Preaching The Gospel To Yourself

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Preaching the Gospel to yourself every day. Now, this morning
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I preached the Gospel to you. Yesterday when you got up, in between getting up and going to bed, did you preach the
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Gospel to yourself? The day before, did you say, sometime during that day, this is what
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God has done on my behalf, in my place, this is who Jesus the God -man is, this is how
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He entered creation, and He became a representative for me, and a substitute was raised from the dead. Three days ago, did you preach the
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Gospel to yourself? Is it even important to preach the Gospel to ourselves?
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Or do we just say, you know what, I got that taken care of when I was in Awana, we're good to go. I got saved in high school, we're good,
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I can just move forward. You probably know the quote, I've given you the quote, Jerry Bridges said,
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Christians should preach the Gospel to themselves every day. Now does that mean
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I can lose my salvation? I preach the Gospel to myself today because I could lose it yesterday, so I preach it again today?
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No, it doesn't mean that. The Gospel isn't just for beginners.
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There's no deeper water than the Gospel. Billy Graham's grandson, his first name is easier to pronounce than his last,
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Tulian is his first name, Chevijan is his last name. I kind of like it on his website, he tells you how to pronounce his name.
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It's kind of nice. He wrote in his book, Surprised by Grace, once God rescues sinners,
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His plan isn't to steer them beyond the Gospel, but to move them more deeply into it.
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The Gospel is not just the most important message, but it's the most essential message.
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My old Hebrew professor back at Master's Seminary, Milton Vincent said, over the course of time, preaching the
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Gospel to myself, now listen to this, preaching the Gospel to myself every day has made more of a difference in my life than any other discipline
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I have ever practiced. I find myself sinning less, but just as importantly,
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I find myself recovering my footing more quickly after sinning, due to the immediate comfort found in the
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Gospel. I've also found that when I'm absorbed in the Gospel, everything else
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I'm supposed to be toward God and others seems to flow out of me more naturally and passionately.
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Doing right is not always easy, but it is never more easy than when one is breathing deeply the atmosphere of the
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Gospel. Preaching the Gospel to yourself every day. Now before we start, and I give you seven or eight reasons why you should, let's remind ourselves what the
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Gospel is. Back to 1 Corinthians 15, if you'd turn there please. 1 Corinthians 15.
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By the way, we had a long segment with the No Compromise Radio Ministry video production talking about what the
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Gospel is. It's not accept Jesus in your heart. It's not do good. It's not be good.
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It's not God wants to have a personal relationship with you. It's not God wants to bless you in this life only.
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Think of John MacArthur's words, if Joe Osteen is right that you can have your best life now, that means you're going to hell.
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If this is as good as it gets, then you're going to hell. Our best life is later. We can have a wonderful life now on earth, but our best life is later.
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What is the Gospel that we should be preaching? And so I think it apropos to talk about the
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Gospel again before we get into why we should preach it, even though I think most of you, I wonder if I did this.
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I wonder if I gave you a piece of paper right now, I did this in Kansas, a piece of paper to everyone and said, what is the
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Gospel? And you wrote down what the Gospel is and you couldn't write down good news and you couldn't write down Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.
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I wonder what you would write. What is the Gospel? Matter of fact, it's Sunday night, who would like to tell me what the
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Gospel is? What are the crucial elements of the Gospel? Now the people that are raising their hands,
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I think they probably know the right answer. So I want somebody else to expose themselves. No, Brian.
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Okay. Anybody want to make any more comments to that? He kind of had a good voice too, didn't he? It was like a preaching voice.
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Jonathan, would you like to add anything to that? Okay. Now sometimes we say the
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Gospel is repent, the Gospels believe, the Gospels follow, the Gospels trust. I don't think that has anything to do with the
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Gospel except it's a response to the Gospel. The Gospel isn't do something, the Gospel something's been done.
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So Jesus Christ, if you take a look at 1 Corinthians 15, He says, this is the most important thing in all the
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Bible. Everything in the Bible is important, but there are hierarchical truths. So this is of first importance.
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And then the Bible says in verse three, what I also received, same language, delivered, received, that we saw this morning in 1
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Corinthians 11, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. Notice the
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God -centeredness of the Gospel. Christ died and He was buried.
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It didn't say they buried Him, making Him the passive agent. He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the
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Scripture, and that He appeared to Cephas. Verse 6, He appeared to more than 500 brothers.
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Verse 7, He appeared. And so you have the very God -centered nature of the Gospel. All these verbs are talking about God Himself.
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Isn't that a long stretch or a far stretch from the way we talk about the Gospel and we just talk about how we received
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God and this personal approbation of God, how we received it versus Paul's Gospel was, of course
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He was changed, but this Gospel is all about God, what Jesus did. I find it interesting here that it's very historical.
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Brian, excellent point. This was history. He died and He was buried and He was raised.
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Stephen Nichols talked about the story with Carl Henry and Carl Barth when he was here. I did a little more research on that historical happening.
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Carl Henry worked for Christianity Today, and when Carl Barth came over the
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Atlantic, was interviewed by all kinds of people. UPI was there, AP, NBC, and first a liberal lady asked
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Carl Barth a question. Then the second question was by Carl Henry. My name is
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Carl Henry. I'm with Christianity Today. Mr. Barth, if you were to bring in all these reporters into the tomb, what would they observe in the tomb?
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What would they report? What would be the news? In other words, was He really raised from the dead or is it just something in your heart?
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He lives, He lives. Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me and He talks with me along life's narrow way.
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He lives, He lives. Salvation to impart. You ask me how I know He lives?
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He lives within my heart. For Barth, Jesus wasn't raised from the dead historically, but if it's in your heart, you experience it.
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And so Barth got mad and said, who are you with again? And Christianity Yesterday?
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And then Carl Henry said in his autobiography I read last week, he said,
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I took that out of context but I couldn't pass it up. I'm with Christianity Yesterday, today and forever.
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Barth got mad, swore in German, and off they went. But it's a historical issue.
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It's not because it happened in my heart. If we find the bones of Jesus, we're to be pitied.
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But it's not just historical, it's theological. Look at verse three, Christ died for our sins.
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Substitution or atonement. On our behalf, in our place, Jesus died for our sins.
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It doesn't say He died for His sins. If He sinned, He'd have to die and He'd have to pay for His own sins, but He died for someone else's sins.
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And then God raised Him from the dead. And it's good news.
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It's the reporter kind of news. I love listening to S. Lewis Johnson. He'll say, this is such good news, it's kind of like this.
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Would this be good news today in our culture? Reagan is reelected. Well, it might not be that good news because then we believe in reincarnation.
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But you know what I'm saying. Someone like Reagan, or it's a boy. I remember all four times we had kids.
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I couldn't believe it. I guess y 'all are gonna earn a dollar on this one. Haley, Luke, Maddie and Gracie. After I was in the room and those kids were born and I got to hold the babies and cut the cord.
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They give the guys the cord to cut like we were really doing something. And it's like, okay, whatever. But I still got to cut the cord.
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You're there. I couldn't wait to get out into the hallway. When Haley was born,
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I didn't have a cell phone, I don't think, to call people and tell them, I'm a dad. It's a girl.
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And then it was like, okay, in order of importance. First, my mom. Then my sister, then my brother, and then going down the line.
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It's news. By the way, we aren't the news. Modern Christianity, we become the news.
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When reporters report on a historical issue, our fact, our event, they aren't the news.
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They're trying to report it. That's why friendship evangelism, if you never open your mouth and tell them that Jesus died for sinners like you and was raised from the dead and you ought to respond with faith and trust, if you never talk about that, that's not good news.
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That's not a declaration. You aren't the news. And who was it? St. Francis of Assisi?
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You know, I preach the Gospel all the time and if I have to, I sometimes use words or something close.
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It's horrible theology. This is news. A proclamation. You know where it comes from? It comes from someone who is up at the front of the battle and their nation is winning and so he runs full blast back to the general and says, we're winning.
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He doesn't act it out. It's not some kind of mime thing. You know, shooting and dying.
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He's like, no, it's a report. But the question is this morning, the question was this morning, the question is tonight, should we keep preaching this to ourselves?
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If we're already saved? If you're not saved, the response to the Gospel is repent and believe and follow.
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But if you are saved, what do you do? So let me give you seven or eight reasons why you should preach the
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Gospel yourself. I'm positive we're not going to get through all of them tonight. The church of the two -part sermon.
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See, when I just was in Kansas, I had to do this in one night. Then you fly home the next day. Number one, why should you preach the
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Gospel to yourself every day? Number one, because if there were days in heaven, the
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Gospel would be preached to you every day in heaven. Now, I'm not saying there are days in heaven, but if there were days in heaven, the
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Gospel would be preached to you every day. In other words, every moment throughout all the eons of time, you are going to be seeing something.
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And let's turn our Bibles to Revelation 5 to see what we're going to one day see in heaven.
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Revelation 5. Why should you preach the Gospel to yourself? Because it's a foretaste of heaven.
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Oh, you know, heaven's going to be so boring. Clouds, puffy clouds floating around.
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How many people here like playing harps? I can't wait to get home tonight and just relax by playing my harp.
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Eating my chubby, hubby ice cream every Sunday night and playing my harp. My dog might be there.
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In heaven, cats certainly no chance of being there.
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By the way, just for fun, how many people love cats? Quite a few. Okay, that's your problem.
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Alright, let's get... God made them, but somehow cats were affected by the fall more than dogs.
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And if I owned a cat, I'd treat that cat to act like a dog. Actually, I did meet a cat like that once and it would sit, stay, come, roll over, and I thought, now that's a cat.
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It's so nice to have been here 15 years and you just have to put up with all the cat attacks.
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Revelation 5, I'm going to read the NAS in this section. Let's just go through the chapter because it's just so great.
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Revelation 1, we see the intro and the outline. In chapter 2 and 3, the letters.
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Chapter 4 and 5 show us a view from heaven because if you don't get this view from heaven right in your mind, you're going to think
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God isn't just, God isn't good, God isn't righteous, God isn't in control when all hell breaks loose in chapter 6 through 18.
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There's hope and victory over sin. Soon, progressive revelation will be accomplished.
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And Revelation 5 gives us a little hint. And I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne, a book written inside and on the back sealed up with seven seals.
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Roman law, seven seals. Legal document, sealed seven times.
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And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, verse 2, who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals?
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Who could ever accomplish the work that needs to be accomplished in such a fallen, such a sinful, such an upraved environment?
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And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the book or to look into it.
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I began to weep greatly, John said, because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it.
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How wicked is the earth! How bad is the world! One of the elders said to me, stop weeping.
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Oh, this is good. Behold, the lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seals.
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Christ the Creator, the ferocious lion. He is worthy, but just how worthy?
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Verse 6, and I saw between the throne with the four living creatures and the elders a lamb standing.
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Twenty -nine times in the New Testament, Jesus is referred to as a lamb.
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And with one exception, 1 Peter 1, Peter calls Him a lamb.
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Every other time, Jesus is called a lamb by John the Apostle. Only John with one exception.
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Peter in 1 Peter 1 .19. The lamb. Standing as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
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Now stop there just for a second. I can't wait to see my mom in heaven. If I see my dad in heaven, that's even going to be better than seeing my mom because I'm thinking my dad didn't die justified.
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At least in my mind, in my eyes, but I wasn't there when he died. There are going to be people that I can't wait to see.
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Isn't that going to be a good day if you get to see some of your loved ones in heaven? That's going to be a great day. But I think maybe you'll see them if you had to have some kind of chronological importance, logical importance.
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This living one is going to dominate the landscape. You're not going to say, well, where's my mom?
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It's not heaven until I can find her with all the myriads of myriads. This lamb standing is going to dominate you.
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And I think you'll know, yes, my mom's here singing with me. My mom's right here.
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I know that she's here, but I'm not going to sit here and go, well, mom, you know, how's it been the last 15 years?
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I missed you a lot. Here's what's going on, let me catch you up. You know, when you lose a loved one, I think to myself,
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I just want to call my mom and tell her. I just had another kid. I just did this video thing.
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Whatever you say, I want to just share. But here, if heaven was a stage or a platform, all the spotlights are on the lamb.
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An angel you would bow down and worship if you weren't thinking correctly, but here is the
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Lamb of God. The lamb is standing. Now, there are two different words for lamb that we could use here. One is just lamb, general lamb.
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Go to the farm, lamb. There's another word that means a little pet lamb, kind of a sweet lamb.
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Which one do you think is used here? The special household pet lamb.
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Are there animals in heaven? Well, Jesus is no animal, but here with this language of revelation, apocalyptic revelation, there's a lamb standing.
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What does the text say? As if slain. He's been resurrected.
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He was slain. But now He's been raised from the dead and He's glorified. Slain means to slit the throat of, to kill, to assassinate, a violent death.
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Literally, Warren Wiersbe said, slain means to cut in the throat for a sacrifice.
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You take the lamb and you cut the jugular and the carotid, and the lamb just loses its blood and just wilts and dies.
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There's a lamb standing as if slain. But this is an all -powerful lamb.
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This is an all -knowing lamb. Powerfully raised Himself from the dead. Power shown by this language.
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Look at the text. Having seven horns, the power of a horn. And seven eyes.
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He's all -knowing. Jesus Christ the Lamb, the sacrifice, is standing as if slain.
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All -powerful, all -knowing. I'll talk to my mom in a little bit. I had a boss that I really loved and he had a dog named
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Max. Pomeranian. And when you walked into his home, he had a big picture, his wife and he did not have children.
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And so there's a picture of Ben, his wife and the dog. And this is a guy who's corporate
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America. Manager. You go over to his living room and there's a seat for Ben, there's a seat for his wife, there's a seat for Max.
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I thought I was in Paris where you just let the dogs eat off the table. And I would talk to Ben about the gospel.
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He'd even come to church with us sometimes. We'd go to Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa and hear Chuck Smith preach. He said, what about dogs?
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Do dogs go to heaven? I said, all good dogs go to heaven. He said,
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Ben, dogs don't go to heaven. There may be dogs in heaven for God's good pleasure, but if there's been a dog on earth that's been corrupted by the fall, tainted by sin.
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And Jesus didn't die for animals or creation and so there's going to be no resurrected dogs.
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Your dog isn't going to be cleansed by the blood of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ and so no dogs in heaven.
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And then he looked at me and I'll never forget it. He said, Mike, if my dog
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Max isn't in heaven, it won't be heaven. The star of heaven.
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The center of heaven. Like some kind of black hole having everything just magnetically just attracted to the center is the
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Lamb who's been slain, who was raised from the dead, who's all -powerful, and who's all -knowing.
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And maybe after a hundred million years if there were such a thing, then you can sit down and talk to your favorite theologian about why they talked about this, that, or the other.
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Christ has all the credentials. Verse 7, And He came and He took it out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne.
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When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty -four elders fell down before the
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Lamb, having each one a harp and golden bulls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
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How many times, God, let there be justice, and God's answer is, not yet. God, may
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Your kingdom come. Not yet. God, may something happen. Not yet. And then now the culmination of everything happens.
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All the not yet prayer requests for justice are answered. And if that really happens, what do you think you'd do?
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Justice is going to be done. The Lamb's on the throne. You're there in heaven.
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I wonder what you would do. Verse 9, This is what they do.
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This is what you'll do. This is what you'd want to do. Revelation in Scripture requires a response.
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When you learn something about God and He shows Himself to you through the Word, you say, I've got to respond. Thank you,
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Lord. That was awesome. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. You'll sing. But when
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God reveals Himself to you, eye to eye and face to face, by the way, no faith in heaven, because you're going to actually see, actually have the ability to see this, then what are you going to do?
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You're going to be responsive. Revelation response. Here's the response. And they sang a new song, saying,
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Worthy art thou to take the book and to break its seal, for you are thou a slain and did purchase for God with thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.
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Jesus, the worthy One, because He paid the sacrifice, He was the ransom.
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And you have made them, verse 10, to be a kingdom and priesthood of God, and they will reign upon the earth. And I looked and I heard the voice of many angels.
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I just can't wait to hear that kind of sound or something about these sounds. I never forget the two times
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I've been in a car accident, and I can just hear the crashing metal. And here it's the crashing praise of angels, people, creatures, elders.
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And the number of them was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands. And what are they all doing?
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Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.
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And you know the great thing is, I always say to myself, if I ever go someplace, I wonder if I know how to act.
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I go to some kind of special function, I don't know what to do. And for a long time, I thought when I get to heaven, I wonder if I'll know what to do.
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I don't know how I'll act. I want to make sure I do the right thing, the right etiquette. You'll know exactly what to do, and you will sing with these creatures.
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Every creature, every created thing, verse 13, which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all things in them.
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Look at this exclusive language, inclusive language rather, to Him who sits on the throne and to the
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Lamb. There it is again with John, the Lamb, the Lamb, the Lamb, bringing you right back to the
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Old Testament, thinking about the Passover Lamb in the place of, you're thinking about the Day of Atonement with the
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Lamb in the place of, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.
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No more sin. No more curse. No more tears. No more weeping.
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He is worthy. The commentator said, is it any wonder that such a sovereign and righteous
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God must judge all those who have turned their backs on Him? Is it any wonder that such a
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God must judge a world like that? When you see God, you're supposed to worship and praise and honor.
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And then you say, you know what? I refuse to worship that God. I won't bow to Jesus. I'm not going to worship
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Him at all. I refuse. The right response is praise.
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Verse 14, And the four living creatures kept saying, Amen. Mark Schaeffer, you're set.
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Amen and Amen. So be it. I agree. We get the word,
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Amen, is right from chapter 15 of Genesis 6. And Abraham believed.
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Same word, Amen. He said, Amen. And then, God counted it to him as righteousness.
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The penalty of sin vaporized by the death of Christ. The power of sin obliterated by Jesus on Calvary.
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The presence of sin in heaven gone. Destroyed. Theodicy.
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Evil. Gone. Christ Jesus receiving the praise.
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Harps. Clouds. Dogs. Christ Jesus.
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Say, well, I'm looking forward to get to heaven. Because I don't have to deal with all these things down here.
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Well, that's fine. But then you get to deal with and you get to be absorbed with that. What could be so fascinating that for 10 billion eons, you could still be amazed by looking at?
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I have a pretty short attention span. And once I watch something, I go, kind of done with that.
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Right? You see a movie at the movie theater and think, I got to buy that movie. I want to own that movie. You go home and watch it and you go, okay, might as well sell that on eBay because how many times are we going to watch that?
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Maybe it's some old classic. You think, I'll just watch that a few times. That has a good shelf life. I've watched that show 10 times.
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I'm trying to think of a movie that I could say we watched 10 times. Luke, don't yell anything out. Embarrass me.
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We like to watch What's Up, Doc? Barbara Streisand and Ryan O 'Neal. And you just watch that and you go, that's just funny every time you watch it.
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The younger people are like, what is that? But here, I mean, really, what could captivate an audience?
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Marketing people know you need new. You need novel. You need aggressive. You need different.
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You need new and improved. Right? Oatmeal, it's not right anymore without new and improved because I got to have the new stuff because the old stuff is boring.
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If Christianity is boring, there's a problem. Dorothy Sayers said, matter of fact, I think I can get the quotas further on in my notes, but I'm not even gonna get to probably point two tonight.
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So what do I care? I don't know where it is, but I can tell you what she's thinking.
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She said, they never accused Jesus of being boring. That he was calling himself the
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Messiah, they could accuse him of that. They claimed him to be God, they could accuse him of that. But that he was boring?
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Never. You're reading from the wrong book if you think the drama of redemption is boring. So what could so capture you for 20 eons and the eternal ages and eternity future?
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Christ Jesus. That's hard to get my mind wrapped around. I personally think when you're seeing the gospel before you in the person of Christ incarnate, that you'll just keep learning about him and appreciating him and learning about him and appreciating him with perfect theology.
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Why should you preach the gospel to yourself every day? Because that's a perfect glimpse and preview of how many people wanna go to heaven?
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How many people wanna go to heaven right now? See, when you read this passage, you say yes.
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Typically you ask the congregation, how many people wanna go to heaven? How many people wanna go to heaven right now? I kinda like to be a grandpa.
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So I stick with my own kids. I can't wait to have my kids bring their kids over and just let them do whatever they want.
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It'd be kind of fun. Hand them back later. Number two,
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I hate to even go on because that's such a great thought, but let's go to the second one. Why should you preach the gospel to yourself every day?
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Number one, because it's going to be preached to you every day in heaven if there were a day. Number two, so that you can honor
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God by forgiving other people a lot. A lot of forgiveness will be cultivated in your heart by preaching the gospel to yourself.
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In other words, if you've got something against other people, preaching the gospel to yourself will not only ease that, but it will help you seek forgiveness and it'll help you grant forgiveness.
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Show me people that don't like to grant forgiveness and I'll show you people that have forgotten the gospel.
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The Proverbs say, good sense makes one slow to anger and it is his glory to overlook an offense.
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Ephesians 4, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.
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Tale of two grandparents. I had grandmother Nona, grandmother
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Hedwig. They called her Erna, wonder why, Hedwig. And then grandpa
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Henry. Those are the three grandparents that I will remember. I did meet my other one,
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Carl. But he died when I was 12. And I love them. And they're my grandparents.
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And I remember going there when my mom and dad both worked and I'd get dropped off every other day, first to grandma up the hills, and then grandpa
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Avendroth. And I'd go there every single day and they did all kinds of things for me and to me and ran out of syrup.
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So you just kind of make your own syrup and have pancakes. And I wouldn't eat pancakes of grandma's because they didn't taste like mom's pancakes.
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So they had a knockoff of Tarzan. And when I was growing up in 1964, the cheap version of Tarzan, his name was
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Bamba. Who knows, does anybody remember Bamba? Nobody? Somebody does.
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So she would make me Bamba eggs and Bamba pancakes and stuff. I mean, I really love my grandparents.
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I wish they were around today. But they lived underneath a false religion called sacramental
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Lutheranism. And they were bitter and they were angry and they were racist and they had no friends.
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And the only people they cared about was their children and their grandchildren. And they were mad at them most of the time.
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Then I met a lady named Evie Nichols. Kim lost both of her parents when she was young.
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She was raised by Doug, her grandfather, and Evie, the grandma. Doug died before I met
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Kim. And then I became grandma Evie's grandson, she called me, in love.
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I was a grandson in love. How many people here met Evie? A few did, okay.
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Grandma loved the gospel. Grandma loved Christ Jesus, the God of the gospel. And she had so many people hurt her throughout the years.
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Some I met, some crazy ones. And if anybody could be bitter, it could be grandma.
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She might have a right to be bitter. But she was the most loving, joyful, kind woman
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I think I probably ever met with gospel love, with gospel cheerfulness, with gospel joy.
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What's the difference between my side of the family and Kim's side of the family?
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The difference is Kim's grandmother wasn't caught up in sacramental pagan
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Lutheranism. The gospel caught grandma. And even though when she got older, she might have a kind of a harebrained idea about this or that, theologically.
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Tried to correct her, didn't work. Took me a long time to get this into my noggin.
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Quit talking to grandma about these minor details of the gospel. Just enjoy being around this lady who would just, you know, pass out at three in the afternoon on the couch and then wake up and say,
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I gotta go get some strawberries. Why? Because I gotta go to the produce market and talk to somebody about the gospel today.
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Okay, see you grandma. When you realize how many sins
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God has forgiven you of, you'll forgive other people.
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I do not wanna be a bitter old man sitting in front of a TV all day with absolutely no friends.
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And you know what people that aren't affected by the gospel are often sad and lonely people who have no friends because once a friend does something against them, there's no way to reconcile.
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There's no way to get back together. They don't understand what God has done for them, so they don't know what to do for other people.
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And the older you get, I always thought to myself, I'm 15 years old and I have 80 friends.
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And grandma and grandpa are 85 years old and have no friends. They're either dead or my grandparents probably wish they were dead.
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So let's turn our Bibles to Matthew 18. I think this will be the last one. Why should you preach the gospel to yourself?
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Heaven is all about Jesus, the gospel incarnate. Number two, you should preach the gospel to yourself because it will be much easier for you to forgive other people.
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Not because you'll have more friends, not because you'll have relatives and fellowship when you're older, but to honor
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God. It honors God when you forgive other people. It's God -like. Is there anything more
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God -like than forgiving other people? Certainly, if you've been around people long enough, they will offend you.
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Those of you who are married, you realize how much sin you still have as a redeemed
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Christian. Matthew 18, I think you know the passage.
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Verse 21 and following, let's take a look at this familiar passage, but I wanna preach it again because it is just soothing to the soul.
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Certainly, if you live long enough, somebody's gonna offend you. And just to be able to forgive them and act like God, boy, how great is that?
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Then Peter came and said to Him, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?
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Now, the rabbi said three times, so he does a little 2n plus one for you algebra students.
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I guess the WPI students are backsliding tonight. They're not even here. But you know what? Let's go above and beyond.
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We don't wanna be like those Pharisees. We'll double the portion, or the portion, or the potion. We'll double the portion.
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See what one letter does? We'll double the portion and add one for good measure.
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So the rabbis say three, seven's probably good, kind of generous, magnanimous.
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Up to seven times, you can expect that Peter's expecting the pat on the back.
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It's generous. Commentator Plummer said, the man who asks such a question does not really know what forgiveness means.
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Peter thought he was going to be praised as his heart was so generous. But see, forgiveness, you can't measure it with scales.
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You can't do titration analysis with forgiveness. It's not to be measured in currency, or weight, or grams.
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Because if you say up to seven times, you might be generous, but when the person has sinned against you the eighth time,
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I've had people that I know who've sinned against me more than seven times. And so do you.
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Does forgiveness have a limit? Rabbi Ben -Hanina said, he who begs forgiveness from his neighbor must not do so more than three times.
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Rabbi Ben -Yehuda said, if a man commits an offense once, they forgive him. If he commits an offense a second time, then forgive him.
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If he commits a sin a third time, forgive him. The fourth time, do not forgive him.
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Jesus said, verse 22 of Matthew 18, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven.
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Now the language again of forgiveness is not factorials, exponentials, pi r squared.
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It's not that kind of language. He's not saying it because of that. What's 70 times seven? 490.
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He's not saying at 491, guess you're good to go. It's qualitative, not quantitative.
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Now, unless we get caught up in the passage and don't think about this personally, because pastors aren't supposed to just teach, they're supposed to meddle, right?
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In the South, you go to Amarillo and they say, Amarillo, the pastor's gone from preaching to meddling.
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All right, let's meddle. Is there someone in your life who has come to you and said, will you please forgive me?
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And you've said, no. Is there someone in your life who's sinned against you a lot of times and you're about done forgiving them?
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They've sinned too many times against me. I need to see some fruit of repentance or something.
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Now maybe Jesus had in mind Lamech's arrogance, Genesis 4,
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Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech 70 times sevenfold.
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Maybe that's what Jesus is thinking. I'm not sure. But He gives a big number because it's not about the number, it's just about the generous grace to be extended.
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This is kind of a different world for us, so much so that John Wesley said, if this be Christianity, where do
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Christians live? I'd like to go there. If Christians forgive that many times, then let's move there.
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Wouldn't that be a good place to live? With all the resentment and all the bitterness and holding people at bay.
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And so when Jesus really wanted to drive the nail in, to kind of cinch the nail down,
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He'd teach a what? A parable. And here comes the parable to reinforce this point.
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You don't understand a parable unless you know why it was given. What's the occasion? What's the situation? What's the circumstance?
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You know the passage, but it's good to just hear again. For this reason, the kingdom of heaven, verse 23, may be compared to a certain king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.
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So, we're using a human king to obviously talk to us about God the king, the divine king.
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Somebody should write a book maybe about God as king. I don't think it would sell very much, but it's a great idea.
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And when He had begun to settle them, these accounts, there was one brought to Him who owed
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Him 10 ,000 talents. You couldn't save up 10 ,000 talents if you tried.
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It's an impossible debt to pay. But since He did not have the means to repay, verse 25, by the way, a laborer could work 1 ,000 weeks to get one talent.
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So, we have 52 weeks a year. You work 1 ,000 weeks and you get one talent.
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And that's assuming you don't spend money on shawarma, falafel, and hummus.
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He did not have the means to repay. Of course not. This is millions of dollars. His Lord commanded
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Him to be sold. Might as well get something out of it. Because you could get money if you sell people into slavery.
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Along with His wife and children and all that He had in repayment to be made.
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Yeah, it's a drop in the bucket, but at least I got something for principle's sake. How about this for numbers?
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The Old Testament, we learn the total amount of gold used in the temple was over 8 ,000 talents.
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The weight of gold which came to Solomon in one year in 1 Kings 10, 666 talents.
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The annual total revenue collected by the Roman government in Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and Edomia was 900 talents.
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So you take all those people living in all that area over one year, and that's how many talents you get.
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Can't pay. Where's this going? What's Jesus driving to? This is like our sins.
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Sins in the past, sins in the present, sins in the future, sins of omission, sins of commission, sins of words, sins of deeds, sins of action.
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This is piling up. And remember with our sins, it's not just, well, I didn't murder, but did you love?
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Right, it's not, well, you know what? I didn't lie, but have you been loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength?
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If we counted how many times we didn't love God with all our heart this morning, how many would that be? One, 100, 1 ,000 in a day?
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So this is what Jesus is driving at. It's an unpayable debt. It's an incalculable debt. And we are bankrupt people.
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We have nothing to offer God. Like I said the other day, when we, if we were not interrupted by Christ Jesus and we would get to hell, we could say to God, give me my wages.
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Give me what I have earned. Verse 26, the slave therefore falling down, prostrated himself, he was just on his face, before Him saying, have patience with me and I'll repay you everything.
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He couldn't do it, but it's a good attitude, crushed. He's humble, entreating the master.
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Submission, I'm throwing myself on the mercy of the court. I'll pay you everything. Now listen to what
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Martin Luther says. Before the king drew him to account, he had no conscience, does not feel the debt, and would have gone right along, made more debt and carried nothing about it.
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But now that the king reckons with him, he begins to feel the debt. So it is with us.
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The greater part does not concern itself about sin. It goes on securely, fears nothing about the wrath of God.
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Such people cannot come to the forgiveness of sin, for they do not yet realize they have had sins.
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They say indeed with the mouth that they have sin, but if they were serious about it, they would speak far otherwise.
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The servant too says before the king reckons with him, so much I owe to my Lord, namely 10 ,000 talents.
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But now that the reckoning is held, the day of reckoning is there, and his
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Lord orders him, his wife, his children, and everything to be sold, now he feels it. So too we feel it in earnest when our sins are revealed in the heart, when the record of our debts is held before us.
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Then we exclaim, I'm the most miserable man. There's none as unfortunate as I on earth.
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Such knowledge makes a real humble man, works contrition so that one can come to the forgiveness of sins.
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Verse 27, and the Lord of that slave felt compassion. It's a great picture of God, generous, compassionate, how great
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God loves His children. And released him, forgave him the debt, loan.
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You can just hear Jesus on Calvary. It is finished, paid in what? Full. How happy would you be?
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How happy would you be? I met a man this last week, and he was a felon, and he's out on bail, and I was trying to preach the gospel to him.
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It was a very unique situation. He was sitting here, I was sitting here, and his deaf mother was sitting here.
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So she needs to be saved, he needs to be saved. I'm trying to preach to him, and then he's my translator of the gospel to preach to the mom.
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And so I was trying to talk to him about judgment in terms he thought of, and I said, what if you went before the judge that you're gonna have to appear before very soon?
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And the judge said, you know, here's your indictment, and I'm just gonna rip it up.
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It's no longer applied to you. Would you be happy with the judge? Would you wanna serve the judge? Would you wanna thank the judge?
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And he said, no. I said, what if that judge says, you deserve to die, but instead of killing you that you have earned this,
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I'm going to punish my son in your place to withhold justice. Then would you be happy? He just looked at me.
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We should be the happiest people in the world. I don't have to pay for one of my sins, and neither do you, because Christ Jesus's sin payment was enough.
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Past, present, and future. The Damocles is gone. We are forgiven people.
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So happy. What's the worst thing that can happen to us? But that slave went out, found one of his fellow slaves who owned him 100 denarii, three months work, right?
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A denarii a day. He seized him and began to choke him, saying, pay back what you owe.
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Look at how this story turns. So far, everybody's like, yeah, that's right. It's a good parable.
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We understand it. And then Jesus turns it onto the people. The research that I found from William Hendrickson says 100 denarii is one six hundred thousandth part of the canceled sum.
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So one over 600 ,000 is the canceled part of the sum. And this guy takes him by the throat and begins to choke him.
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This is the same language when the demons in Mark chapter five inhabited the pigs and went over the ledge into the water and the demons were choking in the water, making that sound.
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Ever heard a demon -possessed pig drowned? I haven't either.
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I remember once, I'm not very good with sermon titles, but I remember one, maybe Terry remembers it. The passage was entitled,
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Deviled Ham. I thought that was pretty good. Held him by the throat, choking.
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You can just imagine when you're choking. Right, all the kids.
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He's already been forgiven. And he's gonna choke someone else.
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Now you know right where this is going. You've been forgiven all your sins. Christ Jesus has paid them.
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But somebody hurt you. Somebody sinned against you. And you're gonna show them.
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Verse 29, so his fellow slave fell down and began to entreat him.
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Don't you see a little flashback here? Don't you see the same thing essentially happening? It sounds very familiar.
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Have patience with me and I will repay you. Actually, this could be repaid. Very similar plea.
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He was unwilling, however, but went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what he owed.
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Literally drug him away. So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their
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Lord what had happened. So you've got the Lord, you owe him a lot of talents. Then you've got this guy, then you've got the guy underneath him, and now they go to the top again to say what is happening.
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And of course, you could really imply from this that your lack of forgiveness, God knows.
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It doesn't need to be reported. He already knows. It's offensive to Him.
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Verse 32, then summoning him, his Lord said to him, you wicked slave,
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I forgave you all that debt because you entreated Me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, even as I had mercy on you?
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You wicked servant. You scoundrel. You scallywag. You good for nothing. You begged
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Me, I forgave you. Verse 34, and his
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Lord moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him.
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They would inflict torture by pinching the flesh, putting out the eyes, taking off the skin while alive, stretching the limbs.
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So, verse 35, my heavenly Father also do to you, not punishment in hell, but certainly chastisement if you're a
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Christian, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart. Albert Barnes said a few things.
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I'll give them in true and false statements. True or false, our sins are great.
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Say it. True. True or false, God has freely forgiven our sins in Christ.
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True or false, offenses committed against us by our brothers are comparatively small.
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Therefore, we should freely forgive other people. True. If we do not,
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God will be justly angry with us and discipline us. Maybe you say not just angry, but certainly disciplined.
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True. Thank you, Luke. Why should you preach the Gospel to yourself? Because wouldn't you like to be like God to forgive other people?
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To honor Him? Forget if you get more friends, but just to honor God. Show me someone who's bitter and doesn't forgive and I'll show you somebody that has forgotten
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Christ Jesus' death for them on their behalf at Calvary.
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Well, next time we'll look at the other five or six. Let's pray. Father, we do thank
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You tonight for the Gospel. Thank You for the Gospel providing motivation for us to praise
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You now, for we will be in heaven. And thank You for the Gospel that motivates us to forgive other people and honor
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You by acting like You. Forgiving one another just as Christ in God has forgiven us.
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Help us to be that. I pray if there's any issues going on at Bethlehem Bible Church between congregants,
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I pray that You would help the other to forgive. That there be restoration and reconciliation.
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I pray for husbands and wives tonight. If there's ongoing feuds, I pray that there be forgiveness granted.
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I pray for those of us who have relationships with people in the world. Help us to be forgiving people because You so forgave us.
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We're grateful and thankful that we don't have to pay for one of our sins. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.