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Voddie Baucham - A Sovereign God · Voddie Baucham Sermons

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Speaker 1: Well, good morning. It is good to be here. It
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Speaker 1: is good to be back at TMU. It's been a while.
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Speaker 1: For those of you who weren't here yet last time
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Speaker 1: I was here, welcome. Because that would mean like you're
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Speaker 1: a freshman and you're not. That's all right. If you
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Speaker 1: have your Bibles with you, open them to the book
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Speaker 1: of Exodus. Exodus. Exodus chapter 2. While you open there,
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Speaker 1: I just want to tell you that I bring you
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Speaker 1: greetings from the African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia. My
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Speaker 1: family and I have, we will have been in Zambia
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Speaker 1: seven years come August. We went there to help start
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Speaker 1: the African Christian University. And I have the privilege of
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Speaker 1: serving as the dean of the School of Divinity there.
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Speaker 1: And it has been a very interesting and challenging and
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Speaker 1: rewarding seven years. But we're grateful for what the Lord
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Speaker 1: is doing there and has done there and continues to
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Speaker 1: do there. Exodus chapter 2. You know, these last couple
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Speaker 1: of years have been interesting to say the least. These
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Speaker 1: last couple of years have been filled with many trials.
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Speaker 1: Not just the normal trials of life, but also we've
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Speaker 1: had these huge global trials. We went through a pandemic
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Speaker 1: and you know we were told that millions of people
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Speaker 1: were going to die and for the longest time every
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Speaker 1: time you watch the television there's a ticker right how
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Speaker 1: many cases how many deaths how many just every day
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Speaker 1: that was that was our reality and a lot of
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Speaker 1: people suffered a great deal of anxiety because of that
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Speaker 1: anxiety is not just on the rise but through the
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Speaker 1: roof and As much as COVID was real and COVID
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Speaker 1: was an issue, what a lot of people haven't been
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Speaker 1: talking about is the anxiety-related deaths because of how we
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Speaker 1: responded to COVID. A lot of people haven't been talking about,
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Speaker 1: for example, the rise in suicide in general, but especially
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Speaker 1: the rise in suicide among very young people very young
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Speaker 1: people who are just terrified and anxious and have taken
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Speaker 1: their own lives. The rise in drug abuse and drug overdoses.
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Speaker 1: People are anxious. And now as we're coming out of
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Speaker 1: the huge scare of this pandemic, there's Another war, but
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Speaker 1: not just another war, but this is a war that
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Speaker 1: is involving our arch rival, the Russians. There's fear about
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Speaker 1: whether Europe is going to be embroiled in another world
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Speaker 1: war and whether or not that's going to include us
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Speaker 1: and whether or not people will unleash nuclear weapons if
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Speaker 1: that does happen. And so again, there is this fear
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Speaker 1: that and anxiety. You may not know it, but in
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Speaker 1: many ways, Ukraine is considered the Bible Belt of Europe. Many,
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Speaker 1: many Christians there. And now, they're under attack. Huddling underground,
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Speaker 1: hoping to survive another barrage of bombing. And so there's
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Speaker 1: There's that anxiety for them. So the question that I
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Speaker 1: want to answer today is what do we do with
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Speaker 1: fear and anxiety? What do we do with fear and anxiety?
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Speaker 1: Because First of all, let me tell you what we
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Speaker 1: don't do. What we don't do is live like those
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Speaker 1: fake Christians who act like everything is always alright. If
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Speaker 1: you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch. Right?
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Speaker 1: We do not want to live like that. Having the
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Speaker 1: worst day of your life, you get up and have
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Speaker 1: to wipe tears away from your eyes and fix your
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Speaker 1: face and You go outside and you run into somebody
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Speaker 1: and they say, how you doing? And you smile and say,
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Speaker 1: blessed and highly favored. Liar. But what do we do?
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Speaker 1: How do we respond? Well, I think we have an
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Speaker 1: answer to that in Exodus chapter 2. Look beginning with me.
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Speaker 1: In verse 23. Moses is here. Moses is born. Moses
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Speaker 1: has been protected. Moses has grown up. We know Moses
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Speaker 1: is the deliverer, but now Moses is going off the scene.
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Speaker 1: And in verse 23 we read During those many days,
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Speaker 1: the king of Egypt died and the people of Israel
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Speaker 1: groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help.
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Speaker 1: Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.
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Speaker 1: And God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant
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Speaker 1: with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the
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Speaker 1: people of Israel and God knew. Now as we look
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Speaker 1: at this I want to remind you we're a long
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Speaker 1: way away from the Red Sea. Their deliverance doesn't come tomorrow.
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Speaker 1: And even when we get to the Red Sea we're
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Speaker 1: a long way away from Canaan. Amen? And even when
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Speaker 1: we get to Canaan We're a long way away from
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Speaker 1: David and the golden age of the Davidic kingdom, right?
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Speaker 1: And even when we get to David, we're a long
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Speaker 1: way away from the greater David, Jesus. And even when
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Speaker 1: we get to Jesus, we're a long way away from
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Speaker 1: the consummation of all things at the end of the age.
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Speaker 1: So keep that in mind. Because what I'm not talking
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Speaker 1: about here is dealing with our fear and our anxiety
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Speaker 1: by believing that tomorrow it's going to be gone. I'm
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Speaker 1: talking about dealing with it in spite of the fact
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Speaker 1: that tomorrow unless you go be with the Lord it
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Speaker 1: won't be gone. It'll still be here. After this crisis,
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Speaker 1: there will be another one. So what do we do? Well,
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Speaker 1: there are four words there in the second half of
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Speaker 1: this text. And when you look at this passage, if
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Speaker 1: you look at verse 23, verse 23 is a horizontal perspective.
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Speaker 1: Verse 23 is what the people are seeing. They don't
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Speaker 1: know what's going on beyond verse 23. Verse 23 is
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Speaker 1: you and me in the midst of our crisis. Verse
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Speaker 1: 23 is you and me when we're watching the ticker
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Speaker 1: and we wake up every morning wanting to see how
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Speaker 1: many cases, how many deaths, how many, right? What have
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Speaker 1: they shut down now? What are they doing now? Who
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Speaker 1: do I know that's sick? Who do I know that's, right?
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Speaker 1: Verse 20, that's verse 23. Verse 23 is, wait a minute,
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Speaker 1: Russia really did invade. Wait a minute. They're talking about
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Speaker 1: war in Europe. Wait a minute. We're part of NATO.
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Speaker 1: Wait a minute. What does that mean? So verse 23
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Speaker 1: is there in the horizontal. Look at it again. During
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Speaker 1: those many days, the king of Egypt died And the
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Speaker 1: people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried
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Speaker 1: out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came
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Speaker 1: up to God. But that's all. All they know is
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Speaker 1: we're slaves. We're being oppressed. And we're crying out for
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Speaker 1: God to save us. But they're not experiencing that salvation
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Speaker 1: right now. It is incredibly important to keep that in mind.
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Speaker 1: That's what's happening in the horizontal. However, there's something else
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Speaker 1: happening in the vertical that they are not aware of.
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Speaker 1: And it's always happening. And we're not aware of what's happening.
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Speaker 1: You know, God's providence is an amazing thing. And what's
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Speaker 1: amazing about God's providence from our perspective is that we
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Speaker 1: only see it in hindsight. Do you follow that? I
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Speaker 1: can't see God's providence looking from here to tomorrow.
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Speaker 2: No.
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Speaker 1: I see God's providence looking from here to yesterday. Because
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Speaker 1: right now, I have no idea how God is working
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Speaker 1: all things together for good. I don't know that. All
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Speaker 1: I know is what I'm experiencing, what I'm walking through,
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Speaker 1: what I'm dealing with, what I'm suffering. And then there
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Speaker 1: are those words in verse 24. Verse 24. God heard
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Speaker 1: their groanings. God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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Speaker 1: God saw the people of Israel and God knew. And
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Speaker 1: those four words are the key to us being able
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Speaker 1: to endure in the midst of our fear and anxiety. First,
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Speaker 1: God hears your groaning. Amen? And that's good news. God
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Speaker 1: hears your groaning. having been in pastoral ministry for many
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Speaker 1: decades now, the one thing that I've heard over and
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Speaker 1: over again from people in the midst of their darkest
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Speaker 1: days is, it seems like God's not listening. Ever been there?
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Speaker 1: I can tell by some of your nods. It's like, no,
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Speaker 1: not been there, brother. Am there, right? It seems like
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Speaker 1: God's not listening. Well, you need to be reminded that
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Speaker 1: God hears your groaning. The natural tendency of suffering saints
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Speaker 1: is to assume that God doesn't hear. And so we
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Speaker 1: doubt his care for us. We fear the worst. And
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Speaker 1: sometimes we take it a step further. We shake our
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Speaker 1: fists at God and we blame God. And we may
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Speaker 1: even turn away from following God because we're in the
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Speaker 1: midst of whatever it is we're going through. We're crying
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Speaker 1: out to God. We're not experiencing immediate relief. We assume
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Speaker 1: that God is not hearing us. And if God is
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Speaker 1: not going to hear me, why bother? Everyone in Israel
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Speaker 1: who thought that was wrong. In spite of what they
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Speaker 1: saw and in spite of what they felt, God heard
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Speaker 1: their groanings. Whether it felt like it or not, whether
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Speaker 1: it seemed like it or not, the Bible makes this clear.
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Speaker 1: How do we know, right? You may be asking, okay,
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Speaker 1: how do I know? I hear what you're saying, but
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Speaker 1: how do I know? Well, first of all, you know
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Speaker 1: because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen?
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Speaker 1: But secondly, there's a couple of passages of Scripture. Psalm 55, 17.
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Speaker 1: Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint
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Speaker 1: and moan and he hears my voice. Proverbs 15, 29.
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Speaker 1: The Lord is far from the wicked but he hears
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Speaker 1: the prayer of the righteous. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
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Speaker 1: What are you going to believe, your fear and anxiety
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Speaker 1: or the Word of God? Because the Word of God
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Speaker 1: says He hears. 1 John 5, 14 and 15. And
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Speaker 1: this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that
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Speaker 1: if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
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Speaker 1: And if we know that He hears us in whatever
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Speaker 1: we ask, we know that we have the request that
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Speaker 1: we have asked of Him. God hears us. And it
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Speaker 1: is a privilege indeed to be heard by God. It
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Speaker 1: is a comfort to be heard by God. It may
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Speaker 1: not seem like it in and of itself. When your
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Speaker 1: circumstances are not changing. But just holding on to that
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Speaker 1: theological reality brings hope. Through prayer, we commune with the
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Speaker 1: Most High God. We have intimate fellowship with God through prayer.
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Speaker 1: And whatever we're suffering, we know that number one, it's temporary.
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Speaker 1: And secondly, it is not worth comparing to what awaits us.
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Speaker 1: Paul says it this way in Romans 8. For I
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Speaker 1: consider that the sufferings of this present time are not
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Speaker 1: worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed
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Speaker 1: to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for
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Speaker 1: the revealing of the sons of God. Secondly, not only
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Speaker 1: do we know that God hears, but we know that
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Speaker 1: God remembers us. And what he remembers is his covenant.
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Speaker 1: Our text says he remembered his covenant with Abraham and
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Speaker 1: Isaac and Jacob. This is important to hold on to.
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Speaker 1: God didn't remember Israel because they were the good guys. Amen?
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Speaker 1: And oftentimes, that's the next thing that we go to
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Speaker 1: in the midst of our anxiety and our fear. The
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Speaker 1: first thing that we go to is, well, God... It's
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Speaker 1: not hearing me. God's not listening to me. And then
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Speaker 1: the second thing that we go to is God's not
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Speaker 1: hearing me and he's not listening to me because I
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Speaker 1: must have done something to anger him. I must not
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Speaker 1: have been good enough, right enough, perfect enough. Because we
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Speaker 1: know that that's how God operates. He watches us and
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Speaker 1: he sees like if we're being good enough and if
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Speaker 1: we're good enough and if we're right enough and we're
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Speaker 1: perfect enough, then he says, yes, here, I'll give you this. No.
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Speaker 1: Because here's the reality. There is none righteous. No, not
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Speaker 1: one righteous. You have never in your life, nor will
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Speaker 1: you ever be good enough to earn good from God.
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Speaker 1: If God ever gives you what you earn, you'll wake
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Speaker 1: up in hell. All have sinned and fall short of
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Speaker 1: the glory of God. God doesn't deliver his people because
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Speaker 1: his people deserve deliverance because no people have ever deserved deliverance.
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Speaker 1: And that's good news because what he remembers is not
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Speaker 1: my sin, but his covenant. God looks at Israel in
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Speaker 1: the midst of their suffering and he remembers the covenant
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Speaker 1: that he made with Abraham and with Isaac and with Jacob.
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Speaker 1: In spite of the fact that there was not one
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Speaker 1: person there who deserved to be delivered. And this is
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Speaker 1: an important point. in the day and age in which
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Speaker 1: we live because there are those who are trying to
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Speaker 1: argue from the standpoint of, what's called liberation theology. And
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Speaker 1: so liberation theology would argue that, no, no, no, God
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Speaker 1: is on the side of the oppressed. God is always
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Speaker 1: on the side of the oppressed. And he's always working
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Speaker 1: to deliver the oppressed because the world is made up
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Speaker 1: of oppressors and the oppressed. not sinners and the righteous,
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Speaker 1: but oppressors and the oppressed. And if you want to
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Speaker 1: find the side that God is on, you just look
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Speaker 1: at the person who's oppressed or look at the group
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Speaker 1: that's oppressed, and there's the answer to your question. Turn
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Speaker 1: in your Bibles with me to another passage of Scripture. Just,
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Speaker 1: you know, quickly, just let's look at... Jeremiah. Let's look
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Speaker 1: at Jeremiah 29. Right? And I know what you're thinking.
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Speaker 1: I say Jeremiah 29. You're like, yeah, Jeremiah 29, 11.
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Speaker 2: Nope.
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Speaker 1: Not verse 11. Not verse 11. Not verse 11. We
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Speaker 1: love that, though, don't we? I know the plans that
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Speaker 1: I have for you, plans to, you know, prosper you,
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Speaker 1: not to harm you, to give you hope in the future.
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Speaker 1: It's like, yes! No, I don't want you to look
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Speaker 1: at verse 11. I want you to look at verse 4.
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Speaker 1: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel
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Speaker 1: to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile
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Speaker 1: from Jerusalem to Babylon. How about that? God says the
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Speaker 1: boot of the oppressor is on your neck and I
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Speaker 1: put it there. So much for this woke ideology, this
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Speaker 1: liberation ideology that says that God is always on the
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Speaker 1: side of the oppressed. Nope. Sometimes God is using the
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Speaker 1: oppressor to oppress the oppressed because of sin. There is
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Speaker 1: no always. Amen, somebody? There is no always. But when
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Speaker 1: it comes to his covenant people, he remembers his covenant.
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Speaker 1: And we need to be reminded of that in the
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Speaker 1: midst of our worst days. We cry out to God
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Speaker 1: and we remind ourselves that he hears us. And that
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Speaker 1: even in our worst days, we're in communion with the
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Speaker 1: holy God of the universe, the God who created the
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Speaker 1: world and everything in it. And that he remembers his covenant.
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Speaker 1: And that if we have come to him by faith
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Speaker 1: and through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, then we
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Speaker 1: are part of his covenant people. And God remembers his covenant.
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Speaker 1: He never forgets his covenant. He never forsakes his covenant.
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Speaker 1: My timer's going up here. Just saying. Be up here
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Speaker 1: all day if y'all don't give my timer back, right? Thirdly, thirdly,
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Speaker 1: God sees his people. God sees his people. God sees
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Speaker 1: his people. If you can't give me my timer, just
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Speaker 1: remind me again when my time is over. Okay, they
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Speaker 1: put my timer back. All right, thank you. God sees
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Speaker 1: his people. Remember in our text, he heard, he remembered,
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Speaker 1: and then he saw. This one often bothers us. Because
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Speaker 1: it's almost as though when I'm going through my darkest day,
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Speaker 1: I would kind of feel a little more comforted if
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Speaker 1: I believed that maybe God didn't see what was going on.
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Speaker 1: It's strange. From a theological perspective, it's awful. But we
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Speaker 1: would almost rather believe that somehow God God got distracted
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Speaker 1: for a moment, you know? He was off doing something
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Speaker 1: like a parent, you know, with the baby on the
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Speaker 1: side of the bed, and the baby's doing this, and
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Speaker 1: another kid is over here doing that, and you do this,
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Speaker 1: and the baby rolls off the side of the bed.
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Speaker 1: Not saying that that ever happened to one of my children,
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Speaker 1: but I'm saying we have nine of them, so it
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Speaker 1: could have, right? And so we would much rather believe that,
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Speaker 1: you know, God's just distracted because certainly if God was
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Speaker 1: watching what was going on right now, he wouldn't have
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Speaker 1: allowed it. Certainly a God who loves me, and isn't
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Speaker 1: this the question of theodicy, right? If God is omnipotent,
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Speaker 1: if he's all-powerful, and if he's omniscient, he sees everything,
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Speaker 1: then why and how could God allow evil? But the
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Speaker 1: text says to Israel, in the midst of their slavery,
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Speaker 1: he hears, he remembers his covenant, and he sees. Psalm 121,
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Speaker 1: verses 1 through 8. He says this. nor the moon
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Speaker 1: by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil.
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Speaker 1: He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your
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Speaker 1: going out and your coming in from this time forth
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Speaker 1: and forevermore. He doesn't slumber. He doesn't sleep. He misses nothing.
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Speaker 1: When COVID came, None of the angels had to run
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Speaker 1: up to God and say, oh my, you. You might
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Speaker 1: want to check this out. That's not how it happened.
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Speaker 1: When COVID came, if anybody was calling anybody, God was
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Speaker 1: calling the angels and he was going, watch this. Three, two, one, COVID. COVID.
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Speaker 1: When you lost your loved one. God wasn't absent. When
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Speaker 1: you got your heart broken. God didn't miss that. Your
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Speaker 1: parents got divorced. That wasn't because God was being negligent.
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Speaker 1: A class you failed that time. I'm speaking about people
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Speaker 1: at other universities who have that experience. But why is
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Speaker 1: there comfort in this? Because remember, we're supposed to be
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Speaker 1: talking about how we're comforted. And again, like I said,
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Speaker 1: we don't think about that as comforting. We actually feel
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Speaker 1: a lot more comforted by this idea that maybe, you know,
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Speaker 1: he just missed this one. Don't do that. Don't do that.
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Speaker 1: Because the moment you start believing that this thing happened
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Speaker 1: to you because God wasn't in control or because God
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Speaker 1: wasn't present, The moment you start believing that God missed it,
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Speaker 1: you just said you can't trust God to be in
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Speaker 1: control of a broken heart. You can't trust God to
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Speaker 1: be in control of a marriage. You can't trust God
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Speaker 1: to be in control. of a pandemic. If you can't
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Speaker 1: trust God to be in control of a pandemic, how
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Speaker 1: do you trust him to get you from here to heaven?
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Speaker 1: He's either sovereign or he's not. And if he's not sovereign,
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Speaker 1: your salvation is not secure. If he is sovereign, then
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Speaker 1: that means at that worst moment, he wasn't absent. Which
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Speaker 1: brings us to the last one. God knows. By the way,
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Speaker 1: this know here is not just about having information or
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Speaker 1: access to information. The implication here is that he loves
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Speaker 1: and pities. This is intimate knowledge. What does God know? Well,
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Speaker 1: number one, God knows which circumstances will maximize his glory. Amen?
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Speaker 1: God knows which circumstances will maximize his glory.
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Speaker 2: Amen?
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Speaker 1: And in case you're wondering, that's more important than your comfort.
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Speaker 1: God knows what you really need. Far better than you
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Speaker 1: ever will. And again, this is providence, so we only
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Speaker 1: see it when we look back. And the longer we live,
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Speaker 1: the more we look back and say, I can't believe
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Speaker 1: that I was asking God for that and was upset
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Speaker 1: when I didn't get that because I didn't know that
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Speaker 1: that would have been a hindrance to this. God knows
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Speaker 1: what you can bear. You don't. You think you do.
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Speaker 1: Until you bear what you thought you couldn't bear. And
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Speaker 1: then you learn that you can bear more than you
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Speaker 1: thought you could bear. But God didn't learn that. He
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Speaker 1: showed you. And God also knows your deliverer is coming.
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Speaker 1: He knows when. And he knows how. That was what
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Speaker 1: was happening in the realm that Israel couldn't see. And
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Speaker 1: that's what's always happening with God's people. In the realm
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Speaker 1: that they can't see. It's interesting, when I think about this,
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Speaker 1: I I always think about a moment in my life
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Speaker 1: that just marked me, maybe even scarred me a little bit.
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Speaker 1: My wife and I got married the summer between my
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Speaker 1: sophomore and junior year in college. Our first child was
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Speaker 1: born 10 months later, because we were what you call efficient.
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Speaker 1: And so, you know, junior year in college, here's my daughter,
33:37
Speaker 1: and I, you know, we go and we have Jasmine
33:43
Speaker 1: there at the hospital, and after everything is done, and
33:49
Speaker 1: the next day, we're taking her home, and I just
33:52
Speaker 1: remember distinctly, I had this feeling, you know, we're packing
33:57
Speaker 1: our stuff up, and I'm just looking around, you know,
34:00
Speaker 1: and We're packing her up and we're putting her in
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Speaker 1: her little chair and I'm just looking around and in
34:05
Speaker 1: my mind I'm going, I can't believe they're about to
34:08
Speaker 1: let us leave with her. No instruction manual, no, you know.
34:19
Speaker 1: And so we leave and we go home with this
34:23
Speaker 1: precious little girl. And we get to the house and
34:28
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just, you know, It was awesome in
34:32
Speaker 1: every sense of the word. And fearful. And then we
34:43
Speaker 1: got a phone call. Well, you know, when babies are born,
34:48
Speaker 1: they do this little heel prick for blood typing. And
34:51
Speaker 1: then they do the little, you know, footprint and all
34:55
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. Well, they had forgotten to do that.
35:00
Speaker 1: So 21-year-old Vody has to put the baby in the
35:08
Speaker 1: car seat. Mama's not going back. Mama's, you know, she's recovering.
35:15
Speaker 1: Take the baby back to the hospital. Bring the baby
35:22
Speaker 1: into the hospital. Give the baby to the doctor. And
35:29
Speaker 1: watched them stick my baby. And the worst part about it,
35:42
Speaker 1: they stick her and it was that delayed cry. You
35:47
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about, right? They stick her and
35:50
Speaker 1: she goes.
35:54
Speaker 2: And she looked at me. And with no words, she said, daddy, why?
36:08
Speaker 2: And I lost it. I cried all the way back home.
36:20
Speaker 2: She only cried halfway, right? I get back to the house.
36:31
Speaker 2: My poor wife is like, what went wrong, you know?
36:34
Speaker 1: I was like, and they stuck her, and she looked
36:38
Speaker 1: at me, and she just, you know, and I just.
36:47
Speaker 1: I think about that in light of texts like this.
36:53
Speaker 1: I think about that little baby. going through something that
36:59
Speaker 1: she doesn't understand, all she understands is, that hurt. And
37:09
Speaker 1: if she could have asked, she could have said, why
37:14
Speaker 1: did you let that happen to me? Probably would have
37:19
Speaker 1: even thought that it was indicative of me not loving her.
37:24
Speaker 1: And she would have been completely and utterly wrong. And
37:36
Speaker 1: she couldn't understand. But I heard. I remembered. I saw.
37:49
Speaker 1: And I knew. Ever present, never absent. And I want
38:04
Speaker 1: you to know that in the midst of whatever that
38:11
Speaker 1: fear and anxiety is, that we serve a God who
38:16
Speaker 1: hears and who remembers and who sees and who knows.
38:24
Speaker 1: And if you ever want a picture of both how
38:29
Speaker 1: this works and why this works, look to the cross.
38:41
Speaker 1: Because this God sends his only begotten son to the
38:44
Speaker 1: cross to redeem sinners. And Christ dies on the cross.
38:53
Speaker 1: He suffers on the cross. Forsaken there on the cross.
39:01
Speaker 1: And God the Father heard and remembered his covenant and
39:08
Speaker 1: saw and knew not only from the perspective of Jesus
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Speaker 1: who is enduring the cross, but from the perspective of
39:16
Speaker 1: those of us for whom Christ is enduring the cross.
39:21
Speaker 1: And in the cross, God says to us all, no
39:25
Speaker 1: matter what it is that you're enduring, I hear, I remember,
39:31
Speaker 1: I see, and I know, and I am working out
39:34
Speaker 1: your redemption. And I am so committed to your redemption
39:38
Speaker 1: that I crushed and killed my only begotten son on
39:42
Speaker 1: the cross so that your redemption could be guaranteed. Whatever
39:52
Speaker 1: it is that you're afraid of, whatever it is that
39:56
Speaker 1: you're enduring, it ain't bigger than a dead Jesus. And
40:05
Speaker 1: if God can raise Christ from the dead because of
40:09
Speaker 1: and in order to demonstrate his commitment to the redemption
40:14
Speaker 1: of his people, then he can bring you through whatever
40:22
Speaker 1: it is that's causing you this fear and this anxiety,
40:28
Speaker 1: because God always rescues his people, sometimes from, sometimes through,
40:44
Speaker 1: but always for his glory and for our good. Let's pray.
40:55
Speaker 1: Gracious God, our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your
41:01
Speaker 1: goodness and kindness and mercy toward us. We thank you
41:06
Speaker 1: that even in the midst of our darkest days, that
41:11
Speaker 1: we can be confident that you hear us when we
41:16
Speaker 1: cry out to you, that you remember your covenant and
41:23
Speaker 1: you're faithful to it, That you see and that you know.
41:33
Speaker 1: You love and pity your people. And you always rescue.
41:47
Speaker 1: We pray this. Believe this. Hope this. Rest in this.
41:52
Speaker 1: And thank you for it. In Jesus' name. Amen.