Latest / INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living / Pastor Chuck Swindoll | Insight for Living – After the Ache . . . Celebrate!, Part 1
Transcript
- 0:07Speaker 1: You've been through it, the betrayal, the loss, the decision
- 0:11Speaker 1: you'd give anything to undo, and yet somehow, even years later,
- 0:15Speaker 1: the memory still stings. But what if God never intended
- 0:19Speaker 1: for you to stay in that place of pain? What
- 0:22Speaker 1: if the very thing that broke you was meant to
- 0:24Speaker 1: lead you to something worth celebrating Today? On Insight for Living,
- 0:29Speaker 1: Chuck Swindahl describes how God specializes in turning the worst
- 0:33Speaker 1: chapter of our lives into the most meaningful ones. From
- 0:37Speaker 1: his study of Esther, Chuck titled today's message after the ache, celebrate.
- 0:50Speaker 2: Most Christians seem to handle pain better than pleasure. For
- 0:54Speaker 2: some twisted and strange reason. We seem to do better
- 0:58Speaker 2: with hard days, with easy days, with tough times, rather
- 1:04Speaker 2: than times of relief and celebration and leisure. I'm sure
- 1:09Speaker 2: our critics would tell us that it is because of
- 1:11Speaker 2: our consuming guilt. We simply cannot seem to reward ourselves
- 1:16Speaker 2: for good times. Hard days and tough times we seem
- 1:22Speaker 2: to handle well. Stress and anxiety we not only experience,
- 1:27Speaker 2: we tend to excuse times of reward, times of relief.
- 1:35Speaker 2: If we're honest with ourselves, we tend to keep those
- 1:38Speaker 2: times to ourselves, because even though we may be among
- 1:41Speaker 2: the few who can handle them, many of our friends cannot.
- 1:45Speaker 2: We tend to weep with those who weep much more
- 1:49Speaker 2: easily than rejoice with those who rejoice, don't we. Most
- 1:54Speaker 2: folks I know who take a two week vacation tell
- 1:57Speaker 2: me that it takes about a week to begin to
- 2:00Speaker 2: enjoy it. Often because we're so wound up we don't relax,
- 2:04Speaker 2: And sometime it's because we have to take that long
- 2:08Speaker 2: a time to give ourselves permission to enjoy the rewards
- 2:12Speaker 2: of a long year of work well done. Deep within
- 2:18Speaker 2: our minds, there is sort of a bad news mentality.
- 2:22Speaker 2: Have you noticed that about yourself? If someone says to
- 2:25Speaker 2: you at church on a given Sunday, you know, I
- 2:27Speaker 2: want to talk to you before long about something that's
- 2:29Speaker 2: been on my mind for quite some time. Usually it's
- 2:33Speaker 2: not a thought in your mind that says, oh, I'm
- 2:36Speaker 2: sure he wants to tell me something real good. Often
- 2:39Speaker 2: you find yourself saying, why don't you just tell me
- 2:42Speaker 2: now so I don't have to worry about it for
- 2:43Speaker 2: the next period of time. Or if someone says I've
- 2:46Speaker 2: written you a letter, you'll get it in a day,
- 2:47Speaker 2: or two, you go, oh no. Rather than a letter
- 2:51Speaker 2: of affirmation, we expect confrontation. Why are we like that?
- 2:57Speaker 2: One author writes, the highest and most desire ourrable state
- 3:00Speaker 2: of the soul is to praise God in celebration for
- 3:03Speaker 2: being alive. Without perks, our lives are easily lost in
- 3:08Speaker 2: the world of money, machines, anxiety, or inertia. Our poor,
- 3:13Speaker 2: splendid souls, how they fight for food. They have forgotten
- 3:20Speaker 2: how to request the little perks. Our hurried, stressful, busy
- 3:24Speaker 2: lives are unquestionably the most dangerous enemy of celebrating life itself.
- 3:30Speaker 2: Somehow we must learn how to achieve momentary slow downs
- 3:36Speaker 2: and request from God a heightened awareness of the conception
- 3:40Speaker 2: that life is a happy thing, a festival to be enjoyed,
- 3:45Speaker 2: rather than a drudgery to be endured. Life is full
- 3:50Speaker 2: of perks if we train ourselves to perceive them. As
- 3:54Speaker 2: someone has said, one thousand tiny things from which one
- 3:58Speaker 2: can weave a necklace of little pleasures for one's life.
- 4:06Speaker 2: Say what is the last time you would weave together
- 4:09Speaker 2: a bright necklace from the little pleasures of life? Take Christmas,
- 4:16Speaker 2: for instance. Some of you say, yeah, take Christmas. That
- 4:20Speaker 2: would be a relief. I believe that if our focus
- 4:24Speaker 2: were right, and if our attitude were right, not only
- 4:26Speaker 2: would we enjoy the celebration of the day itself, we
- 4:30Speaker 2: could even joy the busy times that lead up to it.
- 4:35Speaker 2: You know, there are songs to sing, there are smells
- 4:41Speaker 2: to smell. At Christmas time, there are sounds to hear
- 4:44Speaker 2: we'll hear no other time of the year. My son
- 4:48Speaker 2: was the other day saying to me, our youngest son, said,
- 4:52Speaker 2: I don't mind the crowds. He said, these people that
- 4:54Speaker 2: get all their stuff bought in September and October, they
- 4:58Speaker 2: miss all the fun of the crowds. Thought, that is
- 5:00Speaker 2: a terrific attitude. What a great response. I heard a
- 5:04Speaker 2: terrific story the other day of a hassled shopper who
- 5:08Speaker 2: came into a busy department store and wormed her way
- 5:11Speaker 2: to the cosmetic counter. And there was a busy saleslady
- 5:15Speaker 2: gift wrapping one gift and waiting on two other ladies.
- 5:18Speaker 2: And the gal looking for something said, rather hurriedly to
- 5:23Speaker 2: the saleslady, say do you still have Elizabeth Taylor's passion?
- 5:27Speaker 2: And the saleslady said, if I did, honey, would I
- 5:30Speaker 2: be working here. How great it is to hear you laugh,
- 5:39Speaker 2: How wonderful it is that God has given us joy
- 5:44Speaker 2: rather than a life full of mourning, tears and sadness.
- 5:49Speaker 2: I thought a lot about why we're like that. Why
- 5:52Speaker 2: is it that we can even turn Christmas into a
- 5:56Speaker 2: time of dread? I think, I know. I believe our
- 6:01Speaker 2: focus is more on the past than on the future,
- 6:05Speaker 2: and being negative by nature, being bad news people. By habit,
- 6:11Speaker 2: we tend to pick out of the past the things
- 6:14Speaker 2: that make us sigh and let them bleed into the
- 6:19Speaker 2: present so that they color and stain are every day.
- 6:25Speaker 2: When I look back into the past, and when you
- 6:27Speaker 2: look back into the past, the things that make us
- 6:30Speaker 2: sigh are four in number. People, events, circumstances, and decisions.
- 6:38Speaker 2: There were people that we wronged. There were people who
- 6:41Speaker 2: wronged us. There were occasions where conversations were held and
- 6:46Speaker 2: we feel badly about what we said, or we are
- 6:50Speaker 2: hurt within when we remember and how we've recorded them
- 6:53Speaker 2: of the things that were said by those individuals. And
- 6:56Speaker 2: because of the past and the sadness connected with wrong
- 7:00Speaker 2: relationships or unhappy, unfulfilling, unproductive relationships, our present is marred
- 7:07Speaker 2: because of people of the past. It was the same
- 7:10Speaker 2: in the days of esther As. Though Jews look back,
- 7:13Speaker 2: I'm sure many of them would say, it's Hayman. I remember,
- 7:16Speaker 2: it's Haman's henchman, It's Hayman's sons, it's Hayman's followers. How
- 7:20Speaker 2: miserable they have made our lives if they chose to
- 7:23Speaker 2: do that, and they would sigh looking back into the past,
- 7:27Speaker 2: and people who have made life miserable for us, who
- 7:29Speaker 2: wouldn't sigh? Then there are events when we look back
- 7:34Speaker 2: we don't remember the times of celebration, the great birthday parties,
- 7:38Speaker 2: the fun things we attended, the joys of an evening
- 7:41Speaker 2: around a fireplace, the pleasures of family together. You know
- 7:46Speaker 2: what we remember? We remember earthquakes. Isn't it strange the
- 7:50Speaker 2: even the newspaper brings up anniversaries for earthquakes. I've never
- 7:54Speaker 2: been able to understand. Three years ago today we had
- 7:56Speaker 2: a five point six shaker. I thought, so what, who
- 8:01Speaker 2: needs to remember it was three years ago today? Forget it.
- 8:05Speaker 2: We live through it, We'll be able to go on
- 8:08Speaker 2: beyond it. But if we're not careful, the events of
- 8:11Speaker 2: our lives that are negative will stick. It would be
- 8:14Speaker 2: true in the days of Esther, and they would sigh
- 8:17Speaker 2: the day the king wrote the edict, the day Hayman
- 8:20Speaker 2: handed it out, the day the couriers came to our
- 8:23Speaker 2: province and announced the Jews will die on the thirteenth
- 8:26Speaker 2: of Adar, And don't you forget it. What a horrible event.
- 8:31Speaker 2: And if they lived in the light of that event,
- 8:33Speaker 2: their whole life would be negative, down, sad and sorrowful.
- 8:38Speaker 2: Then there are circumstances, conversations, difficult jam situations we found
- 8:43Speaker 2: ourselves in. Relational barriers could be true in Esther's day,
- 8:48Speaker 2: and it would be true in our day, and we
- 8:50Speaker 2: would sigh. Perhaps the worst of the four would be decisions.
- 8:55Speaker 2: There isn't a person listening to me right now who
- 8:57Speaker 2: hasn't made wrong decisions, who hasn't made a foolish decision,
- 9:02Speaker 2: who hasn't gone too far or not far enough, who
- 9:06Speaker 2: didn't step out on faith, or who called it faith
- 9:09Speaker 2: and it wasn't faith, it was presumption. And you look
- 9:12Speaker 2: back now through the perspective of the past number of years,
- 9:16Speaker 2: and you see it as a wrong decision, or at
- 9:20Speaker 2: least a weak one. And we're all hung up in
- 9:24Speaker 2: today because we are snagged on the people and events
- 9:28Speaker 2: and circumstances and the decisions of the past, none of
- 9:32Speaker 2: which we can change. None, but the enemy of our
- 9:38Speaker 2: souls continues to announce to us failures, wrongs, disappointments, disasters, calamities,
- 9:47Speaker 2: And we try to put our lives together in this
- 9:49Speaker 2: long tunnel called the present, we can't do it. Let
- 9:54Speaker 2: me show you something from the Book of Philippians, chapter three,
- 9:58Speaker 2: before we turn back to the ancient scroll of Esther
- 10:01Speaker 2: yet again, and let me show you fourteen words from
- 10:06Speaker 2: the New Testament that can make a difference. These are
- 10:10Speaker 2: words that I call the secret of celebrating life. How
- 10:15Speaker 2: do I do it? What does it require? This isn't
- 10:19Speaker 2: that complicated, but it will require some mental discipline. I'm
- 10:23Speaker 2: looking at Philippians three thirteen and fourteen, and there isn't
- 10:28Speaker 2: a person listening right now who couldn't do better by
- 10:33Speaker 2: applying what I'm going to read. In the middle of
- 10:36Speaker 2: verse thirteen, we read forgetting what lies behind and reaching
- 10:42Speaker 2: forward to what lies ahead. I press on there they
- 10:49Speaker 2: are most of your accounting this. Make sure they're fourteen.
- 10:53Speaker 2: When you finish that, please underline the words forgetting what
- 10:57Speaker 2: lies behind. That's only part of it, reaching forward to
- 11:04Speaker 2: what lies ahead. I press on. You know what that
- 11:11Speaker 2: kind of philosophy will do to your whole life. It
- 11:13Speaker 2: will turn you into a celebrant. You will find that
- 11:18Speaker 2: you mourn and sigh less, and you laugh at life
- 11:25Speaker 2: with God by your side. More, turn from Philippians three
- 11:31Speaker 2: back to Esther chapter three. Will you do that? By
- 11:36Speaker 2: now your Bible probably opens automatically to this old book
- 11:40Speaker 2: that had gathered so much dust over the years. By
- 11:45Speaker 2: now you remember the story of the book, how the
- 11:48Speaker 2: plot thickened, how disaster seemed to be written across every
- 11:53Speaker 2: Jewish life, how doom was spelled so clearly, so eloquent,
- 12:01Speaker 2: and how God changed the events to turn wrong into right.
- 12:06Speaker 2: I'm reading from Esther three, locate verse six, and let's
- 12:11Speaker 2: begin about the middle of the verse three six. Therefore,
- 12:17Speaker 2: Hayman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai,
- 12:23Speaker 2: who were throughout the whole kingdom of a Hazuaris in
- 12:29Speaker 2: the first month, which is the month Nissan, in the
- 12:33Speaker 2: twelfth year of King a Hazuaras now circle this next
- 12:38Speaker 2: word poor, that is, the lot was cast before Haman
- 12:45Speaker 2: from day to day, from month to month until the
- 12:48Speaker 2: twelfth month, that is the month of our sounds a
- 12:52Speaker 2: little bit of vague, a little oblique. Let me explain.
- 12:56Speaker 2: You may recall when Haman was trying to decide when
- 13:00Speaker 2: to carry out his plot to exterminate the Jews. He
- 13:04Speaker 2: relied on an ancient custom of casting lots. A lot
- 13:09Speaker 2: was called in those days poor pure, and in the
- 13:13Speaker 2: casting of the lots in some strange manner. As a
- 13:16Speaker 2: result of continuing the process, he came upon a date,
- 13:21Speaker 2: the thirteenth of a are. What interests me is not
- 13:26Speaker 2: only the date, but the name of the lot poor.
- 13:33Speaker 2: Let's take a little excursion in linguistics. Let me help
- 13:36Speaker 2: you with this. In English, we pluralize a word by
- 13:41Speaker 2: adding s or es, most often in Hebrew and its
- 13:45Speaker 2: sister language Aramaic, a singular term is turned into plural
- 13:50Speaker 2: by adding im. The English word for angel is cherub.
- 13:56Speaker 2: The Hebrew plural for cherub is not cherubs, but cherubim.
- 14:02Speaker 2: Seraph is another kind of angel, and the plural for
- 14:06Speaker 2: seraph is not Seraph's, but Seraphim. The god Baal is
- 14:13Speaker 2: sometimes proliferated through the Old Testament in multiple forms, and
- 14:17Speaker 2: that's called not bales but Balim by alim for plural,
- 14:24Speaker 2: So if we were to pluralize poor and make the
- 14:28Speaker 2: lot represent lots plural, it would be Purim Purrem. He
- 14:34Speaker 2: decided that there would be the final death knell on
- 14:39Speaker 2: the Jews on a certain day. Locate verse thirteen of
- 14:44Speaker 2: this third chapter. Letters were sent by couriers to all
- 14:49Speaker 2: the King's provinces to destroy, to kill, to annihilate all
- 14:52Speaker 2: the Jews, both young and old, women and children, in
- 14:55Speaker 2: one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month month,
- 15:00Speaker 2: the month of Ar, to seize their position as plunder.
- 15:05Speaker 2: What is interesting, and you know the story now, is it?
- 15:08Speaker 2: Between the third and the ninth chapter, the tables were turned,
- 15:13Speaker 2: Haman was captured in all of his anti semitism and murder,
- 15:18Speaker 2: and the queen's heart won the king's mind, and the
- 15:21Speaker 2: King made the decision not only to kill Hayman, but
- 15:25Speaker 2: to wipe the slate clean and to remove the dread
- 15:28Speaker 2: of the Jews from the Jews. And so this day
- 15:33Speaker 2: of the thirteenth of Adar, which is their last month
- 15:37Speaker 2: of the year, was turned from mourning in sadness to
- 15:41Speaker 2: a time of celebration. As a matter of fact, when
- 15:44Speaker 2: you turn to chapter nine. Turn please, you'll discover that
- 15:49Speaker 2: on the thirteenth of Adar, they, rather than being killed,
- 15:54Speaker 2: turned tables on their enemies and annihilated many of them.
- 15:58Speaker 2: Verse sixteen, chapter nine. The rest of the Jews who
- 16:02Speaker 2: were in the king's provinces assembled to defend their lives
- 16:06Speaker 2: and rid themselves of their enemies and kill seventy five
- 16:10Speaker 2: thousand of those who hated them. But they did not
- 16:13Speaker 2: lay their hands on the plunder this was done. Look
- 16:16Speaker 2: at this on the very day they were originally to
- 16:23Speaker 2: have died. And in honor of this remarkable switch of events,
- 16:32Speaker 2: they declared a day of celebration, which you anticipate, was
- 16:37Speaker 2: named Perim, or the Feast of Purim, as we call
- 16:42Speaker 2: it today, and to this day it is still celebrated
- 16:46Speaker 2: by the Jews. To this day, what was once going
- 16:51Speaker 2: to be their death turned and became their future, their celebration.
- 17:01Speaker 2: Vance Havner, the evangelist wrote a little book entitled It
- 17:05Speaker 2: is Toward Evening, and in it he tells the unforgettable
- 17:10Speaker 2: story of a little town in Alabama that made its
- 17:14Speaker 2: living raising cotton. One year, as the cotton was growing
- 17:19Speaker 2: and it appeared to be a bumper crop, the bull
- 17:22Speaker 2: weavil invaded, devastated the crop, and destroyed the economy of
- 17:29Speaker 2: that little town in Alabama. Farmers, however, are an ingenious lot,
- 17:35Speaker 2: and they were determined not to just simply sit back
- 17:39Speaker 2: and move into the poorhouse. One of the farmers got
- 17:42Speaker 2: the idea of planting peanuts instead. Weevils don't like peanuts.
- 17:48Speaker 2: And another decided to plant yet another produce, and others
- 17:51Speaker 2: still others, and before long, bumper crops of these began
- 17:55Speaker 2: to bring the economy back to what later came to
- 17:59Speaker 2: be known as enterprise Alabama. I think that's significant. And
- 18:05Speaker 2: do you know what they did well? They erected a
- 18:08Speaker 2: monument to the bold weevil. It's there to this day.
- 18:14Speaker 2: Vance Havner writes, all things work together for good to
- 18:18Speaker 2: the Christian, even our bul weavil experiences. Sometimes we settled
- 18:23Speaker 2: into a humdrum routine as monotonous as growing cotton year
- 18:28Speaker 2: after year. Then God sends the bold weavil he jolse
- 18:32Speaker 2: us out of our groove, and we must find new
- 18:35Speaker 2: ways to live. Financial reverse is great, bereavement, physical infirmity,
- 18:41Speaker 2: loss of position. How many have been driven by trouble
- 18:45Speaker 2: to be better husbandmen and to bring forth far finer
- 18:50Speaker 2: fruit from their souls. The best thing that ever happened
- 18:54Speaker 2: to some of us was the coming of our bul Weavil,
- 19:00Speaker 2: that we might still have been a cotton sharecropper. I'm
- 19:04Speaker 2: speaking to people today, all of whom could raise up
- 19:07Speaker 2: your own monument to the bull weavil. It invaded your life,
- 19:13Speaker 2: it took your joy, It had the audacity to come
- 19:17Speaker 2: without invitation and probably by surprise, and it devastated your
- 19:25Speaker 2: faith at the time you were cut down the size
- 19:30Speaker 2: the lot was cast. But your problem is you haven't
- 19:34Speaker 2: yet built your monument. You haven't established perim. You're feasting.
- 19:41Speaker 2: You're still living in the sigh and the pain of
- 19:45Speaker 2: all the sadness that comes over you when you remember
- 19:49Speaker 2: the brokenness. That's what this is about. This isn't a
- 19:54Speaker 2: story about some ancient feast, not just that. It is that,
- 19:58Speaker 2: but it's so much more. God has given us his word,
- 20:02Speaker 2: not to teach us dates and Hebrew words. He's given
- 20:05Speaker 2: us his word to reconstruct our lives, to build monuments
- 20:11Speaker 2: where we once wept and bled and some died, where
- 20:17Speaker 2: lives were hurt and hearts were hardened, and we were devastated.
- 20:24Speaker 2: But forgetting that which lies behind, and moving toward that
- 20:29Speaker 2: which lies ahead. This is the way to press on.
- 20:33Speaker 2: Don't just forget the pass Don't just with the passing
- 20:37Speaker 2: of your hands say oh yeah, it was awful. Build
- 20:40Speaker 2: a monument, celebrate the feast, pass along the lessons that
- 20:47Speaker 2: led to the maturity and the changes that were so
- 20:51Speaker 2: essential in your life and so different from when you
- 20:54Speaker 2: were just a cotton sharecropper. But I read verses seventeen
- 21:00Speaker 2: ten and nineteen. I read about a people who decided,
- 21:06Speaker 2: let's name this day a day for a holiday. Let's
- 21:11Speaker 2: call it Purim, which could be translated in your face Hayman,
- 21:17Speaker 2: or something like that, here's to you Hamon, here's to
- 21:24Speaker 2: our God. Look at seventeenth's wonderful. All this annihilation of
- 21:30Speaker 2: the enemies was done on the thirteenth day of the
- 21:32Speaker 2: month Are and on the fourteenth day they rested. Of course,
- 21:37Speaker 2: they made it a day of feasting and rejoicing. How appropriate.
- 21:41Speaker 2: The Jews who were in Susa assembled on the thirteenth
- 21:43Speaker 2: and the fourteenth day of the same month. They rested
- 21:46Speaker 2: on the fifteenth day. Took them a little longer to
- 21:48Speaker 2: kill their enemies, and they made it the day of
- 21:50Speaker 2: feasting and rejoicing. How appropriate, how good. Therefore, the Jews
- 21:56Speaker 2: of the rural areas who live in the rural towns
- 21:59Speaker 2: make the fourteenth day of the month at Art a
- 22:01Speaker 2: holiday for rejoicing and feasting and sending portions of food
- 22:05Speaker 2: to one another. One of the early Christmas times. They
- 22:08Speaker 2: wrap up gifts and send them to friends, especially to
- 22:11Speaker 2: the poor.
- 22:24Speaker 1: What a picture a people who should have been buried
- 22:27Speaker 1: instead through a party, and not just any party, feasting, rejoicing,
- 22:32Speaker 1: gifts to neighbors, gifts to the poor. The title of
- 22:35Speaker 1: today's message is after the ach celebrate. This is Insight
- 22:40Speaker 1: for Living. Stay with us because Chucks mndall has some
- 22:43Speaker 1: important closing thoughts for you in just a moment.
- 22:46Speaker 2: First.
- 22:46Speaker 1: Insight for Living has assembled a variety of Bible study
- 22:49Speaker 1: tools for this series on Esther. In fact, there's a
- 22:52Speaker 1: special bundle that includes the Searching the Scripture's Bible study workbook,
- 22:57Speaker 1: a full length biography of Esther written by Chuck, and
- 23:00Speaker 1: the complete collection of twelve sermons on CDs. Chuck Study
- 23:04Speaker 1: and Esther concludes on Tuesday, June ninth, So get in
- 23:07Speaker 1: touch right away by going to insight dot org. Slash
- 23:11Speaker 1: offer or give us a call at eight hundred seven
- 23:15Speaker 1: seven to two eighty eight eighty eight. Here's Chuck.
- 23:20Speaker 3: I've been reading the Bible my entire life, and I
- 23:23Speaker 3: mean that literally, from childhood until now, through seminary, through
- 23:29Speaker 3: decades of preaching, through every season life has thrown at me.
- 23:34Speaker 3: I have never once opened my Bible and walked away empty,
- 23:39Speaker 3: not once. You know why, because this book is inexhaustible.
- 23:44Speaker 3: There is always more, always deeper, always something that stops
- 23:49Speaker 3: you cold and makes you whisper. I never saw that before.
- 23:54Speaker 3: But here's another important fact. The Bible is not simply
- 23:57Speaker 3: a collection of wise writeing randomly sorted into a thick,
- 24:03Speaker 3: ancient volume that misses the whole point completely. Every book,
- 24:09Speaker 3: from Genesis to Revelation, is telling one's story, one magnificent, unfolding,
- 24:16Speaker 3: breathtaking story. And at the center of that story is
- 24:20Speaker 3: a person, Jesus Christ, his life, his death, his resurrection.
- 24:26Speaker 3: The thread of the Cross is woven through the entire
- 24:30Speaker 3: tapestry of scripture, and it all boils down to three days,
- 24:36Speaker 3: three days that changed everything, the death of Jesus on
- 24:40Speaker 3: the cross, bearing the full weight of human sin, his burial, silent, sealed, finished,
- 24:47Speaker 3: and then the third day, empty tomb, folded, grave clothes.
- 24:53Speaker 3: He is not here, he has risen. That's it. That's
- 24:57Speaker 3: the whole story. That's the Cross Proclaim, and that is
- 25:01Speaker 3: the beating heart of Insight for Living. June thirtieth is
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- 25:10Speaker 3: important story ever told keeps traveling?
- 25:14Speaker 2: The world is waiting.
- 25:16Speaker 3: Give today, Give generously, Give joyfully.
- 25:21Speaker 2: It matters more than you know.
- 25:24Speaker 1: As Christians, we are caretakers of God's story, and today
- 25:28Speaker 1: we're inviting you to join Chuckswindall and the entire team
- 25:31Speaker 1: here at Insight for Living on this sacred responsibility to
- 25:34Speaker 1: proclaim the Cross. Here's how to get in touch. Call
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- 25:47Speaker 1: To express our gratitude for your partnership, we'd like to
- 25:50Speaker 1: send you a brand new booklet that Chuck's written, called
- 25:52Speaker 1: The Cross We Proclaim. In it, Chuck returns to the
- 25:56Speaker 1: ancient words of the apostle Paul and asks a searching question,
- 26:00Speaker 1: have you truly come to grips with the message of
- 26:03Speaker 1: the Cross, not as a doctrine to affirm but as
- 26:06Speaker 1: a transforming reality to live by. The booklet is yours
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