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Episode 221 - Be Not Faithless · End-Time Revival Ministries, USA

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Bless the Lord, Oh my soul, and all that is
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  Speaker 1: within me. Bless his holy name. God is great, He
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  Speaker 1: is greatly to be praise. Worthy is the Lamb who
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  Speaker 1: was slain to receive riches and glory and honor and power,
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  Speaker 1: both now and forever. All dominion and power, all praise
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  Speaker 1: belongs to the Lord, our God, who alone is God.
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  Speaker 1: There is none other beside him.
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  Speaker 2: God. Bless you.
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  Speaker 1: We walking me once again to this another edition of
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: End Time Revival Ministries USA podcast. I am your host,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Pastor al Zachary, And again we are as always grateful, thankful, privileged,
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  Speaker 1: honor to be counted among those who are saved, delivered,
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  Speaker 1: and set free from the bondage of this world. The
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  Speaker 1: power of seeing, the power of say than the power
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  Speaker 1: of the darkness of this world. Thank God for liberty
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  Speaker 1: that is in Christ. Jesus Hee, whom the Son sets free,
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  Speaker 1: is free. Indeed, we certainly also counted a privilege and
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  Speaker 1: an honor to be entrusted with the word of the
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  Speaker 1: Living God, called to proclaim, called to disseminate, call to
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  Speaker 1: speak forth the truth of God's Word in such a
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  Speaker 1: time as this, and we count it all joy. As
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  Speaker 1: we go through and persevere, and a man look forward,
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  Speaker 1: of course with anticipation, just as Jesus did, by the way,
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  Speaker 1: for the hope of salvation that a man lies ahead
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  Speaker 1: for all of those who have their faith than trust
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  Speaker 1: and confidence in the saving grace, in the saving Gospel
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  Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ. We thank God for this great salvation,
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  Speaker 1: our right again a man. As always, we are thankful
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  Speaker 1: to the Lord for each and every one of you
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  Speaker 1: who pray for and or support the work of this ministry.
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  Speaker 1: And by the way, praying for this ministry is supporting
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  Speaker 1: this ministry. So we want to, I guess say, pray
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  Speaker 1: for and support the work of this ministry.
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  Speaker 2: Amen, it is our endeavor, as.
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  Speaker 1: We state often, to faithfully a man be ministers of
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  Speaker 1: this a man word of God, that he is entrusted
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  Speaker 1: to us. We want to be found faithful, faithful stewards.
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  Speaker 2: Amen.
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  Speaker 1: It is stewardship. It is granted unto us. Again, it
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  Speaker 1: is a privilege to be chosen by God, to be
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  Speaker 1: called by Him to have the mantle of the Gospel,
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  Speaker 1: the mantle of proclamation of the good Word, the good
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  Speaker 1: News laid upon our shoulders. And so we do it.
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  Speaker 1: Amen with joy, Amen without Amen. Charging Amen. Freely we
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  Speaker 1: have received freely, we give Amen. And we pray that
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  Speaker 1: the Kingdom of God will continue to Amen. Expand God
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  Speaker 1: as to the church daily such as should be saved.
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  Speaker 2: Amen.
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  Speaker 1: And we pray that the word of the Lord Amen,
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  Speaker 1: we'll have free course, that it will be fruitful, that
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  Speaker 1: it will multiply.
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  Speaker 2: Amen.
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  Speaker 1: And that as God has promised, that that word that
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  Speaker 1: has gone forth out of his mouth will not return
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  Speaker 1: themto him void. But if we'll accomplish what God has
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  Speaker 1: pleased for his word to accomplish.
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  Speaker 2: Amen.
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  Speaker 1: All right, we're in the Gospel of John again. We're
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  Speaker 1: examining the words of Jesus. Phenomenal, just phenomenal. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: the more I delve into this, I am just I'm
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  Speaker 1: just in awe of the words that proceeded out of
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  Speaker 1: the mouth of the Lord Jesus. And so we're going
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  Speaker 1: to look at just really three words we're going to
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  Speaker 1: focus on today, three words from the mouth of Jesus.
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  Speaker 2: Amen. Again, in the Gospel of John.
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  Speaker 1: We're in chapter number twenty in the Gospel of John,
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  Speaker 1: chapter number twenty, and the three words we want to
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  Speaker 1: focus on today is be not faith less, Be not faithless.
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  Speaker 2: Amen.
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  Speaker 1: John's Gospel of Chapter twenty. Before we begin, of course,
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  Speaker 1: as always, we take just a moment as we invoke
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  Speaker 1: the presence of the Lord Father. Again, we thank you
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  Speaker 1: for your faithfulness, your goodness, your mercy, your loving kindness, Lord,
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  Speaker 1: your great sacrifice, the atoning blood of Jesus that was
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  Speaker 1: shed for the remission of our sins, so that we
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  Speaker 1: now have life, so that we now are sons of God,
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  Speaker 1: so that we now sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
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  Speaker 2: So now we look forward to.
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  Speaker 1: Standing me for your presence, faultless with exceeding joy. Thank you,
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you for this hope of salvation. Thank you,
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  Speaker 1: Lord for the peace of God that surpasses all understanding.
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  Speaker 1: We pray now for your strength and your power and
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  Speaker 1: your anointing to be upon your people everywhere. Lord, we
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  Speaker 1: pray for eyes to be open, ears to be unstopped,
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  Speaker 1: Oh Lord, and hearts to be changed only as you
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  Speaker 1: can do by the power of your Holy Spirit. We
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  Speaker 1: thank you now in advance in Jesus' name, we pray
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  Speaker 1: your thanks. Amen and and amen. Be not faithless, Be
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  Speaker 1: not faithless. The world, the world in which we live,
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  Speaker 1: of course, is filled with skepticism, particularly when it comes
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  Speaker 1: to the message of the Gospel. And this is understandable
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  Speaker 1: because of the darkness of the heart of man and
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  Speaker 1: his exchangement from God. The very preaching of the cross,
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  Speaker 1: the Bible tells us, is foolishness to them that perish.
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  Speaker 1: But it is precisely what must be proclaimed in order
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  Speaker 1: for the skepticism that is in the heart of man
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  Speaker 1: to be overcome, in order for the unbelief to be
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  Speaker 1: driven away. Faith, the Bible tells us, comes to us
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  Speaker 1: by hearing, hearing the word of God, managed to live
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  Speaker 1: by the word, the word of the Living God in
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  Speaker 1: our fallen state of rebellion that we're in, running away
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  Speaker 1: from God.
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  Speaker 2: Amen.
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  Speaker 1: There is great skepticism on our part in our minds
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  Speaker 1: that must be overwhelmed by the power of the Word
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  Speaker 1: of God, by which again we have life, we have meaning,
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  Speaker 1: we have hope, we have guidance, we have direction, we
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  Speaker 1: have protection, we have everything we need by and.
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  Speaker 2: Through the Word of God. And so Amen. Oh, it
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  Speaker 2: is in common.
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  Speaker 1: That is why ru let me say this before we
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  Speaker 1: go to John's Gospel.
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  Speaker 2: That is why it is in.
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  Speaker 1: Any in common upon every preacher of the Gospel to
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  Speaker 1: be faithful in disseminating the word of the Living God,
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  Speaker 1: and none of us does it perfectly. Amen, But Amen,
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  Speaker 1: by the help of God, by the help of the
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  Speaker 1: Holy Ghost, may the word of the Lord. Amen, go
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  Speaker 1: forth and prosper and be fruitful. Amen, and bring forth
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  Speaker 1: Amen in abundance through all who were here and obey.
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  Speaker 1: We need the word of God in order to produce faith.
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  Speaker 1: That's how we believe. That's how we come to believe.
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  Speaker 1: And I want to focus on these three words of
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  Speaker 1: Jesus today again.
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  Speaker 2: Be not faith less.
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  Speaker 1: John's Gospel, Chapter twenty, verse twenty four. The other disciples
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  Speaker 1: have seen Jesus after his resurrection from the dead. Let
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  Speaker 1: me preface this reading with these little facts here that
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  Speaker 1: are important.
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  Speaker 2: In this narrative that we're about to read.
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  Speaker 1: The other disciples have already seen Jesus lie from the dead,
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  Speaker 1: but one of them in particular, was not present when
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  Speaker 1: Jesus appeared to them the first time, a man by
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  Speaker 1: the name of Thomas. Amen, And we pick it up
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  Speaker 1: in version of twenty four. But Thomas, one of the
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  Speaker 1: twelve called Didamus, was not with them when Jesus came.
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  Speaker 1: Referring to in the first appearance, when Jesus came and
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  Speaker 1: showed himself to his disciples after he was raised from
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  Speaker 1: the dead verse twenty five. The other disciples therefore said,
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  Speaker 1: unto him, we have seen the Lord. But he said,
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  Speaker 1: unto them.
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  Speaker 2: Except I shall see.
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  Speaker 1: In his hands the print of the nails, and put
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  Speaker 1: my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust
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  Speaker 1: my hand into his side, I will not believe. I don't.
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  Speaker 2: In other words, for Thomas just saying, I don't care what.
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  Speaker 2: I don't care what.
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  Speaker 1: All of you all are mad, every single one of
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  Speaker 1: you are out of your mind. I want empirical, visible, physical,
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  Speaker 1: with my own with my own hands, with my own senses.
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  Speaker 1: I want these things proven to me. I want to
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  Speaker 1: see in his hands the print of the nails. I
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  Speaker 1: want to put my finger into the print of the nails,
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  Speaker 1: and I want to thrust my hand into his side.
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  Speaker 1: Then and only then will I believe, So, the Bible
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  Speaker 1: tells us verse twenty six. And after eight days again
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  Speaker 1: his disciples were within, and Thomas with them.
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  Speaker 2: Then came Jesus.
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  Speaker 1: So here we are eight days after this, Jesus appears
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  Speaker 1: to them again. The Bible says, then came Jesus, the
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  Speaker 1: doors being shut, and stood in the midst and said
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  Speaker 1: peace be unto you, same thing he did. We discussed
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  Speaker 1: this in our previous podcasts about the peace. When Jesus
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  Speaker 1: speaks peace, how oh man, how settling it is for us.
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  Speaker 1: He's the prince of peace, he's the source of peace.
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  Speaker 2: Amen.
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  Speaker 1: His word, by the way, provides peace as well.
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  Speaker 2: Amen.
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  Speaker 1: So he enters the room, not through the door, amen,
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  Speaker 1: because remember he is the door. But he comes and
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  Speaker 1: appears right there in the midst of them, and speaks
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  Speaker 1: peace unto them again verse twenty seven.
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  Speaker 2: Then saith he to Thomas.
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  Speaker 1: Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, And reach
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  Speaker 1: hither thy hand and thrust it into my side, and
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  Speaker 1: be not faithless but believing, answered and said, unto him,
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  Speaker 1: my Lord and my God. Jesus said, unto him, Thomas,
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  Speaker 1: because you have seen me, you have believed.
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  Speaker 2: Blessed are though they rather that have not seen and
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  Speaker 2: yet have believed.
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  Speaker 1: There's a term that is used to describe skeptics who will,
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  Speaker 1: in essence, demand incontrovertible and irre irrefutable or irrefutable evidence
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  Speaker 1: to their supposed level of satisfaction before they will believe
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  Speaker 1: something that has been presented as being true. And we
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  Speaker 1: often refer to such a person as.
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  Speaker 2: A doubting Thomas. A doubting Thomas.
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  Speaker 1: There are many skeptics who cleave to a claim of
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  Speaker 1: insufficient evidence as it pertains to Jesus. And of course,
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  Speaker 1: while there is verifiable and compelling evidence of Jesus being
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  Speaker 1: here on earth, verifiable and compelling evidence of Jesus dying
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  Speaker 1: the death on the cross as described in the Gospels.
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  Speaker 2: By the way, there's this extra.
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  Speaker 1: Biblical references that we refer to here, and and there's
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  Speaker 1: also uh witnesses. We also have eye witnesses who were there,
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  Speaker 1: who were with Jesus, who had been with Jesus, amen
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  Speaker 1: who saw him alive after that death, after he was
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  Speaker 1: buried in that tomb. But it is never sufficient for
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  Speaker 1: the doubting Thomas, who has no intention of being persuaded,
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  Speaker 1: no matter how much evidence, no matter how many witnesses Thomas.
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  Speaker 2: Had had at least eleven.
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  Speaker 1: Eleven apostles who all said that they saw him, wasn't enough.
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  Speaker 1: Thomas said, no, no, no, no, no, nope, I don't care.
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  Speaker 1: All eleven of you are delusional. All eleven of you
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  Speaker 1: are out of your mind. All eleven of you are
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  Speaker 1: just you've been drinking or something. I'm not gonna believe it.
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  Speaker 1: Thomas raised the bar of evidence for him for himself,
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  Speaker 1: if you will.
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  Speaker 2: About as high as one could reason.
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  Speaker 1: Probably raised the bar and demanding again that he would
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  Speaker 1: only be convinced. He would only be persuaded that Jesus
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  Speaker 1: was resurrected, that Jesus was alive, after he himself saw
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  Speaker 1: Jesus alive, after he himself would see in the hands
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  Speaker 1: of Jesus the print of the nails. Because he knew
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  Speaker 1: that Jesus had been thrust through hanging on the cross.
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  Speaker 1: He said, I gotta see, I gotta see the print
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  Speaker 1: of the nails. I gotta touch him, and then I
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  Speaker 1: need to thrust my hand into the place where the
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  Speaker 1: side of Jesus. You remember the crucifixion, when that soldier
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  Speaker 1: broke the legs of the others who to hasten their death,
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  Speaker 1: as it were. But when he came to Jesus, Jesus
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  Speaker 1: had already given up the ghosts. He had already said
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  Speaker 1: it is finished, yielded himself up. He said, no one
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  Speaker 1: takes my life from me. I laid down, have to
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  Speaker 1: lay it down, have power to take it up again.
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  Speaker 1: So the soldier, seeing that Jesus was already dead. The
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  Speaker 1: Bible says he took that spear and he thrust it
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  Speaker 1: through the side of Jesus, and out came blood and water.
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  Speaker 1: And Thomas knew of this, and that's why he said,
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  Speaker 1: I know that that soldier. I saw it for myself,
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  Speaker 1: thrust through the side of Jesus, that spear. So I
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  Speaker 1: want to see that wound. I want to see that
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  Speaker 1: scar tissue. I want to see where the opening is.
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  Speaker 1: I want to see I saw him hanging there by
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  Speaker 1: the spikes in his hands and his feet.
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  Speaker 2: I want to see it. So he raised the bar.
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  Speaker 1: So Jesus again appears eight days later, while of course,
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  Speaker 1: the Apostles are still grasping to comprehend the reality of
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  Speaker 1: all that Jesus had told him would come to pass.
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  Speaker 1: They wait, there're still They're still trying to wrap their
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  Speaker 1: heads around. Wait, when we've seen it, he's alive?
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  Speaker 2: What does this mean? While they are there?
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  Speaker 1: It is now the is now Thomas's turn, if you will,
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  Speaker 1: the bewildered Thomas now gets to be an eyewitness of
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  Speaker 1: the resurrected Savior, of the resurrect that Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus once again, of course, steps into their presence and
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  Speaker 1: said peace, and he appeals to the doubting Thomas to
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  Speaker 1: satisfy his ultimatums. He issued three of them a man,
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  Speaker 1: and he says to Thomas, reach hither thy finger, behold
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  Speaker 1: my hands. Reach hither of thy hand, thrust it into
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  Speaker 1: my See Thomas, touch, Thomas, feel for yourself, and now
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  Speaker 1: that you see me, Thomas, use that sense of touch
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  Speaker 1: that you have with your finger. Now that you see me, Thomas,
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  Speaker 1: used that sense of sight that I've given to you.
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  Speaker 1: And look upon my hands that you saw for yourself
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  Speaker 1: were pierced through. And then Thomas, your third demand, thrust
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  Speaker 1: your hand into the opening of my side. And Thomas
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  Speaker 1: was granted, by the way, as all of the apostles were,
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  Speaker 1: this unique opportunity, privilege to not only see the risen
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  Speaker 1: Savior with their own eyes, but also having the privilege
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  Speaker 1: to touch, to verify, to satisfy. In Thomas's case, particularly
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  Speaker 1: his own demands, if you will, his own ultimatums for
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  Speaker 1: believing that Jesus was risen from the dead. But these words,
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  Speaker 1: ladies and gemen, what I want to focus on, these
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  Speaker 1: words of Jesus spoken to Thomas in that moment are
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  Speaker 1: words that I am persuaded. We ought to give the
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  Speaker 1: more earnest heed to and be not as Thomas was
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  Speaker 1: doubting the word, the testimony, that eye witness of others.
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  Speaker 2: Jesus said to.
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  Speaker 1: Thomas in that moment, be not faithless, be not without faith,
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  Speaker 1: but believing every one of Thomas's evidence. Demands were met
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  Speaker 1: on that appearance by Jesus, and Thomas, of course rightly
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  Speaker 1: responded affirmatively, My Lord and my God. WHOA what a moment,
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  Speaker 1: What a moment, What a moment. Thomas his eyes were wide,
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  Speaker 1: opening his faith.
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  Speaker 2: Everything.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, listen, please, I mean it's easy for us
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  Speaker 1: to beat up on Thomas and use again with doubting
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  Speaker 1: Thomas that he's become famous for in assigning it totic skeptics,
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  Speaker 1: unbelievers or whatever. But we have to understand how the trust,
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  Speaker 1: the hope, the expectations of these disciples had been dashed.
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  Speaker 1: The apostles themselves, they were again. They were held up
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  Speaker 1: in this house, in this place for days and days
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  Speaker 1: and days. Even after Jesus appeared the first time, they
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  Speaker 1: still were gathered together. I don't know how often they
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  Speaker 1: may perhaps have left and went back, and that's saying
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  Speaker 1: that they were confined there for weeks on end without
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  Speaker 1: being with their families or whatever the case may be.
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  Speaker 2: But nevertheless, they were.
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  Speaker 1: Still gathering together, they were still coming together. And by
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  Speaker 1: the way, all of this in a plan, the sovereign
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  Speaker 1: work of God and the hand of God, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: keeping them because he had prayed that none of them
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  Speaker 1: would be lost, and none of them would indeed were lost.
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  Speaker 2: Amen.
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  Speaker 1: But they were in total shock, Thomas being one of them.
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  Speaker 1: They were they even though Jesus had prepared, we talked,
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  Speaker 1: talked about this already. Although Jesus spent all of this
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  Speaker 1: time preparing them for the fact that he was going
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  Speaker 1: to die, He's going to die that death, and indeed
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  Speaker 1: he would rise again from the dead, they still were
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  Speaker 1: in unbelief. It was it was hard to grasp, It
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  Speaker 1: was hard to comprehend.
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  Speaker 2: It was hard to understand.
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  Speaker 1: Even after they saw Lazarus, who had been dead for days,
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  Speaker 1: raised from the dead, when Jesus made the proclamation I
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  Speaker 1: am the Resurrection, I am the Life, they still didn't
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  Speaker 1: comprehend it. They still didn't get it because they had
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  Speaker 1: their own expectations.
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  Speaker 2: It was all about kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: Now, kingdom Now, even when Jesus got ready to ascend
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  Speaker 1: back up into heaven, Lord, will you at this time
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  Speaker 1: restore the kingdom to Israel. See their expectations, everything that
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  Speaker 1: they had been invested in and from their perspective with
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  Speaker 1: Jesus had been dashed. And so Thomas says, his hope
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  Speaker 1: had been, his trust, had been, his faith, his confidence,
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  Speaker 1: all of his expectations had been annihilated when he saw
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  Speaker 1: Jesus on that cross. But now all of his demands
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  Speaker 1: were met when Jesus appeared, and Thomas again rightly responded,
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  Speaker 1: my Lord and my God. The empirical evidence was overwhelmingly
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  Speaker 1: in that instance. In that moment, undeniable, Thomas believed what
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  Speaker 1: he witnessed, and along with the other apostles who had
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  Speaker 1: been with Jesus. Of course, they in the subsequent months
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  Speaker 1: and weeks after Jesus ascended up into in the years,
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  Speaker 1: in the decades, they persisted in their preaching of the
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  Speaker 1: gospel that Jesus was indeed resurrected from the dead. They
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  Speaker 1: never recanted, They never changed or modified in any way
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  Speaker 1: their testimony that Jesus Christ the one who was crucified
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  Speaker 1: the one who was delivered up to pilot, the one
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  Speaker 1: who was betrayed, the one who was a man sold out.
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  Speaker 1: They never ever recanted. They went to their graves. Most
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  Speaker 1: of them were martyred for the cause of Christ.
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  Speaker 2: And they insisted with their very lives.
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  Speaker 1: That this Jesus whom you crucified, he is alive, He
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  Speaker 1: is Lord, he is Christ, he is the judge of
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the quicken the dead. He is coming back, and there
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: is salvation in none other. And if you don't believe
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: that he is, then you will die in your sins.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: My Lord and my God.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: See that there there there their eyewitness account alone, all
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: of their testimonies, again at the cost of their lives,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: that alone should be sufficient to satisfy a great deal
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: of skepticism. Why would anyone, Why would so many of them?
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: And by the way, the same men who were fearful,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: the same men who were fraid for their own lives
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: after they saw Jesus resurrected all of a sudden, of course,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Because
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Jesus told them to go to Jerusalem and wait for
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the promise of the Father, You're going to be endued
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: with power from on how you need the Holy Ghost.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: If you're going to be a witness, you cannot be
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: a witness for Jesus, a preacher of the Gospel, an
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: ambassador of Christ, a child of God, unless you have
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So Jesus commanded them
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: to go tarry, wait for the promise of the Father.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Only they of Pentecosts. We refer to that as the birth,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: if you will, of the church, the start of the church.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: But from that moment forward, on that very day, and
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, Peter, you know that infamous
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: ceremony preached on the day of Pentecost. They insisted, they persisted,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: they never changed, they never recanted that Jesus to the again.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Almost all of them were martyred, and hell to it.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: That Jesus was alive.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: And according to the testimony in the written record of
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the apostle Paul, who later came on to be one who,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: of course you know this history, arrested by Jesus, if
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: you will, on the road to Damascus, asked the number
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: one enemy and persecutor of the church. The Lord radically
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: changed his disposition, and according to the testimony of the
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: apostle Paul, the written record, Jesus made an appearance to
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: more than five hundred of the brethren after he was
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: resurrected from that borrowed tune. And over the many centuries
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: since the beginning of the Church Age, with the preaching
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: of the Gospel, that we are yet by the way
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: preaching concerning the death of Jesus on that cross, concerning
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: his burial and his resurrection from the dead, ladies and gentlemen,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: since the beginning of the Church Age, there is no
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: other historical event in all of the history, by the
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: way of mankind, even even approach, that can even compare
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: in any way to the positively impactful, sustaining efficacy of
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: the Gospel.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Of Jesus Christ of this great salvation.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: What a difference in this world. The Gospel has made
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: light light God who command.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: It's like you go back to creation.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Because Paul kind of you know, refers to this in essence,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: alluded to this in essence when he says, God who
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, when
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: he said, let there be light. God has commanded the
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ to shine
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: in our hearts, to shine in this world to give hope.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: This why when Jesus came, it was peace on earth,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: good will toward men arise. Let there be light. Light
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: has come. Let me say this in closing. Healthy skepticism
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: is not threatening to God, not at all. By nature.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: In essence, we are skeptical creatures. We are skeptical. We're
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: skeptical of God. We are enemies of God by the
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: way the Bible tells us. And by being an enemy
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: of God, we don't trust him, we don't believe his word.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: We are aligning ourselves. The Bible says, by the way
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: the heart of man is desperately wicked. We align ourselves
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: with the adversary, who seeks to destroy us, who lies
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: to us, who deceives us. And so we are skeptical
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: by nature of God's overwhelming goodness. We are skeptical of
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: his love for us, his tolerance, his mercy towards all
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: of mankind. We are skeptical of the truth, living in
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: a world of lies and deception and delusion. But God, again,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: is not threatened by our skepticism. He knows our frame.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: The Bible says, He knows that we are dust. But
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: these words of Jesus are appropriate to and for every
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: doubting Thomas. Be not faithless.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Be not.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Faithless, doubting Thomas, but believing. Be not faithless now. If
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: you are right now today yet inclined to skepticism and
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: doubt about the truth of the Gospel and the reality
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: of Jesus being our only hope, the only hope of
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: salvation for man in this fallen world, I.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Implore you be not faithless but believing.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: If the Lord, by his spirit is speaking to your heart,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: if the Holy Spirit of the Living God, if Jesus
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: is standing at the door knocking.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Be not faithless but believing. Love, We pray that you will.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: You will, by your spirit, Lord, by your power, speak
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: to someone's heart today that they be not faithless. Faith
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: comes by hearing, hearing by your word. And we pray Lord,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: that somewhere someone hears the word of the Living God.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Someone will believe the report of the Lord. Someone will
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: come to know that you are the True and the
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Living God. Bless and we shall be blessed. Keep and
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: we shall be kept by your power. We pray, we
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: give thanks, Amen and amen.