Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "Faithful Unto Death: Build on Faith" by Levi Word

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"Faithful Unto Death: Build on Faith" by Levi Word · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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Mike's going to get your hand out. What? Mike is going to get your
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hand out. Okay.
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Am I on? Can you hear me?
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Mike's got my handouts. I think probably
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I made some typos on
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this, the handout. I've at least
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found one after I'd already turned it in. So if
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I If you find some typos, I'm sorry. I was
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cutting and pasting and going back and forth
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on that computer. I hadn't done that in years. So please
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excuse me. While it's being
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handed out, some of you may not know me.
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Brenda and I came here when
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University Heights came, group came
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here. Harry and some
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others, Bob and some others came here at the same time.
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My name is Levi Word, and I've
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been around a while, 30,
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83 years, which it was 38 years.
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And there's many of you in here probably older than me.
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While they're going ahead and finishing handing them
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out,
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when Neil asked us, a group of us, we had group
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of us meet up there in front with Neil, and Neil asked us
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to develop some lessons that
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had to do with what we
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have learned throughout our lives, we old guys have
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learned throughout our lives that
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has kept us faithful.
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Now, I don't claim to
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be having been faithful all the
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time, but I've tried.
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And immediately when Neil asked me that, I thought about
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1 Peter, the 1st
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chapter. And in there,
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Peter is warning the Christians that he's writing to,
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that they needed to not just stop when
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they were baptized. When they heard the word preached,
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they believed it, faith, and they were baptized,
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which made them Christians. Not just stop,
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they had to grow. And the reason this group especially
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had to grow was because of what was happening to
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his readers. And what was happening was that
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a group of men had
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crept in and were teaching
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things that were, as he said, heresies.
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Now it wasn't just Peter that was warning. The little
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book of— why
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do I forget things? Jude, the Lord's
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brother. That little book, which is just one chapter,
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is teaching the same thing. Apparently the church, the early
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church during the time of Peter's latter
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part of his life, The people
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had come in and teaching things that were just awful.
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I'll read you some of the things that
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they were saying.
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Well, I've got my notes mixed up.
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Oh, they were— said
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they were false teachers, evil men that had crept in teaching
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things that were against Christ.
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They were teaching things that if
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the Christians adopted it
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caused them to forget where
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they were coming from, to forget the fact that they were Christians
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and had been baptized, and they were falling away.
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And in the latter part of the book, he says that
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it's— they would have been better off
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if they had never heard the Word of God preached.
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That's an awful thing. To say.
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But truly, these people would have been better off if
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they hadn't ever heard the Word preached to
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them. He compares it to dogs
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returning to their vomit, a sow washed clean
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returning to wallow in the mire.
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And such things as
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that.
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There are— I
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had all my notes,
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I thought, straightened out.
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Another thing that's important about this is that he had— he
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knew he was going to die. The Lord had told him that he was going
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to die. And he apparently preached
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to these people before. He had written one other book to them.
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And so he said, I'm writing to you to stir up you,
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stir them up by way of reminder he was
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going to die. Do you think when we go through the scriptures
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today that they'll stir us up by
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way of reminder? Is it okay if
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we just stop, stop studying the scriptures?
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Maybe by going through these things that
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Peter gives to us, that it'll
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stir us up by way of reminder. It gives us 8
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things including faith, the very
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first thing that we have when we're
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baptized and become a
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Christian. These things are moral excellence,
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knowledge, self-control, perseverance,
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godliness, brotherly kindness, and selfless love. I learned
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everything. Pretty well I know about the scriptures
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through the old King James. So if anything I might
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accidentally quote here, it'll be in the King James.
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I think Peter says, and add to your
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faith knowledge and knowledge virtue, and add to virtue
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knowledge and knowledge temperance. He calls it,
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and we'll call it something else.
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And then he says, patience,
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godliness, and brotherly kindness.
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I want to read here something to get us started.
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And I have to hold this thing away
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from me. Grace and peace be multiplied
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to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus
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our Lord, as his divine power has given
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to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge
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of him who called us by glory and
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virtue, by which have been given to us excellent,
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great, and precious promises.
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That through these you may be partakers of
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the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that
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was in this world. That's his introduction. And then he goes
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on and says, you need to add
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these things I've already named. And we'll, at the
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end of this lesson, we'll discuss his
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conclusion. In all of it.
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So I won't get into that right now.
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Okay, let's talk a little bit about faith.
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Bill talked about the
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fact that God is faithful to us. And I'll mention
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that a little bit later on. But what does the
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writer of Hebrews, whoever he was.
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What does he say about faith in chapter 11? He says,
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faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
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of things not seen. And he goes on
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and says that
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by faith we understand the worlds were framed
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by the Word of God.
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So that the things which are seen were not made of the things
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which are visible. I think whoever
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wrote that would not have understood
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what we understand today, that that piece
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of wood there and this carpet and this stand and
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your automobiles are all made of something
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that we don't see. Little molecules
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make them up. God made that.
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The writer said that faith is
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the substance of things hoped for. The things
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that we don't understand how they're made by God
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are the very things that— it's the
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substance that makes us have
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hope. It is the evidence of
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things not seen. And I think we— that's one of the best definitions
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I can come up with about faith out
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of the Scripture itself.
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I want to read Ephesians 2:19-22.
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I have a lot of Scriptures here I didn't mention. I forgot to
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mention that there are a world of scriptures all
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through the— especially after
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Acts 2 that
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would be extenders of
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what Peter is saying here.
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Virtue. Knowledge, temperance. There's all kinds of scriptures
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that back that up and expand
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on it. And I think that helps us understand. And I've gotten
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a few, and this is one of
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them. Now therefore you are no longer strangers or
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foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of
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the household of God, having been built on the foundation
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of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself
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being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building being
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fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord,
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in whom you also are being built up together for
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a dwelling place in the faith.
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I think it was Neil used that last
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Sunday. Or close to it.
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So this is what has brought us to this,
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that where we will actually be a
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part of the Church of God.
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Christ being— picture this— a stone house
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We're the stones, but the chief cornerstone is
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Christ himself. We're built
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on Christ. What's our goal in
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faith? And this is all I'm going to say about faith until
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the very end. We should, dare we have to,
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build on the faith that caused us originally to become
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a Christian. Galatians 3:26-27.
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To grow and in order to make our election sure,
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2 Peter 1:10.
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So what do you think? Anything can
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you add to faith, our beginning as
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Christians? Again, should we just stop
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there? Not grow?
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Comments, objections, motions,
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rulings. All right, virtue.
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When I looked at that word, I thought,
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how in the world am I going to define virtue?
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I think we all know what it is.
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So I looked in a, of course, in a book,
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And virtue is a traditional Greek philosophical
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term meaning excellence
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of moral character. So we'll just call it
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moral excellence. So what is virtue?
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It's moral excellence, isn't it? Can you think
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of anything else that would describe it?
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Okay, Paul may have been thinking about—
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you remember Paul went to Athens,
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and I had the privilege of seeing Athens one time.
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Won't get into that. But Paul went to
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Athens and he spoke to the Greek
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philosophers, And you know good and well they wouldn't
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believe this character who comes in.
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He's a Jew, and he's seen one
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of their altars to the unknown God, and he speaks
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about that unknown God to them. And he
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may have had this— remembered
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the Stoic,
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Greek Stoics, their idea about moral excellence when
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he wrote in Philippians 4:8,
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whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just,
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whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is
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gracious, if there is any virtue,
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If there's anything worthy of praise, think on these things.
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Doesn't that kind of describe a virtue,
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moral excellence? What you put in— notice he
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says, think on these things. What you put in your mind makes
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you what you are. Is that true?
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What you think about, makes you
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what you are. If you've got trash
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in, garbage in up here,
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garbage is going to come out in many ways.
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One of them's right here. Jesus himself said,
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I believe, out of the abundance of the heart
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the mouth speaks. Did you ever know somebody that every other word
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was a Because I have known
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plenty and come in contact with plenty like
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that. What does that
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say about their mind? Would you say that they are
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developing virtue,
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a moral, a sense of moral excellence?
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I don't think so. What do you think
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about that? Then there's other scriptures
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in there. And one of them I think we'll get
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in a few minutes about what's in the mind makes
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a person. Go ahead, Bill. Somebody, I believe it
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was, said it's a man thing. And that can go in either direction rather quickly.
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You know, how you think about yourself is the way that
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we act. If science says we're an animal and you're going
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to think about that, that's what you're going to be. And we're not. We're created
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in God's image. So when we think about that, our minds need
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to be— have the same mind as Christ. That's right.
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Now there's many verses that emphasize the
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importance the importance of your
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mind and what you put in your mind.
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You know, if we sit around all day and look
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at pornography or we
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read things that are just awful,
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we're developing something in our mind that It's
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not good at all. And there are
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people that are hooked on these things all
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over the world.
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And we don't need to— we need to guard our reputation
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for one thing. That has to do with moral
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character. People can see you for what you are.
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Now what's our goal in this? What do you— what would you think would
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be our goal in developing
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this quality of a Christian
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virtue? What would be a goal?
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I've got one here written down. I might have written it in
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the handout. But what I wrote down
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was our goal is to develop our mind So
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that our life is defined by whatever
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is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just,
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whatever is pure, whatever— pure,
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whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
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whatever is gracious and virtuous.
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Any comments, objections, motions,
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rulings? I've always thought— I can't
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hear very good. I've always thought that Philippians 4:8
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is one of the most beautiful descriptions of God,
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his character, everything about him. And thinking
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on those things that is mentioned in Philippians
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4:8 brings me right to God. It makes
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me think about the Lord because he's described there in a way,
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to me, that makes sense.
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Yes. The psalmist in Psalm 1 said, Blessed is
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the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
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nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the
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seat of the scornful, but his delight is
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in the law of the Lord, And on his law doth he
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meditate day and night. And he goes on to describe
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how that good person who meditates on
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the way of— on the law of the Lord and
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how his end will be and how the
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end of the ungodly will be.
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Okay.
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Knowledge, I think, is the next one.
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Let's look at it.
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I've written here that the knowledge is the accumulation
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of information.
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This, I think, came from Webster's It's the act
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or state of understanding,
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clear perception of truth, or cognition.
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And I can't beat Mr. Webster on that
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definition. We know what knowledge is.
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Why did Peter think that knowledge was important
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as one of the qualities that makes a
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Christian mature?
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We've already talked about that to some degree.
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How do we know about God in the first place? Did you
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ever ask yourself about— ask that? How do we
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know about God? I knew about God because
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my mother told And grandmother taught me about it,
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about him. But after,
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you know, I got on up in my teen years,
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I didn't question that, but I thought, well, how do we know about this?
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Well, there's a couple of ways that we know, and the Bible tells
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us this.
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The psalmist in Psalm 19,
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I believe, says the
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heaven— he says that actually the
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things that God made speak to us.
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And think about that. When I was in Ethiopia,
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Back in the 1960s,
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I worked the 4 to midnight shift almost
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entirely, entire 18 months I was there.
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I got off at midnight and the other crew came in
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and it took us a few minutes to get all
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unbound by what we were doing and getting them started
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on what we were doing.
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We would go out of the building. There was
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a little parking lot out there. They would
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send out a little bitty bus
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to pick us up.
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We were 7,500 feet up on a mountain.
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It is clear, We were in a part of Africa
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called the Sahel, which is a desert area.
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And the night would be clear as
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a bell. Walk out there, look up in
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the sky, no artificial lights around,
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black as it can be. And you see the pantheon
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of stars and Milky Way and just
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millions of stars. And many times
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I thought of that about Psalm
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19 when I looked up and saw those stars.
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The psalmist says, the heavens declare the
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glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork.
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Day unto day uttereth speech, night unto night,
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showeth knowledge, and there is no speech or
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language where his voice is not heard.
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Do the pantheon of the stars
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speak to you? There are
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many very
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bright scientists mathematicians
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today that are believing that,
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astrophysicists, and they're actually
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believing that. I believe it.
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I believe it completely.
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So God's creation actually
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does speak to us. Also, the Apostle Paul
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wrote, about this in the first chapter
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of Romans.
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He said that mankind is without excuse because
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God is clearly shown
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in the things that are made. And he says
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that yet mankind as a whole in
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his day And I can say in my day too,
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our day, mankind has rejected
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God, hasn't he? Haven't we as
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a whole? He says,
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for since the creation of the world,
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his invisible attributes are clearly seen,
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being understood by the things that are made,
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even his eternal power and Godhead.
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So they are without excuse. And he goes on and he talks about
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the— they made gods,
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you know, out of wood and all this stone,
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metal, worshipped them.
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And how they made their gods out
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of the things that God had made. And they
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weren't gods. So they were without excuse.
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Now it's good to
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know that we can know God through the
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things that he's made. But how else do we know?
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The second thing, how else do we know about God?
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And without this, we would not fully
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know about God. How else do you think?
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What's this thing right
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here? Do you ever think about— I think there's 40
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different writers.
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I didn't think about this until just now. 40 or
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about 40 different writers.
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Of this whole book, 66 chapters,
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and they all fit together.
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That's absolutely amazing.
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When we were in Israel, we went
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to a place called Qumran.
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Some of you all, if anybody ever visit that
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place, Qumran? Well, I thought there was a
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bunch of people here that had been in Israel. Well,
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anyway, it's south of Jerusalem down toward
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the Dead Sea, right really close to the Dead Sea.
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And they were led by a group
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of people. Scholars think it was
29:49
the Essenes, but we really don't know. For sure.
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Well, it was a group of people that
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wrote their books,
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wrote scriptures, copied scriptures from older manuscripts,
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wrote some other books. They even had a copy of Enoch.
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Did you know that? They had a copy of Enoch there.
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And this is a group of people that lived that
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went there before the
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time, before the time of Christ,
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but also they were there during the time of Christ, I believe.
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Probably the Romans ran them off
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or killed them all. Nobody knows. They're the ones that hid
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their manuscripts in the caves.
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The scriptures that they found in these jars that
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preserved them. For instance,
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one of them is almost
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the complete manuscript of the book of Isaiah.
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And I was privileged to see that in
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the the Museum of the Book in
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Jerusalem. And I mean,
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just to see things like that makes
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you— helps you believe wonderful things.
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But what I was going to say, they had a scriptorium there
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and they copied the scriptures. And the point I'm trying to make
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The man that led us, led our group said,
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and I guess he was a scholar,
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he said that the men that worked
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in the scriptorium, you can see it, you can walk through the walls
31:54
are partially still there. They found hundreds of pens
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and inkwells. So that's what they were doing.
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And said that the men that copied
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those scriptures, when they came to the name of
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God, Adonai,
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Yahweh, other names
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of God, Elohim, when they
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came to one of those names, they would stop.
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They would go wash themselves,
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cleanse themselves, come back because they felt
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like they had been dirty, too dirty to copy the name
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of God. Then they'd copy the name of God
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and they'd go on. Now think about if you're copying down Exodus,
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think about how many places,
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how many times in the book of Exodus is the name of God
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going to be listed? And Exodus,
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the 3rd chapter, we find the first
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time the name YHWH.
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And by the way, the Jews wouldn't pronounce that.
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It was so— they
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revered it so much that they would not pronounce
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that particular name of God.
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So again, the point I'm trying to make,
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can we believe these scriptures here if
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there were men writing them out and copying
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them to that extent with that much preparation
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and devotion to what they
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were doing. Can we read these? Now we
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do know that we have found some old
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scriptures. I just mentioned one,
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the book of Isaiah. And you know,
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scholars read that book of Isaiah and
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they say that it is the book of Isaiah, It's what we've got
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here in the Old Testament. Same thing.
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There were numerous other little pieces of scriptures
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from the Old Testament. I think
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it may be all little
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pieces of scriptures from every book except Esther.
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Now, You can check me on that. I'm not sure
34:47
about that. But anyway,
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I believe we've got the scripture. I believe we've got the Word of God here
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so that we first know, first know about
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God through nature, don't we? The things are made.
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Secondly, we really know,
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truly know about God by reading this thing right
35:10
here. That's how we know it. And Paul
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goes on to say, we can fully, we can fully
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know about God and His will for
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us through the scriptures that were delivered by
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the Holy Spirit to the writers of the
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Bible. In order to grow The
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main point here, in order for us to grow in the
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knowledge of
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God and build on
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our basic faith, is to devote our life,
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isn't it, to the study of
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the Scriptures? Is that right?
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Questions. I can't hear, but— and
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I'm asking for comments, and then when you make a comment, I can't hear it.
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So you might as well not make a comment, or it'd be
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comments for other people. I can't hear.
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All right, I've got another scripture here.
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1 Corinthians 2:7, 12 through 13,
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Colossians 2: 2-3. According to Paul,
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the Christian can truly know God,
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is known by God. That's Galatians 4:9,
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excuse me. And God can only be known
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by the Spirit and Christians who have
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the Spirit. We receive the Spirit
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at baptism. And if we study and
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we have the Spirit, we can know God.
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God reveals this mystery of salvation
37:04
through Jesus Christ. I know that was something that Neil talked
37:08
about last Sunday morning in class.
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What's our goal? Of course, it's to build knowledge
37:15
and understanding of the scriptures so that we can continue
37:19
to grow. And there's a second thing,
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so that we can pass on to other people,
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at least talk to other people about Christianity,
37:34
being a Christian, at least on a personal level.
37:39
Okay, self-control. I look at
37:44
these,
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qualities. Like we're going from faith and we're climbing up steps,
37:52
going up toward maturity. I guess that's a good way
37:57
to think of it.
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Self-control is temperance, same thing. I think King James calls
38:05
it temperance. Paul says to
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Timothy, God did not give us a spirit Not a spirit of timidity,
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but a spirit of power and love and
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self-control. Self-control is one of the hardest
38:21
things, I think, thus far in
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what we've talked about, isn't it?
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It's hard to control oneself sometimes.
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Somebody yells at you.
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If we're a young kid,
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what's the— what
38:48
is in us that it makes us want to yell back, don't we?
38:53
Of course, as we grow older, we learn that's not
38:57
the best thing to do. What about somebody
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actually threatens you?
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Do you just go to pieces or fly off the handle?
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What do you do when somebody threatens you? I was— some
39:17
of you in here knows that I was a police officer in Bowling Green for
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32 years.
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Not all of that time I worked the street, but a
39:29
good portion of it was I was out on the street. And you
39:33
meet all kinds of people and you never know what's going to happen.
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And what if somebody threatens you?
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What if somebody threatens a police officer?
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I'm going to just knock your head off.
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Well, what does a police
39:54
officer— and, you know, the guy don't really do it.
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What does he do? Doesn't he have to exercise
40:04
some self-control there? Police officers— and
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they're not always this way, and I was
40:11
not always this way. Police officers
40:15
are human. But you
40:19
get into all kinds of situations where people
40:23
are just out of control. And Jase
40:27
knows that as a first responder.
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And first responders, including police officers, have to
40:34
be the ones that are— that
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keep their calm and know what to do.
40:45
What if the police responds
40:48
to a call or chasing, responds to a
40:53
call, and they just go to pieces. I don't think
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people would respect very much
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or actually do what
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the officer would have them to do.
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Okay. Yes. And say it.
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Yeah. Self-control seems to be one of those virtues that
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this world has lost with the advent of social media?
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Oh, yes. Everybody feels like, boy, I get
41:28
to attack so-and-so. I'm not face-to-face with you, so I can
41:32
make up— Yeah, I didn't think of that, but that's true. That's so
41:36
true. And if you think about I'll
41:43
say back in the 1940s or '50s in our country,
41:48
I'm sure there were bad things that happened, but did people just
41:52
go around just throwing fits and burning places
41:56
down and this sort of thing, rioting all the
42:00
time, tearing things up? No. Look what
42:04
our society has come to now.
42:08
Oh, I've got to hurry up. Self-control, as I said,
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this is one of the hard ones. Let's get to— we could talk about this
42:18
for days. Perseverance.
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Perseverance is another one of those things that's hard to do.
42:28
Peter's trying to keep these people from becoming Christians and then falling
42:32
away. Perseverance would be Steadfastness,
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that's another word used in the Bible. It requires
42:40
watchfulness, to watch for the wiles of
42:44
the devil, Ephesians 6:11. And the
42:48
Apostle Paul, I know I'm wearing out Apostle Paul, but I like
42:55
the scriptures from him.
42:59
He says that in Ephesians 6 chapter, of course,
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when you think of perseverance, you go to Ephesians 6.
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Goodness. Be strong in the Lord.
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Put on the whole armor of God.
43:17
Put on the breastplate of righteousness, feet shod
43:20
in the preparation of the gospel. We have to prepare ourselves.
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How can we fight the devil if we don't know the Scriptures?
43:30
The shield of faith, the helmet of salvation. And of
43:35
course, the sword of the Spirit, what's that?
43:38
Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. And of course,
43:43
if we read Hebrews
43:48
4:12, for the Word of God is living and powerful
43:52
and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to
43:57
the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow,
44:00
and discerners of the thoughts and
44:04
intents of the heart. Now,
44:08
I added to this,
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we must— in order to have perseverance, we must
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develop a daily prayer.
44:22
Paul again says, Praying always with all prayer and supplication
44:27
in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance
44:33
and supplication for all the saints. We must
44:37
add to this, I added,
44:40
that when inevitable things happen,
44:45
Neil called them storms of life, they're going to
44:49
happen. We gotta remember Romans 5:3-5.
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Suffering produces endurance,
44:58
that's perseverance.
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Endurance produces character and character produces hope.
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Our goal is to put on the whole armor of God,
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abhor that which is evil,
45:14
be not overcome by evil, but with evil,
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But overcome evil with good.
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Godliness— I'm running out of time.
45:28
Let me— I want to get
45:32
to the last one, which will really
45:35
cover all of these, and that's love.
45:40
Paul gives us an outline. Of love
45:45
and tells us what love is, or the characteristics, in 1
45:49
Corinthians, the 13th chapter.
45:52
Neil will be covering that later on, on Sunday morning.
45:57
What is love? It's patient and kind, does not
46:01
envy and boast, is not arrogant or rude, does not rejoice in wrongdoing,
46:06
rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believeth all things,
46:10
hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never
46:14
faileth. Romans 13:7-8.
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Our goal, of course, is to practice those things.
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Now I want to say a little bit about God's eternal love
46:27
for us. Bill talked about this. I'm not going to read these
46:31
scriptures, but if you want to write them down. God is
46:35
love, 1 John 4:7. Galatians 4:4
46:39
talks about God's eternal love for us. Of course,
46:43
1 John 4:9-10,
46:48
and of course, John 3:16,
46:52
for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
46:55
Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not
47:01
perish but have everlasting life. Now,
47:04
conclusion. The last part of what Peter
47:09
says here, here's his conclusion is, for these
47:12
qualities, and that's the New King James,
47:16
not New King James, New American Standard Version.
47:21
He calls them qualities. If these things be in you and abound, they make you
47:26
that you're neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of
47:29
the Lord. Jesus Christ. And if we don't have them, he says
47:33
we're blind, short-sighted,
47:36
having forgotten the purification that we
47:40
had. Now, what does all this mean to us today?
47:43
I see 3 things. It goes without being said that we
47:48
should guard against false doctrine. Number 2, no matter
47:52
what age you become a Christian,
47:55
at that point you should immediately begin to growing in the
47:59
faith Let me— I
48:03
got it. Let me— one other little thing,
48:12
if I can find it again.
48:22
Oh, I've got them all mixed up.
48:28
Oh, here it is. At the end of our life,
48:32
in the twilight of our life, I think all of us should
48:35
be able to say this. And now the
48:40
end is near, and so I face the final curtain.
48:44
My friend, I'll say it clear, and I'll state my case
48:49
on which I'm certain. I've lived a life that's full.
48:53
I've traveled each and every highway and more,
48:57
much more than this. I did it his
49:02
way. Yeah. Regrets, I've had a few,
49:05
but again, then again, none of them, none that I want to
49:09
mention. I did what I had to do and saw it through with
49:14
a few exemptions and more, much more than this. I did
49:18
it His way. I've loved, I've laughed, I've cried,
49:21
I've had my fill, my share of losing, and now
49:26
as tears subside, I find it so amusing
49:30
to think I did all that, and may I say,
49:34
not in a shy way. Oh no,
49:39
oh no, not me. I did it his
49:42
way. For what is a man, what has he got,
49:47
if not his Lord? Then he has not to
49:52
say the things he truly feels, and yes, the words of
49:56
one who kneels. The record shows
50:01
I took the blows and did it his
50:04
way. Thank you.