The Ninth Plague

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Exodus 10:21-29

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Well, after several months, we're now winding our way toward the final plague.
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Here we are at the penultimate plague, the ninth plague, which is the plague of darkness. Of course, before we arrive at that final plague, the tenth plague, we'll have an announcement of the tenth plague, and then the
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Passover, which takes us into chapter 11 and 12, and the Passover we'll spend perhaps two, maybe even three weeks recovering.
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It's so vital to the storyline, not only of Exodus, and not only to the history of Israel thereafter, but really central and pivotal to the whole biblical story.
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So we don't want to move past it too quickly, although we want to stay on course with the plague narratives in the book of Exodus.
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So this morning we have before us the ninth plague. I'm going to move through the verses relatively quickly compared to the past several weeks.
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I have a lot of application I'd like to get to this morning, so we'll see how we fare.
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Exodus chapter 10, beginning in verse 21. Then the
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Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand toward heaven that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, darkness which may even be felt.
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As we've seen with the third plague, if we view the third plague in sets of three, there's no preamble.
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This is simply launching right into the strike. As I mentioned, the tympanist with the drumsticks, this is
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Moses simply doing that all in a show. The Lord, as a result, sends darkness over the entire land of Egypt, although it does not, as we'll see, affect the children of Israel.
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It's interesting, I was looking at Psalm 105, beginning in verse 26, and verse 26 and following recounts the plague narrative.
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Here, in Psalm 105, 26, the plague of darkness is listed first, as if it were the first plague, and only then do we get plagues one through eight and then the tenth plague.
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What could be the significance of that? Most likely they're showing how important that ninth plague is.
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Think of this imagery of de -creation, judgment as de -creation, and what's the first act of creation?
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God bringing light out of darkness, and so judgment is the reversal of that,
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God covering up light with darkness, and so it could be why it's front -loaded there in Psalm 105.
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We read this, he sent Moses his servant and Aaron, whom he had chosen, they performed his signs among them and wonders in the land of Ham.
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He sent darkness and made it dark, and they did not rebel against his word.
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And then after that we have plagues one through eight and plague ten. Notice that both
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Moses and the darkness are sent by God, it's the parallel verb, unique to darkness here in Psalm 105.
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He sent his servant Moses, he sent darkness. So here we don't have an image of God manipulating creation or God puppeteering creation like maybe some of the
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Egyptian deities would do, you have the gods of the locusts, the god of the Nile, the god of the harvest, and so forth.
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They're seen as token deities, manipulating, having control over these things, but here we don't have
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God manipulating or puppeteering darkness, rather commanding it like a servant, like he commands light and so he commands darkness, like he commands
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Moses. He sends his servant, whether it be a sort of cosmic effects through nature or even a man like Moses.
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God is the one who commands all because he is king over all. Verse 22,
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Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven and there was thick darkness in all of the land of Egypt for three days.
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They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days.
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We won't go into it here, but likely the mention of three days in conjunction with darkness and the coming loss of the first son draws us all toward some imagery of the atonement where we have all three of those elements, darkness, a death of three days as it were, figurative death, and then also the loss of the first son all held together.
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We'll let that pass for now. Moses notice immediately obeys, something we've seen every week.
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Pharaoh refuses to obey and even when he seems to obey, he always has that little qualification, only this, but please just this, can't
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I just have this? But Moses obeys completely, obeys immediately with unhesitating devotion to whatever
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God has revealed. It shows that his faith has grown since Exodus chapter 3.
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As he's watched the Lord bring plague after plague, he's seen the Lord is the one who has total control, therefore he can trust him.
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He does not have to fear what man can do to him. He commits himself, both body and soul, to the one who has all power over Pharaoh, over the evil empire, over the universe itself.
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And we read the plague of darkness is so thick that you could almost feel it.
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What a description. The literal rendering in the Hebrew is that one would feel the darkness.
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It's oppressive darkness. It's as though it has substance, the absence of light becoming a covering.
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So the idea, the implication is you can't just light a lamp in the corner of your room.
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There's something about this darkness that they couldn't even move, they couldn't even feel their way around, they're struck as though blind.
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Residents in the town of Barrow in Alaska from November to January, a total of 67 days based on their position on the globe, experience darkness.
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They have no sun for 67 days. But unlike the Egyptians, they have all sorts of ways of bringing light into their homes.
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Here we have utter darkness so thick that the people are paralyzed by it.
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Throughout scripture, darkness is a symbol of evil, chaos, judgment.
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And also, as we've seen, the Lord is confronting not only Pharaoh, but the gods of Pharaoh, the gods of the
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Egyptian empire. He's exposing them for their bankruptcy. And of course, the chief deity in the
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Egyptian pantheon is the god Ra. I've mentioned a lot of Egyptian deities over the past two months, maybe none of them household names, but I suspect many of you have heard of Ra, the god of the sun in the mind of the ancient
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Egyptians. And it's very significant that here in this penultimate plague, God is confronting the god of the sun, the god of light, the god that is representative of the splendor and the power and the success of Egypt.
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Now, the chief god, the equivalent of Zeus or Jupiter for the
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Greco -Romans, is being shut down, closed out by Yahweh, the god of the slave population, the god of the
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Hebrews. And the implication is, if God would not be heeded by the
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Egyptians, then the god of the Egyptians would be darkness rather than light.
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And I think the implication remains the same for every nation. If the
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Lord God is not heeded by that nation, darkness will be their god. Blindness, dumbness, foolishness will be their god.
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Isaiah 45, the Lord recounts that they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting there is no one beside me.
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I am the Lord, there is no other. I form the light, I create darkness. I make peace and create calamity.
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I, the Lord, do these things. Not Ra, not all our wise men.
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The wise men of today are always the fools of tomorrow, but no, the Lord is the one who does these things.
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Judgment throughout Scripture is held out as darkness. So we have what we could almost call a meta -theme, not a theme unique to one particular place or even genre, but throughout all of Scripture, whether as narrative or in an epistle, as poetry or in the historical narratives, we have darkness as an image of God's judgment.
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Take, for example, Amos 5, which I find so interesting because Amos 5 is addressed to Israelites that are thirsting for the judgment of God.
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Why would they desire, yearn for God's judgment? Well, because God's judgment means for them the overthrowing of their enemies, all the oppressive enemies that have them under their yoke, as it were.
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And if only the judgment of God could come, then they would be freed, then they would be delivered, and God would be enthroned over all.
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They've missed the fact that God is, in fact, furious against them. And so Amos is risen up as a prophet from this little town, this little village of Tekoa, and he's sent with the unfortunate task in the days of wealth and splendor in the land of Israel to say,
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God is angry with you, and you should not yearn for the day of the Lord, for the day of the
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Lord is no good for you. And that's the context of Amos chapter 5.
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The threat is of the Assyrians coming to invade and drag the people away into exile, exile being a picture of death, exile being a picture of darkness.
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Woe to you, Amos says, who desire the day of the Lord. Now that phrase, day of the
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Lord, speaks of the event of judgment, the actual strike of God. This would be the complex, as it were, of both the
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Assyrian invasion and the dragging away of the people into exile. All this together is the fateful judgment, the day of the
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Lord. Throughout scriptures you find there are, in fact, many days of the Lord where that phrase is found with historical fulfillment.
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And, of course, there's the ultimate capital D, day of the Lord, which stands at the very end.
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Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord. What good is the day of the Lord to you?
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It will be darkness, not light. Notice that imagery? It will be as though a man fled from a lion and a bear met him.
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You think you're finally getting away and then you're completely overtaken in an unexpected way.
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Or as though he went into the house, he's huffing and puffing, he's bracing himself against the wall and a serpent bit him.
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The thing that you're running from, the thing that you fear, Amos is telling God's people, is not the thing you should fear.
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You should not be begging for the day of the Lord to come. What good will it be for you? Is not the day of the
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Lord darkness and not light? Is it not very dark with no brightness in it at all?
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Do you see the imagery here? That's why I bring it up. Judgment being equated to darkness, not a semblance of light, something that God's people should not desire, but something that should cause them to tremble and sober up.
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Candles, lamps, unable to penetrate this darkness. So dark that they remain motionless as though they were physically blinded, which ultimately depicts the condition of sin.
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Sin is depicted as spiritual darkness, spiritual blindness.
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That's the depiction of sin. So sin is the bonds of darkness, the pit of darkness.
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It's the effect of darkness, spiritual blindness. And Christians are those who have been delivered from such darkness.
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We confess. Do you still remember this from Menadnock? He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love.
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So here we too are liberated from darkness and therefore we are to proclaim, as Peter says, the excellencies of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.
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So again, everywhere in Scripture we have these images of darkness and light, the contrast of darkness and light.
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Verse 23, we see God's people secured in light. All the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.
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We'll come back to that for application. But Pharaoh called to Moses and said, go serve the
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Lord, only let your flocks and your herds be kept back. Let your little ones also go with you.
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The very thing he said, you know, woe is ahead of you. You know, woe if I let your little ones go with you.
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And now he's like, yeah, you can take your little ones with you. Just keep your herds. Why? This will be something you have to come back for.
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But Moses responds, you must give us sacrifices and burnt offerings so we can sacrifice to the
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Lord our God. Our livestock shall go with us. Not a hoof shall be left behind.
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I don't know who counts hoofs in these situations, but not one hoof would be left behind.
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We must take some of them to serve the Lord our God. And even we do not know with what we must serve the
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Lord until we arrive there. So Pharaoh is slowly but surely losing his grasp on power.
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He is so used of giving the commands and all being still and silent in obeisance to him.
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But here Moses says, no, all the flocks and herds shall come with us.
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Not one hoof shall be left behind. And of course, we read
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Moses saying, even we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive, which
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I think is an example of Moses walking by faith. That's a testimony for Pharaoh.
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Listen, I just follow what God has revealed as he has revealed it. I'll trust that he will give me the light that's necessary to see.
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That's something that Pharaoh needs to understand. It's also something that Israelites will need to come to understand.
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Moses has learned how to walk by faith, even when he has no sense of what else the
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Lord will bring to him in time as he starts walking by faith. And that's often how it is in the
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Christian life. So often we become paralyzed and we say, I will take steps of faith once I have the full vision, the full five -year plan, and I know exactly how this is going to play out.
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And therefore you take no steps of faith at all, because those wouldn't be steps of faith. Those would be steps of sight.
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I see and I've meticulously prepared for every possible effect, every possible consequence, and therefore now
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I'm walking. Well, God will often call us to take steps of faith, even though we could say like Moses, we don't know.
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We do not know how we're going to serve the Lord once these things come to pass. Once we start taking the steps, who knows how these things will turn out.
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But if there's a conviction, if there's a sense that God has put it on our hearts, then like Moses, we should obey and trust the
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Lord will give us more light as we do so. Now what's the result of all of this?
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Verse 27, it's almost a refrain by now. The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not let them go.
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And Pharaoh said, get away from me, take heed to yourself and see my face no more, for in the day you see my face you shall die.
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And Moses, as we find out, who's angry, says, you have spoken well.
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I will never see your face again. It's a terrible thing when people cut themselves off from the ones who bear the testimonies of God.
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Blindness has given way to blindness. Moses, as much as he's a thorn in Pharaoh's side, is actually
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Pharaoh's lifeline. And here, Pharaoh aggressively casts him away.
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If I ever see your face again, I will kill you. And Moses responds, I will never see your face again.
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Now we go on to read by chapter 12 that Pharaoh has called for Moses and Aaron, which seems to say both
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Moses and Pharaoh are wrong here at the end of chapter 10. But if we read more carefully, we notice that he calls for them at night.
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It's repeated twice, most likely because of this darkness that's pervading for three days and because of the distance that Pharaoh has set himself away from those who are coming, including
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Moses and Aaron by now, that he truly never saw his face again. Though in chapter 12 he's addressing him, he's not seeing him face to face.
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And so I think this stands, it resolves the issue. Here is the last time Pharaoh sees
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Moses face to face. Verse 23 is where I'd like to go with our remaining time for application, because I'm so struck by this great contrast.
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The children of Israel had light in their dwellings, in their homes. Darkness in all of the land, but God's people had light in their homes.
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The just hand of God met with the sinfulness of Egypt, brought darkness throughout all of the land.
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That's the effect of sin and God hardening people in sin as a form of judgment.
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The just hand of God met with the sinfulness of Egypt, bringing darkness in all of the land, except for God's people, they had light in their homes.
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So that's the application. What does it look like for us to have light in our homes?
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Three points of application. First, light for the home. Second, light in the home.
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And third, light from the home. Okay, scripture giving light for the home, addressing how we can have light in our homes, what that looks like practically, light in our homes, and the effects of that at large in the dark world, light emanating from the home.
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So light for, light in, and light from the home. We live in a world where the thought is, children are a burden, it's going to cost a lot of money, it'll be an obstacle to all of my ambitions, the way
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I'll get ahead. Children, rather than being a blessing, as the Lord says, actually are viewed by our world to be a curse.
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I was walking in Market Basket just yesterday, just to grab a few things, and I had,
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Alicia wasn't feeling well, and so I took all the kids with me, and I've heard that fathers get a lot more congratulations than mothers when they cart their children around, you know, so I was, you know, humming, you know,
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Mighty Good Man as I'm strolling around the aisles. But as I walked in, and I have
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Elsie pushing a cart with Callum, and then in one of those blue seats with the cart in front,
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I have Sophia and Abby, and a woman's walking out, and she sees the kids, she doesn't see Callum, and she says, my advice, stop trying.
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She saw three girls, and then, you know, the cart kind of turned, and she saw Callum, and she said, oh, you got a boy.
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Well, still, you just need to stop. You don't know what you're in for, and I just kind of smiled and giggled, and I said, oh,
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I know what I'm in for, you know, it's busy, but it's blessed. Our world views children as some little convenience, some cosmetic accessory, or else an obstacle, a thorn.
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Scripture calls us to count children a blessing, and generally speaking, the health of a society is downstream from the health of the home, from the estate, from the collective acknowledgement and appreciation for family life.
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The health of a society is downstream from the health of the home. Stephen Yule said this, so insightful, a failure to walk in God's ways always results in mayhem on a personal and societal level.
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People quickly lose all sense of the sacred. This loss is felt in every sphere, particularly in the home.
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It weakens the institution of marriage, and the result is an accelerated divorce rate, a rise in casual cohabitation, a rise in alternative relationships.
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The weakening of the family unit results in public contempt for authority. You see the headlines?
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You see the storefronts in the public squares in the parks? Which leads to a sharp rise in juvenile delinquency, a steady decline in man's natural motivation to provide, protect, procreate.
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This kind of society becomes absorbed with an inordinate pursuit of pleasure, and is marked by growing apathy for civic duty and responsibility, and even a decline in economic productivity.
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All of this leads to an unmanageable increase in public spending, because the government compensates for social sluggishness.
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Does that sound like 2023 on the nose? And where does it begin?
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As Yule says, particularly in the home. The health of a society is downstream from the health of the home.
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So the scriptures present an entirely different vision for the people of God. In the Old Testament, of course, children were vital to all peoples.
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The next generation was the social welfare and security system for the previous generation.
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And yet the pagans sacrificed, out of devotion, their children to false gods.
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In that sense, they were showing their heartfelt devotion to gods like Molech, but they were also destroying children who were made in the image of God, counting them in some upside down way, a curse rather than a blessing.
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And yet God's people were instructed from the beginning to count children as a reward, as a heritage, to instruct them whether you're sitting at home or along the way, when you lie down or when you get up.
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The emphasis that we've already begun to see, and will continue to see throughout Exodus, is that one generation calls to the next.
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One generation calls to the next. Psalm 44, verse 1. O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us the work that you did in their days, in the days of old.
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We have heard, why? Because our fathers told us what you did in their days.
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One generation calling to the next. Psalm 78, I already mentioned. Psalm 78, one of the few places in the
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Old Testament where the plague narrative is interacted with at length. Psalm 78, Psalm 105, it's about it as far as in -depth reference points.
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And how does Psalm 78 begin? Give ear, O my people, to my law.
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Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old which we have heard and we have known.
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Why? Our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the
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Lord, right? We heard from our fathers, we will tell our children. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children.
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And we have three generations in view. Why? That they may set their hope in God.
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That they may set their hope in God. So this is something that the older generation is commanded to pass down.
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Joel 1 .3, tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children tell another generation.
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So you couldn't be more clear the testimony of God's works is set forth inter -generationally, so that every generation may set their hope in God.
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Generations come and generations go. As Michael Morales says, the great -grandchildren of these
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Israelites in Exodus chapter 10 would yet be nursing on the milk of God's word, recounting his glorious deeds.
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God's glory would become to them nourishment, strength, and comfort. Moses, of course, witnessed events that very few
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Israelites would see. All of the Israelites that enter into the land were the second generation.
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They didn't directly, or perhaps hardly, directly experience the events of the Exodus. What is not directly experienced, therefore, is to be testified.
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What is not directly experienced is to be testified. So you have children that perhaps have yet to directly experience the new birth by the
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Spirit of God. And so you must testify. This is what it was like when
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I was your age, when I was in darkness before the light came into my life.
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I don't know that you've directly experienced that, but God has given me a testimony, and I will testify.
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Not only is it important, brothers and sisters, to tell our children what the Lord is doing today when we get our daily news feed from Kevin Swanson or Al Mohler or whoever, and we say, oh, look what's going on in the world, and here's some perspective of the past 30 years that you may lack.
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Not only is that important, but our own individual past is a testimony, explaining to our children certain turning points in our lives where God has intervened.
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The things that they have not directly experienced, yet it puts before them a testimony. This is how
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God has used these things to shape who I am. Our lives would be entirely different unless the
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Lord had moved in this way. One generation calling to another so that they may set their hope in God.
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Tell your children of it, Joel says. But notice at the same time, the younger generation is not passive.
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Exodus 12, we'll come to see it shortly. When your children say to you, what do you mean by this
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Passover service? Joshua 4, 6 and 7.
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When your children ask in time to come, what do these stones mean to you? What do these scriptures presuppose?
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It presupposes that the children are actually led to ask questions. Maybe not about stones or a
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Passover Haggadah, but something like, why do we always have to go to church? Why can't we do things that other people do on Sundays?
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What do these things mean to you, mom? Why is this so important, dad? When your children ask, that means children are not to be passive.
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Children are to actually ask and seek out this testimony and this witness. Children should therefore put themselves in places and in positions to hear.
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Don't wait for the elderly of GRBC to come chase you down. Break up the lunch fellowship enclave.
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Plant yourself next to someone who's twice, maybe triple your age and ask them a very basic question like, what was it like when you first came to the
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Lord? Or how did you come to the Lord? Start collecting testimonies. Weigh and compare and reflect on your own experience.
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Whether you've actually received this call and found these transformative effects in your life.
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You know, when I became a Christian, this was the most transformative part of my week.
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Whenever I could sit with people that were double, triple my age, it was my delight.
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I became very good friends with retired pensioners at FBC. Glenn Hadd in particular used to pick me up every
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Saturday and would go to study together. And I had a keen interest to be around saints that had walked a lot longer than I had just begun my walk.
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And they had weathered storms that I had yet to even drift toward. And they had all sorts of insights, not only of the world and the political cycles that are always turbulent, but also spiritual wisdom that is born by nothing else but time.
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And there is spiritual wisdom that is born by nothing else but time. No shortcuts.
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No shortcuts. For that reason alone, you ought to buddy up with some new people at lunch fellowship.
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If you're younger, you might be surprised at how much of a blessing it is. And you might enable the older folks here at this church to carry forth their responsibility to testify to the generation that is emerging.
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So these are the things that God has given us that we may have light for our homes.
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What about light in the home? Light in the home. Now, particularly addressing mothers and fathers, husbands and wives.
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We all acknowledge that children are a gift from God. Children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward.
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That's not a moral reward. It's not something you earn like Girl Scout badges. It's simply saying that it is a good gift from a good
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God. Let's begin with fathers. Proverbs 17 verse 6 says, children's children are the crown of old men, and the glory of children is their father.
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Children's children, that is grandchildren, are the crown of old men, and the glory of children is their father.
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Some of you men didn't realize that you had a crown too. The godly wife is a crown to her husband.
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Well, so is the grandchild. The grandchild is a crown to the old man.
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And children find their father to be their glory.
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Do you believe this to be true? When's the last time, Dad, you came downstairs, you walked into the kitchen, and you heard from your children?
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Father, Papa, my glory. It's more apparent that grandchildren are the crown.
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They practically literally become the crown once the grandchild is mounted on Grandpa's shoulders.
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And yet it's true biblically. The father is to be glorious to the children.
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That's why, isn't it so interesting, out of all of the things that Paul could say to fathers, and he says, of course, several things, but of all the things that he could say, he says, fathers, don't provoke your children to anger.
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Doesn't that strike you as so fascinating that that's what he would single out?
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Do not provoke your children to anger. Don't exasperate. Don't frustrate.
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Don't discourage in an aggressive way your children. Why? Because you are to be glorious to them.
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As the father is glorious to the children that he has made. Do you tell your children and your grandchildren that they are like your crown?
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There's many things that men want to be crowned by, many ambitions in life that men would count to be crowns.
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Look at what I've built with my hands. This is my glory. This is my crown. What does Scripture say is the crown of an old man?
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It's not the business he launched. It's not the business ventures. It's not the success that he's paved his life with.
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It's not coming through the midlife crisis with only one convertible. What's the glory?
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What's the crown of an old man? It's his children's children. It's his faithfulness, not only to the next, but even to the generation after the next.
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That is the crown to a man in the Bible. This is a very father -centered exhortation.
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But listen to me, brothers. And I'm preaching to myself if I'm preaching to anyone. Your display of pursuing
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God and all that that means of prayer, not only at home, but even here publicly, when you are meant to display your pursuit of God or interaction here, where you are meant as men to display your devotion and reverence to God or pursuing the ways to serve and use the gifts that God has given you.
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All of these things are God's design for you to sharpen your arrows. Dad, you are to make warrior children for Yahweh.
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J. Gresham Machen, who's going to be buzzworthy lately because of the 100th anniversary of his famous book,
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Christianity and Liberalism, is now being republished left and right. He had this famous phrase, the warrior children, warrior children of the
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Lord, turning little boys into men who have such a fierce conviction for the Lord that they're willing to stand, willing to lose out on what the world says is gain, willing to sacrifice whatever the cost, whatever the loss to be in the will of God.
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Little girls into noble, dignified women who have such a lofty joy in Christ that they readily, easily, instinctively rebuke the lies of feminism.
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And they deny in their own appearance and display all manner of worldly lust for speech, dress, and manner.
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Think of this as your own responsibility as a father. You are a priest in your home, a priest in your home, seeking, grasping after, yearning for the blessing of God upon you and your family, leading them to the throne of grace, being reminded that they are your earthly crown.
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Samuel Davis, the old 18th century minister said, consider then family religion not merely as a duty, but as your greatest privilege.
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John Knox, the reformer of Scotland, says, dear brethren, if you look for a life to come, of necessity it is that you exercise yourselves in the book of the
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Lord your God. Let no day slip or lack some comfort received from his mouth.
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Open your ears so he can speak pleasant things to your heart. Don't close your eyes, but diligently let them behold what substance is left to you within your father's testament.
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You see, from the father to you as a father, to the generations to come.
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Let your tongues learn to praise the gracious goodness of him whose mercy has called you from darkness to light.
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Neither yet may you do this so quietly that you can have no witnesses. No, brethren, you are ordained to rule in your houses in his fear, according to his word.
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Within your houses, I say, some of you are bishops and kings. Of you, therefore, it shall be required how carefully and diligently you've instructed them in God's knowledge, how you've studied to plant virtue in them and to repress vice.
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And therefore, I say, you must make them partakers in reading, exhorting and making prayers together, which
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I would have in every house in Scotland at least once a day. That's what Knox says. But above all things, dear brethren, study to practice that life which the
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Lord commands, and then you be assured you'll never hear or read the same without fruit.
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Study to apply, study to live out, and you'll never find your life or your home fruitless.
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That means you don't need to be a Bible scholar, and you don't need to be mighty like Knox. You don't need to be insightful like Augustine.
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What you need to be is diligent and, God help us, consistent and persevering to repeatedly, consistently expose the gospel both to yourself and to the people in your home so that God's blessing may descend in due time.
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Robert Murray McShane, another famous Scotsman who died much younger, said, if you do not worship
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God in your family, you may be quite sure you do not care for the souls in your family.
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If you neglected to spread a meal for your children to eat, would it not be said you didn't care for their bodies?
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And if you do not lead your children to the green pasture of God's word to seek that living water, how plain is it that you do not care for their souls?
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It is more needful though than your daily food, more needful than even your work.
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Why is it that we find 15 to 20 minutes a day so incredibly difficult?
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It's because it is more important than our daily food and more important than our work. Our flesh wouldn't reel against things of less importance.
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The enemy wouldn't seek to distract and disrupt and divide and discourage things of lesser importance.
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You can have readily, easily, almost anything else to occupy your attention and desire, but seek to bring your family to the throne of grace, you will find every assault thrown your way.
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But take heart, brothers, it is the self -denying, self -giving, self -sacrificing example of Christ that sets your pattern and your hope, becomes the basis of your motivation and the security of your perseverance.
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Wives and mothers, Abraham Kuyper said, because scripture teaches us that Christ's kingship over the family ought to be apparent, wives must become real women and husbands must become real men.
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We must insist that the Christian character of a family breaks apart, wherever wives do not find it to be the delight and love of their heart to sincerely submit to their husband.
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Notice what Kuyper's singling out, he had chapters on men, but I think he's very insightful to say the
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Christian character of a family breaks apart. Notice he doesn't tie that immediately to the husband's failure, but he actually ties it to the wife's failure.
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Probably Kuyper is seeing what I grew up seeing in the church I grew up in, which is often a Christian family retained its
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Christian character because of the wife, and the husband was some rank unbeliever, some guy out on the golf course, every
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Sunday, but those kids and that wife were for the Lord, and that wife was doing everything she could by God's grace to retain something of a
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Christian character even in a sort of functionally dead, as far as the headship is concerned, setting.
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So I think he's right to say the Christian character of a family breaks apart wherever wives do not find it to be their delight to sincerely submit to their husbands as unto the
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Lord. What does that mean? But take it in reverse. When a wife sincerely and joyfully unto the
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Lord submits to her husband, she is actively building up, pouring concrete and reinforcing with steel the
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Christian character of her home. She is securing light in her dwelling place.
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Psalm 128 says the wife is like a fruitful vine in the very heart of the house.
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She's, to use the Greek term, the oikodespotes, the despot, the tyrant of the home, if we're using
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English transliteration. She's the very core, the manager, as it were, the administrator of the affairs of the home.
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That means husbands have to run for the dinner bell just like the kids, but at the same time, notice the imagery, she's the beating heart.
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She's what makes that house a home, and she is to be like a fruitful vine.
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That's the image of blessing in Psalm 128. Most likely, this is an immediate contrast with the harlot, the promiscuous woman of Proverbs 7, who dresses, we read in verse 11, with the attire of a harlot, has a crafty heart, loud, rebellious.
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Her feet refuse to stay at home, so much for being the heart of the home.
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She's trying to run away from the home. She's loud, cantankerous, her husband's dwelling in the corner of the rooftop while she drips and sprays and sputters about.
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That is not the image of a fruitful vine. That is not how you retain light in your home. That is how you make a home a ruin.
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How do you make the home a refuge and a lighthouse for a dark world?
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Well, Titus says to be discreet, to be chaste, to be a keeper at home, to be obedient to their own husbands, that the
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Word of God may not be blasphemed. Blasphemed by who?
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Outsiders, maybe. Her own children, maybe.
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So that the Word of God be not blasphemed. Have you heard of this term, exvangelical?
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It's an easy way to get on the top ten of the New York Times bestsellers. Write some memoir about the horrors of growing up in an evangelical home.
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And most likely, if you read the memoir carefully, the children have grown for a bitter distaste, not only because of their own sinful hearts and the influence of the world, but for these very reasons.
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Mom was not discreet. She was not chaste. She showed no deference, no respect for her husband.
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She refused to keep her home, and therefore the Word of God is blasphemed. Charm is deceitful.
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Beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.
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Give her the fruit of her hands. Let her own works praise her in the gates.
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Bunyan, if you've ever read his own, speaking of testifying of your own spiritual experience, he wrote, of course, a sort of spiritual autobiography.
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It's rather morbid at times, but it is very well written, the sort of Bard of Bedford, as he's known.
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Bunyan often recounted about the effect of three women, members at the church, and hearing them not only in prayer and utter acts of devotion, but just in witnessing them, how they talked to and treated one another.
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And it struck Bunyan, the joy, the devotion, the love for Christ, the love for one another, the care, the graces, the virtues, the dignity, the nobility these women had.
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It was something the Lord used to bring Bunyan closer to the truth of the gospel.
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He could see the effects of the gospel in these women's lives. That's the fruit of her hands.
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That's her works praising her in the gates. And then we have the kiddos, little children sprouting like olive plants all around the table.
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They're olive shoots. They're not grass to be mowed. They're not weeds to be sprayed with 409.
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They're olive plants, which require an incredible amount of work to cultivate before it ever bears fruit.
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If you've read, probably, I don't think you'd ever have a reason to read this, but Bruce Metzger on the text of the
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New Testament, he has a whole chapter on the preparation of ink and papyrus and scribal practices in the first century.
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And there he mentions that most olive plants would take about 18 years of cultivation before they returned fruit for the labor.
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Isn't it interesting that you have to often with your children labor for 18 years before they're going to be fruitful off apart from you?
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18 plus, 20s. Nowadays it's like 26 is the new 18. Olive plants, fruit that God has given you, full of potential and yet also fraught with the possibility of waste.
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If the labor, if the work of her hands is not diligent, is not focused, is not consistent and heartfelt, blight will take over the home rather than light.
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Olive plants that could amount to incredible harvests of fruitfulness will wither and decay on the vine.
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And of course, all this to say is bearing fruit around the table is incredibly hard work.
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It's not easy. As the old joke goes, you spend the first few years of your children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next dozen years teaching them to sit down and be quiet.
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It's an incredible amount of work and it's almost like once you come through it you forget just how painstaking it was.
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It's so easy when kids are grown to forget how to and why you should empathize with those who are in the midst of it.
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It's like an old veteran who's been through the worst of warfare and has climbed out of the trenches and he says, oh it all wasn't that bad.
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Meanwhile, you forgot what rotting trench foot was like and watching all of his buddies get blown up. It's not easy.
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Here in the church we would do well to cultivate great sensitivity and empathy, especially to young families, young mothers.
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For some of the young mothers in our congregation, this is all new territory. They weren't raised this way. This is learning the rodeo by being put on the bull.
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So we empathize and we recognize God has given very good instructions to have light in your home and of course sin is going to disrupt all of this, your own flesh, your own selfishness.
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The life of the family is sick, as Kuyper says, just like the rest of human life is sick. There's only one physician who can heal both individual and family life.
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It's not only the family members who are sick because of sin, but it's the natural function, the goodness of God's design for the family that suffers dysfunction because of sin.
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So perhaps you're a young mother or a young wife or an old mother or an old wife or a grandmother and still a wife or maybe even a widow.
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Perhaps you know and you confess that the family is a blessing, you have a desire to call out and testify to the next generation, to crown yourself with your children's children and the children's children of this church here, and you recognize the high calling of marriage and perhaps you thought, well because I believe these things, because I hold them as dear principles, because I'm only coming to this weird church in the center of Berry because of these things, more or less,
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I wouldn't stick around with these people if I didn't hold these things to be very important in my life, but you thought because you had it on paper, because it was a conviction, because it was a principle, because you had some idea, some vision, some good instruction, some good examples, that everything would fall into place for you when in fact everything seems to fall apart and you realize there's no formula, there's no material, there's no book or study that's going to put it easily back together.
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What do you do when you don't feel fruitful? What do you do when you're worried that your olive shoots are withering around the table?
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How can you be joyful and faithful in trying to bear fruit?
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One way or another, the answer is the same for everyone. John 15 5,
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I am the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
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Jesus says you must abide in him. Bible open, prayerful dependence upon him, praying for his blessing, praying for his presence in your life, in your heart, in your home, to guide you in the day, in all the difficulties and the stressors that lie ahead, working unto him, as to him, not doing anything apart from him, abiding in him, that is where fruitfulness comes from.
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It will often feel like Moses felt, I don't even know what's going to happen once I start walking in this way,
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I don't know what's ahead now that we're fully into this, and that's exactly where the
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Lord would have you be, for there you'll be more prayerful, more dependent, more sensitive to his leading, and this is a comfort for us.
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There is hope for those perhaps that recognize years of fruitlessness in their own family life, they see pockets of darkness in homes that should be flooded with light, they see wasted years of unbelief, things that have consequences in the behavior and mannerisms and the relationships within the home, here there is hope.
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Abide in the vine. If the best of your efforts is utterly in vain, utterly fruitless apart from him, then even your worst failures, even your greatest neglect is not without hope in him.
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Light in the home. Lastly, light from the home.
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There's a design in this. There's a purpose in this good design. It's not just so that we will be blessed by the light of Christ in our lives and in our family life, in our homes, but it's also so that our homes will become salt and light in our society.
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Remember, the health of a society is downstream from the health of the home. Ian Murray, been reading, trickling my way through his study of Puritan eschatology called
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The Puritan Hope, and Ian Murray said this, because of their outlook upon the future, notice that, because of their outlook on the future,
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Scottish missionary leaders took the long view in evangelization. That is to say, they did not regard the current number of their converts as the first consideration.
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They rather turned their energy and deployed all of their work for that which would have the maximum influence upon the nation in subsequent generations.
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That is diametrically opposed to how Big Eva or non -denom
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Christianity does it today. They stake all of their hope on the present number, the present converts, who's showing any interest and how far do we have to limbo with the way of the world to keep them interested and attractive.
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The missionaries that went into these nations recognized our first consideration isn't even the people that are being converted.
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Our first consideration and the very heart of our labor is for the next generation. We want to have the greatest influence upon the generation to come.
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That's the first consideration. Only then do we consider the people that are being converted in our midst now.
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What would it look like for us in this church to adopt that approach? For there to be light from our homes, there must be light in our homes.
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For there to be light from our homes, there must be light in our homes. Richard Baxter distinguishes family reformation from what he calls common reformation, which is sort of an area where there seems to be an impact.
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Much like he experienced in Kitterminster in England in the 17th century, where the Lord blessed his ministry and brought great reform to what had been,
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I don't know any better way to say it, the alleys of Fitchburg in the 17th century. Family reformation distinguished from common reformation, and this is what he has to say, family reformation is the easiest and the likely way to accomplish a common reformation.
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At least the easiest way to send many souls to heaven and to train up multitudes for God, if not reach a national reformation.
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So Baxter's saying, what do you aim for? You want to change the society because you know the society is downstream from the home.
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So what do you aim for? Do you aim for the society first and foremost? No. Reform your family.
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Get light in your home if you want light to come out of your home. Focus on family reformation.
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God may bless that, and through families in this family, in the church, there may be a common reformation.
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Maybe 2026 will go down as that weird little revival that took place in a bunch of backwards
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Bariites. Somehow we're blessed, and if the Lord chooses to bless that, that may give way to national reformation.
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This is all the determination and providence of God, but you can't be responsible, ultimately held accountable for national reformation.
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Of course not. You can't be responsible or ultimately held accountable for common reformation.
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No, of course not. The Spirit moves as He wills. He's as the wind. You are certainly mom and dad.
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You are certainly responsible and accountable for family reformation. For there to be light from our homes, three things must be present.
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Restoration, elevation, and sanctified communion.
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Restoration, elevation, and sanctified communion. All three of these
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I pull from Abraham Kuyper in this beautiful quote. Three things, he says, must be present in the family through the
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Spirit of Christ and the result of His work. Please notice that. It's always the result of His work, abiding in the vine.
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The first is the restoration of what sin and misery have corrupted.
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You go and you sit down. You have a little family meeting. Maybe you don't do those very often.
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Maybe you've never had a family meeting. This is a good week for a family meeting. You sit down and you ask the question, what has sin taken from us?
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What has my sin or your sin or our sin robbed us of?
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What would it look like for that to be restored? Where is there darkness in this home right now and what would it look like for light to come in?
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So the first concern is restoration of what sin has corrupted. The second is elevation of the family life to its original ideal.
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In other words, thinking through not only what has sin taken away and what can we restore, but now that that's restored, what can we expound and build upon?
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What can be elevated to get even closer to the goodness of God's design, to the blessedness of Psalm 128?
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And thirdly, in order that this blessing might not be passing, but fix its roots in the family and ever be nourished there, the family must sanctify its communion, sanctify, setting apart communion with God.
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So as to give God the honor and worship he is due for what he and his grace has given that family and in asking him to bless their life, only in this way can
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Christ exercise his dominion as our king over the family as well. Let us take heart.
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We sang about it. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.
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If you are walking with Jesus, abiding in him, being found fruitful in him, he will be the light of your home.
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He will be that which emanates through you, from husband to wife and from parent to child, across generations, out of that family structure, even out of the family structures in the church, to the society at large.
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Christ is the light of the world. And we're surrounded like Egypt by a thick darkness that's almost palpable, but Christ has overcome the world and he's overcome the darkness, and therefore, brothers and sisters, therefore, church, as we consider what it would look like for us to call and put our shoulder toward the next generation, may he be the light in our life, the light in our heart, the light in our home, the light from our home to a darkened world around us unto the very day when we're brought into the city where the lamb is the light.
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There we read, the nations of those who are saved shall walk in his light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor unto him.
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Its gates will never be shut at all by day, and there will never be night.
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Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.