FBC Morning Worship Service

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Sunday morning service from Faith Baptist Church

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Well, good morning. Good to see you on this Lord's Day. So thankful for all that the Lord has done for us in this past week.
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He's shown himself faithful and truly, we're going to have a verse here in just a moment to prepare our hearts to worship together, but truly his mercies are new each day and his faithfulness is great and we're thankful for that.
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Before we begin the service itself though, just a few announcements in your bulletin to highlight and emphasize.
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One of them is that Wednesday night, we started this past Wednesday evening at seven, a video series entitled
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The Torch Lighters. Each of these episodes highlights a different character from church history.
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They do this in an animated format so that it's very appropriate for children.
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They gravitate to that, of course. Yet, they tell us about these characters and the important things in their lives, highlights of their lives from which we can learn some truths and appreciation for the history of the church and the
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Christian faith. So I encourage you to join us in that Wednesday evening time and to gain some benefit from this for yourself or your family.
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This Wednesday, we'll be looking at a woman in church history named
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Perpetua. I think her testimony is especially helpful for us in the age in which we live now, where we are beginning to experience in our country, in our nation, we're beginning to experience a level of attitudes toward the
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Christian faith that are unlike anything we've experienced in the past.
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We've had some things going on. We've had ideas in the past that have been like under the surface. But now, all those things are bubbling and they're creating action and behaviors toward Christians and the
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Christian faith that is in our nation a bit unprecedented. And so, getting this story of Perpetua, learning from her example and her experience, can help us in facing what we face in our day.
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So I encourage you in that regard. And as it says in the bulletin, there's a little activity book on the table there in the foyer that's geared to kids, maybe not preschoolers, but geared to children, maybe elementary school age, to kind of go along with those different weekly episodes.
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So you might want to pick one of those up for your kids. Next Sunday is Father's Day and the message of the day will be especially helpful,
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I think, to fathers. So encourage dads to be here and encourage your dad to come.
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And then we'll also have a special gift for fathers in the morning service as well.
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And then the other thing I want to emphasize is the YMSA meeting at the church. We'll have another one of those light supper and then
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Wednesday evening programs on the 23rd. So a week from Wednesday. And you'll want to sign up on the bulletin board sign -up sheet if you can make it for that evening meal.
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All right, well, we've gathered together today to worship the Lord and to prepare our hearts and turn our hearts to him.
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We are reminded of what Jeremiah wrote in Lamentations chapter 3. It says, through the
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Lord's mercies, we are not consumed because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning.
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Great is thy faithfulness. So Jim's going to come and lead us with an opening hymn that focuses on the mercies of God.
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Jim. Thank you,
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Pastor. It's page number 97 in your hymnals, 97, the mercies of God. And let's all stand together, please, and sing together number 97.
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The mercies of God, what a theme for my song.
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I never could number them more. They're more than the stars in the heavenly dome or the sands of a way -beaten shore.
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For mercy so great, what return can
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I make? For mercies are constant and sure.
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I'll love him, I'll serve him with all that I, as long as my life shall end.
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They grieve me yet more when I waken from sleep.
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And they glad they follow me on into shades of the night.
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When the day with its labor is done, what return can see so constant and sure?
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I'll serve him with all that I have, as long as my life shall endure.
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His goodness and mercy will follow me still, even on to the end of the way.
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I have his sure promise, and that cannot fail, that his mercy is mine every day.
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For mercy so great, what return can
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I make? For mercies are constant and sure.
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I'll love him, I'll serve him with all that I have, as long as my life shall endure.
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Please remain standing for prayer, Father Dan. Father, again, we thank you for your grace and your mercy this past week.
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Father, we learned from the Sunday school hour of the holiness that we should have in our lives,
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Father, and it doesn't come easy. But, Father, as we come together worshiping you this day, may the word of God go forth.
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May your spirit work in our hearts and our lives. Father, we need your spirit to work in our hearts to help change in areas that we need to change,
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Father. Father, guide pastor, help him as he preaches your word this day.
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Father, we need more of your word, less of the things of this world.
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Help us as we sing these praises, may we lift our voices to you, thanking and praising your holy name.
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We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. The psalm we're reading this morning is
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Psalm 119, verses 153 to 160. It's on the back of your bulletin, and I'd like to read this responsively today.
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So, I'll read the odd number verses, and if you read the even number, and then we get down to the bottom, the last verse,
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I'll join with you as we'll read that in unison. So, Psalm 119, I'll begin, you respond with the next verse, and we'll go back and forth, shall we?
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Psalmist writes, consider my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget thy law.
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Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek your statutes. Many are my persecutors and my enemies, yet I do not turn from your testimonies.
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Consider how I love your precepts. Revive me, O Lord, according to your loving kindness.
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The entirety of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous judgments endures forever.
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We've read that together, and now we're going to sing of it. So, in our psalter, Jim's going to come and lead us with the psalm, the song version of this psalm.
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Jim? And that is in your red psalters, red books, the page number 274, 274.
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Sing all five verses together. Consider my affliction, Lord. Consider my affliction,
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Lord, my God, deliver me, for I do not forget your law, your lawful decree.
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Contend for me and rescue me. Speak life to Lord.
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Salvation, please, wicked ones who do not seek your word.
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Great are your tender mercies, Lord, revive me by your ways.
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And though my foes are many yet, I shall not go astray.
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I saw the wicked and I grieved, they do not keep your word.
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Consider how I love your ways, revive me none,
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O Lord. The fullness of your word is true and all
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God commands. Your righteous judgments, everyone eternal shall stand.
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As we pray together today, we want to remember our missionary of the week, Doug and Ruth Bacharach. Bacharach were here on a
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Wednesday, what is a week and a half ago? And we're enjoyed a little reacquaintance with them as their home on furlough here in the states on furlough.
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And they're going to be here just a few more weeks. Got an email from Doug yesterday, said they are currently in North Carolina at kind of like a cabin retreat.
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And they're on a little 10 day work retreat at this cabin and we pray for them.
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Both Doug and Ruth are working on some projects that just really need some concentrated time and focus.
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So we pray for that to be an effective time for them. He also mentioned, and I didn't realize this, he didn't say anything about it when they were here recently, that Ruth has been experiencing some really bad back problems and has had
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MRI and some treatments for some bulging discs.
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So we want to pray for Ruth that the Lord would graciously give healing there.
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And then we have several folks in the congregation to pray for, for their physical needs. Just pray that the
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Lord will address those. And then of course, we want to continue to pray for our nation, for those in authority over us, that God would work in their hearts, drawing them to himself and changing the way they think.
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And by the way, some answers to prayer, some praises, praise to see Kyle here this morning.
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Thank the Lord for working in his life and giving him strength to be here. And for Renee as well here today after prayed for her this week with chemo treatment.
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So let's look to the Lord in prayer, shall we? Our father and our
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God, we are grateful today that you do consider the afflictions of your people. You watch over us, you express and demonstrate to us your loving kindness, your steadfast love, your faithfulness to your covenant.
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And we're thankful that we can count on that because we can count on you as the faithful God.
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We're thankful for your mercies that are new each day. And those mercies of God, what a theme this is for our soul to reflect upon these and to meditate on the ways in which you show your loyalty to us day after day.
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I pray that as we have gathered together today, even in this hour, it would be an opportunity for us to reflect on how you have shown your faithfulness even in this past week.
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You have, by your grace, given us physical strength and help. You've provided for our needs.
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You've given us food to eat. You've given us shelter and clothing. You've given us comfort from the heat.
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And we thank you for these wonderful gifts. We thank you for answers to prayer, for raising
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Kyle back up to the strength that he has today, that he could be with us. We do pray for him and the ongoing recovery and upcoming tests that he has to go through.
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Just pray that you would meet those needs. We thank you for Renee and the strength you've given her after treatment this past week.
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We do continue to pray for her and for healing and strength to her body. We thank you,
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Father, for answers to prayer regarding Jodi and for the progress that she has made.
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Yet, Father, we understand she's at somewhat of a plateau, and so we plead for her continually that you would continue to give healing to her body, restoring her to health.
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I pray this upcoming move to a nursing facility would be a smooth transition for her and would bring continued progress and development in her recovery.
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We pray for Denny, ask for continued strength for him and recovery, full recovery.
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For Kent and his family, meet the needs of that family. And Kent, particularly in his physical well -being, just meet that need, we pray.
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And for Beth, raise her up to full strength as well. She might even be able to get back to work tomorrow.
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Father, we do pray also today for Doug and Ruth Bacharach and pray that you would give them a profitable week ahead as they focus on these projects that need to be done while they're here in the
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States. I pray that they would have productive time and the thoughts would be clear and the process of writing and music production would be effective and efficient.
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I pray that you would also strengthen Ruth and heal her back from this problem that she's been dealing with.
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Father, we thank you for the country in which we live. Thank you for the freedoms that we enjoy.
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But Father, we also realize that our country is not without its great problems.
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And the problems start at the top. And our leaders, from the
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President to those in Congress to those in the Illinois State House and the Governor's Mansion, these individuals, these governmental leaders and authorities, they need your work in their lives.
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Lord, would you please so work in their minds that you would change them, that they would have an interest in and a desire to promote your morals, your truth, your principles for good governance.
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I pray, Father, that by your grace, we who live in this country would have the continued freedom to live the gospel life, the
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Christian life in a way that is free from interference and restraint and restriction.
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May we be able to enjoy that freedom and use it for the glory of Christ. Father, we also come to you today confessing the fact that we are a fallen people.
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We are a needy people. We have, in this past week, while we've been the recipients of much grace and great mercies from your hand, we have also been a sinful people.
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We have not always thought what we should think. We haven't said what we should say. We haven't done as we should do.
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Perhaps our feet have taken us to places we should not go. And Father, we pray that you would be merciful to us as we confess our sins to you and you in your faithfulness and your loving kindness would forgive us a weak and a needy people, strengthen us by your
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Spirit's power to walk with Christ, we pray, cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness, purge us from our iniquity.
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May we live for Christ. Bless now, O Lord, the remainder of this service as we listen to you and as we worship you, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
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Well, the next song we'll be singing is in your blue supplements or your songbooks, number 53.
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Going over this preparation, I wasn't really sure about the tune, and so I'm going to ask
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Kelly, Kelly, would you mind playing that the whole verse, or excuse me, the whole song through once, and then we'll, let's all stand together, please.
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We'll join in on the second go around here. Okay, for Oh, for a closer walk with God, all five verses.
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And where is this blessedness
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I knew when first I saw the Lord?
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Where is the soul Refreshing view of Jesus, lead his word.
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Return, O holy dove, return. Sweet pleasure of the rest.
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I hate the sins that made thee mourn and drove thee from my breast.
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The dearest idol I have known, what e 'er that idol be, help me to tear it from thy throne and worship only thee.
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So shall my walk be close with God, calm and serene, my friend.
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So pure light shall mark the road that leads me to the land.
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Now, please be seated. And if you would take your
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Bibles and turn to Judges chapter two, book of Judges, the second chapter, brief passage today, just verses one through five, verse four, the message to follow.
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Judges chapter two, follow along in your copy of scripture. As I read these first five verses, it says, then the angel of the
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Lord came from Gilgal to Bochum and said, I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land, which
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I swore to your fathers. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land.
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You shall tear down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this?
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Therefore, I also said, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall be thorns in your side and their gods shall be a snare to you.
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So it was when the angel of the Lord spoke those words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voices and wept.
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Then they called the name of that place, Bochum and they sacrificed there to the Lord. May the
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Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word and a brief prayer. Our father and our
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God, I pray that from this challenging confrontation today, you would speak to us even as we may need to be so confronted.
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We ask in Jesus name. Amen. So I know a man who worked at a local business and worked there for a number of years and he'd been pretty good at his job.
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He thought he thought he, since he'd worked there for, you know, quite, quite a long time, practically from the time the business started here in Sterling, he did his job diligently and he felt pretty secure in his position.
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Now, he was well aware that he wasn't perfect in the doing of his job, but he was pretty good at it and felt like he had fulfilled the job description pretty well and was, was secure, felt secure anyway.
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And then one day he got a call into his boss's office and he sat down and his boss recounted several instances in the recent past where he had, he had failed and some of those cost the company some money.
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Some of them cost some relationships among coworkers and so forth.
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And then the boss concluded, you're done. You can pack your things and you need to go on.
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You need to move on. Now, a few years earlier, that man had walked into that place of business for the first time and he was confident and he was committed, committed to doing the great, doing the best job that he could to fulfill that job description that was given to him and for which he was hired.
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And he was committed to seeing to it, the success of that company.
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He was committed, but on that particular day, he cried.
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And Judges chapter one, the various tribes of Israel have committed themselves to continuing the process of conquering the land of Canaan.
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God had promised them this land, said you to go in and you can have the whole land. It's yours.
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And it's yours because the inhabitants of this land have become so corrupt, so degraded that you are my punishment to this land.
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But you're going to completely eliminate the nations that are there. You're to tear down all of their idols.
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You're to eliminate the religions of the land and so forth. And so the various tribes, they started to do that.
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When they came into the land of promise in the book of Joshua, they began to conquer the land.
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Judges chapter one recounts the continuation of that conquering process after the death of Joshua.
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But it began, this conquering of the land began with some serious commitments.
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We need to go back to Gilgal to see those commitments. And that takes us back to Joshua chapter four.
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So would you turn back there with me, Joshua chapter four, because in the passage we just read in Judges two, it begins by saying the angel of the
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Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochem. When you read that, you have to say, what's the point of making that comment?
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That the angel of the Lord came from Gilgal to Bochem and he confronted the people.
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Why doesn't it just say the angel of the Lord came and confronted the people? Why bring up Gilgal?
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Gilgal is the place of commitment. So it's a point that tells us, go back to Gilgal.
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What happened to Gilgal? Gilgal was the place of commitment. And you notice in verses 20 to 24, there is a commitment to remember
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God's gracious and powerful work in behalf of Israel, behalf of the people.
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There were these 12 stones. When the people crossed the Jordan river, remember the Lord miraculously parted the river.
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And he told the, the Lord told Joshua, have each of the tribal leaders take a stone out of the river bed and take them with them out of the river bed.
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So in verse 20, it says those 12 stones, which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set those stones up in Gilgal.
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Why did he do that? What was the point of that? Verse 21, he spoke to the children of Israel saying, when your children asked their fathers in time to come, what are these stones?
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What are these stones here for? Then you shall let your children know saying Israel crossed over this
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Jordan on dry land for the Lord, your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over.
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Get the focus on the power, the gracious power of God demonstrated in behalf of his people.
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He dried up this river until we had crossed over. So that verse 24, all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the
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Lord, that it is mighty, that you may fear the Lord, your God forever. And so the people at Gilgal committed themselves to remembering
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God's powerful, gracious work. They needed to remember that because as they went throughout the land to conquer the various sections of the land, they needed to remember that God's power toward them was gracious and was sufficient.
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They also committed themselves to be faithful to the covenant. So in chapter 5, verse 22 and following, the
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Lord has the people circumcise all of the males, all the men, because they hadn't done it in that whole time of wandering in the wilderness for 40 years.
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So here they are coming into the land of Canaan, the promised land. They come to Gilgal and it is at Gilgal that they reestablish and reaffirm their commitment to the covenant.
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So look at verse 9 and here's the significance of it. The Lord said to Joshua, this day
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I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. Therefore the name of this place is called
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Gilgal to this day. And the name Gilgal means rolled away, rolling away.
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It is a rolling away of the past. It is a commitment to the covenant in the future.
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We're committed to be faithful to the covenant. There's also at Gilgal a commitment to obey and the way they showed this commitment in chapter 5, verses 10 through 12, is the keeping of the
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Passover, the first Passover in the land. Verse 10, children of Israel camped in Gilgal and kept the
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Passover on the 14th day of the month at twilight on the plains of Jericho. That is at Gilgal.
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And the reason they did this is because God in the Sinaitic covenant and that giving of the law on Mount Sinai, he said on the 14th day of this particular month you're to keep the
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Passover. And here they are in the land and it's that time of the month, it's that month and it's that day of the month, that 14th day of the month and it is the day to keep the
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Passover. So what do they do? They don't say, well, you know, it's not convenient. They kept the
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Passover. They were committed to obedience. And there is, as chapter 5 ends, an implied commitment to submission to the commander in chief of the
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Lord's army. And we're going to see verse 13 and following, Joshua was by Jericho, this is still in Gilgal, and he lifted up his eyes and looked, a man stood opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand.
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And Joshua went to him and said, are you for us or are you for our adversaries? Whose side are you on? And he said, no, but as the commander of the army of the
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Lord, I have now come. Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshipped and said to him, what do you say to your servant?
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In other words, we are committed to submitting ourselves to the commander in chief of the
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Lord's army. And it is very likely that this commander in chief of the
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Lord's army is the same person that shows up in Judges 2, the angel of the
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Lord. And so here it is in Judges 2, we've gone from Gilgal to Bokom.
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At the end of Judges 1, it seems that the people of Israel, the tribes, the different tribes, they've made peace with the level of commitment that they have demonstrated thus far.
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Now, remember the Lord said you go into the land and you eliminate, you kick out, you drive out all the inhabitants of the land.
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But if you were here last Lord's day and you heard that message from Judges 1, what you read, and if you recall, is that time after time you read this statement that they did not or could not drive out the inhabitants of such and such a tribal area.
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They didn't drive out. So for example, chapter 1, at the end of verse 27, it says
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Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Bethshean and so forth. And verse 29,
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Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer and on and on through the end of chapter 1.
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Now they had conquered sections of those tribal areas and took over sections, but they didn't drive out everybody, but they're okay with it because those
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Canaanites that were left in the land weren't powerful enough to do anything to them. They weren't strong enough to drive them out of the area.
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And after all, we can make, we can make slaves of them, which is what they did.
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They put them under tribute. And so it seems that at the end of chapter 1, the different tribes of Israel are content with the level of commitment that they have fulfilled.
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They've kind of made peace with that. I mean, after all, they have been mostly successful at driving out the
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Canaanites and surely that's isn't it? Surely it is, right?
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Well, you might think so until the angel of the Lord shows up and the angel of the
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Lord shows up here in chapter 2, verse 1. And the Lord, the
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Lord surprises you when he comes to Bokom. He surprises you all of a sudden, here's the angel of the
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Lord. He has come from Gilgal, but here he is at Bokom. And by the way, the angel of the
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Lord is probably a theophany. That's a technical term for a, an appearance of God.
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Theo, God, thanos, uh, appearance, an appearance of God. And it is most likely the angel of the
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Lord most likely is the pre -incarnate son of God who has appeared now to his people.
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And he appears at Bokom. Bokom is, it's not a city in the land.
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You know, I mean, if you have an atlas of the Bible, you can't look up Bokom in the gazetteer and find a reference to a, you can't find the location of Bokom, a city.
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It is most likely a pseudonym for the city of Bethel or Bethel.
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And if you know your history, uh, up to this point in judges, you know that Bethel, Bethel is a place, an area named by Jacob centuries ago, long ago,
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Jacob had, had, had fled from his brother Esau. He came to this place. God met him.
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And Jacob said, this is the house of God. And that's what the name Bethel means. Bethel house of God.
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So that name, that place got its name years ago, centuries ago, a few years after Jacob named that place
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Bethel, he, he returned there. And it was there at Bethel that, um,
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Jacob's wife's handmaiden died. Her name was
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Deborah and Jacob buried her under a tree, a nearby tree.
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And he called that tree, the tree of weeping. And there is our connection.
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One of our connections to Bokom Bokom means weeping or crying. So here we are back at Bethel.
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The people of God are at this place, Bethel, the significance for the people now here in judges chapter two of Bethel is that the tabernacle got moved.
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The people came into the land that they would, and they crossed the Jordan river and they set up the tabernacle at Gilgal.
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But over time, as they conquered more of the territory, that tabernacle got moved from Gilgal to Bethel, the house of God.
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This is where the tabernacle needs to be at the house of God. And so here it is, the house of God, the tabernacle is at Bethel.
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It's at Bokom, it's at Bokom. And this appearance, this surprise appearance of the angel of the
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Lord apparently or likely occurred at one of those national feast days.
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You know, there were a few of those that God prescribed for the children of Israel. One of them was the day of atonement.
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They were to come every year to the place of the, where the mercy seat was.
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And they were to offer the atoning sacrifice on the day of atonement. Everybody used to come for that. Another day that they, another time that everyone was to come was for the
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Passover, the celebration of the Passover. You remember what the celebration of the Passover is all about?
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And this is what I think is happening here. The Passover was to celebrate God's delivering of Israel from the
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Israelites, the Hebrew people from Egypt. When the death angel passed over the houses of those that had the blood on the doorposts of the house, the
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Passover, God instituted that feast as a feast of remembrance of how God had delivered his people from captivity, from bondage.
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I believe that that's probably the occasion here. And the reason I think it's one of those national feast days and probably
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Passover is number one, because that connection between Gilgal and Bokom, you know, what happened at the first celebration of the
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Passover in the land of promise. And here we are again, celebrating the
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Passover. But this time, this time, the angel of the Lord shows up with a message, with a confrontational message.
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But I believe it's a time like that because of what we read in verse four. It says, when the angel of the
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Lord spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voices and what there was a reason for representatives, at least from all of the tribes to be gathered together at this particular place.
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It was this day, this time, I believe of celebration. So it is at Bokom, this national feast day where the angel comes from the place of commitment, from Gilgal, to this, to this spot where the people have gathered to worship
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God, to reflect upon God's blessing of deliverance, to praise
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God for his power and his grace. It is here. And what does this have to do with you and me?
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What does this have to do with us? Well, I think it's this. They're there, the children of Israel are there at Bokom on this occasion, doing their duty before God.
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They're at the house of God doing their duty. How many times have you been doing your duty at the house of God and willingly, gladly, you come to God's house, you come to gather together with God's people, doing what you know you need to do and doing it gladly.
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And you think, as you reflect upon your life and you think back over the last recent past of your life, you think, you know, everything's, everything's okay, you know, everything's pretty good, no big problems going on in my, in my life or my family or whatever, you know, nothing major going on that I have to be feeling guilty about or feeling bad about.
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But then the Lord shows up. The Lord meets you and he meets you unexpectedly.
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He meets you with a surprise message. He meets you with a message of confrontation, confrontational surprise message.
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And so the Lord surprises you at Bokom and when he comes to surprise you at Bokom, he confronts you, he confronts you.
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Now, by the way, here's an interesting fact about our God to relish in.
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Our God speaks. Our God speaks. You think about this in context of, of the, the
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Israelites and their, in their context of Canaan with the idolatry of the
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Canaanites. They have their idols set up. They have all these different things, you know, that they bow down and worship and not a one of them, not a one of their idols says a thing, nothing, nothing.
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They have eyes, but they don't see. They have ears, but they don't hear. But our God speaks.
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He speaks. He doesn't leave us to wonder, what are you like God?
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What are you like? And God, what do you like? What do you want of us? What do you expect of us?
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We're not left to wonder. Our God speaks. He tells us.
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He tells us what he likes and what he's like. So here are the angel of the
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Lord comes, God speaks. And as he comes, he reminds us of some things.
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And in this case, in this confrontation, notice how he can remind you of the, the grace that you forgot.
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So he says in verse one, as he speaks, he says,
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I led you from Egypt and I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land, which
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I swore to your fathers. This is grace. Have you forgotten the grace of God, the grace that brought you up?
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It's interesting. There's two different words that the Hebrew words that are translated here, bringing,
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I brought you up. I brought you to, I brought you up. The same, the same word is used in Psalm 40 verse two, where the
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Psalmist says, he also brought me up out of a horrible pit out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and established my steps.
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What did God do for Israel? What did he do for Israel? He brought them up out of the horrible pit of Egyptian despair and bondage and slavery.
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He brought them up. What did God do for you? You who are Christ's, what did he do?
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He brought you up out of a horrible pit, a pit of despair. Colossians one 13 puts it this way, that he has delivered us from the power of darkness.
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He brought you up out of that horrible pit. So he reminds you of the grace that you forgot how he brought you up.
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And then he also reminds you of the grace that you may have forgotten that he brought you in.
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He brought you in. In other words, God, the angel of the
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Lord rehearses for the people of the people of God, how he faithfully did what he promised he would do.
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And this promise goes back centuries from this time right here in judges two, back to the time of Abraham in Genesis 13.
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Genesis 13, Abraham is in this same land. And the
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Lord says to him in verses 14 to 17, he says to Abraham, look, lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are.
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Look northward, look northward, look southward, look westward, look eastward, look everywhere where you're standing.
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Look for all the land, which you see, I give to you and your descendants forever.
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And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth. So if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants could also be numbered.
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Arise, he says, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.
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This is the promise that God made to Abraham that this land that where Israel now is would be theirs.
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He reiterated that promise to Abraham's grandson, Jacob in Genesis 35.
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And this is where Jacob returns to Bethel. And in verses 11 and 12, the
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Lord says to him, I am God almighty, be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you and kings shall come from your body.
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The land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, I give to you and to your descendants after you,
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I give this land. And you remember, Joseph, Jacob's son ended up going down to Egypt and eventually through the process of time,
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Jacob was called to go down where Joseph was. He would be understandably hesitant to do so, right?
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I mean, after all, this was the land here where I am, I'm supposed to be. This is the land that God's promised.
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Should I leave it? And in chapter 46, Genesis 46, verses three and four, the
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Lord said to Jacob, I am God, the God of your father. Do not fear to go down to Egypt for I will make you a great nation there.
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I will go down with you to Egypt and I will surely bring you up again. I'll bring you back to this land, in other words.
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And this is the promise that God gave years and years later in Exodus chapter three to Moses and the people of Israel.
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In Exodus three, verses 16 and 17, the
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Lord says to Moses, go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, Lord, God of your fathers, the
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God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob appeared to me saying, I have surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt.
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And I have said, I will bring you up out of, here it is, bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of Cain, of the land of the
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Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and Jebusites to a land flowing with milk and honey.
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I promise you as I bring you up out of this horrible pit,
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I will bring you into this land of promise. He brought you in and you too, who are
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Christ. He has translated you, He has delivered you from the power of darkness and He has conveyed us into the kingdom of the
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Son of His love. He has, He has transferred us into that kingdom. He has brought us into,
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He has conveyed us into, He brought us up and He brought us in.
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You who are Christ, you who are Christ. Do you remember that grace? Do you remember it?
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The children of Israel and Judges 2 forgot. They forgot the grace that God brought him up, brought them up and brought them in.
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And they forgot the grace that God had committed himself to them. Again, in our text in verse one, the
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Lord said at the end of verse one, I said, I will never break my covenant with you.
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I will never break my covenant with you. I won't break the covenant. And the
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Lord has made similar promises to us as New Testament Christians. Hebrews 13, five, the
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Lord has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Have you forgotten the, the grace of God's, God's covenant promise to you?
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I will never leave you nor forsake you. Or that which Jesus said in John 10 verse 28 regarding his sheep.
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Are you one of his sheep? Are you following Christ? Have you heard his voice and follow after him?
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Jesus says, I give my sheep eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand.
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Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten this gracious commitment of the
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Lord to you? Oh, you come to the house of God, you come to Bethel and you are compelled to remember the commitment, the commitment.
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And in remembering that commitment, the Lord challenges you about what you've forgotten.
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You've forgotten the grace that brought you up, that brought you in, the committed, where God committed himself to you.
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But he also, this angel of the Lord, as he appears to the people of Israel here in verse two, he reminds you of the obligations that you received, the obligations you received.
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Here are they for the Israelites. I said, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land.
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You shall tear down their altars. Two very straightforward obligations.
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One is a prohibition of making any alliances with the wicked.
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You shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land. And the reason for this is because of what the effect would be of such an alliance.
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Back in Exodus 34, when the Lord met with Moses on the
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Mount of Mount Sinai, verses 13 through 16, the
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Lord says in verse 12, take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of land where you're going, lest it be a snare to you.
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Must it be a snare? So there's this prohibition against making any alliances with the people of the land.
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Now look, listen, New Testament Christian, is there any parallel to this for you? About 2
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Corinthians 6 .14. Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
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Don't form a committed covenant with an unbeliever that is going to involve some form, some level of spiritual alliance.
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Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
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This is Paul's exhortation. Make an application of that in just a minute. But it prohibits that.
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The second prohibition in Judges 2, verse 2, that he reminds the people, they seem to have forgotten, it's a prohibition of tolerating false worship.
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Tear down their idols, tear down their altars. Why? Well again, you go back to Exodus 34, and we're looking 40 years earlier, roughly, maybe 45 or so from the time that this was initially given.
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But the Lord says in verses 13 and following, Exodus 34, you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, cut down their wooden images, for you shall worship no other
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God, for the Lord whose name is Jealous is a jealous God. Break them down, verse 13 says, because in verse 15, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and make sacrifice to their gods, one of them
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I invite you to, and you eat of his feast, his sacrifice, and you take of his daughters and so forth, you form further alliances.
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Break down those altars, tear them down. Again, in the
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New Testament, we're exhorted in similar way. Paul tells the Corinthians in 1
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Corinthians 10, 14, flee from idolatry, flee from it.
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Is there any idolatry in the 21st century? Are there any 21st century idols?
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Yeah. John Calvin rightly said that the human heart is just a very efficient idol factory.
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It's an idol factory. You have them, you're inclined to them anyway.
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I mean, it's just part of humanity, part of human nature to erect some kind of idol, something that I look to for satisfaction, something
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I look to that I say, if I can have that, that will give me happiness.
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That will be the source of my bliss. That will be the object that I, if I can have it, will give me rest.
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I go to that instead of him. That is an idol.
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That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, and he was talking about very literal idols there, flee from idolatry.
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And John, in 1 John 5, he says, little children, keep yourselves from idols.
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Keep yourselves from idols. So he reminds you of the obligations you received.
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He reminds you of the grace that you have forgotten. And in the third place here of what he reminds you of is the consequences of failure, the consequences of failure.
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And he brings up three consequences of failure. Notice what they are in verse two.
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Yeah, in verse two, three, I'm sorry, verse three. He says, therefore,
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I also said, so this was all in the same context. When I said, I brought you up,
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I brought you to, I said, I will never break my covenant with you. I also said,
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I will not drive them out before you, but they shall be thorns in your side and their God shall be a snare to you.
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Three consequences of failing to drive out the inhabitants and break down their altars.
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The first is frustration, frustration. I will not drive them out from before you.
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It's as if God is saying, look, I, I said, I won't, I will not,
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I will not break my covenant with you. But this covenant that God made with the people of Israel was a conditional covenant.
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What that means is if you do this, I will do that. You see, that's conditional covenant.
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And so here, the Lord is saying, since you've reneged on your part of the covenant, I won't stand to my part of the covenant, which was conditioned upon yours.
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I said, I will drive out the inhabitants before you, but if you will not drive out the inhabitants,
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I won't make sure that they're go, that they're gone. In other words, if you make alliances with them, if you decide it's better to not wipe them all out, it's better not to expel them all.
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And instead to, um, to make slaves of them, if that's what you're going to decide, then
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I'm not going to drive them out. I'm not going to drive them out. Frustration. Now there are some
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New Testament parallels to conditional, uh, conditional promises that the
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Lord makes. For example, in Romans 8, 13, it says this, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die.
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But if here's the condition, if by the spirit, you put to death, the deeds of the body, you will live.
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So there's the blessing you will live, but there's a condition put to death, the deeds of the flesh of the body.
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Romans 10, nine, if there's a condition, if you confess with your mouth, the
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Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
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There's the blessing. You will be saved, but there's a condition. If you confess with your mouth, the
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Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead. First Corinthians 15, one and two,
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Paul says, moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel, which I preached to you, which also you received.
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And here's the blessing in which you stand, by which also you are saved.
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The blessing, you stand, you're saved, but there's a condition. If you hold fast that word, which
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I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. Second Peter one verses five through eight.
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He says, but also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue to virtue, knowledge, to knowledge, self -control, to self -control, perseverance, to perseverance, godliness, to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love.
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For if, Peter goes on to say, if these things are yours and abound, there's the condition, here's the blessing.
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You will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now what's the point? In each of those passages, and there are others like that, if I fail to meet the condition,
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I can't expect the blessing. I can't expect the promise. In other words, if I don't give diligence to add to my faith, virtue, virtue, knowledge, and so on and so forth,
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I can't expect to not be barren and unfruitful.
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I can't expect to have a fruitful Christian life. Going back to that idea of unequally yoked and so forth, now think about this.
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If one who professes to be a believer in Christ falls in love with an unconverted person and knows that that person is not a believer, that person they've fallen in love with makes no pretense and profession of being a
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Christian. But I love him so much, or I love her so much, we're going to get married.
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Oh, but what about 2 Corinthians 6 14? Well, I know, but I just love him too much.
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My happiness is determined upon marrying this soulmate of mine. Oh, really?
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Here's the problem. There's a conditional promise. I can't expect,
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I cannot expect the blessings of a Christian marriage and household if I knowingly, willingly violate 2
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Corinthians 6 14. How can I do that? How can I expect that? You see, so one of the consequences of failure is frustration.
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I will instead, I'll go through with it. I'll have a wonderful wedding. I'll have all this joy and celebration, and there may be some great times, but I will eventually, if I am truly converted, you're truly converted, you will be frustrated eventually in that marriage.
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Because you will, you will come to realize what a horrible mistake this was.
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We are living in two different worlds. This person has no interest in things of God, and if you're truly converted, you will have interest in things of God in spite of your disobedience.
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So consequence of failure, number one is frustration. Number two, the Lord says a consequence of your failure is going to be pain, pain.
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He says they will be thorns in your side, thorns in your side.
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I suppose in the vernacular, we would say something like they're going to be a pain in the neck, which I wanted to do a study about that.
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I wanted to find, I wanted to find out the etymology of that little word picture, pain in the neck. You're a pain in the neck.
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And I found out it's a euphemism for a pain elsewhere, but we won't go there. I think it might have had something to do with hemorrhoids or whatever.
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But anyway, pardon me for that. But it's a graphic picture, isn't it?
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Isn't it? This is one of the consequences, a consequence where the
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Lord is essentially saying that which you, and I read, I read this in one of the, one of the commentators, that which you wrongly, sinfully embrace will be an ongoing source of irritation, pain, and misery.
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So that's why we read in 1 Corinthians 5, 6, do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
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This was, this was spoken to a church, a church family, right? Where they were tolerating the incestuous relationship.
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You allow that little bit of sin with it, you should be driving out and it's going to be a source of pain.
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It'll be painful. 1 Corinthians 15, 33, don't be deceived.
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Evil company corrupts good morals, consequence of failure, frustration, pain, and thirdly, enslavement.
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He says at the end of verse three, their gods shall be a snare to you.
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They'll be a snare to you. Turn with me a few pages forward to Judges chapter 8.
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We'll eventually get there in this series, but in Judges 8 verse 27, here's an example of that very, a picture of that very thing where the idol becomes a, it becomes a enslaving.
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Verse 27 chapter 8 says, then Gideon made it, this, made all this gold, melted stuff gold, made it into an ephod and set it up in his city,
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Orphra, and all Israel played the harlot with it there. It became a snare to Gideon and to his house.
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What did Gideon do? He took a bunch of the gold earrings and so forth, melted them down and made a golden ephod.
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And he set that golden ephod up and then said, Hey, look, this is, this is, this is, we need to worship this.
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This is a represents God. So they did. It became an idol and a snare enslaved the people.
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So in the new Testament context, we read like second Peter, second Peter two verse 19, while they promise them
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Liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption for by whom a person is overcome by him also is he brought into bondage.
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Promise freedom, promise Liberty. You're free. You're, you're free to go, go chase after your favorite idol.
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Now you wouldn't call it that you wouldn't say it that way, but that's essentially what you're saying. You're free. You have freedom.
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You have Liberty to go do what you want to do, go after what you want to go after. You're free.
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You're free to pursue your idols. Well, then you become a servant of that idol.
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You are brought into bondage. So for example, one example of this that Paul highlights in first Timothy six is the, the, the idolatry of wealth.
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He says in first Timothy six, nine, he says that those who desire to be rich, they've made it their goal, their ambition, their idol to be rich.
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Those who desire to be rich, they fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and harmful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition consequence of enslavement.
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So the angel of the Lord shows up and he reminds you of the grace that you've forgotten.
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He reminds you of the obligations you've received, and he reminds you of the consequences of failure.
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And then having reminded you, he drives home the point. He convicts you of your sin.
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Says this at the end of verse two, you have not obeyed my voice.
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You've disobeyed. It's a very clear statement of guilt. This is what
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I said. This is what you were to do, but you have not obeyed my voice.
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And then he calls for honest reflection. Why have you done this?
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Which could probably be better translated. What have you done?
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What have you done? This question is designed to get us to stop and think, to reflect, to think about what have
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I done, to think about the implications of what I've done, to think about the implications for the future, to think about the impact on my relationship with others in my church, my
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Lord, and my family and so forth. I am called upon to stop and think, to reflect.
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What have you done? So the angel of the Lord shows up at Bochum.
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He reminds me of the grace that I've forgotten. He reminds me of the obligations
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I've received. He reminds me of the consequences of failure. And then he drives it home by convicting me of my sin.
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But all of this, listen, all of this is not to leave us to wallow in misery and despair.
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It is instead to bring us to the grace of repentance. This actually happens here in verses four through five.
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And you see, I want you to see the four -fold response of repentance.
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And these four aspects are going to be true of the truly repentant heart.
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There is, first of all, a confession and an acknowledgment of sin. It says, so it was when the angel of the
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Lord spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voices. This wasn't just a lifting up the voice of wailing and yelling and screaming, although there probably was some of that when they realized the full weight of their sin and its consequences.
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But even in that, what they are acknowledging is you are right. You are right.
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We have not obeyed your voice. This is confession.
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This is acknowledging of my sin. This is what 1 John 1 .9
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is about, right? If we say the same thing about our sin that God says about our sin, confession.
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But this four -fold response also involves the feeling, a feeling of the weight of our sin.
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They lifted up their voice and they wept. They wept. Not all of us express emotions the same way.
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Some of us are geared to more outward demonstrations of what we're feeling inside.
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But when we really confess and acknowledge our sin, we will feel the weight of that sin.
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And there will be some kind of weeping over that sin.
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It may be outward and physical and evident with the shedding of tears and the actual crying, or it may be a more withdrawn or drawing in where I just enfold myself in sorrow over my sin.
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Paul addressed this in 2 Corinthians 6 or 7, when he's writing back to the church at Corinth, having earlier confronted them with sin, and they acknowledged it.
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They repented of their sin. And he writes this. He says, now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance.
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Your sorrow led to repentance, for you were made sorry in a godly manner.
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You understood the weight of your sin and you felt it.
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A third aspect of the response of repentance is you seek forgiveness of your sin.
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The way this is expressed in Judges 2 is at the end of verse 5 where it says they sacrificed there to the
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Lord. They sacrificed to the Lord. This is not something you need to do.
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Aren't you glad? You don't need to take a lamb anywhere, slay it, sprinkle its blood.
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The lamb was slain. His blood was sprinkled. And so what we read in 1
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John 1 -7 is that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
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But we go to that sacrifice. We appeal to that sacrifice. And on the basis of that sacrifice, we seek the forgiveness that God promises and offers.
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The grace of repentance involves confession, acknowledging my sin. It involves a feeling of the weight of my sin.
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It involves the seeking of forgiveness of my sin. And there's another interesting thing that's involved here in verse 5.
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Remembering the occasion. Remembering the occasion and remembering it as a deterrent to sin.
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They renamed the place or they gave it a nickname we could say. They called it
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Bochem which means weeping. This was such a significant confrontation of the people and they felt so greatly the weight of their sin and the reality of their sin.
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And they needed to deal with that sin. And it was so significant that they gave the place a nickname weeping.
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Weeping. And it's still named that way in the scriptures.
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A place of weeping. We might think of Bochem as a bad thing.
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A bad place. It's not. What brings you there is but Bochem.
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Weeping. It comes, listen, it comes from the gracious confrontation of the
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God who wants you to be holy and to be holy unto him.
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So as he confronts you, when he confronts you, don't harden your heart.
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Don't stiffen your neck. Allow his grace to bring you to repentance.
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Our Father and our God, may you do so and may we do so.
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Bring us by your grace to repentance. Give us tender, sensitive hearts that when so confronted, we respond.
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We go to Bochem. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Would you turn in your hymnals with me to number 353.
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353. I want to stand and sing just the first two stanzas of Search Me, O God.
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First stanza is a prayer to ask God to confront us.
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The second stanza is a praise for that confrontation having occurred, that forgiveness is found.
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Let's stand together as we sing. 353 stanzas one and two. Search me,
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O God, and know my heart today.
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Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts
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I pray. See if there be some wicked way in me.
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Cleanse me from every sin and set me free.
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I praise thee, Lord, for cleansing me from sin.
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Fulfill thy word and make me pure within.
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Fill me with fire where once I burned with shame.
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Grant my desire to magnify thy love.
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Encourage you to come back tonight at six o 'clock if you can make it. I'll be back in the gospel of Mark and be looking at a day in the life of the
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Savior this evening, Mark chapter one. Well now, may the
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God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful who also will do it.