Latest / Admonition Podcast / Mark 14 (Lesson 3) - Aaron Cozort - March 18, 2026

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Mark 14 (Lesson 3) - Aaron Cozort - March 18, 2026 · Admonition Podcast

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  bookmark.
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  Chapter 14.
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  We have been discussing the events of the Upper Room and uh we will continue with those events and then the proceeding out into the Garden of Gethsemane this evening in our
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  study.
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  But let's begin with a word of prayer as we get started.
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  Our gracious Father in heaven, we bow before your throne, grateful for your blessings, for your care that you provide to us.
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  for all that you do for us on a daily basis.
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  We pray that you will be with this country of ours with all of the turmoil and all of the difficulties that arise in it, that we will still be granted the opportunity to have
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  peace, to be able to...
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  worship you in a way that is in accordance with your will without fear of molestation or threat from governments, but at the same time that we might not hand over our peace and
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  our mindset to the circumstances of this world.
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  then we might always remember that no matter what comes in our lives, no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in, in our nation or around the world, that our allegiance
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  is to you and that our faithfulness is to keeping your word and your will and being obedient to it.
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  Lord, we pray that you be with the leaders that make decisions throughout the world.
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  May they look to your word for guidance and for wisdom.
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  May they make decisions.
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  which will produce in the lives of the people of their nations things that are in accordance with your will and not in opposition to it.
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  Lord, we pray that you be with those who are struggling with illness, especially those who deal with chronic diseases and issues.
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  We pray that you give them strength to overcome those things and to endure those things and help us to be an encouragement and a strength to them.
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  Lord, we also pray that you be with those who are facing recovery from injuries or difficulties and we pray that you might help them to heal and return.
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  back to their full and desired help.
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  Lord, we pray for missionaries around the world and those here at home.
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  We pray for those who have difficult works, those who are in fear for their life, those who struggle because of circumstance or because of a lack of provisions.
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  We pray that you will help us to be a blessing to them.
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  But we pray especially that your hand will be upon them, that they might have the things that they need.
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  Lord, we pray for those who are looking for the truth.
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  May they find
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  the truth and may we be a conduit for them to hear the gospel and be obedient to your word.
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  All this we pray and ask in Jesus name, amen.
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  In Mark 14, Jesus has instituted the Lord's Supper.
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  We spent some time on some of the language that is found in this text last week.
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  But as we did that, really what I wanted us to realize
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  as we're going through this is in the text where most false concepts are taught, they are also answered.
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  And that was one of the things that our director, Brother Wesley Simons, uh who's recently passed away, continued to reiterate to us.
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  I think I may have told some of you, some of you may have never heard this, but every Thursday,
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  in chapel at Tri-Cities was called Hot Seat Thursday.
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  And what we did every single Thursday during chapel is Wesley would get up and he'd call three of the guys up and we'd have to sit on the little seats up there and he'd get up and
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  he would take a false position.
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  from scripture, a real, legitimate false doctrine that people in the religious world teach.
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  And we weren't told in advance what it was gonna be.
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  We weren't given any indication of what he was gonna say.
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  He got up, he said, and presented the false position, and we had to answer it on the fly with no prep.
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  And then when inevitably, especially in our first year of school, we couldn't answer it.
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  He'd walk everybody through, and invariably you go back two or three verses and you read the whole context and suddenly right there in the context where it was taught from is the
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  answer to the false doctrine.
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  About 85 % in by way of at least anecdotal perception, about 85 to 90 % of all false doctrines are answered in the text where the false doctrines taught from.
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  because most false doctrines come as a result of people ignoring the context, teaching what the context does not allow the text to teach, ripping it out of context to make it
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  mean something it doesn't say.
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  So when we get into texts like the institution of Lord's Supper, when you pay attention and you force yourself to stay
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  in the context, to understand the background of the context, then you are alleviated of many of the false doctrines and the false ideas that are taught about the Bible simply
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  because you bothered to read the passage in its context.
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  Jesus will say to them, verse 25, assuredly I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.
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  And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
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  Jesus is going to take them from the upper room where they have observed the Passover.
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  where he has instituted the Lord's Supper.
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  And he's going to take them out to the Mount of Olives and he is going to go to a place, to a garden to pray.
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  Jesus is taking actions, knowing the outcome, knowing where it's headed, while the apostles are generally speaking oblivious to what is coming in spite of everything that he
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  has told them.
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  Now, in Mark's account, as we've already mentioned, Mark pushes through the events
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  rapidly.
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  He gives the record of Jesus's life with the urgency that Jesus operated with.
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  He speaks concerning things happening immediately.
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  He speaks concerning the things that occurred and then moves on.
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  ah John is going to give a much more complete record of the events of the Upper Room.
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  whole chapters dedicated to the events of the Upper Room in the Book of John, which the others pass over and do not record.
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  And yet the reason is because of the purpose of the book.
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  The reason has to do with who John was writing to and what he was writing about.
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  And so we need to be careful to realize that we should not
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  uh We should not put on one book the purpose of another book.
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  When we come to the text of Ephesians or Colossians.
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  we cannot assume that the environment that Paul's writing to the brethren at Philippa, or sorry, at Ephesus or Colossi is the same environment that John's writing to the church
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  about in 1 John.
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  Because the likelihood is that the writing of those books was separated by maybe more than a decade or two.
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  Circumstances are different.
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  The difficulties when John's writing 1 John are the Gnostics and their doctrines.
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  The difficulty when Paul's writing to the Ephesian brethren and the Colossian brethren is the Judaizing teachers.
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  They're in a different circumstance.
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  You can't go to one and apply its circumstance to the other, even if you read something that sounds a lot like something said over here.
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  That's one of the things that we have to be careful about.
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  It is very good, and I enjoy doing it, but it's very good to do word studies, you know, to go through the Bible and read, what does the Bible say about the word love?
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  What does the Bible say about the word hope?
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  What does the Bible say about the word compassion?
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  What does the Bible say?
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  And look at those in all the different contexts that they're found everywhere in the Bible.
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  That's valuable.
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  But like a lot of things that are valuable, use with caution.
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  Because if you assume that every writer meant the same thing when they used the word love, you'd be wrong.
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  We have to be careful that we actually understand who's writing, to whom are they writing, when are they writing, what are the circumstances behind the writing, what are these
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  people going through and what are they facing when they're receiving that book.
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  Now, we don't always know, but a lot of times we know.
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  In the Old Testament, we have the writer,
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  who quite often will say, in the year of this king.
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  This prophet was prophesying.
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  Okay, well that tells you a little bit.
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  That gives you some historical context if you read the rest of the books and you read about what was happening in the days of that king.
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  Same thing true in the New Testament.
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  When Mark is writing, when Luke is writing, when Matthew is writing, they're writing at different points in time, but they're not writing as the events are happening.
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  The record isn't written down consecutive with the, it's not like every night Peter went back to the room and said, all right, we gotta get together and get the notes down for
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  what happened today.
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  The records concerning the life of Christ were written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit years after Jesus had already ascended back into heaven.
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  During the growth,
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  period of the church when finally there were people who were hearing the gospel who were not Jews, who were not from that region, who were not ever individuals who had met Jesus
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  in person.
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  They needed to hear concerning His life because they weren't there when it happened.
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  And so the Holy Spirit gave these things to the church through these writers for the purposes of establishing that truth.
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  Now, how do I know that's the case?
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  Because Luke explains it.
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  If you go back to the beginning of the book of Luke, Luke will spell out that many records concerning the life of Christ had been made.
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  And that the reason he was writing his is because he had inspired knowledge
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  concerning all the details of a complete record.
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  And so he was writing to give a complete record, which is why the book of Luke and the book of Acts are actually a pair written by Luke to the same person, to the same
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  recipient, and it's a continual story of Jesus' life all the way through the beginning of the church.
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  because Luke had inspired knowledge to take the information from all of these records that had been written and compile it into a unified account.
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  And Luke tells you that's what he's doing.
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  So in the same way, John will tell you, in the end of the book of John, these things are written that you might believe.
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  And the believing you might have life in his name.
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  John will tell you that I'm writing the signs that Jesus did that are sufficient to know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
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  And that with that knowledge, you might have sufficient evidence to believe in Him, be obedient to Him, and have the salvation that He offered.
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  That's why John was writing.
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  Because he was writing at a time period where...
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  people were arguing that Jesus never came in the flesh.
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  Where the Gnostics and others were claiming that Jesus was a spirit because if he had come in the flesh, he would have been evil.
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  But he, so he came, but he was spirit only.
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  He appeared as though he was in the flesh, but he never actually was.
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  And John will write in 1 John that anyone who denies that Jesus Christ came in the flesh is not of God.
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  So as we're reading and as we're studying, word studies, great.
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  Subject topic studies, great.
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  But never without the context.
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  If you're going to use a passage, especially if you're teaching, you're going to use a passage, you better know what the context is.
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  You better know why it was stated, to whom it was stated, when it was stated, and the purpose behind it.
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  Because otherwise somebody's going to come up to you and say, brother, I don't think that means what you think that means.
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  And then they're going to explain to you why.
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  And it'll generally be uh a kind-hearted, retired preacher.
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  Because if it was your grandmother, she'd be a lot less gentle.
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  Right?
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  She was like, that was nonsense.
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  Now let me sit down.
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  You need to understand this.
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  Right?
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  All right.
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  So Mark chapter 14, Jesus will take them out to the Mount of Olives.
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  Then Jesus said to them, all of you will be made to stumble because of me this night, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.
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  but after I have been raised, will go before you to Galilee." Jesus is going to tell the disciples that they are going to do something and He knows they're going to do it because
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  He knows Old Testament prophecy.
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  And Peter is going to argue with it.
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  But if you're ever in a discussion where one person says they're right and God's wrong, and you say, God's right and they're wrong, I know which one's right.
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  And it's evidenced right here because Jesus said God knew what was going to happen and He told us in advance what was going to happen and it's going to happen and Peter said it's
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  not going to happen.
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  Jesus said, yes it is.
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  If you go back to Zechariah chapter 13...
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  Zechariah chapter 13.
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  We find a passage that speaks concerning the cutting off of idolatry in the future days of Israel.
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  But then it comes to verse seven and there's a prophecy given.
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  In verse seven we read, awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my companion, says the Lord of hosts, strike the shepherd and the sheep.
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  will be scattered.
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  Then I will turn my hand against the little ones.
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  And as shall come to pass in all the land, says the Lord, that two thirds in it shall be cut off and die, but one third shall be left in it.
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  I will bring the one third through the fire, will refine them as silver is refined and test them as gold is tested.
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  They will call on my name and I will answer them.
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  I will say, this is my people.
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  And each one will say,
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  This is my God.
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  Jesus reaches back to this prophecy.
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  And you notice here in verse seven that the one speaking, the one who is making clear the message through the prophet is who?
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  look for the word, says the Lord of hosts.
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  The pronouncement is not being made by a king, by a ruler, by an earthly governor.
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  Now, when Jesus is sent to the cross to be crucified, who's going to send Him?
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  by way of the physical events in history.
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  Pilate is.
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  The Roman governor's going to do it.
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  The Jewish people are gonna cry out for it.
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  The Jewish leadership is going to turn him over to Pilate to be tried and to be crucified because they say, uh don't have any authority to kill him ourselves, so you're gonna have
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  to do it.
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  All of these individual people had a hand to play in Jesus being crucified, but Zechariah says, no, they're not the ones in charge.
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  They're not the ones making sure this happens.
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  Jesus was not defeated by the Jews.
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  Jesus was not put to the cross and crucified and killed by the Romans.
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  yes, I understand they were the ones who physically did it.
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  But as Jesus will point out when he is before Pilate, he could have called 10,000 legions of angels.
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  He could have walked out of that scenario any moment he chose to.
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  when a young child
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  and their father get down on the floor while the child's maybe three or four or five years old and they wrestle.
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  and the father's down there and the child's beating them back.
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  Is the child really beaten to bat?
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  Or is the father letting it happen?
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  Can the father remove the by comparison helpless child at any moment he desires to?
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  Yes.
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  So who's really winning?
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  The child thinks they're winning.
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  The father says, no, I'm in charge.
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  I'm tell you who's gonna win.
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  It'll be you, but not because you have the strength.
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  It'll be you because I let you.
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  When you come to verse seven, you have God pronouncing a Waco sword against my shepherd.
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  The sword is going to be deployed by the government.
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  It was the authority of the government.
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  You can even go to Romans chapter 13 and Paul will say that it is the role of a government to have the sword of judgment.
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  And God is going to call for a governmental action against His own ship.
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  And then he says against the man who is my companion.
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  God is going to use Rome, and God is going to use the Jews, and God is going to use Judas, Ascariot, and God is going to use the circumstances, and God is going to use the Passover,
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  and God is going to use all of those things to bring about His intended will.
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  Which is why when Jesus prays in the garden, not my will, but thine be done.
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  Jesus is alluding back to the fact that even from prophecy.
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  this was going to happen.
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  Isaiah 53 verse 4 because it says that there in that prophecy he was smitten by God.
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  Absolutely.
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  It puts those two together as just kind of another reference that it was he was smitten of God.
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  was God's will that this happened.
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  So Isaiah 53 verse 4.
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  in the midst of that text speaking concerning.
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  the shepherd who would be smitten.
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  Verse four, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.
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  He was wounded for our transgression.
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  He was bruised for our iniquities.
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  The chastisement for our peace was upon Him and by His stripes we are healed.
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  Go down to verse 10.
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  We read, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him.
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  He, the Lord, has put Him, Christ, to grief.
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  When you make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days.
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  and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
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  He shall see the labor of His soul and be satisfied by His knowledge.
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  My righteous servants shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities."
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  One of the most ludicrous doctrines.
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  that has ever existed is premillennialism.
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  Because it argues that God sent Christ to this earth to establish His Kingdom and He failed because the Jewish nation rejected Him.
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  That doesn't line up with prophecy.
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  That doesn't line up with Zechariah 13.
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  That doesn't line up with Isaiah 53.
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  That doesn't line up with what Jesus told the disciples for months before going to Jerusalem, where He would tell them again and again and again exactly what was going to
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  happen.
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  God didn't make a mistake.
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  God didn't fail to anticipate Israel's rejection of Him.
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  And premillennialism is false from beginning to end because it demands that Christ came to the earth and failed.
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  I'm but my Lord doesn't fail.
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  Now, you find here in this passage in Zechariah 13,
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  Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my companion, says the Lord of hosts, strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered." Jesus will point out to the
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  disciples, as Mark records it, that this was evidence that that very night they were all going to forsake him.
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  That they were all going to stumble
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  as a result of him.
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  He says back in verse 27 of Mark 14, all of you will be made to stumble because of me this night, for it is written, and he quotes Zechariah, but after I have been raised, I will go
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  before you to Galilee.
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  What is the significance of Him telling them they're going to stumble?
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  And then there would be things that would occur after He was raised.
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  Redemption.
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  The fact that while they would stumble, they weren't going, there's a difference between stumbling and falling.
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  In the sense of someone who stumbles.
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  They may fall, but they're not staying down.
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  They didn't depart.
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  He doesn't say, you're going to depart from me.
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  He says, you're going to be caused to stumble.
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  Now, who is not present amongst the apostles when this statement occurs?
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  Judas.
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  Judas has already preceded the other apostles in going out of the upper room.
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  When Jesus goes to the garden without, in this occasion, and he goes out to the Mount of Olives,
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  Judas is no longer present.
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  This statement does not include Judas.
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  As matter of fact, when you go to the final prayer,
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  of Jesus in the upper room in John 17, Jesus will pray concerning the one who would fall, and that it was prophesied that he would fall.
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  And yet, he's praying in recognition that these others would be faithful.
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  So, Jesus is going to declare this is what's going to happen.
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  He knew it was going to happen.
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  He was assured it was going to happen.
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  There was no doubt it was going to happen because God had prophesied it hundreds of years beforehand.
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  And yet Peter said to him, verse 29, Even if all are made to stumble, yet I will not be.
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  Jesus said to him, Assuredly I say to you that today, even this night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.
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  but he spoke more vehemently, if I have to die with you, I will not deny you.
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  And they all said likewise.
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  You know, sometimes we kind of harp on Peter and we forget that Mark says, and everybody else said the same thing too.
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  to the standard.
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  Yeah, so 1 Corinthians chapter 10 you said 10 verse 12.
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  First Corinthians 10.
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  when Paul is writing about the example of Old Testament Israel, he will say, verse 11, now all these things happen to them as examples as they were written for our admonition upon
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  whom the ends of the ages have come.
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  Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
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  And then he reminds them.
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  No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man.
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  But God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.
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  But with the temptation will also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it.
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  So question.
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  Since you brought up that passage.
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  Is it true or is it false?
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  Is it true that no temptation will be presented to us by God that we're not able to overcome and to bear?
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  And if so, how is it that God could prophesy that they were going to stumble?
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  And they all did as if they didn't have any choice.
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  Alright, you see, there would be no stumbling involved if God was the only player, if God was the only one involved in the decision, but they all had agency.
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  They were all going to make the choices.
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  They were all insistent that they weren't gonna make that choice, and Jesus was insistent they were.
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  The difference is, He knew what was going to happen, and they did.
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  God didn't cause them to stumble.
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  God just told them in advance they were going to.
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  just like the mother did not tell the child that they were going to put their hand on the stove.
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  She told the child not to put their hand on the stove.
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  knowing what would happen.
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  Eventually, the child doesn't listen.
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  and the child puts a hand on the stove and guess what?
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  It hurts.
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  And invariably the mother says, I told you not to put your hand on the stove.
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  Now they may not do that immediately during all the pain and the crying, but eventually they're going to say, now are we going listen next time?
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  the disciples were not caused to stumble simply because God prophesied hundreds of years in advance that they would.
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  Any more than Judas was caused to betray his Lord or the uh Pharisees and the scribes and the elders were caused to take Jesus and bring him to Pilate or the Pilate was caused to
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  do all these things.
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  God didn't cause it to happen.
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  They chose.
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  for it to happen.
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  But God determined in advance that it was going.
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  You say, Aaron, how can God determine in advance it's going to happen and them still have a choice?
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  There you go.
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  God repeatedly in the Old Testament, in Isaiah, all through the book, will point out to Israel, I'm the one who tells you the end from the beginning.
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  I'm going to tell you how it's gonna turn out before it ever starts.
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  So you would do well to obey me.
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  You would do well to listen to me.
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  Because I'm going to tell you how it's going to end up.
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  Whether you do or whether you don't.
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  Moses is going to stand before Israel and he's going to stand there at Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim and he's going to give them the blessings and the cursings and he's going
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  tell you, if you obey God, these are the things that are going to happen.
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  If you keep the covenant, these are the things that are going to happen.
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  If you do not obey God and if you do not keep the covenant, these are the things that are going to happen.
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  Moses didn't cause the things to happen.
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  Israel chose for the things to happen when they determined not to obey God.
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  And yet God knew long before...
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  that very first sin ever occurred.
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  that Christ was going to have to come and he was going to have to die.
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  and he knew it to such a degree that he could give Adam and Eve on that same day a prophecy about how it was going to turn out.
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  and every single intervening time.
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  for the next 4,000 years.
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  Event occurred, event occurred, event occurred, event occurred exactly the way God said it would.
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  because he's the one who knows the end from beginning.
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  Eddie.
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  Also makes that clear in his book and the first chapter because he says God does not tempt mankind God cannot tempt us now there are trials that get put in our path to strengthen us
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  to Try our faith, but trials are not the same as a sin temptation God does not put sin in front of us and cause us to stumble absolutely so
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  Jesus is going to tell His disciples.
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  you're going to stumble.
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  I think there's one last lesson that I want us to focus on from this, and it's this.
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  Sometimes we imagine that we can be perfect.
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  Sometimes we play a little game with ourselves and you know what?
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  If I'm a Christian long enough, I'll finally reach perfection and I'll never fail.
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  And I'll never stumble and I'll never have any more weaknesses.
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  And I'll be good enough to go to heaven.
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  John the Elder, who was advanced in age, who was writing to church, said, you're wrong.
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  He says if any man says he does not sin, he is a liar and the truth is not in it.
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  At no point should we use our weakness to justify our choices.
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  Jesus wasn't going to give them an easy out simply because they were going to do this in a moment of weakness.
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  They were.
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  As a matter of fact, they're at a point of physical exhaustion.
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  They're at a point of having gone through a series of long extended hours, so much so they can't even stay awake.
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  And then someone of their own number is going to come with a group of people to take their...
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  teacher, their Lord, their master away, and they're going to be ready to defend him.
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  And Jesus is going to keep them from doing so.
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  all of these things are going to occur.
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  Jesus doesn't give them a pass just because they're weak.
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  Jesus is going to admonish them.
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  Jesus is going to tell them to stay diligent and sober that the flesh is weak and the spirit needs to be strong.
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  but he also understands.
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  And that's the challenge for us, is to remember that our weaknesses never get to be an excuse for why we sin.
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  But at the same time, we have a High Priest who is touched with the feelings of our infirmities being in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
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  Hebrews chapter 4.
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  that he is able as one who suffered, who had to obey God and had to obey through suffering, he is able to succor those who are tempted.
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  He is able to help them as if they are helpless.
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  We are challenged to understand that our weakness is never an excuse, that we always have a choice.
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  and we are accountable for our actions.
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  and yet we are simultaneously given the opportunity to rejoice in grace and forgiveness.
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  What we must never do is accept our own sin.
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  normal.
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  What we must never do is say, you know what, this is just how I am.
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  Nonsense.
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  It's how we've chosen to be and we can choose otherwise.
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  because there is no temptation overtaking you that you can't resist.
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  So as Jesus looks at these disciples and he tells them, you're going to stumble.
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  He also tells them, and I'll meet you on the other side.
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  I'll proceed you into Galilee and I'll see you there." They don't understand that.
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  They don't understand what's going to happen.
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  They don't understand what they're about to go through.
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  They don't understand their own weakness, but he does.
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  and he understands us as well.
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  understands our weakness.
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  He understands our difficulties, our frailties, our areas where we're going to stumble.
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  and He already gave a sacrifice for us.
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  So we're reminded back to Zechariah that God sent the sword against His own shepherd, against His own companion.
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  and He did so for us.
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  Thank you for your attention.