F4F | Steven Furtick and The Lazarus Factor

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the word of God. Now, have you ever heard the phrase,

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Narcigesus? If so, or even if you haven't, go ahead and hit the subscribe button down below.

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Don't forget to like the video and ring the bell. Well, Narcigesus is a very, very pervasive way of twisting

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God's word. And we're the ones who coined the term here at Fighting for the Faith, Narcigesus.

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Takes two words, narcissism and eisegesis, and smooshes them together.

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And in narcissism, we all know what that is, the love of self. And eisegesis, it's a kind of a technical term, but it means to read something into a biblical text.

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And so the idea is that when you read something into the biblical text and ain't there, you're twisting

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God's word. And narcigesis is the sticking of yourself into the biblical text when you're not there.

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And one of the most astute and amazing narcigists on the planet, and this is not a good thing, is none other than Stephen Furtick of Elevation Church.

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Let's head over there. And we're going to be listening to a sermon, a sermon titled

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The Lazarus Factor. Have you considered the Lazarus in your life?

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Sitting there going, what? Yeah, I know. So let me kind of give you the standard way in which this works.

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So somebody will tell you the story of David and Goliath, right? And so you become

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David. You're the hero of the story. You become David, and you've got to find your five smooth stones in order to slay your giants and stuff.

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Yeah, that totally misses the whole point of the story of David and Goliath. I feel like we're going to have to do very soon a, you know, a pirate

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Christian's guide to the Old Testament and take a look at the story of David and Goliath to see how it relates back to Christ, because it does.

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But that's a whole other segment. But the king of the Narcissites, one of the kings, you know, he's like way up there in the royalty of Narcissites, Stephen Furtick.

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And so we'll be listening to The Lazarus Factor. I've got several segments of the sermon queued up for your enjoyment.

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But let's get to it. And we'll let Stephen Furtick set this up, because he's going to be referencing a recent released single from Elevation Worship.

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And that will then lead him into some really, really bizarre twisting of God's word.

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He can't do this with these biblical texts. And when you read yourself into the biblical text, you miss the whole point.

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But I'll point that out. Sorry, I'm getting worked up, getting worked up. But let's get to it. Here we go.

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We're so excited about our new single, Never Lost, that we were just singing. The Never Lost single.

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Yeah, we're so excited about our single. We pray that you'll get that song. And what I want to do today is

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I actually want to take something that was in that song that you were just singing and bring it to your life at a really practical level today.

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So something we were singing in that song, we're going to bring it to your life in a practical way. Wow. What a great swell guy he is.

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And the song says that God still shows up at the tomb of every

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Lazarus. Okay, how many

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Lazaruses are there? God still shows up at the tomb of every

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Lazarus. There was one, one, one, one who

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Jesus raised from the dead. So I mean, this, this is just really awful. And we'll, we'll note that right off the bat, he's engaging in Narcissus because Lazarus will then become symbolic of something in your life that died because Jesus didn't answer your prayer and stuff.

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And so do you have enough faith when Jesus delays in raising your Lazarus?

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I'm not making that up. I really am not. Let's just let him do it. And I want to show you the scripture that that line came from today.

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And then I want to speak to the Lazarus in your life. Which kind of begs the question,

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I mean, who is Lazarus's Lazarus? Oh, this is so bad.

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Okay, so we're going to have to front load some actual Bible teaching on this because the story from the gospel of John chapter 11 is amazing.

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It really is amazing. And by the way, I just upgraded to Accordance Bible 13.

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And so they have the dark modes now. And so that's why the screen is dark because it's a little easier for me not having the bright whites glaring at my old eyes.

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But anyway, so John chapter 11, let's take a look at the story. We're going to read it in context, in its totality.

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And I endeavor to show something to you in this biblical text that you may never have seen before.

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And so let's get to it. John chapter 11, verse one, now a certain man, singular man, by the way, was ill

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Lazarus of Bethany, the of the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was

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Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill.

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So the sisters said to him, saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill. But when

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Jesus heard it, he said, this illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God so that the son of man may be glorified through it.

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Now there's your really important statement by Jesus. This is for the glory of God so that the son of God may be glorified through it.

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So if I were to say, what's the reason why the story of Lazarus is written? It's written so that Christ may be glorified through it.

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This is the reason why the miracle took place. So there's your reason. It's all about, you know,

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Jesus, right? I know that seems kind of quaint, but let me duplicate this real quick here.

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And we're going to note that in the Gospel of John, chapter 20, we get a similar statement from John.

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And that is that, you know, that he talks about the reason why

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Jesus did his miracles and why he wrote his gospel. And here's what it says,

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Gospel of John, chapter 20, verse 30. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.

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But listen, these things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

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Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

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So if you were to sit there and go, okay, what's the reason why John wrote his gospel? So that you would believe that Jesus is the

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Messiah, the Christ, and that by believing that you might have life, not only just life, but life eternal in his name.

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And the specific miracle of the raising of Lazarus, yeah,

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I hate when I do that. Anyway, the specific reason why Lazarus was raised from the dead, and we learn this from Christ before he even dies, is so that the son of God may be glorified through it.

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Got it? Good. All right, all of that is foundation. Let's now continue. So Jesus loved

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Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

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Then after this, he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again. The disciples said to him,

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Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you. And are you going there again?

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And Jesus answered, are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble because he sees the light of the world.

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But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. So after saying these things, he said to them, our friend

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Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him. So Jesus gets the request.

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And no sooner does he get the request, well, he decides that he's going to stay for a couple of days.

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And now Lazarus has met his demise. He's died. And so in Jesus, he's the guy who has the right to kind of call death sleep.

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Just saying that's something about him that he's he's able to do because he's able to wake anybody from the dead, like, you know, like your wife or your spouse wakes you from sleep.

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Anyway, so he's fallen asleep. And so the disciples said to him, Lord, if he's fallen asleep, he will recover.

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Now, Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest and sleep. So Jesus told them plainly,

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Lazarus has died. And for your sake, I'm glad that I was not there so that you may believe. But let us go to him.

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So Thomas, called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, well, let us go that we may die with him.

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Which is one of the more bizarre statements in all of Scripture. I think Thomas kind of overcooked his piety by about half there.

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But that's a different sermon anyway. So when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.

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Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.

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So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him. But Mary remained seated in the house.

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Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. This is most certainly true.

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Okay, quick quiz here. What's the reason why this miracle takes place? So that the

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Son of Man may be glorified. So Jesus would be glorified. Got it? Good. Okay. And John wrote his gospel so that you would believe that Jesus is the

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Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing in him, you might have life in his name.

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Got it. Okay, so that's the reason. It's not about you finding your Lazarus, by the way.

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So Martha said to Jesus, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but even now

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I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. So Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again.

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Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Jesus said to her, and now here's one of the definitive statements of Christ, ego, a me,

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I am the resurrection, ego, a me, he anastasis,

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I am the resurrection. And chi, a zoe, and the life,

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I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

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Now, I'm going to make a point here that if you want to find your Lazarus, your

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Lazarus is you, okay? Because the wages of sin is death, and unless Jesus returns in our lifetime, you're going to die.

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Me too. We're all going to die. So this is kind of good news. The whole point is the Son of Man, the

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Son of God is going to be glorified by this miracle. And you'll note here, the emphasis is on whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

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That's kind of a big deal. I don't know, me raising from the dead, big deal.

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You raising from the dead, big deal, right? Because I mean, isn't death the thing that like stalks us all?

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So whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

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Do you believe this? That's a great question. Do you believe this?

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And this question comes all the way across the pages of time and rings in our ear, and let me ask you, do you believe this?

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So she said to him, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the

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Son of God who is coming into this world. Yeah, what did John say? These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

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Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you might have life in his name. Ooh, ooh, Martha sounds like she, yeah, she believes and she's got life in Jesus name.

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Just saying. Okay, so when she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary saying in private, the teacher is here and he's calling for you.

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And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.

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When the Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

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Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

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Now, this next part is a little challenging and I'll have to show you something in the Greek and you kind of get it.

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Now when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.

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Now here's the issue. The issue here is that the Greek word for moved or deeply moved, ambrymaomai, let me show you what that means.

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OK, let's see here. I'm going to pull this up. Double, triple click. There we go.

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And boy, is that small. Let me make that a little bit bigger. Ambrymaomai.

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And we're going to note some of its meanings. An expression of anger and displeasure, of scolding or censure to feel strongly about be deeply moved.

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All right. And you'll note that it has a very negative connotation, one of apparent harshness of the expression.

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Ambrymaomai, Jesus was really angry. Now, this kind of begs the question for the exegete, when you see ambrymaomai being used like this, is it saying that Jesus is angry at Mary for scolding him and for her weeping?

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That's not what's going on because it's going to show up a second time. It shows up two times in this text.

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So I'm going to just kind of leave it out there in outer space at the moment. Jesus was, maybe a good way to put it in English was he was torqued.

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He was really ticked off. The question is, who's he ticked off at?

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What's he angry about? So when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was torqued.

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He was really upset in his spirit and he was greatly troubled. And he said, where have you laid him?

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And he said, where have you laid him? So they said, Lord, come and see. So Jesus wept.

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He now, in his upsetness, and he's torqued, he wept.

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Again, it kind of begs the question, what's he angry about? So the Jew said, see how he loved him?

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But some said, well, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?

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So then Jesus deeply moved, and there it is again, embryomyomai. He's torqued.

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He's really upset. He's mad. He's really mad. He came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay against it, and Jesus said, take away the stone.

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And you have to kind of say it like that because the Greek tells you that. So what's he upset about?

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Answer, complete mess that we find ourselves in as a result of the devil's deceptions.

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Jesus is deeply moved by humanity's condition. It was never meant for human beings to die, for them to be separated from their loved ones, for their loved ones to have to mourn and weep their loss.

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So note then coming back where it says deeply moved. The first time it says when he saw her weeping, the

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Jews had come also weeping. He was deeply moved in his spirit, and he was greatly troubled. And he said, where have you laid him?

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It's as if Jesus is well heard that, you know, if the

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Jesus, the good shepherd has heard that a lion has come and taken up one of his his dearly beloved sheep and has run off with it.

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And where have you laid him? And I'm going to go and I'm going to snatch this sheep out of the jaws of the lion.

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I'm going to go and snatch and rescue Lazarus from the jaws of death itself.

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See he's angry at what has happened to us because of the devil's deception.

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And so notice his empathy then in what's going on, but not mere empathy. He has the power to do something about it.

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And quick quiz here. What's the reason for this miracle? So the Son of God would be glorified.

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That's the reason. Not me glorified. Not you. Not Stephen Furtick, for sure.

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You know, so you'll note that Jesus wept. So he went to the cave, deeply moved. He's angry. And he said, take away the stone.

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And so Martha, seeing Jesus's determination, just basically goes, you know, said to him,

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Lord, by this time there will be an odor for he's been dead for four days. I always love the King James because it says he stinketh.

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So Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? So they took away the stone.

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And Jesus lifted up his eyes and he said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me.

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Note here, the reason for the miracle is, again, son of God would be glorified.

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These things are written so that you may believe that that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God. And by believing you might have life in his name.

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So Jesus says in their presence, he's praying that that he knows the God that you always hear me.

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But I pray this on account of the people standing around so that they may believe that you sent me. So then he said these things, when he said these things, he cried out in a loud voice,

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Lazarus, come out. The man who had died came out, his hands and his feet bound with linen strips, his face wrapped with a cloth.

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And Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go.

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He's just been freed from death. It's a big deal.

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This is an amazing miracle. All of this to glorify Christ so that you will believe that he was sent from the father, that by believing in his name, you might have life in it.

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And look what happens next. So many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, they believed in him, right?

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But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. And so the chief priests and the

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Pharisees gathered the council together and said, what are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, like you're going to stop him, he's the son of God, everyone will believe in him and the

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Romans will come and take away both our place in our nation. But one of them, Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year, said to them, you know nothing at all.

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Nor do you understand that it's better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.

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He did not say this of his own accord, but being a high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation.

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Oh, and he did. Yeah. And not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.

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So that on that day, they made plans to put him to death. You raise people from the dead.

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I kill you. I kill you. All right. So there's the account.

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You've got a little bit of the insight as to what's going on. Quick quiz. What's the reason for the miracle? So the son of God would be glorified so that people would know that he was sent by the father so that you would believe that he's the

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Christ, the son of God. And by believing you have might have life in his name. I couldn't think of a more poignant passage that explicitly says it's all about, you know,

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Jesus. Well, apparently Furtick missed those little cues in the text because he thinks that, you know, it's all about him.

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So let me back this up a little bit because and we'll rework our way through this because it just gets absurd at this point.

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But let's listen again. And I want to show you the scripture that that line came from today.

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And then I want to speak to the Lazarus in your life. Everybody in here has a

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Lazarus about the only takeaway

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I make this. I'm my own Lazarus. Why? Because I'm going to die. You know,

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I kind of need to be able to be raised from the dead.

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Otherwise, I, I, I perish. You kind of get the idea, man, this is absurd.

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And everybody in here has a God. And today we just want to bring these things into God's presence for a few moments.

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John chapter 11 is the scripture. Welcome to our EFAM around. Now he's going to read it out.

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We'll let him on the world. There are tens of thousands of people right now who are joining us on their devices and let's thank

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God for them as well, that this word would be received in your life. I got smart to beat up, brought my iPad today, my

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Bible. I'm preaching from John 11 and I'm covering quite a few verses of scripture and my Bible yesterday kept blowing.

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The pages kept blowing. It wasn't the Holy Spirit. It was the air vent and it just kept blowing to different scriptures.

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And so I brought it on the iPad today. I hadn't preached from it in a long time and it's locked and loaded and charged. And I want to preach to you.

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Well, it's not locked. It's going horizontal. There's some old man stuff right here.

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You know, every preacher gets persecuted. Paul had shipwrecks and I have iPads that go horizontal. It's kind of on the same level.

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Don't you think? But we're going to look at something today together from John chapter 11 verse one.

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Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister

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Martha. This Mary whose brother Lazarus now lay sick was the same one who poured perfume on the

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Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sister sent word to Jesus, Lord, the one you love is sick.

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When he heard this, Jesus said, the sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's son may be glorified through it.

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Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Everything up until this point, by the way, makes total sense to me.

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We're given the name of this man, Lazarus. His name literally means the one who

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God helps. Have you ever had God just help you out of a mess that you got yourself into or a mess that you couldn't get yourself out of?

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His name means the one that God helps and his sister was Martha. She's the one who made the mortgage payment.

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His other sister was Mary. She was a good listener and Jesus liked going by and visiting because Martha made these incredible lemon pepper wings.

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He liked to eat her food and then Mary would sit at his feet and be discipled and there's nothing better than somebody.

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Well, I was going to say there's nothing better than a good listener, but a good cook is better than a good listener. If you ever find a good cook and a good listener, marry him.

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Marry her. Jesus loved to go to this little place two miles outside of Jerusalem.

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He would often be refreshed there in his ministry travels, but now they need his help. It says that he loved them.

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He loved all of them. He loved Lazarus. He loved Mary. He loved Martha. As Lazarus' sickness begins to overtake the affairs of the family,

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Martha issues not necessarily an invitation to Jesus but a request for help.

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"'Lord, the one you love is sick.'" I love how she phrased it. Send him a message.

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Say, "'The one you love is sick.'" Because he's very busy and we need to get him here, so let's just remind him of how much he loves

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Lazarus and get him here real quick so he can do that healing thing that he does for us. And everything makes sense, you know, that he loves them, so he would come to them and he would visit them and he would help them because Lazarus' name means help.

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Could you get on with it already? Read the text. Oy! Now, you're going to note a couple of things.

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I'm going to point this out. Stephen Furtick is speaking while music is playing in the background.

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Yes, yes, yes. That's a form of emotional manipulation.

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Yeah, he's mastered that technique as well, but there's another form of emotional manipulation that takes place that's quite overt there at Elevation, and that is that Stephen Furtick employs the use of part of the audience called the bullpen.

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These are volunteers who get those really nice VIP seats right up next to the stage, and their job is to go, ooh, and go, ah, and make it sound like, you know, that he's just dropping pearls of wisdom from heaven on them.

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And every time they get a pearl from heaven from Stephen Furtick, they clap and applaud and say hallelujah and all this kind of stuff.

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See if you can listen to them doing their shtick, because this is all part of the manipulation that takes place at Elevation.

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So it's in his very nature to expect the help that his name identifies, just like as a child of God, you call on your father and you expect him to help you, and everything up until here makes sense.

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But the next verse is something that I want us to talk about for a few moments today, because some of you are in a place in your life that doesn't make sense anymore, and it's that I want to speak to.

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It says that he loved them, that Jesus loved them. He really loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus.

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Verse six, so when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

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And that's what I wanted to work on together today, because it would be one thing if the Bible said he loved them, but he stayed where he was two more days, because that would mean that he couldn't come.

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He had other people to help. But it says this interesting word, so.

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So he stayed where he was two more days. And that means that verse six flows directly from verse five.

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He loved them, so he did not come when they wanted him. And I want to talk about this today from my heart.

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I'm going to title this message The Lazarus Factor. Yeah, okay.

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So Jesus loved Martha and her sister, so when he heard

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Lazarus was dead, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

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Yeah, so okay, we got that.

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But notice he's kind of missed this whole point here.

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This illness does not lead to death, for it is for the glory of God, so the Son of Man may be glorified through it.

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He really hasn't, you know, keyed in on that.

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In fact, did he skip, did he cut that out? You know,

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I'm going to change the playback speed to two times, and I'm going to back this up, and we're going to go back, oh, maybe a minute and a half.

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And let's see if he skipped that part. Let's see. Invitation to Jesus, but a request for help.

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Lord, the one you love is sick. I love how she phrased it. You know, send him a message. Say, Lazarus, no, no, say, the one you love is sick, because he's very busy, and we need to get him here.

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So let's just remind him of how much he loves Lazarus, and get him here real quick, so he can do that healing thing that he does for us. And everything makes sense, you know, that he loves them, so he would come to them, and he would visit them, and he would help them, because Lazarus' name means help.

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So it's in his very nature to expect the help that his name identifies, just like as a child of God, you call on your father, and you expect him to help you, and everything up until here makes sense.

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But the next verse is something that I want us to talk about for a few moments today, because some of you are in a place in your life that doesn't make sense anymore, and it's that I want to speak to. It says that he loved them, that Jesus loved them.

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He really loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus. Verse six, so when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

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Yep, he skipped it. He just flat out skipped it. Yeah, I want you to see that.

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He told, so the sister sent to him, saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill.

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And then Furtick said, the next verse says, now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, so when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer.

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He flat out left out this part. This illness does not lead to death,

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Jesus said. It is for the glory of God, so the Son of God may be glorified through it. Jesus totally threw out, not

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Jesus, Stephen Furtick, Stephen Furtick totally threw out Jesus' words that explain what the purpose of the miracle is going to be for, and it ends up on the cutting room floor, because if he had put it in there, he couldn't be doing what he's doing.

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Wow, this is blasphemy. Let me come back here, and let's keep it at two times speed until we catch up to where we were.

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And that's what I wanted to work on together today, because it would be one thing if the Bible said he loved them, but he stayed where he was two more days, because that would mean that he couldn't come.

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He had other people to help, but it says this interesting word, so. So he stayed where he was two more days, and that means that verse six flows directly from verse five.

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He loved them, so he did not come when they wanted him, and I want to talk about this today from my heart. I'm going to title this message, The Lazarus Factor.

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All right, so he's going to title it The Lazarus Factor. Now let me go back to regular speed. Wow, he totally took out

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Jesus' words. This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God. Absolutely sick, sick.

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The Lazarus Factor. And Lord, I just pray that you would... Yeah, The Lazarus Factor.

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All right, now let's fast forward a little bit in the sermon, because the next thing he does is talk about when he was in high school, he worked for a pet crematorium.

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Yeah, why? Because he wanted to talk about having bad jobs, and so now we're at the nine minute twenty -six second mark.

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Let's keep going as he tries to talk about what a tough job would be. You know what

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I think one of the worst jobs would have been? To be the PR manager for Jesus Christ.

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To have to explain his actions, or to have to give a press conference for Jesus, especially when

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John chapter 11 says things like, he loved them. He received hospitality from them, but when it came time for him to help them, he stayed away two extra days, because he loved them.

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Well, yeah, again, I point out, you missed this part, Steve. This illness does not lead to death, it's for the glory of God, so the

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Son of Man may be glorified through it. You just kind of left that out, and as a result of it, now you're kind of sitting there going, well, you know, it'd be pretty tough to be

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Jesus' PR guy. Well, no difficulty at all, because Jesus explained that all this was for the glory of God so the people would believe in him.

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It's an interesting construct, and we come to find in all of our lives the difference between God's job and our job.

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See, God's job is outcome. Your job is process. What are you talking about?

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This has nothing to do with any of that. Can I preach a little bit to the three? So the reason why

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John 11 was written and Jesus performed the miracle is so that you can learn that God's job is outcome and your job is process.

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That's not what Jesus said. ...people who are awake. The longer that you think you can control outcomes in your life, the more frustration you are going to experience in this journey of faith.

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And many of us were taught starting out that faith was a way of controlling outcomes.

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It was like, if you pray this and do that, then you can expect this.

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But everybody in here has a Lazarus. I'm going to have difficulty getting through even the short segments that I've queued up for this installment of fighting for the faith.

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This is absurd. The Lazarus factor is the thing in your life that made the formula fall apart.

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The Lazarus factor is the thing in your life that caused you to question the very nature of faith and start to see at this point in this passage that faith is rarely a form of manipulation by which we get

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God to keep our schedule. I've got news for you. God will not be manipulated.

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Yeah, that's right. God won't. But the people there at Elevation, they are every single weekend.

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The bullpen, whoo, and the sappy music in the background, yeah,

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God won't be manipulated. But the people at Elevation are. God will not be moved just because we get uncomfortable in a situation.

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And I hate to break it to you, but faith is not a means of manipulation. It is a patience with mystery.

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The kind of mystery that can say on one hand, God can do anything. But in that very same breath that you say

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God can do anything, there is something in your life right now that God will not do that you see in his word that he did for somebody else, but he has not done for you yet.

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I'm simply trying to say that everybody in here has a Lazarus. You see, when you know what the text is really about and you know the part that he like left out, you realize this guy is demonic.

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I mean, this is sick. And not only is it sick, it's stupid. What he's saying is so narcissistic and so self -absorbed that, oh, that anybody who is not suffering from narcissism can see what the problem is here.

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Everybody in here has something that support was supposed to be done. If God really loved you, he would.

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If God. What are you talking about? Oh, he's talking about my Lazarus. I really saw you.

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He would. If God was really strong like they say he is, he would. If God really had all power in his hand, he would have because we confuse

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God's love with proof in circumstantial evidence. We never really get to the foundational core that the love of God is not always proven by the way

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I feel his presence. The love of God is proven by the way I deal with his perceived absence.

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Wrong, wrong. I have to resist all temptations to spontaneously combust at the moment.

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Let me see. Romans eight, I think, is where I'm going to go. Um. Let's see.

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No, it's probably going to be five. Yeah, it's probably going to be five. OK, so I'm going to let's see if that if this is the chapter here.

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Oh, yeah, here it is. See, I'm feeling verklempt, I'm feeling verklempt here because my

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Lazarus is is died and and then God didn't do anything about it.

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Oh, so the the text in question is he just in fact, let me go back to what he just said so we can grab the context real quick and we'll use

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Romans five to clear this up. Man, this is a mess. Yeah. Love with proof in circumstantial evidence.

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We never really get to the foundational core that the love of God is not always proven by the way

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I feel his presence. The love of God is proven by the way I deal with his perceived absence.

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No, no. Romans five, verse six, for while we were still weak at the right time,

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Christ died for the ungodly, for one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die.

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But God shows you can you can take this this Greek word soon is to know and you can also translate it.

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He demonstrates God shows his love for us while we were still sinners.

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Christ died for us. Yeah. So how does

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God demonstrate his love for us? Christ died for you while you were still a sinner. Since therefore we have been now now have been justified by his blood.

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How much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God? If while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life?

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More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

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You see, God demonstrates his love for us, not in his absence. God demonstrates his love in that he sends his son,

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Jesus Christ, to bleed and to die for our sins. Or as John chapter three, verse 16 states, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, his only begotten son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

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I think you get the idea. Whatever verdict is spewing here, it's just absolute vomit.

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It's bile. It's gobbledygook. The love of God is not only proven in the times where I thank him for my blessings.

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The love of God is proven in my life where I cannot feel him. But by faith, I praise him because he is

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God. Even when I don't sense God, he is God. And I wonder is there. When are you when do you sense

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God? Are you a Jedi? Anybody who's willing to give God a praise by faith in this place.

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Anybody willing to give God a praise? This is manipulation also. Yeah. Furtick also engages in his own form of manipulation.

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Notice the people in the front rows. That's the bullpen. Yeah. So, yeah, that's their cue.

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Stand up and clap and things because, you know, manipulation today at Gaston, at Blakeney, at Ballantyne.

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Yeah. Notice the first people on their feet are the ones in the front row. You know, the bullpen at UC online.

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Give him a praise if you don't praise him for what he does. But who he is now, let me fast forward a little farther near the end of the sermon as he's going to wind some things up and, you know, kind of give that kind of Clintonian, you know, that bite his lip and kind of looks serious and sad and things and things and stuff as he's going to try to land the plane now and, you know, and help you to deal with your

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Lazarus. Yeah. Everybody has a

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Lazarus, everybody has a turn that your life took that you didn't see coming and that God didn't prevent.

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No. And as simple notice, the sappy music is now in the background, emotional manipulation technique.

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Bullpen is going, yeah, that's right. That's right. Another emotional manipulation. As this message may be,

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I think it may be the deepest one that you ever hear. Oh, I got to back that up. Yeah, just backing this up.

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You didn't see coming and that God didn't prevent. No. And as simple as this message may be,

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I think it may be the deepest one that you ever hear. It's as deep as a thimble, man.

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It's so deep. It's unfathomable. Yeah. Uh -huh.

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Yeah. Because God is saying, take me to that place. So as he's working his way through the text, the part that he's at is where Jesus says, where have you laid him?

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And and now that now what this really means is that God is saying to you.

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You need to take me to your place where your Lazarus is. There. Oh, this is so bad.

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How is this guy taken seriously? It is not a physical location.

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No, it is an emotional one. God's God's going to visit my emotional location where my

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Lazarus is buried. So I'm having a hard time keeping it together.

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This is so ridiculous. Take me. To that place where you laid him.

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Where you stop being optimistic. There's a bullpen.

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Amen. This is nonsense. The emperor's wearing no clothes.

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Where you started going through the motions. Swinging an axe with no blade.

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Take me to that place. Who swings an axe with no blade. Where you just learned to manage the addiction rather than fighting it.

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This has nothing to do with somebody who has an addiction. Take me to that place where you just decided to show people a facade because you don't think they can handle what's really you in the core of your being.

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That place. Everybody has a Lazarus. I do not.

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Again, I have to ask the question, who is Lazarus's Lazarus? And the question is not whether or not you have a

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Lazarus. The question is, what are you going to do about it? The people at elevation are being snowed.

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This is a con job. This is not what this text is about. This is absurd. Now, Jesus made the trip to the tomb.

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And when he got there, some of y 'all said you were going to memorize more scripture this year. I'm going to give you one to start.

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Verse thirty five. Jesus wept. So you can go home and tell somebody you memorized the whole

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Bible verse today. That's the whole verse. Jesus, well, how powerful that before he spoke the word, he wept.

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Before he demonstrates his authority, he demonstrates his empathy. He wants you to know

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I'm with you while you're waiting for it. I'm with you while you're waiting for it. I'm with you. Yeah, this is just ridiculous.

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I was with you when you didn't see me. I was with you. And they're all like, oh, this is nonsense.

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When you didn't feel me. I was with you when people couldn't do it for you. I was with you. Oh, man, he's totally manipulating these people.

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And he wept. And when they saw that, verse thirty six, many of the Jews gathered there said, see how he loved him.

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Look how much he loved him. And then some of the other. See how much Jesus loves your

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Lazarus. I am.

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Yeah. I said, verse thirty seven, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man kept this man from dying?

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So now I got one voice saying he loves you so much, and then I got another voice saying if he loves me so much, then why?

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And the Bible says that Jesus, once more, deeply moved, did not respond to their opinions, but. Yeah, did you actually look up the

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Greek there for deeply moved? I looked it up for you. Uh huh. If you'd pay attention to the actual

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Greek, can you read to the Greek? If you pay attention to the Greek, then you'd actually see what's going on in this text.

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Paraded according to his purpose. I feel the presence of God in this place. That that's more manipulation.

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Oh, I feel the presence of God in this place. That's more manipulation. So he's the super spiritual guy.

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He's he glows in the dark and stuff. And, oh, he can sense now the presence of God and stuff.

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Now, watch this moment and receive it for your Lazarus in your life, it says.

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So receive this moment for your Lazarus. Jesus, once more, deeply moved, came to the tomb.

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It was a cave, but the stone laid across the entrance. You know,

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I got to say, I'm not the best at reading body language, but if I'm not mistaken, just reading

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Furtick's body language, he doesn't believe anything he's saying. He knows he's putting on an act.

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He knows that he's manipulating these people. It kind of shows in his body language. It's there's something missing here.

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Uh huh. Stone across the entrance means nothing else is going in and nothing else is coming out.

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That's some of your hearts today. So the fact that Jesus, there was a stone across the entrance of Lazarus's tomb, that means it.

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Well, it's bad things regarding stuff in your heart today. No, that was a standard protocol.

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You know, you bury a guy back then, you cover the tomb up with a stone in order to odor control the place, you know.

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And then Jesus tells them something to do that he could have easily done without their help. Take away the stone.

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Isn't that crazy? He's about to raise this man from the dead, but he can't push the stone.

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He could, but he didn't until the moment where you open yourself to the possibility that God can do it.

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Your heart is a closed tomb. What?

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Oh, man. I do believe that mandatory drug testing for megachurch pastors, including steroid use, might be a requirement here because this is

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Looney Tunes. What kind of nonsense is this? Keeping dead things in.

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But here's what's beautiful. My heart is a tomb keeping dead things in. This is not why this miracle is recorded.

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You skip that part. Let me remind you again what Jesus said.

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You know, John 11, Jesus said this illness does not lead to death.

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It is for the glory of God. So the son of man may be glorified through it. You skip that part. Yeah. You see, if you just put that in, you couldn't be doing this nonsense.

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When when Martha responded to Jesus command, she was embarrassed because she didn't want to expose what was inside.

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She said, Lord, by this time, there's a bad odor. I don't want anybody to see this.

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I don't want anybody to know this. I don't want anybody to know what's really going on in my heart.

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My head is going to blow up. It's. Yeah, it's it. Wow, this is bad.

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This is just complete asinine stupidity. That Martha say, oh, this is an odor.

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It means that she's trying to hide what's really going on inside of her heart. Really?

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But then Jesus said something. Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God and get ready to praise him by faith?

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Verse 41, there's a there's a manipulation right now. Now, get ready to praise him. There's your cue.

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You know, you people in the bullpen, you know, get ready. You got a job to do. So I just want to here's your cue.

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Oh, this is a manipulation at all. They took away the stone and Jesus looked up and said, get ready to praise him.

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Get ready. Get ready. I'm ready, man. I'm ready. Father, I thank you that you heard me.

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I know you always hear me, but I said it for them that they may believe.

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So everyone's on their feet. He's shouting. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because he said, get ready to praise him and stuff that they may believe.

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I sent you through trouble that you may believe. I sent you through the sea that you may believe that you sent me.

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And then Jesus get ready to praise him. Verse thirty, forty. They're not praising him yet. They're just they're still getting ready.

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Come on. Come on. When he had said this, he called out in a loud voice.

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Lazarus! Come out! Lazarus!

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Come out! 44! When he said it! The dead man came out!

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The dead dream came out! The dead dream came out?

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No. The dead man, Lazarus he came out.

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The dead things came out! No, not dead things. Lazarus came out.

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The dead place came to life! No, the dead place didn't come to life.

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No, it was Lazarus. The dry bones came together! No, that's

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Ezekiel 37. There were no dry bones coming together there. No, he'd only been dead for four days.

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Vote to boot! Hear the words of the Lord! Lazarus!

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Come forth! Praise him! Yeah, so there you go.

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That was utterly deceptive, manipulative, and a complete exegetical train wreck because there was no exegesis going on there, just narcigesis.

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If you attend a church and your pastor engages in this kind of nonsense, you're not learning the Word of God. These things are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the

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Christ, the Son of God, and by believing you might have life in his name. And the text is so clear. Jesus said that this doesn't lead to death, but so that the

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Son of Man may be glorified. And indeed he was. And people believed in him as a result of that.

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And what Stephen Furtick was doing with this text was demonically twisting it, narcissistically making it about you or your problems or whatever rather than about Jesus.

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And yeah, just a complete mess. So if you know anybody that attends

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Elevation, you need to pray for them. You need to pray that God would deliver them from the grips of the devil. Because Stephen Furtick is not pointing them to Jesus.

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In fact, he intentionally left out that part of Scripture that said, where Jesus said that this will not lead to death, but so that the

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Son of Man may be glorified. He just totally left that out. Which means he made the intentional decision to take the focus and the glory away from Christ and to put it on himself or something else.

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That is the behavior of a wolf, not a shepherd. Or an under -shepherd under the

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Good Shepherd Jesus. So hopefully you found this helpful. If you did, all the information on how you can share the video is down below.

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So until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.