FBC Daily Devotional – November 20, 2020

Faith Baptist Church

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end of another week and looking forward to the weekend. I trust you are and I trust looking forward to the

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Lord's Day as we will worship together the Lord on Sunday morning at 1030.

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At this point we are planning for in -person services but wanting to be very careful.

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If there's any concern on your part about the COVID thing, you know, please stay home.

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Don't worry about missing service. We've got live stream. You can watch on live stream.

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I guess maybe the best way to handle these services these days is that in -person isn't necessarily recommended but it's not prohibited.

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We have the pews blocked off. You have distance and people have been pretty careful about maintaining distance as well and not lingering and having lengthy conversations and so forth but nevertheless we're planning service in person

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Sunday morning and if you can make it and feel comfortable in doing so, welcome.

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If you're not, then please join us at 1030 by live stream and we'll trust we can worship together in that way.

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Well, I read a story several years ago about a woman who had committed a crime and I can't find the story now.

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I didn't want to take the time to go looking it up. I just remember some little tidbits about it. This woman had committed a crime and it seems like maybe she had done away with her husband if you know what

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I mean and so she fled obviously. She's a fugitive and there's a suspect in his demise and of course in fleeing she had to do everything she could to keep from getting caught so she changed her appearance and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

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Now this is back before the the era of cell phones so she wasn't carrying a cell phone.

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They couldn't do any cell phone tracking or GPS tracking or anything like that. It was all old -school gumshoe detective work to try to find this woman.

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Well, she took off. She fled and fled out, fled the state, fled to several states over the over the years.

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I think she was a fugitive for quite a few years and the story was that she'd go to a community and she'd get a job and of course she couldn't use her real name or social security number and her appearance is completely changed so she she'd get a job.

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She'd have a fake social security number and in time the

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HR person, the company, would come to her and say you know there's a there's a problem with your social security number.

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Do you want to check that out for us so we can see what's really going on here and as soon as that happened off she went.

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She fled again and sometimes she would flee if somebody just kind of looked at her the wrong way and she thought that somebody was looking at her suspiciously and so forth and so several years later she finally was in Florida I believe it was and the authorities caught up with her, caught her, arrested her and her response was oh finally it's over.

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Now the interesting thing about that is many times along the way while she was running she wasn't running from anything.

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There was nobody pursuing her but she would run because of a verse that we read in Proverbs.

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It goes like this, the wicked flee when no man pursues.

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The wicked flee when no one pursues but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

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That's Proverbs 28 1. So here's this woman she's obviously wicked and her wickedness is evident by her fleeing, by her running, even when no one is chasing her.

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Now the thing is if she was innocent of committing any crime she would have never left right?

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If she was righteous in her husband's demise then she would have been cooperative, she would have been right there in the community and and you know worked along with the investigation and so forth.

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She would be bold as a lion. The plague of a guilty conscience can drive us crazy.

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You remember the story of Herod. Remember John the Baptist was preaching against Herod because of his immoral incestuous relationship with his wife, married his brother's wife.

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And Herod had John the Baptist put in prison and eventually he was beheaded and Herod didn't want to behead him but his wife's daughter danced this seductive dance and Herod says

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I'll give you anything you want you know as a reward and she said give me John the Baptist's head on a platter and so Herod complied.

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Well then later, quite a bit later, he starts hearing stories of Jesus as he's performing miracles and the stories come back to Herod and there's all kinds of speculation about who is this person conducting these, doing these miracles.

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Some were saying he was a prophet, some were saying he was the Messiah, but Herod said oh no this is

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John the Baptist, this is John raised from the dead. Why in the world would he go there?

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What in the world would make him think of that? The plague of a guilty conscience.

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This is the way our conscience works. We will flee, we will be scared, we will be in flight, and even when nobody's pursuing, when we're guilty, when we have a guilty conscience.

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But when our conscience is clear, we have no reason to run, we have no reason to hide, we can be bold as a lion.

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It's no wonder that Paul said I strive always to keep my conscience void of offense toward God and toward men.

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May that be our ambition as well. May we have the goal and achieve it day after day of a clear conscience and when we err, then let's make it right right away.

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Let's get that conscience cleansed, let's confess our sins, let's get right with people, let's keep a clear conscience.

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It's so much better to be bold as a lion than to be running when there's not even anybody chasing.

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So our Father and our God, I pray that you would give us the desire, the motivation, the earnest pursuit of having a clear conscience that we might be bold in our walk with you and in our service for you.

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And this we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. All right, well have a good rest of your

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Friday and I hope you'll have a great weekend and be able to worship the Lord together with God's people and enjoy your