Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 6, 2019 | Can I Help? - Decision Time!

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January 6, 2019 | Can I Help? - Decision Time! · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: I love that bumper video.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: That is so cool.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Thanks to our tech team and our communications director, Teresa, for that.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: They are terrific.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: So we're starting a new series this morning for visiting.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: We're starting a series in the book of.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: What book are we doing?
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: And I'm really pumped about it.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: And this is our theme in the book.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: God saying to us, Can I help?
0:34
SPEAKER_00: You look like you need it.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: So the most important thing this morning is that I would like you to join me in taking the Isaiah challenge.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: A year ago, hundreds of you took the Ezekiel challenge.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel, another one of the prophets, major prophets in the Old Testament, very different from Isaiah.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel, this weird book, a book that very few people had read or understood.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah, on the other hand, is, I don't know, maybe the greatest, certainly the greatest book of the Old Testament, up there with Romans.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's called the Romans of the Old Testament.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Romans generally thought of as the greatest book in the New Testament.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah, a famous book, and a long book, a little bit longer than Ezekiel, but you can get it done.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: And so I'd like you to take this challenge between now and Easter.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: If you read five chapters a week, sometimes I'll have you read four.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: There may be one or two times I have you read six.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: But we'll get to the 66 chapters before Easter by Palm Sunday.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: So I'd like you to do that.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: And if you would like to do what a lot of people did last year and make this your daily devotions, uh I um I'm gonna write five daily devotions for this week, this afternoon, and put them up on discoverTBC.com.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: It's been a busy week.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: A really busy week.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: So um so anyway, you'll find those online if you want to do daily devotions.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: And I hope you'll do this.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: It would be so good.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: I found out, I found out over the years when I did a New Testament challenge and so forth, people gain a whole lot more uh reading the Bible on their own, doing stuff on their own than they do for my sermons.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: And so this would be better, you know.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: I was telling somebody, maybe I told my wife, I said, you know, oh no, I told Sam this morning.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: I said, I would much rather they all fall asleep during my sermon and do the Isaiah challenge than anyway.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: So, but I might lose on both counts, right?
2:45
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, so I want to tell you, this is this book is so cool.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: I want to pump this book a little bit.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: This is the Mount Everest of the Old Testament, it's like the high point of the Old Testament.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: It's uh Isaiah is a prophet, a writing prophet.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: He's been compared to Shakespeare in his theology, compared to Saint Paul of the New Testament.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, in many ways, Isaiah is sort of a mini Bible, sort of a Bible in miniature, sort of a condensed Bible.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, I'm just flying through this morning's sermon.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know why that happened, but I guess my clicker's excited.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh Book of Isaiah is often called the Bible in miniature forms.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: Comprised of 66 chapters.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: How many books are there in the Bible?
3:33
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: And it's divided Isaiah's into two main sections, section chapters 1 through 39.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: How many books in the Old Testament?
3:41
SPEAKER_00: 39.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: And the second section of Isaiah, chapters 40 to 66, very different in many ways from 1 through 39.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: How many books in the New Testament?
3:50
SPEAKER_00: 27.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: And and the Old Testament and the first section of Isaiah are all about righteousness and holiness and justice of God, like the Old Testament.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: And the final 27 chapters are all about the grace and the compassion, the salvation of God, like the New Testament.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
4:08
SPEAKER_00: So you know, I'm not telling you that if you read Isaiah, you don't have to read the Bible.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, it is the Bible in miniature form.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: It's really great.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: So I really would like to challenge you to do this.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: So let's get going.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm gonna take you this morning.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna preach a message out of chapter, out of each of the five chapters each week.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: So the message I'm choosing is the first 18 verses of the book today.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Next week I'll preach from Isaiah 6 through 10.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: So let's start off.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
4:41
SPEAKER_00: Cool stuff.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah, son of Amos, saw during the reigns of King Uzziah, Jotham, ahead, and Hezekiah Judah.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: It's not boring stuff at all because there's a what, a who, and a when.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: And the what's kind of interesting to us.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: This book, as he explains it, tells us that it's a vision.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: It's not the only time in the Bible that a book tells us one of the prophets, there are a couple of the minor prophets that call themselves visions, a vision that he says that he saw, which is really interesting, letting us know that sometimes when God reveals truth to his people, to his prophets, that he presents it to them sort of like a movie, sort of like a screenplay, that it is a sort of a that we need to think of it not so much as just words on a page, but as a picture of the world that could be.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: And and imagine it that way.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the book of Isaiah is.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: How many of you saw Avatar eight years ago?
5:50
SPEAKER_00: One of the top-selling grossing movies of all time.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: I think it's about two billion bucks.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: So Avatar was this presented this other world.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: The world was called Pandora, and it had a bunch of ten-foot-tall blue people called Navi.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: And so, those of you didn't see it are thinking, why'd you guys waste your money?
6:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: But no, because but here's the deal.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: And the year following that, coming out of that movie in 2010, psychologists' counselors were absolutely inundated with thousands upon thousands upon thousands of super depressed people, some of them suicidal.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Why?
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Because that movie presented such a compelling James Cameron filmmaker did such a brilliant job presenting a world that was so compelling, so beautiful.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: It was a perfect world, basically, sinless, everybody peace-loving, harmonious, gorgeous, beautiful.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh a little loath to show you this picture because those of you didn't see the movie go, what?
6:52
SPEAKER_00: You guys thought this was a cool world?
6:54
SPEAKER_00: But yes, this world was so attractive.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: There's a uh, you know, obviously, as there always is, there was a fan forum site, uh movie Avatar.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Fans by the thousands would write in the day after the movie and say things like, Here's one.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I die, I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora, and things will be like they were in Avatar.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: And then someone else wrote, When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time last night, the world just seemed gray.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: Gray.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: The world seems meaningless now.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: I live in a dying world.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: And um, and here's the deal.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh a lot of Christians responded to that with super criticism.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: And there is something in us, sort of the cold hard cynic, that says, Oh, you stupid people.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, why do you get suckered into this kind of stuff?
7:56
SPEAKER_00: It's just a movie.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: But I'm here to tell you, I think there is a reason, a good reason why people are that way, we're that way with Avatar.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: And it has to do with this whole vision thing.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: C.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: Lewis is maybe the main theme in his writings was something called uh Zenzuks.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: It's a German word.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the first part of this word, zein means to see, like the word vision in Isaiah 1.1.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: Something you see and zoo, something you long for.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: And so his books were always about, you know, that that land uh of the far west.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
8:34
SPEAKER_00: And the this longing for, there's a, we all have a longing for a perfect world.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Where does that longing come from?
8:39
SPEAKER_00: He called it an inconsolable longing for a faraway world that is familiar, that we want to make our home that is perfect.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: And God has put that longing inside each of us.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, when somebody brilliant, even if they're non-Christian, filmmaker comes along and presents a perfect, a beautiful world full of peace, love, harmony, and so forth.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: Is it any wonder then, should we criticize people who, because of that longing that God has put inside all of us, long to be in a world like that, feel as though this world we live in is dirty and grimy and sinful and dying.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: And my view is no, no, no, we should say that's understandable.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: And I want to live in that world too.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: And God has not made us Christians to be cynics, He has not made us to be cold-eyed realists who are always saying, oh, you got to get used to that.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: That's just the way it is.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: That's the way people treat each other.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: God says, no, no, no, no.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: I want you to always be hanging on to that world I'm holding out for you, that vision I'm setting out for you in the book of Isaiah, the vision that Isaiah, son of Amos, saw.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: And there's something I want you to see in this book.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see how life could be if you would follow me, if you'd repent, if you'd come back to me, and it's reality.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh, hey, that's just in the first couple words of the book.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: This is a cool book, isn't it?
10:04
SPEAKER_00: The vision that Isaiah saw.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh, secondly, the who, who, we're talking about a prophet named Isaiah, interestingly enough, even though he's super famous, super cool, super smart, super intellectual, all of this stuff, and writes a Shakespeare type book, we know less about him than almost any other prophet.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: But we do know two things about Isaiah.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: We know number one, that he was a city guy, that he was like us.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: He was not a country, all the rest of the prophets are country prophets, they're out in the margins, they're calling out, saying behavior, you know, leaders, and so forth.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah clearly was born in Jerusalem, uh, raised in Jerusalem, married in Jerusalem, and always seems to, without being summoned, he happens to always be hanging around kings.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: And so it makes me think that maybe the Jewish tradition, hundreds of years later, the rabbis said, Amos, his dad, was the brother of King Amaziah.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: And so Isaiah was nobility, he had royal blood, and he could just walk in and talk to the kings, these four kings, Jose, Hezekiah, and so forth, because he was royalty.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: And it is clear as you read this book that Isaiah is on the inside.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: He knows what our life is like.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: And don't play games with me.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Don't pretend like, you know, you're not on the inside or city life or one of the rich and so forth.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: No matter who you are, what kind of a hut you live in, what kind of a jalopy you drive, you're far richer than anybody, including the kings in those days.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: And through TV, you are part of, you know, the world that Isaiah is always talking about.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: You know this world, Isaiah chapter 3.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: The people that Isaiah talks about are the rich and the cool and the famous and so forth in chapter 3.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
11:47
SPEAKER_00: He makes fun of the women in his day, the leading women, for being, get this, obsessed with, are you ready?
11:54
SPEAKER_00: Handbags.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: Is that up to date or what?
11:57
SPEAKER_00: And makeup and perfume and clothes and hairstyling and so forth.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: He says, you guys are obsessed about things that really don't matter.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: You women, and then two chapters later he rails on the men.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: What is he, and he's talking about men who are sound like Wall Street.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: He says, You guys are all, you guys are obsessed with money and you're obsessed with accumulating more and more property and more and more houses, more and more fields, and so forth.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: You got priorities wrong.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: This is a city guy.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: This is Isaiah.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: This is one of our type of people.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: And he's talking to us where we are.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
12:29
SPEAKER_00: And maybe he's even royalty.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: And the other thing uh you need to know about him is the more maybe the most important is what his name, Isaiah, means.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Anytime you see a name ending in A-H, I-A-H, that's the beginning of Yahweh.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: So that means the Lord or God saves Esau.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: So this, his name means the Lord saves.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: And it's a perfect name for him because his book is all about salvation and about the Savior.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: You want to know about Jesus Christ?
12:57
SPEAKER_00: Reading the Old Testament?
12:59
SPEAKER_00: If you didn't even have the New Testament, you would know from Isaiah that there's going to be a John the Baptist type guy who prepares the way for him.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: You would know from Isaiah that a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: You would know that he would grow up to have a ministry in which he would share the gospel, the good news of salvation.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: You would know from this book that the servant Messiah would get depressed because his own people would refuse to respond to him, the Jews.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: And then his father, as he prays to his father, as he goes out and prays in the morning early.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah tells us this.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: That his father said to him, Listen, I know your own people, you feel like a failure.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to expand your ministry to the entire world, including Gentiles.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: You learn all of that from Isaiah, because it's all about salvation, the Lord says.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Now, that's the who, the what, the who, and now we know the when.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: It's during the reigns of these guys, King Uzziah, Jotham.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: These guys are kings in the 8th century BC.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: 8th century B.C.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: were the dying days of the northern kingdom of Israel.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of Israel was divided in 931 B.C.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: The northern kingdom, capital of Samaria, Sea of Galilee, down here, ten tribes.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: The nation of Assyria came in 722 and wiped them out.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: We don't know where those ten tribes are anymore.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: People who tell you that, you know, and I've met them over in India and so forth.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm from the tribe of Manasseh.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: They don't have nobody has any idea.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: Those tribes are all gone, but they're going to reappear in Revelation somehow.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: God knows where they are.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: And then, but Isaiah lived in Jerusalem.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: He's a city prophet in Jerusalem, the two of the two tribes to the south.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: It was called Judea or Judah, later called Judea.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: And that's where Isaiah is in this kingdom.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: And this is during these four kings from about 790 to 690.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: But Isaiah's ministry started about 40 years through that.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: He was about 740 to 680.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: So he was a consultant to four kings during these 60 years.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: You can remember that by thinking of Billy Graham, whose career was about exactly as long as Isaiah's, 60 years, and who was a consultant to 12 sitting presidents.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: And Isaiah 4 kings.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: So just saying Billy Graham is, you know, three times as good as Isaiah.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm, I'm, I'm, no, I'm not.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, so that's the background.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: That's verse one.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Now we get into it and we find out all of a sudden that God does a weird thing.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: Normally in the Old Testament, when he's upset at us, you, me, Israel, his children, what he does is he comes to us and he says, I'm upset at you.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: In this case, God's uh he's had a belly full, and he doesn't even want to talk to his children anymore.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: And he, enough is enough, and so he calls a court to order.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: And he files a lawsuit against his own people, actually his own children of Israel.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: And he says, and he calls his witnesses heaven and earth, which would remind you immediately that what this is about is it's about a broken treaty that was signed uh 700 years before at Mount Sinai.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Because at Mount Sinai, they called, God called heavens and earth as witnesses as he signed the treaty, and Moses and Israel signed this treaty saying, We'll be your, you will be our God, and we'll be your people, and we'll obey you.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: And God said, Okay, then I promise that just as I brought you out from Egypt and across the Red Sea, I'll bring you into the promised land, and I'll take care of you, and I'll prosper you, and nothing will ever wear out, and your life is gonna be great so long as you obey me.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: And this was the treaty between God and his people and his children.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: But they keep disobeying, keep breaking the treaty, they keep wandering away from him, they keep rebelling against their father, you know, their king, and so forth.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: God's just got a belly full, and so he's taking them to court, and he's saying, you know, hey, I got an international courtroom here.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: I want to just show everybody.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Look at them over there.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: Listen, heavens, pay attention, oh earth, for I'm speaking.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: Could be past tense, could be present.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: You can't ever tell.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the problem with this.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: If this whole thing sounds weird that you and I and Israel are being accused by God, I'll tell you why it's weird.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: Because you don't hear this at all in the 21st century.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: You know who's the accused today?
17:33
SPEAKER_00: You know who's in the dock?
17:36
SPEAKER_00: God.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: You talk to somebody in your neighborhood or somebody at work, and you go, wow, C.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: S.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: Lewis was like a prophet 70 years ago because he said, you know what?
17:49
SPEAKER_00: In the ancient days, mankind always believed that he was the accused, that he was guilty, he had done things wrong, he had lied, he had stolen, he had cheated, and he wondered how could he placate a God who would be angry at him, and he felt as though, you know, that that God was his judge, but everything, said C.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: S.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: Lewis, is flipped upside down today.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: That you will hear people say, you know what?
18:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm just not sure that, you know, God is deserves the privilege of my obedience and my submission and my worship and my belief and so forth, because look what he's done in the world, because look at all the suffering in the world, because look at how my family, you know, isn't as rich as we thought we'd be.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: And so God is actually in the dock.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: And when you talk to people today, C.S.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Lewis pointed out, I think, correctly, he says, God's on defense, and everybody implies, I am so special, my worship is so cool that God had better deserve it, and so he's the accused, and I want to hear what he says.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: Now, sometimes people are really nice about it, and they say, now, I'm not gonna be really mean on God.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Now, God, you know, give me an answer.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: And and sometimes if they hear a good apologist like Robbie Zachary, they go, okay, that's a good answer.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: But you know what the main point is?
19:02
SPEAKER_00: The wrong person's in the dock.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: You go up to heaven today, you face reality one day, and you think that God has to answer your questions, you got everything upside down.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is really clear that you and I are in danger of judgment.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: That God doesn't have to prove himself, he's sovereign.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: So I just throw that in because this seems, may seem a little weird to you, that you and I are being accused.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: And here's God standing there, and he has two accusations.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: He points at his children, he says, number one, I've raised these children and I've brought them up.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: I did keep my side of the bargain, but they have rebelled against me.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: And I know that's a painful sentence for some of you because this is your life.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: You raised children, you did everything for them.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: Sacrificed financially, sacrificed time and energy.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: And for some reason, and you still don't know why, they rebelled against you, they've walked out the door, they don't come home at Christmas.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, then you know exactly how God feels because this is how God's been treated for thousands of years.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: And so that's God's accusation.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on and he says, you know, they're even, I don't understand it, but they're just even they're dumb.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: People are dumb, my people are dumb.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: The ox knows his owner.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Remember how he used to say he's dumb as an ox?
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Can't say that anymore.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: But you know, God says, No, the ox at least knows his owner, and the donkey is master's feeding trough, but Israel doesn't know.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: My people don't understand.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: I grew up on a small farm at about seven o'clock every morning, about six o'clock every evening.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Dad would yell at us, or we'd hear the milk pails, you know, making that unique sound with a handle, and as he was walking by carrying them to the barn, Steve and I'd head out behind him, and we'd head into the barn to milk the cows, just two or three usually.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Walk into the front door of the barn, walk around by the stanchions and so forth, and I'd uh roll back.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: We had a big door at the back of the barn that jutted out, you know, that uh led to the pasture, which is Vence Den, a large pasture and swamp and so forth.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: But I'd rolled the door back, and you know what I always found?
21:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I ever rolled that door back without finding the exact same thing.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: Three big wet noses right there.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Cows.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Because somehow, no matter where they were in the pasture, they had this internal clock, and about seven o'clock every morning, they would make their way to the door because they knew that's where their food was, that's where their hay was, and they were eager to get it, and they would come back there every morning, every night, about the same time.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: I never had to walk out there and yell at them.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Come on in, where are you?
21:46
SPEAKER_00: How come you're rebelling?
21:47
SPEAKER_00: Wait, where'd you go?
21:48
SPEAKER_00: No, they're always there.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: And God says, you know what?
21:51
SPEAKER_00: My people are not as dumb as an ox.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: They're dumber than an ox, they're dumber than a cow because cows know where to go.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: But my chill of my people, Israel doesn't.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: No, they don't even understand.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: Somehow they wander away from me, forgetting that happiness is where I am.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: So that's uh verses two through four, this court case, and he concludes it by saying, Oh, sinful nation.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: He looks at them across the courtroom, depraved children.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: They've abandoned the Lord.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: They have despised the Holy One of Israel.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: They've turned their backs on him.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, just P.S., you may want to circle that.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: This is the theme phrase in the book, Holy One of Israel, partly because it's the, it's you know, it's used about 35 times in the book, which is about 30 more than it's used in a whole rest of the Bible combined.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: And the picture is that you know what?
22:41
SPEAKER_00: God's not in the dock.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: We are, because he's holy and we're not.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: He's far above us and he's pure and all these other things.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: All right.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: So then he says, and you know what?
22:53
SPEAKER_00: As a result of the fact that my children have wandered away from me, they're hurting and they're in pain.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: And you go, yeah, that's the way it is.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Whenever I wander away, life is just no good anymore.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: And what he says is, why do you want more beatings?
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Why do you keep on rebelling?
23:11
SPEAKER_00: The whole head is hurt, the whole heart is sick.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: So he's comparing his people to a human body that gets beat up, that submits itself to that.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: With a little bit of embarrassment, I will concede that I am, unfortunately, an example of this.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: I went through this strange period in high school.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a time long ago, I don't think this is true anymore, not at the high schools I know around here.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: But I grew up in a time when somehow, in the uh in the country around Portland, Oregon, and at our high school, the way to prove that you were a man, you know, was to get in fights and get in fist fights.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: It just was.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: And so we would at school.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't do it, wouldn't do it during the school time because then you'd get caught, go to the principal's office, whatever.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: So, but on Friday nights I'd make my way to the football game, home football games.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: This is so stupid of me.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: So I have no idea.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, um, so I would get bored with the football game, and I'd walk around behind the stands or in the stands, and there are always these little gangs of guys walking around.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: And I was lippy then, like I am now.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: And I would just walk up to somebody and just say something stupid, stupid, and get in a fight.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: Never won.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Never did I ever win a fight.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: I lost every fight.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I'd go home on Friday night.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: They and I could I could avoid mom, dad, and all that, because I lived out in the garage with a big family, and we were, my brother and I were out in the garage.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: So I could avoid them and go there was a bleed, bloody nose and black eye, and so forth.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: And I walk in there, and my brother would go, Why do you do that to yourself?
24:59
SPEAKER_00: And I never had an answer.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: This is how stupid I was.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
25:03
SPEAKER_00: This is what God's saying.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: How come, why do you do this to yourself?
25:07
SPEAKER_00: Why do you wander away?
25:09
SPEAKER_00: Why, why do you come back and you're all beaten up?
25:12
SPEAKER_00: And why are you rebelling?
25:13
SPEAKER_00: It results in your head being hurt and your whole heart being sick, and from the sole of your foot, even your head, no spot uninjured, wounds, welts, festering, sores, not cleansed, not bandaged, not soothed with oil.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: How come?
25:26
SPEAKER_00: You're so stupid, you know.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, getting very specific, because he actually is talking with a people in a kingdom, and he says, let's be honest, your land is desolate, your cities are burned down, foreigners devour your fields right in front of you.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Daughter Zion is abandoned like a shelter.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, we find out the wayward child is a daughter.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: Is it ah, you know, you fathers know how you feel about your daughter?
25:54
SPEAKER_00: So soft.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine a daughter who rebels against you?
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what it was for, that's what it is for God.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: Daughter Zion is abandoned like a shelter in a vineyard, like a shack in a cucumber field.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, this helps us date this book because these some of these phrases in verses 7 and 8 are taken, are quotes out.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: We found them in Assyrian literature, this article published recently.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: These are what the Assyrians were saying they had done to Jerusalem.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: What they had done is they'd taken the northern kingdom, and now they'd swept down and they'd conquered all the villages around Jerusalem.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: And now Jerusalem was like this lone shelter in a vineyard.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, during harvest season, cucumber or grape harvest, uh, in order to protect their crops from animals, wild animals or thieves, you know, you'd go live in this little shelter you'd built, or this little shack right in the middle of your field.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: You'd live there, you know, for the whole for the whole month or whatever.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: Once you'd uh harvested the crop, then you'd leave the shelter, and then, but I mean, it was like just this lone ramshackle shelter in the middle of nothing.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: And no cucumbers in the field, and that's what Jerusalem was.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: And that's the way Assyria described it.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: We've shut up Hezekiah in Jerusalem like a bird in a cage, and there was nothing around him.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: And God says, that's what you've done to yourself.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: It's your fault that you're hurting in this way.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: And someone in Jerusalem pipes up, if the Lord of armies hadn't left us a few survivors, we'd be like Sodom.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: We would resemble Gomorrah.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: So then God says in verses 10 through 20, and I'll just go up through verse 18 and stop, but he says, he says, you know what?
27:30
SPEAKER_00: It's decision time.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: It's decision time.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: And you have a choice.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: You can either keep going as you're going, and then I'll put you in the ground, because that's what happens.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: You just keep rebelling like this, and that's the punishment you're gonna get.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Or else you can do a 180, you can turn, you can repent, you can come back to me.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: And it's very interesting how this is explained.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: She starts off by saying in verse 10, hear the word of the Lord, you rulers, you are like Sodom.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the instructions of our God, and then he says, you know what?
28:01
SPEAKER_00: I need to tell you something I'm sick of.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: What are all your sacrifices to me?
28:08
SPEAKER_00: What do I care about them?
28:09
SPEAKER_00: asked the Lord.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: What is he talking about here?
28:15
SPEAKER_00: What the Lord is talking about is something that has been true across all the nations of the earth for thousands of years, and that is this.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: That people around the world have always thought, when they've thought, how can I placate God?
28:29
SPEAKER_00: How can I please God?
28:30
SPEAKER_00: How can I get him on my side?
28:32
SPEAKER_00: How can I become prosperous?
28:33
SPEAKER_00: How can I make him give me help and wealth?
28:35
SPEAKER_00: How can I do this?
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Their answer, more often than not, has been ceremony, worship, special smells and bells, and I'll light candles, and I'll build this incredible grandiose temple, and I'll hire a phalanx of priests and other people, and we'll do things just right, and we'll have we'll have all these ceremonies and these liturgies and so forth.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: And in this way, somehow we'll please God and we'll kind of control him and manipulate him so that he has no choice but to give us what we want.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: And that's been the story of religion across the world for thousands and thousands of years.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: A kind of controlling of God through religious religiosity.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: And God's saying to Israel, you know what, that's what you've descended to.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I gave you these instructions about ceremonies and sacrifices, and that's what you're really focusing on.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: That's become number one priority for you.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: But can I just be honest with you?
29:33
SPEAKER_00: God says, I've had enough of burnt offerings and rams and the fat of well-fed cattle.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: I have no desire anymore for the blood of bulls, lambs, or male goats.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: When you come before me, would you stop bringing useless offerings?
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Your incense has become detestable to me.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Why detestable to him?
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Because that's become priority one to them.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: And around the world you find this to be true that some of the most religious people will go to church and they'll do everything exactly right, and they'll wear the right clothes and they'll give enough money to the right causes, and then they will leave the temple, or they will leave the cathedral, they'll leave the church, and then they will go home, and their neighbor's a lone goat, their poor neighbor's lone goat will be wandering on their property, and in a fit and a peak of anger, they'll kill that goat and drag it over onto their neighbor's property as the last goat.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: And they'll feel justified, and they won't think that God cares about that at all, because after all, I've got God in my hip pocket because this morning I went to church.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: I went to cathedral.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: I gave$1,000 to the priests or whatever.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: I lit the right number of candles.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: And they don't think that social justice really matters to God.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: I know social justice is a scary term for some of you because of the way it's misused today.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: I was in a church recently and they're talking about social justice, and it was all about animals who can't speak for themselves.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, why can't you just insert unborn babies here?
31:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, just can you talk about people?
31:03
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't talk about when he talks about social justice, he's always talking about people.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: So, people, some people focus on religious religiosity.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: And now God says something really shocking to you and I, who are quite pious.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: When you spread out your hands in prayer, I'm gonna refuse to look at you.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: And even if you offer countless prayers, I will not listen.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: What?
31:28
SPEAKER_00: Southern Baptist guy said about 10 or 20 years ago, he said, God doesn't listen to the prayers of I forget what it was, and everybody went absolutely start craving mad.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they were right, but I mean God Himself says it.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: Why won't God listen to their prayers?
31:43
SPEAKER_00: And the answer he says is in the next sentence, because your hands are covered with blood.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: There's a pun here.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: Your hands are covered with blood because you're offering so many sacrifices, but your hands are also covered with blood because you killed your neighbor's goat, and maybe you even killed your neighbor because he was powerless and he was helpless.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: You don't care at all about people.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: And you think that religiosity is more important to me than anything else.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: And now let me dive really quickly to remind you of a lesson that I I've given you in the past once, and it's so important.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: It's the way I've sort of summarized the whole biblical teaching on the issue of divine priorities.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: We'll go over it really quickly, but it is so important you must never forget it.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: God has three priorities.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: Number one is spirituality, true spirituality, what's in your heart?
32:33
SPEAKER_00: Have you believed in him?
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Do you love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength?
32:36
SPEAKER_00: Priority two is morality.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: How are you treating your neighbor?
32:39
SPEAKER_00: If priority number one is the first table of the commandments, commandments one, two, three, and four, then command priority two is the second table of the commandments.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Thou shalt not kill, lie, steal, mistreat, covet the things your neighbor has.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: This has to do with your neighbor's goat, right?
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Morality and obedience, priority three.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: Keep them in this order, please, is religiosity.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: What you and I are doing right now.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: Does God care about it?
33:04
SPEAKER_00: Is he glad you're here this morning?
33:05
SPEAKER_00: That you raise your hands and worship and pray.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Of course he is.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: He tells us to do this.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
33:12
SPEAKER_00: This comes first.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: Spirituality.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Priority two, and your neighbor as yourself.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Morality.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: Obey what I've told you to do.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: And priority three, sure, God is spirit.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: Those who worship him, worship him in spirit and in truth.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: But listen, and this is how I first started thinking about this way back in college when I came across this shocking line in mere Christianity.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: A cold, self-righteous prig who goes to church regularly may be nearer to hell than a prostitute.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: God's statement here in Isaiah 1 is I want, but I don't need your sacrifices, your acts of worship.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 50 is full of this.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: I want your obedience, your morality.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: I want you to treat your neighbor correctly, priority two, before your religious acts.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Don't mistreat someone and then come to church and think I'll be happy.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: And frankly, without your heart, I don't even enjoy your worship at all.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: If you don't love me with all your heart, why would I care that you're singing to me?
34:26
SPEAKER_00: In fact, worship, that third one without spirituality, is mere formalism.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: That's all it is.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: And he says, worship without obedience, and that's what Isaiah 1 is about, what we're talking about now, is just rank hypocrisy.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: It's like driving up, you know, behind a car that says, visualize world peace.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: I like this poster better.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: Forget world peace, visualize using your turn signals.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: No, no, I mean it's just, you know, let's let's just think logically about this.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: It's like if you had a teenage boy and you saw that he slugged his younger brother, his eight-year-old or six-year-old younger brother.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Eight-year-old might deserve it, but his six-year-old younger brother.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: And you grabbed all of himself.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
35:13
SPEAKER_00: You're so much bigger than he is.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: He's helpless.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: Why would you mistreat him that way?
35:17
SPEAKER_00: He's got a bloody nose.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: Why just go concentrate on other things?
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Go do your chores.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Go empty the trash.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: You're upset.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: And in the afternoon, you happen to look in the living room and you see him again.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Walk by his little brother and shove him into the wall.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: And his nose starts bleeding again.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: And you go to your teenage son and you say, What in the world are you doing?
35:41
SPEAKER_00: I talked to you about this this morning.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: How in the world can you do this?
35:44
SPEAKER_00: It's so mean.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: He's so helpless.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: And he says to you, Yeah, but I took out the trash, not only the kitchen trash, but the bathroom trash.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: And at that point, you want to say, you know what?
35:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm glad you took out the trash, but that's like priority 47.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: This is priority one, we're talking about.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: How you treat your little brother.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: And God's saying the same thing.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: Let's be logical here.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: Don't mistreat people just because you have the power to.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: Don't overlook the orphan and the widow, the needy people completely, and come to church and think somehow you please me.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: So he says, morality without spirituality.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, let's be honest, even if you treat the orphan and the widow nicely, but you don't have the heart, all that is is moralism.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: So here are God's priorities.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: I just share that with you again that you can think about it and remember that first things come first with God.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: And if you put the first things first, if you've got a heart that loves God, and secondly you have a heart that loves people, then the other things come easily.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: But you put that other stuff first, you put worship first, then you lose both the first and the second things.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: And so God says it's decision time.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: I want you to make a decision.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: I want you to wash yourselves, I want you to cleanse yourselves, I want you to remove your evil deeds from my sight.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: The right decision is treat your neighbor the way your neighbor should be treated.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: The right decision is social justice over worship, okay?
37:08
SPEAKER_00: Stop doing evil, learn to do what's good, pursue justice, correct the oppressor, defend the rights of the fatherless, and plead the widow's cause.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
37:18
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: And then he concludes hey, let's have a talk.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: Let's settle this whole thing out of court.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm sick and tired of dragging you into court.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: Let's get out of court and let's talk about it.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: Let's settle this.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Let's have a discussion.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: Now I know the way you're more familiar with this wonderful verse is come, let us reason together, says the Lord.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: But I wanted you to find what it really said.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, give me your best shot.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: If you want to argue with me, argue your case.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: Go right ahead and argue your case.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
37:43
SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, I want to sit down with you.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: It's an imperative.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: Come.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Let us reason together.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: It's I want it to be infinite.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: Intimate and end infinite.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: I want it to be intimate, says the Lord.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about this.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: Let's reason together, says the Lord.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: And then he says something remarkable.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: Though they be red as crimson, they will be as wool.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: Though they seem indelible, I can wash them away.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: And as we come to the Lord's tables, we come to communion, as we come to the bread and the cup and the blood of Jesus Christ, which washes away our sins, I gotta tell you, this verse is just, just incredible.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: You ought to memorize this verse.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: You ought to know this verse because this verse applies to all of us.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: If you're here and you've never become what we call a born-again Christian, if you're not sure that you're a child of God, you listen to this and you go, yeah, I kind of have God in the dock.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm kind of getting a new vision today of the world that could be and the fact that God's the holy one and I'm really in the dock, and I'm the accused, and yeah, and you're starting to think about that, then I'm here to tell you something really encouraging.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you've sinned.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you've done, but you know what?
38:59
SPEAKER_00: We all, I labor under a load of guilt just under what I've done this year already.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: So we all labor under sins that seem indelible to us, that that embarrass us before our friends and before our family and before the world.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: And when we look in the mirror and God says, you know what?
39:16
SPEAKER_00: If you're not my child yet, let me tell you something really cool.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: Really cool.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: You come to me, I can forgive all your sins.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: I can wash you absolutely clean.
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SPEAKER_00: Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
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SPEAKER_00: I promise.
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SPEAKER_00: Just come to me, fling yourself upon me wholeheartedly.
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SPEAKER_00: Tell me you love me, tell me you see me dying on the cross for your sins.
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SPEAKER_00: Believe in me rather than in your own self-efforts, your formal worship or whatever to please me.
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SPEAKER_00: Trust me, believe in me as your Savior.
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SPEAKER_00: And he'll forgive you.
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SPEAKER_00: And listen, so you're a child of God.
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SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
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SPEAKER_00: Me too.
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SPEAKER_00: But you know, this is even God's children can mess up.
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SPEAKER_00: And you may be under a load of you remembering those things you've done, and you feel so bad about them, and they're like crimson, and you go, I can't wash that out of my garment.
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SPEAKER_00: God says, I can.
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SPEAKER_00: It may seem indelible to you, but that's why I came to the cross.
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SPEAKER_00: And that same blood I use to save you is the blood I can use to wash you and forgive you of your sins and bring you back into fellowship with me.
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SPEAKER_00: Amen.
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SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
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SPEAKER_00: Father, as we drink this cup, as this fluid washes down our throat, may we sense it washing away our sins as we cry out to you, as we turn to you.
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SPEAKER_00: We tend to wander away and be rebels, but not this morning, Lord.
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SPEAKER_00: We've seen a vision, we see it clearly, and it's what we want.
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SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
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SPEAKER_00: Amen.