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Voddie Baucham - In The Midst of Darkest Days · Voddie Baucham Sermons

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  Speaker 1: Having been in pastoral ministry for many decades now, the
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  Speaker 1: one thing that I've heard over and over again from
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  Speaker 1: people in the midst of their darkest days is it
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  Speaker 1: seems like God's not listening. Ever been there? I can
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  Speaker 1: tell by some of your nods. It's like, no, I
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  Speaker 1: not been there? Brother? Am there right? It seems like
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  Speaker 1: God's not listening. Well, you need to be reminded that
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  Speaker 1: God hears your groaning. The natural tendency of suffering saints
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  Speaker 1: is to assume that God doesn't hear, and so we
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  Speaker 1: doubt his care for us. We fear the worst, and
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  Speaker 1: sometimes we take it a step further. We shake our
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  Speaker 1: fists God, and we blame God, and we may even
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  Speaker 1: turn away from following God because we're in the midst
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  Speaker 1: of whatever it is we're going through. We're crying out
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  Speaker 1: to God. We're not experiencing immediate relief. We assume that
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  Speaker 1: God is not hearing us. And if God is not
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  Speaker 1: going to hear me, why bother. Everyone in Israel who
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  Speaker 1: thought that was wrong. In spite of what they saw
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  Speaker 1: and in spite of what they felt, God heard their groanings,
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  Speaker 1: whether it felt like it or not, whether it seemed
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  Speaker 1: like it or not. The Bible makes this clear. How
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  Speaker 1: do we know? Right? You may be asked, okay, how
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  Speaker 1: do I know? I hear what you're saying. But how
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  Speaker 1: do I know? Well, first of all, you know because
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  Speaker 1: God is the same yesterday, today and forever. Amen. But secondly,
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  Speaker 1: there's a couple of passages of scripture Psalm fifty evening
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  Speaker 1: and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan,
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  Speaker 1: and he hears my voice Proverbs fifteen twenty nine. The
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  Speaker 1: Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the
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  Speaker 1: prayer of the righteous. Amen, hallelujah, Praise the Lord. What
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  Speaker 1: are you going to believe? You have fear and anxiety
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  Speaker 1: or the word of God? Because the word of God
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  Speaker 1: says he hears one John five, fourteen and fifteen. And
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  Speaker 1: this is the confidence that we have toward Him that
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  Speaker 1: if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
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  Speaker 1: And if we know that he hears us, and whatever
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  Speaker 1: we ask, we know that we have the request that
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  Speaker 1: we have asked of him, God hears us. And it
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  Speaker 1: is a privilege, indeed, to be heard by God. It
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  Speaker 1: is a comfort to be heard by God. It may
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  Speaker 1: not seem like it in and of itself, when your
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  Speaker 1: circumstances are not changing, but just holding on to that
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  Speaker 1: theological reality brings hope. Through prayer, we commune with the
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  Speaker 1: most on God. We have intimate fellowship with God through prayer.
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  Speaker 1: And whatever we're suffering, we know that. Number one, it's temporary.
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  Speaker 1: And secondly, it is not worth comparing to what awaits us.
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  Speaker 1: Paul says it's this way in Romans eight. For I
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  Speaker 1: consider that the sufferings of this present time are not
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  Speaker 1: worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed
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  Speaker 1: to us. The creation waits with eager longing for the
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  Speaker 1: revealing of the sons of God. Secondly, not only do
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  Speaker 1: we know that God hears, but we know that God remembers,
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  Speaker 1: and what he remembers is his covenant. Our text says
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  Speaker 1: he remembered his covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
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  Speaker 1: This is important to hold on to. God didn't remember
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  Speaker 1: Israel because they were the good guys. Amen. And oftentimes
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  Speaker 1: that's the next thing that we go to in the
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  Speaker 1: midst of our anxiety and our fear. The first thing
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  Speaker 1: that we go to is, well, well, God is not
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  Speaker 1: hearing me. God's not listening to me. And then the
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  Speaker 1: second thing that we go to is God's not hearing me,
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  Speaker 1: and here's not listening to me because I must have
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  Speaker 1: done something to anger him. I must not have been
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  Speaker 1: good enough, right enough, perfect enough, because we know that
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  Speaker 1: that's how God operates. He watches us and he sees
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  Speaker 1: like if we're being good enough, and if we're good
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  Speaker 1: enough and we're right enough, and we're perfect enough, then
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  Speaker 1: he says, yes, here, I'll give you this. No, because
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  Speaker 1: here's the reality. There is none righteous, no, not one.
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  Speaker 1: You have never in your life, nor will you ever
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  Speaker 1: be good enough to earn good from God. If God
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  Speaker 1: ever gives you what you earn, you'll wake up in hell.
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  Speaker 1: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
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  Speaker 1: God doesn't deliver his people because these people deserve deliverance,
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  Speaker 1: because no people.
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  Speaker 2: Have ever deserved deliverance. And that's good news.
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  Speaker 1: Because what he remembers is not my sin, but his covenant.
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  Speaker 1: God looks at Israel in the midst of their suffering,
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  Speaker 1: and he remembers the covenant that he made with Abraham
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  Speaker 1: and with Isaac and with Jacob, in spite of the
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  Speaker 1: fact that there was not one person there who deserved it.
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  Speaker 1: To be delivered. And this is an important point in
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  Speaker 1: the day and age in which we live because there
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  Speaker 1: are those who are are trying to argue from the
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  Speaker 1: standpoint of what's called liberation theology, and so liberation theology
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  Speaker 1: would argue that no, no, God is on the side
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  Speaker 1: of the oppressed. God is always on the side of
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  Speaker 1: the oppressed, and He's always working to deliver the oppressed
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  Speaker 1: because the world is made up of oppressors and the oppressed,
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  Speaker 1: not sinners and the righteous, but oppressors and the oppressed.
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  Speaker 1: And if you want to find the side that God
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  Speaker 1: is on, you just look at the person who's oppressed,
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  Speaker 1: or look at the group that's oppressed, and there's the
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  Speaker 1: answer to your question. Turning your Bibles with me to
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  Speaker 1: another passage of Scripture, just you know, quickly, just let's
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  Speaker 1: look at Jeremiah sing at Jeremiah twenty nine, right, And
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  Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking. I say, Jeremiah twenty nine.
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  Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, Jeremi twenty nine eleven. Nope, not verse eleven,
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  Speaker 1: not verse eleven. We love that though, don't we. I
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  Speaker 1: know you plans that I have for you, plans to
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  Speaker 1: you know, prosper you and have to harm you. To
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  Speaker 1: give you a hope in the future. It's like, esh, no,
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  Speaker 1: I don't want you to look at verse eleven. I
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  Speaker 1: want you to look at verse four. Thus says the
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  Speaker 1: Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, to all the
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  Speaker 1: exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
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  Speaker 1: How about that, God says, the boot of the oppressor
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  Speaker 1: is on your neck, and I put it there. So
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  Speaker 1: much for this woke ideology, this liberation ideology that says
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  Speaker 1: that God is always on the side of the oppressed. Nope,
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes God is using the oppressor to oppress the oppressed
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  Speaker 1: because of sin. There is no always, Amen, somebody, there
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  Speaker 1: is no always. But when it comes to his covenant people,
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  Speaker 1: he remembers his covenant. And we need to be reminded
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  Speaker 1: of that. In the midst of our worse days, we
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  Speaker 1: cry out to God, and we remind ourselves that he
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  Speaker 1: hears us, and that even in our worst days, we're
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  Speaker 1: in communion with the Holy God of the universe, the
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  Speaker 1: God who created the world and everything in it, and
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  Speaker 1: that he remembers his covenant, and that if we have
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  Speaker 1: come to him by faith and through faith in the
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  Speaker 1: Lord Jesus Christ, then we are part of his covenant people,
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  Speaker 1: and God remembers his covenant. He never forgets his covenant.
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  Speaker 1: He never forsakes his covenant. My time has gone up here,
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  Speaker 1: just saying be up here all day if my time
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  Speaker 1: are back right. Thirdly, Thirdly, God sees his people. God
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  Speaker 1: sees his people. If you can't give him my time,
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  Speaker 1: to remind me again when my time is over, okay,
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  Speaker 1: to put my timer back, all right, thank you. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: God sees his people. Remember in our text, he heard,
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  Speaker 1: he remembered, and then he saw. This One often bothers
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  Speaker 1: us because it's almost as though, when I'm going through
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  Speaker 1: my darkest day, I would kind of feel a little
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  Speaker 1: more comforted if I believed that maybe God didn't see
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  Speaker 1: what was going on. It's strange from a theological perspective.
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  Speaker 1: It's awful, but we would almost rather believe that somehow
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  Speaker 1: God got distracted for a moment, you know, he was
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  Speaker 1: off to us like a parent, you know, with the
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  Speaker 1: baby on the side of the bed and the you know,
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  Speaker 1: the baby's doing this, and another kids over here doing that,
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  Speaker 1: and you do this, and the baby rolls off the
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  Speaker 1: side of the bed. Not saying that that ever happened.
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  Speaker 1: To one of my children. But I'm saying, we have
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  Speaker 1: nine of them, so it could have right, And so
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  Speaker 1: we would much rather believe that, you know, God's just distracted,
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  Speaker 1: because certainly, if God was watching what was going on
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  Speaker 1: right now, you wouldn't have allowed it. Certainly, God, who
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  Speaker 1: loves me, And this isn't this isn't isn't this the
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  Speaker 1: question of the Odyssey? Right? If God is omnipotent, if
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  Speaker 1: he's all powerful, and if he's omniscient he sees everything,
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  Speaker 1: then why and how could God allow evil? But the
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  Speaker 1: text says to Israel, in the midst of their slavery,
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  Speaker 1: he hears, he remembers his covenant, and he sees Psal
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  Speaker 1: Verses one through eight. I lift up my eyes to
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  Speaker 1: the hills. From where does my help come. My help
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  Speaker 1: comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He
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  Speaker 1: will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps
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  Speaker 1: you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will
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  Speaker 1: neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The
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  Speaker 1: Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun
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  Speaker 1: shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
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  Speaker 1: The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will
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  Speaker 1: keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out
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  Speaker 1: and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
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  Speaker 1: He doesn't slumber, he doesn't sleep, He misses nothing. If
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  Speaker 1: he is sovereign, then that means at that worst moment,
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  Speaker 1: he wasn't absent.
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  Speaker 3: The top of the fat.
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  Speaker 4: Of the flat.
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  Speaker 5: Back thanking.
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  Speaker 4: Do the think tanking? Do they think.
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  Speaker 6: The s the sting, the sack.
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  Speaker 5: To the cott?
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  Speaker 7: Are you told aware even about your guy? Are you
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  Speaker 7: told aware even about your guy?
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  Speaker 5: Are you told aware even.
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  Speaker 4: About your guy?
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  Speaker 8: Guy, guy, gay guy gott Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 8: yeah yeah.
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  Speaker 7: Are you tot aware even about your Are you aware
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  Speaker 7: even about your guy?
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  Speaker 1: Got?
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  Speaker 4: Yes?
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  Speaker 7: Are you s aware even about your guy?
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  Speaker 2: Got?
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  Speaker 4: Are you about your guy?
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  Speaker 7: Are you s aware even about your cat?
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  Speaker 5: You got?
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  Speaker 8: You got, you got, you got, you got, you got,
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  Speaker 8: you got, you got, you got, you got, you got,
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  Speaker 8: you got, you got, you got, got, got, got, got
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  Speaker 8: got got got shot yet shot got shot, got shat,
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  Speaker 8: got shat gott.
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  Speaker 7: Are you aware even about your.
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  Speaker 6: Underground? Are you aware even.
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  Speaker 8: About your guys? N? Got gott N got got run
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  Speaker 8: got got got n got