them, not for any other reason.

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He didn't choose Israel, by the way, because it was the most powerful nation. He chose them because he wanted to.

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In fact, he said you're probably the weakest. Well, that's probably true of us too, those of us saved sitting here. We're not the, you know, we're not the the billionaires of the world, are we?

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We're not the few, like the four, five, or six people that run the entire media now, and the whole world thinking, kind of inject their thinking into the minds of everyone.

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We're not those people. We're simple people. We're, you know, we know some stuff, but there's a lot of stuff we don't know.

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We don't even know how it works. We don't even want to know how Satan's world works too much, do we?

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We're not, we don't look into it enough to be really good at it, and, but here we are, and we're saved, and we're his, why?

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Just because he wanted us. He chose us because he wanted us. Same way with Israel, just because it was his will, and that's how he does it.

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Now, people don't like it, and Paul's teaching it. He tells Isaac, you know,

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Abraham, I'm going to make a covenant with you and your seed, but I'm going to do it through Isaac. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, so the children of Ishmael, even though they came from Abraham, they're not going to be the saved line, the line of the

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Messiah, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed, and that doesn't mean they're any better.

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It doesn't mean they're better people. In many ways, they weren't better people, but it's just the, it's the people that God chose, so God is in control here.

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Paul now begins to teach election, and he goes back, and he's quoting from Genesis chapter 17.

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He says, I'm going to establish my covenant between me and thee. He's talking, God is talking to Abraham, and he says, and your seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a

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God unto thee and to thy seed forever, and I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land, and I'm also going to be

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God to you. That means I'm going to call you to be my own people. You're going to know me, and the other people aren't going to know me, and I'm going to know you, and I'm not going to know the other people.

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And that word know in the Bible language means a loving relationship with a person. That's what it means, so that's what he says.

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Now, what's interesting is, look what Abraham prays, and this is the prayer of the world.

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The world hates God being in control, and Abraham says, no, God let me be in control. I want

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Ishmael to be saved. I want Ishmael to be in the line of the Messiah, because Abraham didn't even have another child yet at this point, did he?

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And he was 80 something. He's about to be 90 something before he has the true line of the

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Messiah, but so he's just saying, Lord, just let it be Ishmael. That's what the world says. Just let my way be how it happens, and remember the story.

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How did he have Ishmael? Remember the story, right? See, that's man's way of doing things, right?

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So, there you have it. The desire of man to determine who God will save is what that's talking about.

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In verse 19, God came back and corrected Abraham. He said, Sarah, your wife is going to bear you a son indeed.

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That word indeed in Hebrew means a real son. Are you with me?

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A son indeed, and thou shalt call his name Isaac, and God says, I will establish my covenant with him, not with Ishmael.

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It'll be an everlasting covenant, and I'll establish it with Isaac's seed as well after him, and as for Ishmael, I've heard thee.

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Behold, I've blessed him with physical things, not spiritual things, but my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which

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Sarah will bear unto thee at this set time in the next year, and he left off talking with Abraham, and God went up from Abraham.

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Wow. All right. So, God gets to determine this. Man does not get to do it.

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You see, I mean, he just starts right out the gate teaching strong position that God is in control.

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Now, if you remember from last time, several things came from these teachings.

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Number one, not everyone who claims to be a Christian is one, because the very room

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Paul's talking to right now, he said, they're all saying we're, you know, we're Jews because we're from Abraham, but they weren't all

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Jews because some of them were not from Isaac. You see the point? And that's a physical picture of a spiritual truth, and the spiritual truth is that salvation does not come through physical procreation, and how many times have you heard somebody say, well, you ask them, are you saved?

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They say, yeah, man, my grandfather was a preacher, as if that saves them. No, that doesn't have anything to do with it. It's through spiritual means that a person is saved, and God's in control of that.

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The Holy Spirit must call each individual, or they won't be saved. Number two, salvation is not passed down from generation to generation physically.

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I just got ahead of myself. Number three, only children of the promise are going to be children of God.

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Galatians in the New Testament teaches that the promise is talking about the Abrahamic covenant, and that's the only way any of us in the

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New Testament are saved either, is through that same covenant, and it's an unconditional covenant, which means you can't do anything.

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God did all the work for your salvation, and Brother Bill covered that so well today in the adult

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Bible study this morning. Children of the promise are called, and righteousness is imputed to them.

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He's already taught these just in the early verses of chapter 9. He's already taught all these things.

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Number five, salvation, therefore, is not by man's righteous acts. It's not by works, but it's by God's imputation of righteousness to whom he chooses.

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That's a long sentence. Let me read it again. Salvation, therefore, is not by man's righteous acts or good works that he does, but by God's imputing

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Jesus's righteousness to the person that he chooses to impute that to. Now, that's already been taught.

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Now, Paul's going to get to a sixth one, and it's in Romans chapter 9, verse 8. So, let's look at this. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God.

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So, now God himself, through the apostle Paul, has now divided the world into two groups, those who are

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God's children and those who are not. Now, we know there's three groups, if you continue to study the scripture.

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It's really those two groups, but one of them has a subdivision. So, you still have the group of those that know the

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Lord, the saved people. We can call them saved sheep, okay? But the other group, those who are lost, have two kinds.

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You have tares, and you have wheat that hasn't been brought into the barn yet, so to speak, or sheep that aren't quite found yet, but they're sheep.

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They're not goats, you see? So, here he mentions two major groups, the lost and the saved,

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God's people and those who are Satan's tares that Satan put in the world. God did not put them here. Jesus said plainly,

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I didn't put them here, the devil put them here. If you want to ask, well, how'd he do it? Well, that's a further study, right?

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Not for today. But then he goes on and says, for this is the word of promise, at this time will

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I come and Sarah shall have a son. And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by her father

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Isaac. Now, Paul takes this story a little farther, further,

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I should say, for these Jews that are in the congregation he's preaching to this day, or writing the letter to,

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I should say. And he says, okay, let's take it a step beyond Abraham now. Let's go to the next generation.

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And he says, now we've got Isaac, okay? And we've got the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil that the purpose of God, according to election, there's the word people ask me, you believe in election?

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Well, yeah, it's in the Bible. Eclectos, it means choosing who

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God chose to be his own kid. That's what it means. All right. So this was done by God's purpose according to election.

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So the election would stand. What does that mean? Man's will doesn't stand.

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God's will stands. What did Abraham want? Ishmael to be the lineage. What did

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God say? No, it's not going to be Ishmael. It's going to be a son you hadn't even had yet. A son indeed, between you and Sarah.

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Not your handmaid, Sarah. And so that came to pass.

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Well, now you have this teaching that we start talking about Rebecca.

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Sarah shall have a son. And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived of one, even by her father

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Isaac. So now you go to the next generation. Now you've got two children born. And what's interesting about it is the

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Bible says that God brought this to pass so that election might stand and God can show you,

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I choose who's mine, you don't get to choose. That's what the purpose of it is. Now Romans 15 .4

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says this, for whatsoever things are written aforetime. Now remember this Romans is written in the New Testament.

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So it's looking back at the Old Testament information that we already had. Those things that are written in the

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Old Testament were written for our learning so that through patience and comfort of the scriptures, we might have hope.

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So everything in the Old Testament was written for us today. And it's going to be an allegory, an allegorical teaching or an object lesson to teach us the spiritual truth.

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And that's what it's for. That's the use of the Old Testament. Paul is using these Old Testament stories to teach a spiritual truth to the church at Rome in the

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New Testament. There's another place this is found in First Corinthians 10 .11, very similar. Now these things that happened to them in the

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Old Testament for in samples or examples, those things that are written, those are actually written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the earth are come.

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So even though it's Old Testament, it's written for us to learn the spiritual truth. You got that? So Paul is living this principle out here as he teaches.

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He said, let me give you some Old Testament object lessons in these people's lives that will teach you a spiritual truth.

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And the spiritual truth is the object lesson was God chose which of these sons in both cases with Isaac and Ishmael.

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And also in this case, where two children were born, God chooses one of them to be the lineage of the

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Messiah and rejects the other before the children are even born. Whether they did good or evil has nothing to do with good works.

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It has nothing to do with anything other than which one God just wanted. It's God's will we're talking about.

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And you know what? Jesus taught this and people walked away from him. His apostle almost did and the Jews tried to kill him every time he ever mentioned it.

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And Paul knows it, but Paul's teaching it anyway. And we have to too. FBI, here we come.

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Right? That word in sample is interesting.

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I don't have time to talk about it, but look at here's the sixth point. Salvation is not having done good or evil, but it comes by election and grace.

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And that's Paul's point here, because these children having not yet been born, neither having done good or evil.

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This is given as an example. One of them is chosen. One is not by God to be his own people.

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And the other one's rejected. And yet they weren't even born yet. So they were both innocent, weren't they? From man's viewpoint.

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The man's viewpoint is corrupt because every child born is already in sin because we're a telescope back into the loins of Adam who sinned against God.

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We're part of a fallen race. The whole race deserves hell. So man's view is always incorrect and corrupted.

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If we're talking about man being in control because man is so good and innocent and so forth.

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So that's, you know, that's what's happening here. So let's look at it. Chapter nine, verse 12. It was said to her, the elder will serve the younger.

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All right. So now we're looking at Jacob and Esau, right? So it's another object lesson.

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All right. As it is written, God said this, Jacob have

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I loved and Esau have I hated. Now, how many times have you heard preachers say

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God loves everybody? Raise your hand if you ever heard a preacher or friend or somebody say that. Okay.

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The Bible says he doesn't. Now, I've read beautiful writings from liberal theologians who try to explain this chapter, and it's really funny to watch them try to explain chapter nine of Roman.

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It is tough for them. You have to give them credit for effort because they write long paragraphs of words that contradict themselves.

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But what they will even say is they'll say, well, that word hated actually doesn't mean hated.

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Doesn't mean what the Holy Spirit said. It doesn't mean that. Now, who's the first person who ever said

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God didn't mean that to somebody? Satan. And who did he say it to? Eve.

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Oh, well, God didn't really say you'll die if you eat that fruit. In fact,

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God knows if you eat that fruit, you'll be wise and no good and evil like me and God know. So why would he want to withhold that for you?

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And he convinced Eve God's will was for her to eat the fruit, but it wasn't God's will. So he lied to her, didn't he?

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He deceived her. And she bought into it. Look where we are now. Okay, so the same thing is happening here.

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The preacher said, the liberal preacher says, God didn't really say hated. What that word actually means, they say, is he just loved him with a lesser love than the love he had, you know, for Jacob.

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Just a little bit lesser love. It's not really hatred. It's just like, I don't love him as much.

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Does anyone ever ask him why is that fair? So if like, if the liberal is trying to protect

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God, right? Because God's mean because he didn't save everybody, correct? Isn't that what the world thinks? Like he should just save everybody.

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They don't stop to think about the entire race has fallen and has rejected him. And then everyone that's born in the world never seeks

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God unless Holy Spirit calls them. There's none that seeketh after God, not one. Well, they won't talk about that.

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What they want to talk about is that God is not fair. And then to try to cover this up, they say, well, it doesn't really mean he hated him, just loved him less.

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Why is that fair? How many of you have more than one child in your family? You're the parent of more than one.

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Okay. Is it right for you to love one of them more than the other one? And you're a human. You're human.

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So it's just not fair. So if God says, if the word doesn't really mean hate, and what it really means is,

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I just love Esau a little bit less than my other child. Wow. You know, that's, you know,

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God has a problem. If you think that's a problem, but if you really take it like it's written, and we do have the

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Greek right here, misos is the word. It doesn't really mean hated.

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It means to detest. Okay. So the liberals correct.

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It doesn't really mean hated. It means to detest somewhat. So God detests

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Esau and he loves Jacob. Now you can find some dictionaries that will say, or by,

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I forgot how they word it, you know, by extension or something to love less, but you have to understand human theologians wrote the dictionaries, and some of them are liberal, and some of them are conservative.

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So you've got to check more than one dictionary, and you've got to, even more important than the dictionary, is look at the context of the

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Bible that the story's in, or that the verse you're studying is in, and figure out what the word means.

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But truthfully, if you look at all the usages of this word in the

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Bible, of the word hated, I mean this word misos, and you look everywhere in the

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New Testament it's found, it always means hated or despicable, and it never means anything else.

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So the Bible definition of the word is to be detested, to be hated, or to be counted as despicable.

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That's what the word means. You can't like, you can argue all day long, you're not going to win this one.

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It means hated. So God says, Jacob have

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I loved, and Esau have I hated, and he said that before either one of them were born, and if you can't read that and understand that God's in control of who he chooses, you're just not going to get it.

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And if you can read one liberal theologian who says, well, but it doesn't really mean God didn't mean hated when he said it.

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He means loved him less. Well, I'll grant that to you then. Let's just say he loves him so much less he's not going to save him, right?

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And he loves the other one so much he is going to save him. Okay, the point is

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God did the choosing. And see, what false teachers always do is get you off the point by putting huge numbers of words in their argument.

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Right? They just put, they just inundate your brain with words and thoughts off, they get off on rabbit trails.

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Some true preachers do that too, but they'll get your mind just off in so many different places that you forget the point.

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Look at verse 14. What shall we say then? What does the word then mean? What does it mean?

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It refers to the verse before it, because God did what? He loved Jacob, and what did he do with Esau?

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Hated him. So since that's true, what shall we say? Is there unrighteousness with God?

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Now let me ask you this. If the liberal theologian is correct, of course, when he writes his whole paper, he never puts verse 14 in it.

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He only discusses verse 13, not even verse 12, and he says it doesn't really mean hated, it means he loved him less.

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How does verse 14 make any sense if that's true? If it doesn't mean hated, how does verse 14 make any sense?

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Because why would anyone say, is God unrighteous, if what God just said was, as written,

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Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I loved also a little bit less, but I loved him. If that's what the scripture meant, why would people say

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God is unrighteous? You see, listen, a true preacher, all he has to do is stay in context, and the

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Holy Spirit will give him the true meaning, and it doesn't have to be preacher. Any child of God, you stay with the context,

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God will give you the meaning. People thought God is not fair because of what verse 13 says.

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So the whole reason it says it is because the word then in verse 14 refers back to verse 13, it ties those two together.

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The only reason they think God is not fair is because he loved one of them, hated the other before they were born. So listen, you may think

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God is not fair, but you can't change the fact that God said that about himself. However you want to phrase it,

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God said, I did this, and here's how I am. Now you either love me like I am, or you create a different God and worship him.

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You either love the real Jesus who does these things, who said, no man comes to me unless the Father draws him, or you invent one who loves everybody, and everybody's going to get saved, and you worship him, and that's called idolatry, and that's one reason

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America's got COVID right now, because we're idolatrous. We have invented so many false

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Jesuses in our Baptist churches, among all, because they were maybe the last to fall, but, and you go right down the major denominations.

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In those seminaries, you might, you know, so many people call them cemeteries, and rightly so, because they're just full of dead men bones teaching the

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Bible to young men and ruining their faith, and then they get out in their churches and preach junk, like, oh, it doesn't really mean

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God hated him, and they never teach verse 14, because they're not taught to preach expositionally, verse by verse anymore.

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They preach topically. So my topic today is God really didn't hate Esau, and then I'll prove that to you, and you'll never see verse 14.

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That's the preaching we hear today in this country. That's why the country is falling, or we might say has fallen.

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Romans 9 15, for he said unto Moses, I will have mercy,

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I mean, if it's not clear already, Paul says, well, let me remind you Jewish folks in the room, here's what he said to Moses, and you know the story,

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I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

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So now he gives a third proof. He's used Abraham, then he used Isaac and his children, now he's using

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Moses and Pharaoh, and he says God called one, his name was Moses, to be his own, and he called the other one

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Pharaoh to not be saved for God's purposes. He rose up Pharaoh to never get saved and to do what he did to glorify

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God, but he's not part of God's family, never will be. He wasn't chosen. In fact, he was chosen to not be in God's family.

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If you don't think God does that, read the book of Jude. So anyway, now, for he said to Moses, I will have mercy on who

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I want to have mercy, God says, and I will have compassion on who I want to have compassion. So look at this, then it is not of the man, the human being, that wills or wants something.

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How can this be more clear, ladies and gentlemen? It's not of the human that wants something, that wills something, nor is it of the human that runs around working all day long in his church activities that causes people to be saved.

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It's not that, God says, but it's of God that shows mercy to who he wants to, and look what it says.

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He shows mercy to who he wants to show it to. That's what determines who gets saved. How many of you love that doctrine?

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Well, you had to learn to love it because it's not that. Listen, babies don't like it. Babies don't like to eat meat, do they?

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But most of us think meat's pretty good. The babies don't like to eat meat, it'll choke them.

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The same way with this truth, baby Christians don't like this any better than the lost war likes it.

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Because the baby Christian thinks the whole universe circles around him. Look what God did to me, here's my testimony,

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I was this way, now I'm this way, and I'm so proud I'm saved. And that's fine, but you can't stay there. You have to begin to study the word, and as you begin to study the word,

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God reveals to you what the truth is about you and about him, and it basically teaches you this, there is

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God and you ain't him. You got that? I mean, simple, and that's what this teaches.

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It's not of the human that wants something to happen. It's not a human that runs around working to make it happen.

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It's of God who shows mercy, and verse 15 says, to whom he wants to and not to whom he doesn't want to, and that's what it's all about.

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And now Paul is getting ready to get stoned probably right about now. He's probably ducking under his little pulpit.

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For the scripture said to Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised you up. So who's in control of Pharaoh, his whole life, everything he believes, everything, his philosophies, everything he learns, everything he accomplishes.

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God said, I raised you up for a purpose. God is sovereign. God is in control of Pharaoh. Pharaoh thinks he runs the universe, doesn't he?

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Doesn't he? So like you think Biden thinks that now? Probably. Did Trump think that?

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No, never. He was perfect. No, like yeah, he probably thought it too, but God showed him that's not the case, didn't he?

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God removed him, he can remove. Let's pray he doesn't. We're all praying for President Biden, seriously.

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So anyway, I mean, but are we going to change anything? Is who is in the

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White House have anything to do with what we will or us running around working and the stuff we do? No, it has to do with God showing mercy or chastening a nation.

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I'll let you figure out what he's doing right now. For the scripture saith unto

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Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up that I might show my power in Pharaoh.

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If Pharaoh was not even a saved person, you know, I had studied this a lot after my salvation before I even got called to preach.

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And then when I met Brother Otis, I've told you the story, I'll tell it again. Charlotte was here, but she wasn't paying attention.

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So she can't tell me it didn't happen this way. But when Otis and Bea had visited maybe the third time, did they,

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I'll let you say this one because I won't get this right. Did they join the third visit or the fourth? Third or fourth,

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I don't remember. You may not either, Charlotte. I think they visited about three times and then joined.

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It's about right. And then started bringing some of you guys, right? By about the third time probably. Because he checked me out first, then he brings you.

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And then later Bill. And well anyway, so it's like the day they joined.

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And I'd already had coffee with him once or twice. And I've been hanging out in his home

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Bible study to check him out before I ever let him teach here. I had just started that anyway. But so I sort of knew him already a little bit.

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And we're going down. Charlotte and Miss Bea were walking in front of us down that sidewalk down the front. And me and Otis walking behind him.

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And Otis puts his arm up around me. And he pulls my head right over this close to his scratchy face.

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Because he didn't always shave real. Because he couldn't see well. But he tried. But rubbed my face right up against his.

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And he says, Brother David, you're a good young man. And by now

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I'm what was that 50? I don't know how old I was 50 something. You're a good young man. You're a good preacher.

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And you understand God is sovereign. And he squeezed me real close. He said, But I want you to know more.

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And he lets go of me. Kind of insulted me in my mind and heart.

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And I'm walking to the car and I get in there with guess what he just said? Exactly. I did.

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Guess what he just said? What honey? Precious, most wonderful preacher. What did he say?

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And by the way, you're the most handsome man I've ever seen do. She said all that. And then I said,

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I said, I said, Honey, you know, that like, practically the week

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I got saved, I started studying. And I read Unger's Bible Dictionary. And I knew Calvinism was right.

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Armenian is wrong. I've always believed in the sovereignty of God. And I've always known all about that, right? Yes, honey. And I said, he thinks

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I need to learn more. He doesn't know that I already know all this stuff. That's what I said. And then for the next 13 years,

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I would have showed me what I didn't yet know about this stuff, or any other topic in the

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Bible is so funny looking back at that. And I was already 50. You know, but I mean,

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Paul is kind of doing this to these people. He's saying you think you know God, but you really don't know God very well yet.

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And he said here, you know, the God of the Bible, he'll, he will raise up people to teach something who are never going to get saved.

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And one of the things I was going to reason I told that story about Otis is I thought I knew, I mean, I believed in election and sovereignty of God and all that.

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But you know what, it was one day at coffee. When I said, Well, I thought I might ask him a question.

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Because he's always asked me these awesome questions. Maybe be fun for him. If I can ask him a tough one will take him two weeks to figure out.

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And I said, Brother Otis, I got one for you. Oh, Brother David, wonderful. What's your question? He takes a sip of coffee.

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And I said, Why did God make way more lost people than he did save people?

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Now took a sip of my coffee. I think he'll study this couple of weeks and bring me an answer. And he puts takes a sip puts the cup down says well,

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Brother David, it's like this. God made all the lost people too. And he's sovereign and they all serve him too.

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And they put everything on the shelf God's people need. And I never forgot that.

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Because think about it. That's what 17 is saying. And I had not seen that. And I've taught this and preached on this passage before many times by the time

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I was 50 something. And I never occurred to me that God raises up the lost and uses them to for his purposes.

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But yet the script he says it right there just now if you didn't click until Brother Otis taught me that that day. So teachers are a gift from God to help us learn more quickly.

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I might have been another 50 years before I saw it in the scripture. But look what it says. For the scripture says unto

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Pharaoh, even for this same purpose did I raise up Pharaoh God says, well, we know

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Pharaoh never got saved. That I might show my power in you and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth because of your life.

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But that's going to be about it. You know, you I don't know you and you don't know me in the form of love, because you're not my child, but I am going to use you to fulfill my purposes.

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And God does that with all human beings and all Satan, all of Satan's demons, and all the angels, everything created under heaven he uses for his purposes.

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Well, man doesn't particularly like that either. Therefore, hath God mercy on whom he will have mercy and on whom he wishes to, he will harden their heart.

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Now, I want you to chew on that one for a minute. You know, people don't like the fact that the

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Bible says, no man seeketh God, not one. And the Bible says, unless the

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Holy Spirit calls a person and opens their blind eyes, their deaf ears and quickens their dead spirit, they will never receive

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Jesus as their Lord and Savior. So God has to do something to a natural man or woman or boy or girl to save them.

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They don't, they do not save themselves, do they? God, the Holy Spirit has to turn them on, so to speak, you have to wake them up, right?

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And say, here's your Savior, your sheep, he's a shepherd, he's got the food, you're hungry. Well, what do you do? And then, yes, we do make the choice, don't we?

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But you did not make that choice by yourself, right? Would you agree with that? But you know, it took a while for you to kind of catch on to that and say, okay,

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I see that, because you weren't taught that in church growing up. Well, now, if that's not enough, look at this.

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So you have to agree, the Holy Spirit has to awaken the saint or the saint won't be saved, will he?

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But he awakens every saint that God chose, and Jesus said, of them I will lose nothing. But still, the mechanisms have to happen, don't they?

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So God not only chose who would be saved, he chose the means. And part of the means is the Holy Spirit waking each one up individually when it's their birthday, right?

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Their spiritual birthday. Would you agree with that? Do you not see the negative side of this now? That he says very clearly here, therefore, hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, in whom he hardens, he hardens.

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So there is a hardening that God does on the other side of the equation. There's a hardening where the

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Lord presents the universal call to everyone, including Pharaoh. Pharaoh heard the gospel.

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Okay, our God is the true God. We're going to go worship him. In theory, you could go with us if you would choose to.

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But the Holy Spirit did not open Pharaoh's eyes, did he? But the Holy Spirit did give him the truth, didn't he?

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And what does the truth do to people who are not sheep? Does it draw them and soften their hearts, or what does it do?

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It pushes them farther from God, and it hardens their heart more and more. And you can actually see that if you go back and read the story of Pharaoh, you will see him getting worse and worse and farther from God as it goes until he ultimately died.

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I guess he was in the, with the army that drowned, wasn't he? Yeah. So I mean, but who is it that hardened his heart?

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Well, the Bible says two things in the passage when you go study it. It says, and Pharaoh hardened his heart.

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But in the same passage, it says, and God hardened the Pharaoh's heart. So both are happening, just like on the salvation side, both happen.

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You have the Holy Spirit opening the heart, making the heart alive, but you also have the human softening up like butter, melting in the heart, getting softer in the heart, receiving

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Jesus, don't you? You have both at the same time, but on the lost side, you have the same, both going on at the same time.

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Isn't that interesting? Otis knew all that stuff. It took me a while to figure it out. Well, I think we're out of time today because I see you and you've had enough to chew on for today.

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And we will pick it up the Lord willing same time next week. And also the

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Lord willing next week, we have a couple that want to come down and join our church. So that'll be fun, provided that they don't have

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COVID because they might. If they do, we will quarantine them and we won't let them get saved yet.

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No, I'm kidding. You got to join the church to be saved, right? No. All right.

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So let us have a word of prayer. Let's stand together and then we'll be dismissed. Dave, you might want to run back there and be able to turn everything off because Ben's not back there at this minute.

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Oh, she's got it. Nevermind. Ashton's got it. Lord, thank you so much for this day and being able to be with one another and our church family and with the part of our church family that's at a distance.

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Lord, thank you for bringing all of our hearts together and not only making us one with you and with the

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Father, but with each other. And we do have the ability to be with one another in spirit, even from a great distance.

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And we thank you that you've given us Zoom and these wonderful technologies to help us physically sort of be together from a distance, but we know we are spiritually.

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And so, Lord, as we see the clock ticking seemingly faster towards these end times, be preparing us and our children for these events that are coming.

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And Lord, help us to look at it from a positive viewpoint of the Lord Jesus coming back for us.

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That's what we need to focus on is come quickly, Lord Jesus. And Lord, may it be so.

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May you come quickly. And Lord, we ask you to be with us as we go to our different places this afternoon with protection, but also bless the meal we're about to have.