Latest / Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms / #171. Ezekiel 6–12: When God’s Presence Leaves the Temple | Biblical Parenting Lessons for Moms

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#171. Ezekiel 6–12: When God’s Presence Leaves the Temple | Biblical Parenting Lessons for Moms · Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms

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  Steph: This is The Dwelling Place from Entrusted Ministries.
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  Steph: I'm Stephanie Hickox, And in today's studying of Ezekiel 6 through 12 Our hearts will break with the Lord's as His people continue their downward spiral of idolatry and injustice though we'll grieve God's presence leaving the temple in Jerusalem
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  Steph: we can be abundantly grateful that he is a God that has chosen to dwell in and with us In chapter six, God makes sure that the people know that the reason they are being judged is because of their
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  Steph: idolatry And in 6:1, "The word of the Lord came to me, 'Son of Man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them.'"
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  Steph: why was Ezekiel to look toward the mountains?
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  Steph: Because it was at the high places that God's people were often worshiping idols God is consistent with his warnings throughout his word and the pestilence, sword, and famine are about to fall upon them so that they will know
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  Steph: that He is the Lord but God is not far off, lofty, and unmoved by their sin Begins, Yet I will leave some of you alive when you have among the nations some who escape the sword, and when you
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  Steph: are scattered through the countries, then those of you who escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken over their whoring heart that has departed from me And over their eyes
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  Steph: that go whoring after their idols.
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  Steph: And they will be loathsome in their own sight for the evils that they have committed, for all their abominations.
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  Steph: And they shall know that I am the Lord.
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  Steph: I have not said in vain that I would do this evil to them Did you catch that God says He has been broken over their idolatry, they have been faithless to a faithful God And because He's so faithful,
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  Steph: He needs to be consistent to punish them exactly as He has warned over and over throughout scripture God explains more of the details of the judgment In seven, eight, and nine Now I will soon pour out my wrath
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  Steph: upon you and spend my anger against you and judge you according to your ways, and I will punish you for all your abominations.
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  Steph: And my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity.
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  Steph: I will punish you according to your ways while your abominations are in your midst.
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  Steph: Then you will know that I am the Lord who strikes.
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  Steph: God said I will judge you according to your ways.
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  Steph: This is reiterated later on in verse 27 According to their way I will do to them, and according to their judgments I will judge them and they shall know that I am the Lord because God is so righteous
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  Steph: and just, He is punishing His people according to their way and according to their actions He knows precisely what will be effective, and he also knows what is deserved This can be a model for our parenting I'm sure
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  Steph: you've heard the phrase before, let the punishment fit the crime Ideally, When we are disciplining our kids, that we're not just doing it impatiently out of frustration, but that we're thinking what follow-through would help remediate the situation.
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  Steph: For example, if one of your kids says something unkind to a sibling, you shouldn't just separate them so that the conflict goes away and you can pretend that nothing happened And although an apology is important, it doesn't restore
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  Steph: what's been broken The child that said the unkind words should restore their sibling through speaking kind, encouraging words Affirming their value and their place in the family And if you're thinking, "Man, all of this intentionality is really overwhelming.
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  Steph: I don't have any of those ideas," I'm gonna point you once again to our biblical parenting study, Entrusted With a Child's Heart this class is a great opportunity to just stop and think about what godly discipline can look
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  Steph: like as I read chapter seven, verse 19 My heart breaks For the people's betrayal against the Lord God is continuing to talk about what the judgment against Jerusalem will be like.
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  Steph: And He warns, They cast their silver into the streets, and their gold is like an unclean thing.
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  Steph: Their silver and gold are not able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord.
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  Steph: They cannot satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it, for it was the stumbling block of their iniquity."
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  Steph: I mentioned in the last episode that the phrase Know that I am the Lord" occurs over 60 times in Ezekiel And as I think about it in this context of the people's idolatry it reminds me of the Exodus
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  Steph: and how God systematically demolished their panoply of gods Through 10 plagues He made it abundantly clear that none of the Egyptian gods had power or authority over Yahweh I think when we read the Exodus, we feel a sense
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  Steph: of vindication and pride as God frees His people from the grip of Pharaoh, the evil dictator But it's just hitting me harder today that what's different about what we've encountered is that the people walking in idolatry and worshiping
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  Steph: false gods It's not the Egyptians anymore.
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  Steph: It's God's own people they keep seeking after gods they've made with their hands, trusting them to protect and bless them And our God desires to be worshiped not just for what He does, but for who He is He
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  Steph: is a God who dwells in our midst He is unparalleled in power and unmatched in uprightness He deserves all of our attention and affection, and the people in the world that should most understand that have absolutely betrayed him
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  Steph: And treacherously, They didn't just perform their wicked acts of worship on the high places and pagan altars They brought their adultery into the house of the Lord The Moody Commentary points out that 41 times the prophet Ezekiel writes
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  Steph: that Israel is being judged based on their conduct And to this end, the next chapters describe both why the judgment is occurring and how it will look.
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  Steph: In chapter 10, we'll see God's righteous response to the wickedness in His temple And in chapter 11, his judgment upon Jerusalem's evil leaders Ezekiel gives us specific dates so we can clearly know that this is 14 months after
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  Steph: his first vision in chapter one He was in his house and the Spirit gives him a vision of what's happening in the temple in Jerusalem As I read, I want you to listen for what sins the people are
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  Steph: committing In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house with the elders of Judah sitting before me, the hand of the Lord God fell upon me there.
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  Steph: Then I looked, and behold, a form that had the appearance of a man.
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  Steph: Below what appeared to be his waist was fire, and above his waist was something like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming metal.
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  Steph: He put out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of my head, and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of
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  Steph: the gateway of the inner court that faces north, where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.
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  Steph: And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I saw in the valley.
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  Steph: Then he said to me, Son of man, lift up your eyes now toward the north."
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  Steph: So I lifted up my eyes toward the north, and behold, north of the altar gate, in the entrance, was this image of jealousy.
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  Steph: And he said to me, Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here to drive me far from my sanctuary?
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  Steph: But you will see still greater abominations."
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  Steph: And he brought me to the entrance of the court, And when I looked, behold, there was a hole in the wall.
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  Steph: Then he said to me, Son of man, dig in the wall."
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  Steph: So I dug in the wall, and behold There was an entrance, and he said to me, "Go in and see the vile abominations that they are committing here."
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  Steph: So I went in and saw, and there, engraved on the wall all around, was every form of creeping things and loathsome beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel.
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  Steph: And before them stood seventy men and the elders of the house of Israel with Jahaziah the son of Shaphan standing among them.
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  Steph: Each had his censer in his hand, and the smoke of the cloud of incense went up.
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  Steph: Then he said to me, Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of pictures?
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  Steph: For they say, 'The Lord does not see us.
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  Steph: The Lord has forsaken the land.'
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  Steph: He said also to me, You will see still greater abominations that they commit."
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  Steph: Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord, and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.
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  Steph: Then he said to me, Have you seen this, O son of man?
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  Steph: You will see still greater abominations than these."
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  Steph: and he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord.
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  Steph: And behold, at the entrance of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, worshiping the sun toward
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  Steph: the east.
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  Steph: Then he said to me, Have you seen this, O son of man?
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  Steph: Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations that they commit here, that they should fill the land with violence and provoke me further to anger?
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  Steph: Behold, they put the branch to their nose.
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  Steph: Therefore, I will act in wrath.
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  Steph: My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity.
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  Steph: And though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them."
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  Steph: God has warned against all these things.
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  Steph: Just one example is Deuteronomy 4:19 when He said through the prophet Moses, and beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you
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  Steph: be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven."
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  Steph: God specifically warned them not to worship the sun and the moon and the stars.
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  Steph: And here we have the leaders of Israel turning their back toward the Lord and worshiping His creation while rejecting Him I want you to think of some of the scandals that you've heard some modern pastors commit.
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  Steph: Can you imagine if God had given you a vision of them doing those very things in His house, in the sanctuary?
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  Steph: Maybe at the same spot that they preach?
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  Steph: The hypocrisy and the rejection of the Lord is inexplicable God has chosen them over every nation in the world to be a conduit of blessing to the other nations but they have utterly failed There aren't a lot of
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  Steph: names mentioned here But in verse 11, when it says, Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan This could be the same chiffon that read the scroll to Josiah when they found it in the temple Jeremiah chapters 26, 39, and 40
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  Steph: tell us that the rest of his family was faithful to the Lord.
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  Steph: That's why it's so disappointing to see his name listed here the pagan god that the women were worshiping was Tammuz, a Babylonian agricultural god.
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  Steph: Here they are crying out for favor From an idol made from their hands And they're doing it in God's house Though he is the God who sees and hears It will finally come to a point where his eye
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  Steph: will not look upon them and his ears will not listen to their cry Because in chapter nine, he ushers in the judgment of the Babylonians in this vision, there are six men that represent God's justice being carried out
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  Steph: by the Babylonians.
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  Steph: But there's one man that's set apart, uniquely dressed in linen.
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  Steph: it's possible that he could be the pre-incarnate Christ, as he has a writing kit, and he uses these tools to go about marking the forehead of the righteous.
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  Steph: And the mark that he puts places upon their forehead is tov.
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  Steph: Which would mean a cross or an X upon their heads.
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  Steph: The Babylonians will not be allowed to harm any of those that God has marked righteous As the chapter continues We read that dead bodies will be everywhere, even inside the temple Normally this would defile God's house, but it
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  Steph: was already defiled like the faithful good prophet that Ezekiel is, he does not rejoice in the killing of the people Chapter 10 describes something shocking, yet thoroughly understandable.
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  Steph: God's presence leaves the temple It occurs in stages, this is an earth-shattering revelation And after Ezekiel sees it he shares it with the exiles who are around him in Babylon See, for them, the fact that God's glory is
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  Steph: no longer bound to Jerusalem could be good news.
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  Steph: It would have been assumed that they were carried into exile as punishment but this vision reveals that God's glory, spirit, and presence is available to them in Babylon Instead of feeling isolated and punished by the exile, they can
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  Steph: still choose to honor the Lord there and I like this succinct way that Eva Rydelnik writes it: The Lord was accessible to faithful Jews wherever they were geographically.
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  Steph: That idea was true then, and it's true now for every believer In chapter 11, we read more about the judgment upon these wicked rulers They've falsely assumed that God can't see what they're doing but they are foolishly mistaken
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  Steph: In verses eight through 12, it talks about the sword that the Babylonians would bring But just a few verses later, we're given the first glimpse of hope listen to these beautiful promises beginning in 11:16 Thus says the Lord
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  Steph: God, Though I removed them far off among the nations, and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a while in the countries where they have gone."
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  Steph: Therefore say, Thus says the Lord God, will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.'
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  Steph: And when they come there, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations.
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  Steph: And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them...
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  Steph: I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them.
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  Steph: And they shall be my people, And I will be their God God has a plan of restoration And in the midst of these painful chapters of judgment He provides hope for anyone whose heart is still steadfastly His Then
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  Steph: the cherubim lifted up their wings with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them.
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  Steph: And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain, That is on the east side of the city God promises that his new covenant will be one in which He
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  Steph: changes our hearts.
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  Steph: It's not just about worshiping Him in a temple anymore And beautifully, Dyer and Rydelnik point out This is the Mount of Olives the departure of God's glory signaled Jerusalem's doom But Ezekiel predicted a return of the departed glory
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  Steph: via the Mount of Olives, and at Jesus' triumphal entry, he retraced this route as if to indicate the glory of the Lord returning I'm in awe of the way that scripture points to Jesus over and over and over
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  Steph: we can be so thankful that we live in a day and age that we have had the honor and the blessing of hearing the gospel preached, of having the Word available to us and being able to point our
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  Steph: children toward a God that so completely and thoroughly fulfilled justice and mercy on the cross Whether now or eternity the Lord offers to be our dwelling place
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  Speaker 61: Heavenly Father, we are humbled by the availability of Your presence.
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  Speaker 61: We know that just as the Israelites were tempted to walk in idolatry, we also are tempted to follow empty promises and cultural idols.
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  Speaker 61: Gently convict us of that tendency and teach us to seek You alone.
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  Speaker 61: We pray You would rightfully be on the throne of our hearts, no matter where we are and where we worship I ask that an awareness of your presence would transform us in holiness and humility And we pray that
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  Speaker 61: your glory would transform our children as well causing them to walk in reverence and righteousness.
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  Speaker 61: Guide us to parent and discipline them according to their conduct.
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  Speaker 61: Help us to be as just and patient as you are, Lord Ultimately, we plead that they would be eternally marked by your salvation, We pray particularly for family members that have hearts of stone.
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  Speaker 61: Break up these hard fallow parts and give them hearts of flesh.
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  Speaker 61: We know it's a work that only you can do, and we trust you for it.
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  Speaker 61: It's in the beautiful name of Jesus, the one who perfectly displayed God's glory, that we pray.
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  Speaker 61: Amen.