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Transcript

Bring Them Home · Wetumpka Church of Christ Online

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It's a privilege to be able to share a lesson.
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It's a privilege to have my son here from Nashville, Tennessee
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and his family's here too, but they're at home to limit the
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contact but I'm proud of my grandchildren and my
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daughter-in-law and on a different occasion under
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different circumstances. I'm going to show them off.
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So there you go. Brandon works as a minister with
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the National Church of Christ. There are all digital right now.
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Various reasons Nashville's one of those Urban centers that has
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difficulty meeting still there. Very few churches there that are
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meeting alive, aren't we? Blessed?
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Just counting has been six months since we started by God's
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grace. No, no issues and I'm cases, but
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we continue to be careful as this year continues and comes to
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an end and we're still talking about something that has a
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number 19 connected with it. Oh, good grief alive, maybe one
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day, it will be gone. I am aware of time constraints.
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It's 10:30 to so I have 28 minutes because there are very
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important Awards to be given right afterwards.
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So as usual Live Twice as much as I have time for, so you're
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going to have to finish the lace less than and make it better.
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That's all we are job. Anyway, always hopeful that
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something thoughtful will be delivered through me.
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Always of course, truth in spirit.
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I hope that my my the source of my lessons.
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From that, and thank you again for the opportunity to do this.
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So the value of 1, the value of 1 Hollywood is not very good at
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telling stories. Maybe they once were they were
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better at it, but they've gotten a really bad lately.
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Don't trust them. Don't follow him much, see,
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sporadically only even television, it's kind of rare.
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It takes me. 45 minutes to search through Netflix to find
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anything of value. I might want to see and then
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after two minutes, I bought it. See the violent or it's crass or
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the narrative is shallow, superficial.
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It's only meant to entertain our de razzle-dazzle with with
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pyrotechnics digitally. Speaking, or I can tell from the
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beginning, or you can do a lot, my wife, she goes to the ending
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and see how the ending that she does for books.
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And then she decides, she wants to read the thing and and I say
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no, you can't do that. That but that's her way.
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Mine is I give you 3 minutes. If you don't grab me or if you
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start with a certain narrative, well, then it'll eat.
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You know, there you go. Nice little button that you have
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turn the TV off. Turn the tollywood off and tell
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them. Nope.
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You missed it again. You missed me.
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I hope you miss most of the Americans as well from time to
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time. They it's something that If it's
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going to take 2 or 3 hours of my life that there might be
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meaningful not that I agree with everything in it or but that at
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least provokes thoughts. And so I'm going to dare to
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bring in my lustration here for my lesson, something from
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Hollywood and let's pray to goodness.
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It doesn't backfire on me. So there you go, Matt Damon
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2015, the Martian had a budget of 112 million dollars.
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They've already made six. Hundred twenty million back, but
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let me make sure you understand numbers.
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Don't tell the whole story watch out, just because something
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makes money is not a sign of either good or, or anything else
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for that matter. Sometimes we buy the wrong
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thing. At least, our culture.
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Does it got my attention, it. I've seen it more than once
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because it provokes some thoughts.
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And now, of course, my hope is that, as, with me, That we were
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related to the spiritual. Of course.
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This is not a promotion of a movie.
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It's using an illustration of a concept of a concept.
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So 108 million six hundred, thirty million box, office
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Ridley, Scott. He's the maker of gladiator and
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some other Titanic. No, that would be a different
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gentleman, but he generally tells stories when he goes
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historically, like, with gladiator, he tries to do his
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Homework here. This is fictional.
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It's about Science Fiction. It's about to travel to Mars and
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back and forth. But the razzle-dazzle digitally
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is very impressive. It's realistic as much as we can
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foresee, the realism of making a Journey to Mars and living there
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for a while and then coming back.
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But it's a story of a person that's lost a lost person and
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that is a narrative that truly within our culture.
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We have quite often turn to very often.
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We have, you can go back earlier than the examples.
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I've got on the screen. Like, for example, you can go
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back to the time of the Aeneid by Virgil in the first century
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before Christ. One of the great epic poems of
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ancient Romans. It's a story of here own NES
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fictional who is lost and he wanders around Mediterranean
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till he finally gets to the place where he's destined to be
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to go. Go home, so to speak.
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That's an epic poem that for twenty centuries, has resonated
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still studies in the schools. Dante Alighieri in the 14th
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century, wrote an epic poem, bubble in Lost fact, he starts
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out the poem that way. It's a hundred chapters.
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It's a journey into the Afterlife.
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It's a spiritual journey into the world of hell, and the
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fictional world. And fortunately of that Catholic
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theology called purgatory and then it ends up in heaven.
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It's a journey of a man about the age of 35, who is making a
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journey at in about the middle of his life in the worlds of the
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afterlife and gets come back and what he wants to.
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Tell all of you, all of me is, don't get stuck in rule.
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Number one. You really don't?
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We ruled world number 2, which of course, is not a new
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testament. It's a invention of the medieval
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theology. You want to make it to heaven,
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and I agree with that one. Anybody else is takers on that
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one. Oh, no, I'm lost.
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I want to go home. My home is heaven.
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So good job downtown on that part, you know, of the journey,
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there, Robinson Crusoe. By Daniel, Defoe, the, your
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1719, that's about a man who travels around in the Indian
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Ocean and gets lost, and the island in the Indian Ocean and
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maybe you've read it maybe in your early AZ, read it.
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But it's about. It's a narrative that we like we
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are sometimes. Obsessed with were passionate
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about the movie Castaway. It's now 20 years old.
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Tom Hanks. No, not the story of Gilligan.
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That's a different Island and a different, you know, comedy.
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It's about being lost and Adventures of Tom Hanks has a
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FedEx administrator and he spends, I think it's about four
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years. If I recall, you know,
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struggling to survive alone, talking to a volleyball and then
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finally making it home to find a changed World.
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By the time he's lost. We like the idea of lost to
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movie series and didn't watch it.
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But the loss on ABC Ran for about six years about a people
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again, struggling against various different situations its
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fictional on island in the Pacific.
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And and it's a group of people. They come all of them with
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secrets and issues, but on the island, it's like a start-over.
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It's a do-over because nobody knows about the past, but you,
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you then have to, you know, make your new life on this lost
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island. Then there are real ones.
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Those are fictional. That's TV.
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That's Hollywood. Then there's real ones like the
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story of Apollo 13. Maybe you've seen that movie
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with Tom Hanks, again about three astronauts lost.
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Of course, April 13th and 1970. That could be would have been
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should have been a tragedy yet. It turned to something very
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standing, Lee refreshing and encouraging because all the
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efforts of NASA and indeed the world was bruited as the
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journalist told the story of Bringing home those three, those
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three men who had wandered in space in our name and had
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families back home and didn't make it back.
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And that's a good ending. We like the good endings.
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Of course, if you haven't seen the movie Impossible.
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It's about a real story. It's in the, it's a valuable to
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you, but it's from 2012. It's about the true story of a
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Spanish. Dr. Bellin, who is in vacation
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in Thailand, and, and then that 100 foot wave Toonami hits when
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the earthquake happens there off the coast of Thailand and
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absolutely destroys 230,000. People are lost their lives and
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she barely survives badly wounded.
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This is a true story and she doesn't know where her husband
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and her three sons. Are she knows her one son is she
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thinks she has lost her family? It's a heart riveting story.
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It's true and movie tries to represent that and just recently
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in I intend to 33 Chilean mining disaster.
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It happened just ten years ago. The story of whether they're on
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a fictional planet or a real planet, but fictional story or
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they're in trying to find each other after a horrendous
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Toonami, real story, or there in the bottom of a mine, trying to
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get out and, and all the world is riveted on the story.
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Looking for the, the result of final result.
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Out of how it's all going to play out.
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The Martian is fictional, but it's about losing one man.
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It's about losing one. There were 18, but what happened
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was, there was a storm and the lab the house on on Mars is, is
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hit and they have to get off the planet.
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And as they're making their way towards the spaceship, one of
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them gets hit by piece of metal. They think he's lost that can't
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see anything and they leave thinking he's dead.
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And so They are traveling back, and it's going to take, you
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know, two years to get back to Earth.
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And in the meanwhile, we get to see the spectators get to see
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the story. Know, he survived, and he wakes
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up, and he's all alone on a planet far, far away, and the
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next Journey, planned and no, you can't do it.
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Sooners four years out. Now.
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Here's the question, how you going to survive?
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This is the caption Ford, and the throttling and rigorously
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realistic. Outer space, Survival Story,
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which Matt Damon plays a NASA. Botanist stranded on the road.
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Planet. After a sandstorm forces, his
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crewmates to abort the mission, the media, at the time, praised.
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It like crazy. I don't trust Rolling Stone, but
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here it is. The Martian is an
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unapologetically stirring celebration of our ability as a
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species to solve even the most daunting problems the
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irrational. Start step-by-step.
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Yes. Most of the movie is one man,
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trying to figure out, okay, how am I going to make it and
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disasters happen? They're all the potatoes.
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They planted burn up in a fire. He has to do surgery on himself
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or at least Stitch a wound. He has to figure out how to go
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full hundred miles across the planet to reach.
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The only thing that might Them somewhere off the space of the
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planet and close to the rescuing Mission.
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That's coming his way. It's about our intelligence or
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smarts our will to survive. What we will do.
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When we do lose heart, when we just want to take it one day at
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a time, one step at a time, will to survive.
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Of course, you can tell in the narrative, what they're
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praising. They're praising our science,
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our smarts our intelligence, our ability to survive our ability.
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To resolve problems to come up with things but it emphasizes
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rational thought you catch that rational thought step-by-step
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take one day at a time and we can do amazing things.
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True. God made us intelligent
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creative. But again, Where's God in all
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this picture? Where's God?
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And by the way, while we are throw in thrall?
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We are thrilled by stories where they're fictional, or definitely
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real of survival of rescuing 33 from a mine and rescuing three
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astronauts from space. And, and the odds were, you
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know, ten percent. Five percent two percent were
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thrilled, by those stories were captivated by him.
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We make movies out of them. We have been telling stories
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about that fictional and not all along.
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But you know, Back home in the meanwhile, there are stories in
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there and tragically they're all over the news, but they don't
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make us film it and they'll make it to, this is in a real day on
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a real Wednesday in Michigan. Police discovered the body of a
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man who likely been dead in his own four-year, deputies checked
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in the home of Gary, Richard by 69 at the request of a neighbor
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in northern Michigan. Buys does not have any known
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family. His parents are dead.
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He was retired, not married. Period.
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Wow, 7.3 billion people who are in the world.
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We are enthralled at the rescue of and that's great.
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And fine of three are 33 or one and yet on any given day.
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The lonely. The lost.
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The, we didn't even know, you know.
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They're they're, you know, or like, for example, in China
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happened the same year. This movie came out beside him,
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woman dies on Hong Kong McDonald's.
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No one notices for seven hours. They had a video camera.
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She slouches over. People come in, they eat, they
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come and they go never a word never conversation.
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The homeless woman was found dead on Saturday morning 24
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hours after she entered. The restaurant footage, shows
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her slumping after 1:00 a.m. At the table.
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No one noticed until the next morning.
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I can't think of a satyr human situation and yet I'm about to
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say What's missing in the Martian?
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Is God. What's Miss Missing in
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McDonald's is God? What's missing in the lonely and
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homeless is God. And what's missing in the
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majority of people in our world is God.
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What's the value of 1 in The Martian, the movie?
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This is what caught me. There is the important question,
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which is if I die today weather because they left me behind on a
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fictional, you know, Mars trip or in a bottom of a mine for
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real or in the effects of a tsunami in Thailand, and I was
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just on vacation. I thought it was a Only thing if
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I die today today, I don't survive.
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Am I part of a greater picture greater plan?
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Or is it just me slumping over at McDonald's and that's it.
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There's no epic poem. There's no movie.
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There's no novel going to be written about that.
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Sad, just does one matter does one matter.
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What's the value of one? You see, does the value of a man
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or woman reside in an ultimate greater?
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Cause that's what the scientist astronaut Matt?
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Damon asked. But he comes up with the wrong
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answer. He thinks science and
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exploration is the ultimate greater cause that he's involved
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in in the movie. That's true.
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But as human beings, no, It's not true.
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Whatever we do in life or profession.
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Whatever our skills are. What is the value of US?
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Each one of us every child in this Auditorium.
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Every adult in his daughter. What is everybody its own line?
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What is the your value? Is it defined by what you give
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leave behind as a legacy to the world money ideas institutions,
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people, you influenced. Is that it?
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What's the big picture? What's the value of 1?
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And that is I think the correct question.
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Why is the Martian that why do you strike a chord with me?
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Because it asked the right question and it's just something
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come up with the right answer. So I got to give it today and I
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have 12 minutes. What's the right answer to the
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right question. Does the value of a man or woman
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reside? He said it, he said, what will
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it profit a man? He was a construction worker
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from a small village of 400 people, or he was more than
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that. What did he say?
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What will it profit? A man?
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If he gains the whole world and loses his own soul.
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That's it. Are you part of a bigger
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picture? Yes.
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Yes, but it's not about preservation of the body of the
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Martian. It's not about the preservation
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of the bodies of the Chilean miners, or the bodies of that
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fist, Spanish family in the tsunami.
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It's about the souls. It's always about the soul.
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The soul is the bigger picture. The soul is the bigger picture.
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What will it profit? A man, if he gains the whole
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world and loses his own, the value?
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Of a soul is measured by its Eternal quality.
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The Latin term coined by theologians Middle Ages.
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We were made Genesis chapter 2. We were made Imago Dei.
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We were made in the image of God.
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Nothing else in the world has what we have where the top
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creative act of God. This whole world is only
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Universe was made for us. It was made to be our home.
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It was meant to be a good home. Good good.
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Good. Good, good.
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Very good when it came to you. And I Everyone made in the image
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of God. He blew a soul into you and me.
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That's the part. That won't die.
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The our body will and in these real stories and fictional the
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body may die, but not the sole. There's only two options.
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We either there is something at their eye for there is nothing
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afterlife. Nothing after Life Is A Lie.
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That's been told for all eternity since the garden by a
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certain snake. All you have this here now.
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False. The Eternal value of our soul
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who we really are as measured by Eternal quality.
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It will never die. It is the part that has it's not
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our electric impulses in our brain that give us wisdom and
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give us understanding. That's false.
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What is true? What gives us the capacity to no
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good, right? And wrong are moral.
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Our ethics, our understanding our wisdom.
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They are part of the Eternal part of us, Spirit of Second
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Timothy 3:7. We can always be learning.
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Paul says and never able to come to the knowledge of truth.
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Yes Big T truth. It exists.
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You be in the search Port, find it hold on to it and pass it on.
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It's about not just accumulating knowledge.
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It's about truth. That's what our goal should be.
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The value of a soul is measured by Satan's interest.
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In it. He's lost.
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He's chained done to put him at the center of the earth at the
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core of the earth. That was a medieval Theologian
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who was just making it up. Where is Satan?
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I don't know. He spiritual he Spirit to but he
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was a fallen angel who disobeyed God.
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And all he wants to do is take you and me down with them.
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How valuable is your soul? It's so valuable that Satan
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working overtime. So you and I will join them
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misery loves company. people that are involved in sinful
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activities, want us to join them before because they feel
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criticized if we don't, Satan is the prince of the world, this
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world. And what's my soul?
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God created a perfect world, but the End of Time.
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The second coming of Christ will see the destruction of this
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world was created for a while. To be our home in by it was
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ruined by sin. It's a fallen world.
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And we are promised by Jesus the son of God, a home in heaven.
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That's the end of the story. If you're in Christ, God never
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wanted suffering. Never wanted death, never wanted
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War. Those of the Issues connected
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with sin because we brought sin man failed the test.
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I failed the test, you failed the test.
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We would have done just like Adam.
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We don't let ourselves be talked into grabbing that fruit.
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And that is the truth. The value also is measured by
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the severity of its laws. And here's where it gets
22:13
confusing. We will put like in the movie,
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The Martian, all the efforts, the intelligence, the technology
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of China and us, and the world will put it on a big screen in
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Times Square. The, you know, Rescue of One
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man. This is fictional movies.
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But with Apollo 13, it was real. Everybody was just glued to the
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screen and it's understandable. We will, we will absolutely be
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obsessed and captivated with the saving of three astronauts, but
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one soul. Were not concerned about that.
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You're told you're telling and I'm not supposed to be just as
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upset no more. If a man a woman is in danger of
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losing their soul, every effort should be made all of that,
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which we do fictionally or real to save one or say 33.
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We should be doing for the soul of mankind.
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This is not a new lesson. It's an old one.
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It's a reminder one. The Kingdom of Heaven had 3,000
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converts in the first day and the day of Pentecost, sometimes
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Mass conversions happen, but most of the book of Acts you'll
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recall is one conversion at a time.
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One, the value of 1, it starts with one.
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Let's start with one. How valuable is it?
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The value of a soul is measured by God's concern for saving even
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one. God wants one.
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He is not one. He is not willing that any
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should perish but all should come to repentance.
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Why has the Son of God? Not return.
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The early church said, may come soon.
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I hope you and I are still praying.
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May he come son, but that said, why is God postponing?
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Why hasn't any coming? Why has the second coming
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designed by God the Father? Why hasn't come back yet?
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Because he's wanting us to bring one more.
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One more. Back home, Romans. 5:8, God
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demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were still
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sinners Christ died for us, aren't you?
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And I the Blessed ones. We know the truth.
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We are saved in Christ, and we need to bring one.
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More value was sold. As measured by the price paid
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for its Redemption. Son of God would have had to
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die, you know, this, but let me say it out loud again for one,
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if at a 7.3 billion people in this world.
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Only one in the knowledge of God God is omniscient.
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He knows history, that's going to be he would have sent his son
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for 11. Jesus would have had to die for
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one. We know that.
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First Peter knowing that you were not redeemed with
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corruptible things like silver, or gold from your aimless,
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conduct received by tradition from your father's, but with the
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precious blood of Christ as of a lamb, without blemish, and
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without spot one word In this passage by Peter is precious
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precious. It's the most expensive thing
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ever, in the history of the world mankind.
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Nothing all the money, the man put together, nothing.
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It pales in comparison to the price that God had to pay for
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your soul from my soul. And that's the same value of
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given to all other Souls. Do not fear Those Who Kill the
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body, but cannot kill the soul, rather fear Him, who cannot
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destroy both soul and body. He said this the apostles.
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He said, things are going to happen to you.
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Once you sign up for being my disciples of my Apostles.
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You are going to live out your rest of your lives.
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You're going to be persecuted and but be, please remember
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this. You may be filled thrown in
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prison. You may be executed.
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But remember what matters? Most the value of In that same
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context, you will say, listen, you care for Birds little
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sparrows that, you know, get wounded and hurt are not Two
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Sparrows, which was the lowest operating you could give at the
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temple then worth sold for a penny by the people that Soul
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offerings at the temple are not one of them.
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Not one of them will fall to the ground.
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Apart from your father. Your father knows the life of
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every creature he made on this in this universe and on the This
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planet, even the hairs of your head are numbered pair, not.
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You are more value than any other. so, Luke 15.
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There are at least 28 Parables teaching.
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Stories that we have of Jesus. It was one of his favorite
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teachings methods because it was in the culture of the time and
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he pulled from Agriculture and from home life and and, and he
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made that, which could have seen, simple complex simple.
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Here's a story. And two lines or 20 either way.
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Do you understand Luke? Compressors in what we call
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chapter 15 3. They're all about lost, the lost
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sheep, the Lost coin. The lost son.
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It's a progression. Jesus will say to the Pharisees.
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You let people go rescue. The sheep that fall in a ditch
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on the Sabbath yet. You say man can't rescue another
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human being on the Sabbath. You've got things upside down.
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You care more about sheep thing you do about human beings.
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You care about my money, you care about human beings, their
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souls, their eternity. One start one more time.
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In each of those Parables, there is the angels in heaven Rejoice,
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you know, the powers that be in heaven rejoice and in The
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Prodigal Son. There's God the Father rejoices
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one. Value of one.
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So what's the lesson about? What's our job?
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Bring them home. Bring him home.
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One at a time. Bring him home.
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If you're in Christ, you have a need.
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We're going to offer a moment of prayer and consolation and
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there's going to be a human sung and Island.
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If you are not in Christ. There's no more valuable thing
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with tumko and you. I'm more valuable thing in the
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state of Alabama than you are not saved in Christ.
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Realize your value to God and come home.
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Would you come in sweet anything?