Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Claude Stauffer: Ready and Unashamed, Keys to Romans

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Claude Stauffer: Ready and Unashamed, Keys to Romans · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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  defending biblical Christianity.
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  No topic off limits.
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  And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
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  Hey, friends, thank you so much for tuning in.
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  We've got a great topic on the book of Romans to discuss today with Pastor Claude Stoffer
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  and his blog site is shepherdofhope.org.
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  And church, I want to mention that as well, Calvary, Chapel of Hope, Calvary, Chapel of Hope.
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  He's a New Yorker, but we won't hold that against him.
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  I just want to remain.
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  He's been on the show before, but I want to just remind you who we're talking to,
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  because I love this brother.
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  He's a graduate of Hofstra University and Asbury Theological Seminary.
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  And he has been in ministry since 1986,
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  presently serving as a senior pastor of Calvary, Chapel of Hope.
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  And that church had its beginning in 93.
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  He also serves as a chaplain on the New York State Chaplaincy Task Force
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  and his book that we're going to talk about today is called Ready and Unashamed.
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  This is Pastor Claude's eighth book.
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  His teachings are aired on his Living Hope Radio Program.
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  And he's been happily married to his wife D for 36 years.
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  And you can get more information on his teachings and writings
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  at the church website, Calvary, Chapel of Hope.com.
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  So we'll bring in Pastor Claude.
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  Welcome, brother.
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  Good to see you again.
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  Good to be here, David.
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  Yeah, I've got it.
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  I'm well armed.
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  I've got my ammo here.
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  Watch out, it's hot.
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  It's on fire.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  So this is the new one.
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  I'm glad we got this.
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  And by the way, did you know you sent me two copies?
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  No, that's two volumes.
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  Oh, I didn't realize that.
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  I've got to look at the other one.
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  Okay, I've got two 8 and 9 through 16.
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  Because they came in two separate packages from two separate,
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  now I know.
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  I've set the other one aside.
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  I'm glad I'm going through the first one.
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  But anyway, let's talk about the title, Claude,
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  because you could write about anything.
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  How many books are there in the Bible?
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  How many letters?
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  How many topics?
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  But this one you decided to tackle was the book of Romans.
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  And let's talk about the title, Ready and Unashamed.
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  So your inspiration behind that.
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  You're desired to do this at this point.
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  Well, in verse 15 and 16 of the first chapter, Paul says,
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  so it's so as much as is in me,
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  I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also.
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  So he's ready to preach the gospel.
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  And then in verse 16, for I am not ashamed
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  of the gospel of Christ,
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  or it is the power of God to salvation
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  for everyone who believes for the Jew first
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  and also for the Greek.
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  So that just really struck a note with me
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  that Paul was ready on a shame in verse 14.
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  He actually says, I am a debtor.
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  He felt as though he was a debtor to share to minister with people.
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  And boy, if there's ever a spirit or an attitude
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  that we need today as Christians,
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  we need to have that sense of being a debtor to our Lord
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  to share the gospel and fulfill a great commission.
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  And we need to be ready.
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  And we need to be unashamed.
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  And I think shame is the consequence of ill preparedness.
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  And to be unashamed is the benefit of being prepared.
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  If you study, if you know what you believe,
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  if you know that will help you to be powerful and more bold.
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  Amen. Amen, brother.
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  It's interesting your first volume tackles Romans 1 through 8.
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  Those two chapters, Romans 1 and Romans 8,
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  are some of the most powerful, insightful, impactful,
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  and theological chapters and in my opinion, the New Testament.
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  Your thoughts?
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  Well, they're certainly relevant, you know.
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  And, you know, bro, it's really sad that in the church today,
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  that so much of it has become woke, so much of it has looked to the world
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  to get their direction and their inspiration rather than the word of God.
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  I think if the churches were preaching and teaching Romans 1 through 8,
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  or just the Book of Romans period, I think we'd have revival.
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  You know, I think one of the things I mentioned in the introduction of the book
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  is that a man by the name of Frederick Gaudet said that when you look historically at revivals
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  that you'd be hard pressed to find a revival that wasn't in some way connected
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  with the teaching of the Book of Romans.
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  Interesting.
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  I had a couple things highlighted from the introduction I wanted to ask you about.
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  And I'm just going to read, I'm quoting from the introduction to
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  ready and unashamed for those of you that wanted to know what I'm talking about here.
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  But Claude writes this,
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  Jesus prayed for his disciples saying, sanctify them by your truth.
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  Your word is truth, John 17, 17.
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  A disciple of Jesus Christ is one who is sanctified or set apart,
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  uncommon, distinguishable, and what makes the disciple of Jesus distinctive is living
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  by the truth of God that is found in his word.
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  That implies we know the truth of God's word.
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  So that's a very, to me, a very impactful paragraph right there.
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  I just love for you to just share more about that.
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  Well, there's no shortcuts in Christianity.
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  One of the things I encourage, I always encourage people to do is get
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  and establish a holy habit early in your walk with the Lord,
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  a holy habit to read through the Bible on a regular basis.
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  Either you can read it through in a year.
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  If you read four chapters a day, you'll pretty much read through the entire Bible in a year.
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  Two chapters would be two years, one chapter every four years,
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  you'd go through the entire Bible.
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  As Christians, we've been blessed with the Bible.
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  It's such an incredible gift from the Lord to let it collect dust
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  and to rely on feelings which are so fickle rather than the truth of God's word
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  that sanctifies us, that sets us apart.
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  That's really what sanctification is.
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  It's not just being set apart and uncommon,
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  but set apart unto God for his purposes.
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  That's what we really need in our day and age, to know God's word, to live it out.
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  Yes, and one of the things you emphasize from Romans 1, Romans 1, 16,
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  being unashamed of the gospel.
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  We've got believers in churches in America.
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  We are so comfortable here, Claude,
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  that don't let people outside of church walls know they're a believer.
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  Or if people were to judge them by their fruit, they might not know
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  that they're a believer in Christ and let alone they're not sharing the good news
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  or the warnings of eternal, the coming judgment and the good news of eternal life in Christ.
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  So share that importance that obviously you bring out in the beginning of,
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  of ready and unashamed because it's right in Romans 1 and you emphasize the gospel,
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  the gospel, the gospel.
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  Well, David, you know, a few years ago we went through a period of time where everybody was
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  on lockdown and we had the pandemic or the pandemic or whatever you'd like to call it of COVID
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  and all these things and there are many people who were sick and we're all this stuff and many people
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  became very fearful and there's kind of like our society was shocked into fearfulness and
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  trepidation and a verse that we that was echoed in many pulpits was 2nd Timothy chapter 1 verse 7
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  where it says God has not given us a spirit of fear but a power of love and a sound mind and
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  you know we need to be fearful what are we so timid about why are we so timid why are we so
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  concerned with offending people with the gospel you know the whole point of the God Paul said the
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  gospel is offensive so I think we need to get we need to get used to that and you know our
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  concern should not be so much about offending people it should be more about offending God by
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  putting the lid on his gospel you know and not fulfilling his great commission and you know we
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  need to be ready and we need to be on a shame can we take a brief I mean your book is about this
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  but I want to talk about the Romans road to salvation and because we're going to talk more about what's
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  actually in your book and some of the points you make about Romans chapters 1 through 8 that's in
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  volume 1 which is what we're talking about today by cloud staffer ready and unashamed but if
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  you guys one of the simplest things you can do is go over to gotquestions.org and pull up the
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  Romans road to salvation and it's a way of explaining the good news the gospel through the book of
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  Romans using these key verses and cloud let's start with Romans 3 23 which we're just doing this
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  to equip friends who may not know exactly how to walk through this it says for all have sinned
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  and come short of the glory of God and we've all sinned that's that's a very simple and basic truth
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  that we need to know every person has every person needs forgiveness of sins and Romans 3 then
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  gives a detail to picture of what sin looks like in our lives so your thoughts and then we'll jump
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  to a couple of other verses here yeah really from chapter 1 verse 18 through chapter 3 verse 18
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  the Apostle Paul really first he looks at the Gentile world and how they fall in short and now
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  God's wrath is on those who've rejected him he's given him over to reprobate minds and we see the
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  consequence of that at the end of chapter 1 in chapter 2 he says even those that are that are
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  religious that try to keep a try try to keep the law how they don't keep it adequately and that
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  you can you know you can never work your way to heaven because your work God's standard is 100%
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  perfection that's right and no no one does that right no one no one achieves that and so even the
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  religious the religious Jews but also religious people who try to try to make themselves righteous by
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  what they do you know doing good deeds it's inadequate and so and then in to be first 18 verses of
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  chapter 3 it's the Apostle Paul tells us that you know there is none righteous no not one all
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  through all short of the glory of God just you know no matter who you are you know it's it's not
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  it's not that sinners are necessarily um um totally bad right that's not that that's not really
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  the sense of this the the issue is no one is good enough right so even if you're a good person
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  there's a lot of good people that don't know Jesus a lot the atheists that do kindness kind thing
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  good things right but it's not it's it's not doesn't meet God's standard no in John chapter 16
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  verses 8 through 11 the Apostle Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit comes he will convict the
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  world of sin righteousness and judgment of sin Jesus said because they don't believe in me
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  leaving in Jesus that's the bottom line of righteousness because I go to my father and what he
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  was saying you're implying there is that the right the righteous standard is me sinless me right and
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  then of judgment because the God of this world has been judged right Satan is judged and those
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  who who refuse to trust Jesus as Savior there in that camp there under judgment along along with
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  the devil so you know it's not a good place to be without Jesus that's right and I go back to
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  Romans 3 23 when you said that all all means all all mean to all is no respect of persons anyone can
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  be saved it says whoever will believe um and I think you know I'm getting ahead of myself but I think
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  that's one of the verses in Romans 10 13 for whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved
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  but let's go back to Romans 6 23 which says for the wages of sin is death and the punishment that we
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  have earned for our sin is death not just physical but eternal and that's the first part of the
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  verse Romans 6 23 the second part is but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
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  Lord so it's almost like a bad news good news there in that verse Roman 6 23 right cloud
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  well absolutely you really wouldn't you really can't understand the goodness of the good news
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  until you first understand the badness of the bad news and and the bad news is no matter how hard
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  you try you can't you can't jump high enough you can't you can't you can't be righteous enough
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  there's always you know there's always a always a limitation in your capabilities you're not
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  going to get into heaven in your own strength but the good news is that God loved us so much that
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  he sent his son Jesus to die for us to pay our debt of sin right bull road to the Corinthians in
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  a second letter he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness
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  of God in him it's it's you know God's grace his salvation his plan of redemption how he's redeemed
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  those who were who were you know headed for hell and it's just a magnificent good news in the
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  God's gospel amen we're talking with pastor cloud stopper and the book is called ready and unashamed
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  pastor's practical inductive study of Romans of course I want to take a quick break but
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  Romans 10 9 we got to squeeze this in before the break if you confess with your mouth Jesus as
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  Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead you will be saved faith belief not by
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  works more coming up on worldview matters today's show is brought to you by Harbinger's Daily
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  world news biblically understood stay informed at harbingers daily dot com
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  go to worldviewmatters.tv send us an email let us know that you're interested so we're talking
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  with pastor cloud stopper today calvary chapel of hope he's a new yorka and the book is called ready
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  and unashamed i'm just going to well you know what um yeah i want to quote one more verse from
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  the romans road to salvation and again you guys look this up the basic bullet points of these
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  scriptures from romans are at gotquestions.org just type in romans road and romans five one has
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  this wonderful message therefore since we have been justified through faith we have peace with
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  God through our Lord Jesus Christ that's huge who knew that you could have peace with God so
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  that's another very important point uh back to the book cloud i just want to read this and get your
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  response i'm quoting you again uh we live in a world where Christianity is being challenged on
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  every front Islam cults a worldly philosophy of tolerance at the expense of truth religion apostate
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  Christianity personal opinion mongers and a host of other entities are bringing an assault on
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  God's revealed biblical Christianity this is happening and as biblical Christians we've got a lot
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  to you know fight against a lot to resist um take us you know share a little bit more about that
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  and how believers we better be equipped in this day and age and then we have a responsibility
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  while we're here right right you know in uh years ago they used to there was a kind of a humorous
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  reference to certain Christians as christian couch potatoes and um i think that uh i think that's
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  that's that's that's grown that's grown unfortunately and you know uh in in the book of revelation
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  chapter 2 and 3 Jesus writes seven letters the seven churches and those seven churches are also
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  representative of seven epochs in history and the last church he writes to is the church of Leo
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  Decia one of the things he says there is he says because you're neither cold nor hot i'll spew you
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  out of my mouth you know and and christian luke warmness literally turns the stomach of Jesus
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  and uh you know if you're if you're one of those couch potato Christians if you're one of those
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  people that can take evangelism or leave it or you know have no desire or passion to serve the
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  Lord and be known that you are of the Lord i just encourage you the the way that you can stoke
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  the fire the way that you can uh rekindle that passion for the Lord so just get back into his word
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  and i think the book of romans is probably uh the best place to start well obviously uh you wrote
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  a book a study a two volume set on romans so this is part of your heart we can tell uh pastor
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  cloud um so we don't have a lot of time unfortunately and there's so much in this book um but
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  let's talk about romans eight unless you wanted to touch on some other points before we get there
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  because romans eight the spirit filled life and as you mentioned earlier i think you know some
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  have said romans eight is the pinnacle of scripture that is an amazing chapter in god's word so unless
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  you wanted to share with us any other points um i'm the gospel and on the romans chapters before
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  that but go ahead and let's talk about the spirit filled life cloud i will never pass up an
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  opportunity to speak about romans eight in this and this spirit filled life you i mean you could
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  you could very easily write a book uh on that chapter alone and uh when i taught through and i
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  actually big just recently started again to teach through the book of romans but normally when
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  i get to chapter eight my people know we're gonna camp out here for a while because uh that's
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  incredible but really in in romans chapter eight it's it's it's the pinnacle because it's it speaks
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  to us about what the christian's spiritual life should be like right and i i've broken it down
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  into um into twelve uh statements or attitudes first one is i'm no longer condemned by god right the
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  first verse says there is therefore now no condemnation those who are in christ jesus and the
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  in christ jesus is a kind of a grammatical thing from Paul that expresses being in a saving
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  relationship with jesus you know that sense that i i am not condemned you know a lot of christians
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  walk around with with a weight on their shoulders yeah because maybe they're living trying to live
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  the new way of a life in christ with the old religious mindset and we are there is no condemnation
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  for us in in christ jesus that's just that we're we're free and then um you know i listen to rely on
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  and follow the spirit not my sinful nature right not me myself and i and um you know i we i like
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  you say we don't have a lot of time but you know that that chapter is just so wonderful it speaks
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  about how the holy spirit helps us in our weakness it speaks to us about the suffering that we
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  experience here and now doesn't even compare to what we will experience when we're when we're with
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  the lord uh it speaks about the necessity uh it says if you don't have the spirit you do not belong to
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  the lord you know so it's another way of Paul that Paul says you must be born again you know you
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  must we must be born again you must be filled with the holy spirit uh Paul says there's nothing
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  that can separate you from the love of the lord right it says it says it says that um if god
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  did not spare his own son for us how will he not with him freely give us all things i mean it's just
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  a magnificent magnificent uh chapter that uh you know it's just it's just you could you should
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  camp out in there if you want again if you want to rekindle that ash and fire for the lord
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  don't only go to romans you could even start in romans chapter eight you know and uh i think the
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  church is missing that today they're they're off on and all kinds of trivialities all kinds of
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  silly types of stuff you know even those even those conservative Christians who are so
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  involved in politics now look i'm i'm very political in many ways but i don't want to ever let
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  politics divert my attention from the spirit filled life and from Jesus you know so that i'm not
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  walking in the spirit any longer you know so it's so very very important to be a romans eight
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  Christian it's a tough balance sometimes because we are in this world and we do want to make a
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  difference in some people i i see the extremes on both sides and then i see the apathy and those
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  who don't want to get involved because oh that's political christian shouldn't be involved so
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  let's just try to find a good balance but you've mentioned the the middle of romans eight
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  i love the fact that creation is eagerly waiting for the glory of god creation is waiting not just
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  human beings all of creation groans doesn't it say that yeah and you know uh you know our green
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  our green people our green party people and people that are a cal a calagically oriented
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  and all that stuff they need to understand it as beautiful as this world can be at times it's
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  still a fallen world and it's not going to be perfected until the kingdom of of Jesus Christ
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  is established on the earth and really the new heavens and the new earth are are established by the
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  lord and we're there um it's good to take care we're good we need to be good stewards of our
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  environment but um but we need to understand that this this creation is groaning and we're part
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  of that creation a sense that a sense of our material bodies you know we have these pains and these
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  sufferings uh you know both physically mentally uh that that are just you know they weigh on us at times
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  but uh it's so important and you know that to to rely on the spirit for that as well when we're going
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  through difficulties and trials right and and that god is able to cause all things all things to
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  work together for good those who love him and are called according to his purpose even the
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  persecutions even the even the the you know the the difficulties the hardships the ailments the
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  disappointments all of those things if when we turn to the Lord just in love and trust him he's
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  able to bring good from it right and Romans 12 it says you know they meant it for evil but god will
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  use it for good you know Joseph said the same thing in Genesis 50 verse 20 speaking of his brothers
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  you know and that's and that's a wonderful hope that we have that god is able to take whatever
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  are the ingredients are in our life and and and and cook something up that's uh that's glorifying to
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  him you know amen beauty for ashes um yes uh who or what can separate us from love god if god is
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  for us who can be against us i just want to end and there's so much more we could have talked about
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  but um Romans 8 38 for i am convinced that neither life nor death nor angels nor principalities
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  nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor death nor any other created thing
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  will be able to separate us from the love of god that is in Christ Jesus our Lord that's the end
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  of Romans 8 this the end of volume one in your book chapters one through eight cloud where can people
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  get uh ready and unashamed uh amazon i know it's there but where else now i think get it on amazon
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  they can get it uh if you can you can contact our church at calvary chapel of hope dot org uh you can uh
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  you know that those are the basic places where you can get the uh where you can get the book great
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  and i want to mention your blog page shepherd of hope dot org shepherd of hope dot org i'm just
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  looking at some of the topics you've written on um you what does the bible say about narcissism
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  making holy communion holy again you've got a chapter or or you've got a blog ready and unashamed
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  and also the most recent one uh one recent one am i a debtor and so many more so i care to share
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  a little bit about your blog and then we'll wrap it up sure i write a new uh teaching there each
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  week uh oftentimes it's it's based on the message that i i taught or preached the uh previous
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  sunday but uh i you know it's again it's just more uh more edifying i put it there uh if you want to
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  use it you know if you're a pastor and you know you you have one of those vapor locks and you can't
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  figure out uh what to teach this sunday or you know feel free to go there and and uh and use the
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  material you know and i hope it i hope it's encouraging i really like to encourage people and
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  exhort them to action but also to encourage them because you know the enemy he wants to beat us
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  down he wants to uh discourage gods people he wants us to think that the that are that are
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  adversary in our enemies so so at numbers us that we don't have a chance and you know it's interesting
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  when you look at scripture god particularly uh organises and works his will through those who are
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  in the minority through the weakest through the least you know and and so and if we if we're praying
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  for revival when does a revival happen a revival happens when there's darkness right if you look
• 27:32
  historically at our country uh if you look in the early 17 mid to early uh 1700s uh the the colonies
• 27:40
  were replete with the private to use horrible ladies couldn't walk into the street the jails were
• 27:45
  filled the bars were filled i mean it was just a terrible terrible situation until there was
• 27:50
  that first grade awakening and um and well you know that first grade awakening many some historic
• 27:58
  some historians say that our nation is actually birthed out of that first grade awakening so that's
• 28:04
  we need me we just we need a we need another great awakening yeah we do cloud we've got to wrap it up
• 28:09
  cloud stopher calvary chapel of hope his website shepherdofhope.org that's his blog page
• 28:14
  good to see you and have you on again brother uh take care we'll talk to you hopefully soon thank you
• 28:19
  god bless all right friends thanks again and god bless you and as always keep speaking the truth
• 28:24
  about things that matter