Latest / End-Time Revival Ministries, USA / Episode 101: The Problem Of Evil - Part 2

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Episode 101: The Problem Of Evil - Part 2 · End-Time Revival Ministries, USA

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Started. All right, we welcome you again once more to this another edition
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of End Time Revival Ministries USA podcast. I am your host, Pastor al
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Zachary, and today we are going to continue in a series that we just
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begun on last week and our last session entitled the Problem of Evil. We
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did sort of an introduction in that last podcast, so I urge you if
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you did not already see that or hear that particular episode, we certainly invite
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you to hear that so that you can get the background in the the foundation
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of what we hope to discuss in these upcoming episodes. Again, the vastness
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and the depths, and the the the the scope of evil certainly cannot be
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addressed in totality, and so what we're going to do is certainly from the
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biblical perspective. Of course, see what the Bible has to say about Amen,
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much of this this problem of evil that is in our world today.
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And so, of course, as always before we began, less amen,
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Amen, invoke the presence of the Lord, if you will bow just for
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a moment. Father, we thank you for amen, all of your glorious
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and splendid benefits that you've amen given and granted to us according to your goodness
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and mercy that we thank you for, amen, bringing us out of the
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darkness into the marvelous life, opening our eyes to see and our ears to
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hear. Lord, we thank you for making us partakers of this great salvation.
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Thank you for coming down and shedding your blood so that we would have
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a right to the tree of life. We thank you for calling us while
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we were running away from you and delivering us from the power of sin,
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the power of say than the power of self, the power of the darkness
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of this world. God be glorified today, Open blinded eyes, death ears.
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Lord, do what only you can do by your mighty power. In
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Jesus' name, we pray give thanks for all things. Amen and Amen.
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All right again, the problem of evil. This is part two, the
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problem of evil. And today our focus is going to be on the evil
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that is innate within us, the evil that is innate within us. And
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we want to focus on this because again, foundationally, I believe that there
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is an erroneous presumption that is made by human beings a man concerning human beings
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that are born into this world. And we're all born into this world.
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We are all descendants of our forefathers, our original parents, of course,
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Adam and Eve, according to the Biblical a man account of the beginnings.
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But the egregiously inaccurate and misguided presumption to which I refer brother, is that
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human beings are basically good, that we are born as good people, and
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we have good character when we come into this world. And what happens to
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us when a person supposedly goes bad as it were, or turns down a
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path uh to evil, it is because of certain outside influences uh in in
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the culture or our surroundings, or our upbringing uh that is to blame or
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that is that is at the root of our wrongdoing, our misbehavior, and
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and this misdiagnosis of the problem of evil, it stems from our departure from
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the truth of God a man about our nature and and and in our departure
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from God and our fallen state, we are living in denial and in delusion
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concerning the true reality of what is is really inside of the hearts of every
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human being, inside of the heart of every man, every human being,
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every child, every person that is born into this world, who comes into
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this world. The Bible is crystal clear about this, that the heart of
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man is desperately wicked. It is desperately wicked. And that wickedness, that
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evil that is again innate within the heart of man, is simply waiting to
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be unleashed. And it is only ladies and gentlemen hear this carefully, Church
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of the Living God. It is only the goodness of God, the spirit
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of the Living God. Amen, the purpose of God. Hey, thank
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you Jesus that restrains us a man, from the depths of the gravity to
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which any one of us is capable of descending into. Make no mistake about
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it, it's God. It is God who restrains us, who keeps us
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back from doing the evil that we would do were it not for again his
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spirit at work in this world. Now, in the aftermath, of course,
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of our separation from God and our rejection of His rule over us a
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man, the heart of man clearly displays accurately what God's word speaks of concerning
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it, the heart of man, the nature man. By nature, we
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are inclined to do that which is displeasing to God. A man and manifestation
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of what is ad in inside of us a man. And although we possess
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the knowledge of both good and evil, we have the knowledge of both good
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and evil, and we also have the capacity a man to do both good
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and evil. It is our natural inclination and preference to do evil. That's
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our natural inclination, that is our natural preference, in our fallen nature,
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to have a bit toward evil rather than good. And it is historically undeniable.
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An exhibit A, ladies and gentlemen, Church of the Living exhibit A
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is early in the history of fallen mankind, and it was proliferating and widespread
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and throughout the world at that time. Genesis chapter six. Genesis chapter six.
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And now I'm not gonna read the entire narrative. Actually I'm gonna read
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five verses. Those of you who are familiar with your Bibles, you are
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familiar with the narrative and the story and what happens. So I'm not again
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going to go through all of that, but listen to what the Bible,
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the Word of God, has to say. And again, if you don't
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want to believe the report of the Bible, just read your world history concerning
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the amen the evil wickedness of man, and God saw verse number five that
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the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the
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thoughts of his heart was only only evil. Continually. Again, we grab
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toward evil, and the more evil we do, the more evil we will
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become, and the more evil we will desire to do. Amen, we'll
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get to that a little bit later. God saw the wickedness of man.
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Let me repeat this verse again, was great in the earth, and that
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every imagination, everything that man contrived and meditated upon the thoughts of his heart,
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the Bible says, was only evil continually. That's not good. So
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verse six says, it repented the Lord that he had made man on the
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earth, and it grieved him at his heart. Verse eleven, the Bible
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says the earth was also corrupt before God, and the earth this this planet
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on which we live. Even right now, listen what the Bible says.
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The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence
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violence. Verse twelve. God looked upon the earth, and behold, it
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was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. All
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of mankind had corrupted their way upon the earth. In Verse thirteen, God
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said unto Noah, and again, you, as if you know this story,
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the Bible tells us Noah found grace in the eyes of God. Grace
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is not a new Testament, a new phenomenon, ladies and gentlemen, Grace
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has always been grace will always be our salvation. The Bible tells us we
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are saved by grace through faith. It is not ourselves. It is not
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of work, lest any of us ship boast. Noah was not spared because
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he was a good person, because there was no evil in him or brother,
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let's say he had never done any evil or send a man. It
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was grace, the Bible says. Noah found grace in the eyes of God.
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And God said to Noah verse thirteen, the end of all flesh is
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come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. And
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behold, I will destroy them from the earth again. And we're gonna go
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to Genesis chapter eight in just a moment. But I want you to understand,
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please understand this, Please understand this, because it did not take a
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man very long for man to fall into depravity, into evil, into wickedness.
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Again, I think I pointed this out in our Amen first introductory session
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here episode that with the very first family, a man murder came into the
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world. Amen. So you're talking about the children of the first original parents,
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Adam and Eve. Cain kills his brother Abel. Amen. And that's
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because evil again is embedded in man from birth. Amen. And as soon
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as we are independently capable of doing what it is that we desire to do,
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we prefer we gravitate toward doing evil rather than good. And again,
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only the restraining grace of God, that restraining force of the Holy Spirit.
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Amen. And by the way, the reason God restrains us from doing what
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we would want to do is because He has a plan which is already in
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force, intact, and always was. The Bible says the lamb of God
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was slaying from the foundation of the world. God already knew, he fore
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knew, Amen. And his plan of salvation was implemented a man an eternity
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past. And God seeks to redeem lost man. Amen. That's his plan,
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and that is why he restrains us from doing what we would want to
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do. What we would gravitate toward doing in our evil and wickedness, that
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again is innate within us, that's desperately in our hearts. Amen. We
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desperately want to do what we want to do, how we want to do
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it. And again, just look around you and see it a man.
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You can see it with your own eyes. And what we want to see
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now, of course, is that the testimony of God himself and man after
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the destruction of the flood. You again know about the story how that the
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only people that were saved with Noah and his family of eight a man.
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So after the flood, after God brought the destruction of a man of man
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on the earth to fruition. By the way, after he a man,
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gave them a grace period of one hundred and twenty years. God gave them
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a grace period of one hundred and twenty years while Noah was preparing the ark.
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While Noah was preaching the gospel, the Bible says Noah was a preacher
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of righteousness, compelling people to come into the ark. Salvation, your salvation,
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your deliverance is by coming into this ark of safety because it is going
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to reign. Same message today. Amen, God's judgment is coming. That's
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the message that Noah was preaching. God's judgment is coming. And your safety,
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your salvation, your deliverance is by coming into the Ark. And of
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course Jesus is that arc of safety for us. Today. Amen. And
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so you know the record, you know the story, you know the narrative,
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a man of God destroying man from off the face of the earth,
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with the exception of Noah and his family. Amen. And and and again.
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This is because we we are in a denial of of our depravity.
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And when we when we sink to this denial of our pravity, we not
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only call the truth of God a lie, but we deliver to evil.
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Please understand this. When we live in denial of the pravity, of the
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wickedness, of the evil that is innate within us, that is embedded within
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our hearts, when we live in that delusion, what we are doing,
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first and foremost, we are calling God a lie. And secondly, we
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are delivering over to evil a decisive advantage in which evil can then operate as
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if it is not at all present or even in existence. Because now we'll
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call it some kind of psychological disorder, this, that and the other.
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And I'm not denying that there are some problem that happens with chemical imbalances and
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so forth. And so I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm not a psychologist.
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Amen, I'm not a doctor. But I do know this, I know
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what the Bible has to say about evil. I know what the Bible has
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to say about demonic oppression and a man also, uh, demonic possession and
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uh this is is undeniable. Uh. And we've seen it over and over
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again and we are still seeing it right now, everybody who is committing evil.
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And by the way, let's not minimize our evil or change modify,
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uh, the definition of We're going to get to that, by the way,
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because that's what we have we do, because we we only want to
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classify certain things as evil that are despicable as far as our understanding of evil,
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or unacceptable for society. But for many of us, a fornication is
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not evil. Adulter is not evil. Homosexuality is not evil. Theft is
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not evil, Jealousy is not evil. Envy is not evil. But the
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Bible says it is. And so again, evil is not what we say
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it is. Evil is what God says it is. And God says it
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is embedded, it is innate within the heart of every one of us.
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Let me tell you what the Bible says. Let me show you what the
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Bible says. By the way, after the flood, when Noah Amen is
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now in his family now free to go forth from the art. Look at
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verse number eighteen of Genesis, chapter eight, Genesis eighth, verse eighteen.
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Any from the king James Virgin and Noah went forth verse eighteen, and his
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sons, and his wife, and his son's wives with him, every beast,
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every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creeping upon the earth.
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After their kind went forth out of the ark, and Noah builded an
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altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast and of every clean
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fowl, the Bible says, and offered a man burnt offerings on the altar.
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Now watch what happens. Look at verse twenty one, and the Lord
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smelled a sweet savor. And the Lord listen what the Bible says. Listen
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carefully. The Lord said in his heart, I will not again cause the
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ground anymore for man's sake. Or ro I'm sorry, let me reef,
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I misspoke, misspoke, misspoke. I will not again curse the ground anymore
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for man's sake. Listen what the Bible says. For the imagination of man's
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heart is evil from his youth, ladies and gentlemen, is not when he's
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twenty thirty forty fifty. No, no evil is embedded in us from our
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youth, the imagination. Listen what the Lord says again, the imagination of
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man's heart is evil from his youth. Now, if we persist, now
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that's God's testimony, that's God's word, that's what God said concerning our nature,
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concerning every one of us. But if we persist in our denial of
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the source of evil emanating from within us. And by the way, in
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the New Testament, you know what Jesus said, Where evil comes from,
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Where all of these wicked deeds that we do. Where that it comes from,
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Jesus said, it comes out of the heart. Out of the heart,
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He said, proceed fornications, adulteries, thefts, and so on.
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It comes out of the heart, out of the imagination, out of the
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mind of sinful and fallen man. Amen. But again, if we're gonna
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live in delusion, if we're gonna live in a denial of the source of
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evil where evil emanates from, Amen, we deceive ourselves. And and and
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again we're going to descend the further into delusion and depravity, unless, of
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course, the mercy of God delivers us from it. Denial of evil in
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our hearts, impedes us, it prevents us, it holds us back.
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If you will amen from coming to repentance, coming to salvation, coming to
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redemption in Christ Jesus, Amen that that that that that we we're so all
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desperately in need of and dire need of. I might add the the the
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unrestrained and undisciplined child. Again, evil is in us from our youth.
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The knowledge of good and evil is already there. And any child that is
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unrestrained, any child that is undisciplined, We know this. We know this
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is not even biblically necessary from the Bible standpoint. If I might say,
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I mean, it's not something that we need to get from the Bible.
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We can observe this. We have observed it. It has been observed if
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you lead a child to themselves, any child that is unrestrained, any child
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that is undisciplined, any child that is unchecked, any child that is not
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a man corrected, a man left to his own, his or her own
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devices, that child will descend into the darkness of an ungodly and dangerously destructive
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path of evil imaginations. A man, because sin will take full dominion over
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them. Make no mistake of and man and by the way again in the
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Bible, with the very first family, the Lord issued a warning to Cain
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before he murdered his brother Abel. You know what that warning was. Kin,
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If you do what is right, if you do what is right,
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you can have power over sin. You can have dominion over sin. You
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can, you can, you can, you can. But again, you
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have to do what you know, what is good. You know what is
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right. But will you do what is good? When you do what is
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right? And Cain, if you do that which is good, if you
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do that which is right, you will have the mastery. You will have
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the power, you will have the control, as it were, over s
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sin. But if you do not, the Lord says, sin will get
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the mastery over you. Ladies and gentlemen. You know the rest of the
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story. Kin refuse, Amen to repent, He refused to a man,
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Come to the Lord in the right way, with the right offering, with
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the right heart. Amen, in obedience. And see, when we disobey
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God, when we again live in denial of the evil that is in us,
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it's going to lead to darkness and destruction. Amen, and and and
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and we understand that there is a degree of innocence if you will. I
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don't know what it is. There is a degree of innocence in the child,
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and I will just again say that it is because of their limited knowledge.
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There there there limited understanding about the world in which they have now become
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a part of. And again, as well as their limited understanding about their
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fallen nature. They don't know. They simply don't know. They are learning.
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There is a learning curve, if you will, when we are born
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into this world. And again, this is one of the reason why I
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go back, when we go back to the beginning. This this erroneous presumption
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that the child is innocent, the child is good, the child is an
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angel, and it is the corrupting influences around them that causes them to become
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evil, to do evil, to douce bad things. No, no,
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No, ladies and gentlemen, please, we can be in the most pristine
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of environments if we disobey the law of God Adam an evilor and perfect conditions,
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perfect conditions, amen, and no doubt. When came and abel Abel
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were born, and when they came into the world in the process of time,
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they were not living in a world that was corrupted with war and famine
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and racism and hatred and malice and all of that because it was not yet
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again enough people. But guess where it was. Guess where it is in
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the heart. It's right here in the heart. That's where it comes from,
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ladies and gentlemen. It's in our hearts. It's innate within us.
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Amen. But again we understand that there's a certain degree of innocence that's in
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a child because they don't have the knowledge, they don't have the understanding a
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man of not only the world in which they have become a part of,
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but also again they don't have the full understanding. And some, by the
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way, never come to the full understanding of the true nature of our fallen
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state. And that's sad. That is sad, that's a sad reality when
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we again do not teach, and we do not a man instruct a man
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people in the reality of the reality that we are evil in our nature,
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and we prefer to do evil. And again, it is only the restraining
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force, it is only the goodness of God, the grace of God,
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that keeps us from being as depraved as we could be. And again,
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nobody is as bad as they could possibly be. And certainly none of us
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are as good as we could possibly be a man, because we are image
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bearers of God. We were made in his image and his likeness. And
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again, I will argue over and over and over again, and it bears
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repeating that it is the restraining force of God's goodness, the overwhelming grace.
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The Bible says, where sin abounds, grace did much more abound. It's
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the goodness of God. Listen, that's the only thing that keeps us keep
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this world. Even now, we have the capacity to annihilate the entire planet.
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If you will, you not annihilate the entire ecosystem. Man kind himself,
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all of us could potentially be annihilated with the weaponry that we have developed.
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What keeps that from happening? Goodness in the heart of man. No,
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well, I don't even I don't have time to go down that rabbit
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trail. But make no mistake about it, Amen, it's the goodness of
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God. Let me just simply leave it at That is the goodness of God
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that restrains us from doing that which we would do if there were no restraints.
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Amen. But again, it is the God ordained. Going back to
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the child that is born into this world. It is the God ordained commanded
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the responsibility of the parents a man to instruct and to guide their children,
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a man into the way of goodness and virtue in the fear of the Lord.
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And the Bible is clear about this. The man who withholds disciplined from
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his son, he hates his son. The man who a man fails to
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give the proper and necessary chastening to his son daughter, a man is surrendering
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their souls to him. Well, amen, surrendering their souls over to the
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evil that is already in them. This is why listen, everybody knows that
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anybody with everybody, and I will certainly conceive that. Of course there are
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people again who live in delusion, But everybody who is of a sound mind,
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clear thinking of the truth, and certainly those of us who have been
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parents or our parents, understand that your child will naturally gravitate towards wrong and
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will not naturally be inclined to do that which is They have to be taught.
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They have to be instructed to do what is good, what is right.
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They have to be If you don't do it, their natural inclination is
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not going to lead them. And like I said, I'm not saying all
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children are again as depraved and evil and wicked as they could possibly be.
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But if you do not correct them, if you do not instruct them,
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if you do not discipline them, they will they will go down a path
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of destruction, barbarians, they will be. Amen. The parent is to
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teach and to discipline the child. Amen, while there is hope. The
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Bible says, chasing your son while there is hope. Again, back to
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the testimony of God after the flood, what did he say? Evil?
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The thoughts and the imagination of the heart of man is evil from his youth
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is already there. It has to be restrained, It has to be checked,
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it has to be discipline, it has to be corrected. If you
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don't do it as a parent, you are surrendering your child over to a
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man evil and wickedness. And by the way, the adversary, the devil,
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absolutely loves it because it really makes his job, as it were,
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not his job is his, his, his, his, oh, his
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wicked desires. It makes it easier, much easier. If there's no law
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of God reinforcing their heart, if there is no knowledge of God, no
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fear of God, no fear of their parents, no discipline, no virtue,
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no instruction given to them. Oh, devil just will have his way
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with them. But again, the parent is to teach the child. The
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parent is to instruct the child. The parent is to discipline the child.
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The parent is to train the child up in the way that he should go.
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Amen, to deliver their souls from the overwhere, overwhelming by the way,
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influence and pressure of the inescapable presence of evil that is in our world.
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And again that's undeniable. That's undeniable, undeniable. The presence of evil
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in this world is undeniable. And so we pray today that God, you
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will deliver us. Deliver us from the evil Amen, that is innate,
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first of all, first and foremost within us, the evil that is within
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us. And then of course deliver us from the evil one outside of us,
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who is seeking our destruction, who is seeking our death. God be
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glorified God. We pray to someone's eyes ears, heart is open, changed,
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renewed, restored, revived, for your kingdom, for your glory,
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for your honor. It's in the name of Jesus Christ. We pray and
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give thanks for all things. Amen. And a man