Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you're able to remain standing,
please do and turn your attention with me
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to first Corinthians, chapter ten.
First Corinthians, chapter ten versus fifteen through
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twenty two. Fourteen through twenty two. Therefore, my beloved flee from idolatry.
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I speak as to sensible people.
Judge for yourselves what I say.
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The Cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the
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blood of Christ? The bread that
we break, is it not a participation
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in the body of Christ? Because
there is one bread, we, who
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are many, are one body,
for we all partake of one bread.
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Consider the people of Israel. Are
Not those who eat the sacrifices participants in
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the altar? What do I imply, then, that food offered to idols
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is anything, or that an idol
is anything? No, I imply that
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what pagan sacrifice they offer to demons
and not to God. I do not
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want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the
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Lord and the Cup of Demons.
You cannot partake of the table of the
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Lord and the table of Demons.
Shall we provoke the Lord to Jealousy?
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Are we stronger than he? Men, you may be seated, but passage
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in God's word this morning begins with
a command flee from idolatry. Flee from
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idolatry. It's a very clear command, but we often don't obey it.
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A lot of people don't flee from
idolatry. They dabble in idolatry. Perhaps
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you know or have met people who
are what you might think of as fullblown
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idolaters, people who regularly and and
with great importance and ritual are involved and
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sacrific making sacrifices and offerings and prayers
to offerings. But there are other kinds
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of people that don't flee from idolatry. Right there are people who who just
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kind of play around with it a
little bit. Burn a little thing here,
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offer a little prayer. They're only
when it's convenient or when something's important
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or maybe they're asked to do it
by a friend. It's not like a
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big deal, they would say.
It's not a regular part of their lives.
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They're not really serious about it.
Maybe it's now. They're not even
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really sure what it is, but
they're certainly not fleeing from idolatry. The
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scripture doesn't say kind of stay away
from it if it's convenient. It says
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flee from it. And you know
what fleeing right looks like? It fleeing
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is the recognition of a danger.
It's recognition of something that is going to
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cause you harm and in moving as
quickly as you can away from that thing.
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There's another group of people, we
might say, that don't flee from
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idolatry, and it's people that kind
of think of it as a nonissue.
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They think of idolatry and the worship
of idols and serving demons is something that's
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well, kind of ancient and weird, so doesn't really have anything to do
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with me. I live in a
modern world, I live a modern life.
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I don't have to pay attention to
things like spirits and God and,
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well, I don't know, but
I just don't mess with that kind of
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stuff. I don't think about it. Well, we might be glad in
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a way that that person is is
is not actively participating in idolatry, but
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they're not fleeing at other they're not
fleeing it either. The Bible speaks very
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clean plainly and clearly that there are
spiritual forces at work in this world that
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would seek to do us harm.
It's not a weird ancient thing, it's
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just a true thing. There are
other things. There's lots of things in
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the world that seek to do US
harm. There's predatory animals, they're viruses,
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there are other people, there are
falling things from the sky. They're
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all. We can list many,
many dangers. Why would we discount a
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spiritual one? We ourselves are partly
spiritual creatures, we have souls. There's
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immaterial things in this world. Why
would we discount automatically the fact what the
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Bible says is so plainly true,
that there are spiritual dangers, even creatures
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that would cause us spiritual harm?
We believe in other things that we cannot
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see and yet would hurt us,
like viruses or maybe even animals hiding and
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bushes and things like that. Snakes
right, we watch out, we look
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for Scorpions, these kinds of things. Why would we discount this? Well,
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we shouldn't discount this. Instead,
we should flee from the things which
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would seek to do us harm,
and God gives us here in his words,
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some very serious reasons a why we
should do that. And the one
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reason, the main reason he gives
why we should flee from idolatry. Is
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that it is, he says.
Paul says participation with demons. Now he
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makes clear that idols have no power
in and of themselves. If that was
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the case, pretty much everything would
kill us, right, anything that you
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would make out or harmless in some
way, because people make idols out of
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every kind of thing. Right,
metals and enamels and precious, precious materials,
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would all kinds of things. It's
not the material, the matter itself,
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that does us harm, it's it's
not anything, not anything that would
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do us value in an or do
us harm in and of itself. That's
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what Paul saying. Otherwise we'd have
to be watching out for bathtubs and wheelbarrels
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and anything right. So it's not
the idol itself that is the problem.
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Even the idols. They're often named
after dead people, past kings and Queens,
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or imagined people, imagined God's and
we know that people are not capable,
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especially dead people, are not capable
of doing us any real harm.
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So why are idols a problem if
the things are themselves not that big of
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a deal? It's because, Paul
says, the idols are in a way
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fronts for demonic spiritual activity and these
demons, these evil spirits, do wish
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and are capable of doing harm.
They love to trouble humans. They love
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to keep us from God and to
receive his worship for themselves. Evil spirits
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use idolatry to accomplish these ends.
And if you said, well, that
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sounds kind of tricky and deceitful,
well you might be onto something about demons.
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They are tricky, they are deceitful. They will use the means necessary,
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as they see it, to hurt
you, to harm you, to
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kill you and to keep you from
God. Evil spirits use idolatry to accomplish
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these ends and when we participate in
idolatry, we participate with them, we
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fellowship with them. That's a problem, as I begun to hint at,
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for a number of reasons. Some
people would say it's not a problem.
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I not worship evil spirits and there
are people that do. It is a
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problem for I'll give two reasons.
There are many. I'll give to one
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is that it's degrading. Human beings
are made in the image of God,
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not the image of other creatures.
We are made in the image of God
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himself. We have a dignity.
That is very great. We have been
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honored with this great thing and we
are called to exercise that image, to
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bear that image in our lives,
with holiness and acting in his name.
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Think about what happened in the Garden
of Eden when Satan, the Great Evil
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Spirit, the devil, attempted our
parents. What happened? They became naked
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when they fell and they gave into
his temptation, when they participated and had
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fellowship with Satan, they found themselves
naked, degraded, a shamed, embarrassed,
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banished from the tree of life,
banished from the presence of God and
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entering into death. This is where
fellowship and participation with demonic forces leads us.
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Did Eve get what she wanted?
Not Really. Did Adam get what
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he wanted? Know, not really. Instead, they got denigration and despair
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and death. That they become like
God. Did they obtain this great knowledge?
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Did they step out of their created
spots and become divine? No,
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they became even low. They became
low, low, perverted, distorted versions
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of what God had made, and
this degradation was offensive to God. It
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is offensive to God as well.
You could hear it in Paul's language he's
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like you cannot drink the cup of
the Lord and the Cup of Demons.
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Chris Awsom gives this example of of
being the kings son, one of the
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preachers in the fourth century, gives
this example of being the king's son,
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eating at the king's table, being
loved by this great King and then choosing
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to go sit in the dungeon with
prisoners and people who have fought against your
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father. What are you doing?
Or, to use another example, imagine
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being imagine going and taking your let's
say you're married to someone, and you
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go and you take the wedding ring
of another person who's not your spouse and
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start wearing that instead. What are
you doing? Why are you eating at
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that table? Why are you sleeping
in that bed? The this is,
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of course, what Israel did.
If you've been with us in the evenings
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as we've been going through the book
of Ezekiel, or if you know something
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about the history of of the people
of God and the Old Testament, you
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know this is exactly what happened.
They brought in the idols, the false
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gods, into the very temple of
God, into the city of God,
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into the Holy Land of God,
and they gave themselves over to demons,
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to false idols. It was degrading, it was disgusting, it was despicable
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and it led to death. It
led to death in all kinds of ways.
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And this is the second thing to
mention. Not only is it degrading,
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it's dangerous. When people go and
worship idols, they don't do it
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because they think it's dangerous, at
least think they usually do. They do
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it because they need things and they
think that somehow worshiping idols will get them
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those things. If this worship can
take all kinds of forms, it might
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be bowing down to idols, praying
to idols, giving offerings to idols,
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kissing idols, burning things for them
these idols, maybe right in front of
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them, or it may be in
front of a big crowd. It might
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even be virtual, not these days, or on the other side of the
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world or or even in your mind. Demons don't really care what kind of
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idol you're doing using, whether it's
a an online version or an in person
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version, or it's far away or
it's in your imagination, as long as
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you're not giving your worship to the
one true God, they're happy. Just
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last weekend there's over a hundred thousand
people in our own city processing and worshiping
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not the one true God, but
putting their prayers and hopes and dreams and
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prayer and and goals and all kinds
of other things into a giant urn led
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by an attendant spirit community group.
All of it then burned up into the
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heavens. If you go and you
look at workshops and things that were done,
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people are calling on the spirit of
Animism, the spirit of love,
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the spirit of this and that.
They were embodying these spirits all kinds of
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things. Not Everyone, not all
in the same way, but they did
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it too, as in their own
words, release themselves, to open themselves
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up to things that are difficult to
deal with in this life, to solve
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problems like grief and sorrow, passing
of loved ones, hard things. They
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did it because they wanted a sense
of community. They did it because they
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wanted to make an economic impact,
something like twenty seven million dollars in the
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city of Tucson. It's a big
deal. Brings a lot of positive things.
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That's why people go, that's why
people participate in these kinds of things.
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As long as you think, though, as long as you think that
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you're getting something for this community,
food, money, espouse, whatever.
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People go to idols and they try
to get these things. The here's the
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thing. Demons don't give you what
you want. They're tricksters, they're liars.
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They make it seem nice, they
make it seem fun, they make
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it seem enjoyable, but it's not
what it seems. We worship idols,
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we serve demons to our destruction.
It leads on to death and you see
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it often in the acts of idolatry
themselves. For example, remember when Elijah
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was on Mount Carmel. What did
the priests do in their worship of bail?
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They beat themselves, they whipped themselves, flogged themselves, and that was
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not a one time thing. You
read and about the history of idolatry and
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you watch. It's not the only
thing that happens. Sure, sometimes it's
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just you put an orange in front
of the thing and it feels like no
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big deal, but a lot of
times it a lot more than that,
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and that path goes to these very, very dark places. Israel, Oh,
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the the people of God, sacrifice
their own children to idols. Demons
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want us to destroy ourselves. They
want us to hurt ourselves. They don't
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give us what they want. They
give us our own destruction, our own
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death. And you often see it
in the acts of idolatry itself, whipping,
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burning, mutilating, beating, murder
and so on, and even in
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the riotous kind of idolatry. These
sort of that you often see connected with
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idolatry, the giving over to fleshly
pleasures, to drunkenness and orgies and despair
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and loneliness. These things men say
me seem exciting and awesome in the moment,
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but they just tear people apart.
They destroy people body and soul.
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Demons don't give you what you want. Idolatry doesn't get you what you want.
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It brings you danger, it brings
you death, and it's all totally
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unnecessary because God, the true God, not these false pretender gods, the
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true God, promises to provide everything
you need, body and soul. If
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you really really need to eat,
he will give you food. If you
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need clothes, he'll give you clothes. If you need shelter, he'll give
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you shelter, and if you don't
need it, he won't give it to
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you. And if we're honest with
ourselves, and you've heard me say this
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many times, we pray, this
pray in the Lord's prayer, and give
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us this day, our daily bread. We don't go to idols, we
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go to God. But consider for
a moment what most of us eat.
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Do we eat daily bread? Our
tables are so rich and full of good,
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fancy food from spices all over.
Even the cheapest hamburger bought from a
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fast food restaurant is an amazing thing. When we consider what we really deserve
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and how good God provides for us. We ask for our daily bread.
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He's like here, here, here, here, here, over and over
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and over again. How many times
have you eaten in your life? How
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many times is God provided for you
so that you could live another hour?
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We're all here and, as we'll
get to in a little bit, God
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does even more than provide for our
daily head. He gives his bread that
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is unto eternal life. He gives
his bread that doesn't fail. But when
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we reject that, when we turn
away from that, the one true source
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of life and sustenance and fellowship and
community and all of these things that we
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need, that we want as those
who bear the image of God, when
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we turn away from that, and
serve idols and worship idols and serve demons.
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Not only do we reject the source
of all good things, turn to
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deceivers and tricksters, people who want
to do us harm and see us dead,
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but we also come under God's righteous
wrath. We come under his wrath.
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Who Rightly judges those and we just
last time we considered examples from the
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Old Testament like this. The people
came out of idolatry, they came out
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of Egypt, they came out of
slavery and they found themselves in the wilderness
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and struggling to eat and to drink
and to live. You know what they
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tried to do? They tried to
go back to the idols of Egypt.
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They tried to go back to their
slavery, and God Judge Them. Paul
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ends with this very strong questions.
Shall we provoke the Lord to Jealousy?
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Are we stronger than he? Is
this a game you want to play?
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Is this a road you want to
travel down? No, flee from idolatry.
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So when we flee from idolatry,
to what shall we flee? If
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we escape from the slavery service to
Demons, to whom shall we run we
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cannot run to ourselves, for we
are those who are in need. We
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cannot become suppliers of our own resources, because we're finite. We're not capable
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of doing it. We're not capable
of preserving our own lives, living forever
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outwitting the cunning one those who do
turn to themselves and not to God is
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say, okay, fine, I'll
reject pagan idolatry and I'll just worship me
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have, of course, just fallen
into another trap. Right, if we're
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just worshiping ourselves, we've made ourselves
another idol and the process begins all over
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again, and the demons rejoice.
There is only one place, only one
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person, to whom we can go, and that is to the true God,
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our heavenly father, as we read
in Psalm Ninety six, a great
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king above all gods, the one
who really made us and made all things
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the eternal and who, unlike the
gods that you read about in stories,
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unlike the gods that people worship,
he doesn't have a birthdate, he doesn't
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have a death date, he doesn't
need to food or money or anything.
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He's not trying to figure out how, he doesn't get bored and figure out
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how to mess around with humans.
He doesn't. He doesn't decide randomly to
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do crazy things. He doesn't sleep
around, he doesn't. He's totally self
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sufficient, totally content, perfectly eternal
and holy in every way. He doesn't
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change, he doesn't die, he
hasn't been born, he doesn't need anything.
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We go to him, a true
God, and we go to Jesus,
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the son of the true God and
whom, the Scriptures say, the
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fullness of Deity, the fullness of
Deity Dwells Bodily, Eternally, begotten,
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not made, the creator, not
a creature. That's why the Jews are
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so upset. When Jesus says I
am working, as my father is working,
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say what that means? That your
God? Yes, that's who he
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is. How do you know?
Because he takes an invalid for thirty eight
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years, is couldn't do anything,
and he says, get up, take
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up your bed and walk, and
he walks. And then, on top
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of that, he tells him not
to sin. Jesus forgive sins. Jesus
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heals bodies. Jesus, yes,
dies, but it was a death unto
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life, so that we wouldn't have
to die. He conquers death, itself,
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where idolatry and demonic worship as always
surrounding death, involving death and destruction
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and all of these things. Jesus
dies to conquer death and to enter into
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life, and he does, and
we know it by his own resurrection from
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the dead. We go to Jesus, we go to God, we go
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to God the Holy Spirit. We
go to him and we worship him because
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it is by his power that we
have life. We have life in the
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son and by the will of the
father. He is the true God.
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And as we worship God, Father, son and Holy Spirit, one God
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in three persons, we worship him
who made us, who brought us to
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life and causes us to be him, who makes us his son, his
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bride, his sheep, and when
he puts his wedding ring on us,
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when he gives promises us and inheritance, as he leads us to paths of
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still water, he promises that,
when we trust in him, he will
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provide for us every single thing that
we need, not only for this life
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but also for the life to come, and he gives that to us,
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of course, in Jesus himself,
he provides for us. God provides for
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us food, but he never promises
that our daily bread will give us eternal
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life. He never promises that perishable
things will give us imperishable wife, nor,
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according to God's wise economy, could
they. The only source of eternal
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life is sharing in the life of
Eternal One. Does that make sense?
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The only way to have eternal life, as those who don't have it naturally
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in ourselves, is to draw it
from an eternal source, or to put
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it in terms that are maybe a
little easier to understand. Just as we
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eat and drink food to sustain our
lives here and now, knowing that it
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doesn't last forever, we must eat
and drink of some kind of eternal food
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so that we may last forever,
and that eternal food is God, to
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put the metaphor that way. This
is, of course, an analogy.
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Right to eat and drink unto an
eternal life, and God is the only
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one who is eternal. We must
eat and drink of of God. This
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is an analogy. It's a word
picture to help us to understand what we
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must do. When God says,
when Jesus says, you must eat my
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flesh and drink my blood, he's
not saying that we should eat and drink
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him exactly in the same way we
eat and drink food. God does not
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change, he doesn't break apart in
our mouths, he doesn't get crushed by
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our molars, he isn't divided into
a thousand pieces. That would be impossible.
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God is, after all, Spirit. We are more capable, put
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this way, we're more capable of
eating air than we are of eating God,
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who is spirit, not material.
So God, in saying, and
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Jesus in saying, that we must
drink his blood and eat his flesh,
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he's giving us an analogy, a
word picture. He's saying that, just
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as food and drink are the source
of perishable life, he must be the
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source of imperishable life. So why
speak this way? One of the reformers,
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Theodorebeyza, put it this way to
show us how close our union with
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Christ is through faith, for nothing
joins us together more than food and drink,
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and without these no one can move
through this life. Right. So
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we must have him in the same
way that we have food, the way
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the food nourishes and sustains us.
The Lord Nourishes and sustains us for eternal
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life. But that, of course, leads us to this question, which
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is how exactly do we eat right? If we can say well, we
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don't eat God like we eat bread, how do we eat him? How
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do we partake of his eternal nature? How do we partake of him and
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the benefits that he offers? The
scriptures answer this both in terms of God's
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part and our part. For our
part, we gain the eternal life of
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00:29:00.900 --> 00:29:06.819
God, fellowship with him, by
receiving Christ, his son, and all
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his benefits through faith. Through faith, in other words, by simply receiving
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and resting in the promise that God
has given to us his son, for
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the forgiveness of our sins and for
the reward of our glorification. We receive
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the sun and all these benefits.
For God's part, for his part,
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he gives himself to us to buy
us by uniting us to the sun by
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the Holy Spirit. We receive him
as he has first received US in Christ.
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This is the feeding. It is
a feeding of faith. God promises
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himself his life to us and we
believe it and we know that this is
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the eating that he speaks of,
because he tells us, put your faith
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in me and I will give you
eternal life. That's the mechanism. If
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we could put it that way.
It's the instrument through which we receive these
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blessings, these eternal things, to
eat for this life. In other words,
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we receive into our mouths the perishable
things which nourish this perishable life,
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to eat for eternal life. We
receive into our hearts the eternal one who
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nourishes us for eternal life. Without
eating, bread and drinking, we starve
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and we die. Without faith,
we starve and we die. This is
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the way that the Scriptures speak to
us about Christ. To make this,
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this analogy, more clear and a
deeper reality in our lives, God does
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this amazing thing. He not only
tells us about this reality using this analogy,
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using this word picture, he also
shows us this word picture by using
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and ordaining the use of actual food
and the elements that he picks for this
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food. He ordains this ceremony for
us to use actual food to remind us
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and impress these things on our hearts. And the elements he picks for the
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food are very specific. Right.
God doesn't just make something up and say,
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well, here might be a or
we don't just make something up and
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say, well, this might be
a nice way to think about divinity.
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No, God says. Here's what
I want you to do, and I'm
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going to use this as a source
for faith and encouragement in your faith.
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So, eating and drinking, right. What does God pick? It's right
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there. What does God pick?
He picks a liquid. He picks a
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solid. This comprehends the eating and
drinking again, Unto Eternal Life, and
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he ties both the liquid and the
solid to the means of our access to
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God, which is the incarnate son. So Jesus is how we come to
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know God. It's in him that
the fullness of Deity dwells, body lie.
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He says. If you've seen me, you've seen the father. Simple
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as that. He is the one
true God. He does the deeds of
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00:32:28.519 --> 00:32:31.230
God. He is our salvation,
and we know that he provides that through
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00:32:31.829 --> 00:32:37.509
his a, just through his incarnation
in general, but by dying on a
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00:32:37.630 --> 00:32:42.029
cross, shedding his blood for the
forgiveness of our sins. Jesus is a
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00:32:42.190 --> 00:32:50.660
sacrifice so that we wouldn't die ourselves. Now this is our Lord. Imagine
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if you are God for a moment
and your try and you're going to pick
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the elements for food and drink based
on its connection with Christ. What would
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you choose will. God chooses for
the liquid blood, and I think this
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is a natural choice, because not
only does it stand as a symbol for
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life in general. Right blood is
as a symbol of life, but it
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00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:16.359
also reminds us that it was by
blood that the incarnate son of God,
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00:33:17.880 --> 00:33:22.640
by his blood that we have the
atonement, it was by his blood that
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00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:30.309
we have our redemption. The blood
speaks particularly to our acceptance in God through
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00:33:30.470 --> 00:33:36.710
the work of Christ. Because of
his shed blood, we can stand before
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God as those who are justified and
not condemned, as those who are received
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and accepted into his presence, as
those who belong there. His blood and
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00:33:47.940 --> 00:33:53.180
his sacrifice is said to wash away
our sins, to cleanse and to purge
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us so that we can be righteous
before him. But the scriptures tell us,
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00:34:02.009 --> 00:34:06.970
with all great praise to our father
in heaven, that we are not
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00:34:07.210 --> 00:34:13.400
merely accepted by him as righteous through
the righteousness of Christ imputed to us,
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00:34:14.320 --> 00:34:21.920
but we are also continually nourished by
Christ for the vinification, for the vivication,
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00:34:22.159 --> 00:34:29.150
for the enlivening in the the growing
and the the salvation of our souls
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and our bodies too. We don't
just stand before God as righteous. He
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00:34:36.670 --> 00:34:40.179
makes us, day by day,
more and more holy, until one day
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we will receive that reward of perfect
glorication. Zero Sin, zero pollution,
361
00:34:49.460 --> 00:34:53.090
zero corruption. Right now it's a
battle. Right now, the spirit is
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in us and we have his life
in us and he's producing the fruits of
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00:34:57.570 --> 00:35:00.809
the spirit in us. But it's
a battle, it's hard. Right the
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flesh is still there, abiding sin
is still there and every day, Ma'am
365
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Bam, we fight, we fight, we fight, but there is coming
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a day when there will no more
be a fight because the victory will be
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complete. God is perfecting us,
he's nourishing us, he's strengthening us,
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he's maturing us. And so for
the analogy, on the food side of
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things, on the eating side of
things, God chooses the body of Christ.
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Again. Is there a better choice? By using the body, God
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00:35:36.420 --> 00:35:40.980
points us to our need for the
whole Christ, or the whole of Christ?
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By choosing his body, he points
to us and tells us that we
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need all of him. Now it's
important that we understand, even against some
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other Christians understandings, that his body
is a true body. This is part
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of our the importance of our salvation. His body as a true body.
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It is not just like your body, it's not everywhere all at the same
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time, to quote Beza again.
Just as we know the signs of bread
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and wine are on earth and not
somewhere else, so also we hold that
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the actual substance, that is Christ
himself, according to the flesh, is
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contained in heaven and not some other
plays, as we gather from the Scripture
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and from all the Orthodox fathers.
The great mystery, then, is,
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how can we benefit from the Lord's
body, which is in heaven, when
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we are here on earth? That's
a very far distance, right. How
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can we gain from the benefits of
his life, his resurrection, his power
385
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and an all of these things,
when we're here and finite? Do Anybody
386
00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:09.320
have a ladder? Anybody have some
sort of process by which we can climb
387
00:37:09.480 --> 00:37:19.070
our way up to God? First
not. So, how does it happen?
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Well, it happens when Jesus gives
to us his spirit. And you
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00:37:25.590 --> 00:37:31.380
he unites us to himself, not
by changing his body into some kind of
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00:37:31.860 --> 00:37:40.820
mysterious nonhuman phantasm thing. He does
it by connecting us by the Holy Spirit.
391
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The power of the spirit, basis
says, and the efficacy of faith
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exceed our perception. In other words, whatever you how powerful you think the
393
00:37:54.570 --> 00:38:01.639
Holy Spirit is, he's more powerful
than that. And however efficacious or useful
394
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or powerful or effective you think faith
is, it's more than that. Jesus
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talks about faith moving mountains. Most
of us don't believe that it's powerful.
396
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And by faith, the scriptures tell
us, I would not say this,
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okay, if the scriptures didn't say
it, but the scriptures tell us that
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by faith we receive Christ himself.
That is a very bold claim, but
399
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I'm claiming it because that is what
Christ says, that's what he did,
400
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and he rose from the dead.
And our participation in Christ is manifold.
401
00:38:43.210 --> 00:38:45.730
It's so many ways. We are
legally united to him in such a way
402
00:38:45.730 --> 00:38:50.849
that his sacrifice counts for our own, his death counts for our own death.
403
00:38:51.489 --> 00:38:54.130
We are united with him in an
act of celebration as he, as
404
00:38:54.170 --> 00:38:59.559
a host, invites us around his
table and says eat with me, my
405
00:38:59.840 --> 00:39:06.360
friends, my bride. We are
one with him as we benefit even from
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00:39:06.400 --> 00:39:13.389
his own body, his own person, and we benefit from him with the
407
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hope of promise that one day our
bodies, as we benefit from him,
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will be like his body, Paul
tells us in First Corinthians, later on
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00:39:22.909 --> 00:39:27.940
we'll get to it, our resurrection
will be like his, that the resurrection
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00:39:28.139 --> 00:39:35.619
has already begun. And so the
Lord Ordains these symbols of bread and of
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wine to point us to Christ,
to teach us these things, but to
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also, by the power of the
Holy Spirit and the efficacy of faith,
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to help us to participate with Christ
and actually receive those benefits, not by
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00:39:53.199 --> 00:40:00.079
Christ's coming down out of heaven before
he promises to come again, but by
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the spirit uniting us to him where
he is. Isn't God good? He
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gives to us all of these things, he tells us these truths, and
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then he gives us a ritual,
a a practice, a sacrament, a
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00:40:19.590 --> 00:40:24.699
mystery by which we might by which
he might not just tell us about these
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things, but show them to us
as well and confirm in our hearts,
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which are so prone to idolatry,
that we don't need to go after those
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things, because we have him in
his body, in his blood, in
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00:40:39.449 --> 00:40:47.889
his death and in his resurrection.
These symbols and word pictures are sufficient for
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helping us to understand and to believe
in Jesus, that he is God the
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sun come in the flesh, not
to trick us, not to deceive us,
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not to harm us, but to
save US unto eternal life. Do
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we go to the table flogging ourselves, beating ourselves and sacrificing our children?
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Oh, we go to the table
celebrating the promises and the word of God.
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00:41:24.739 --> 00:41:34.130
All this together, we come to
this conclusion and this grand view of
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00:41:34.289 --> 00:41:37.809
Christ, with a deeper understanding of
who he is and what he's done,
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00:41:38.050 --> 00:41:44.289
of the forgiveness of our sins,
of our sanctification Unto Eternal Life, of
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00:41:44.409 --> 00:41:51.000
the way that he is now offering
himself not only to unbelievers who need to
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00:41:51.159 --> 00:41:54.519
hear and to believe for the first
time, but to believers who need there,
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but who need Jesus Christ. As
we go on our way, as
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00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.429
we wander through this wilderness, as
we go through this time of exile,
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00:42:04.909 --> 00:42:07.829
we need help, but we don't
need to get that help from idols,
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00:42:08.349 --> 00:42:12.750
we need it from him, in
from him alone. We need to flee
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00:42:13.150 --> 00:42:16.780
idols. and to WHOM DO WE
FLEE? We flee to the one who
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00:42:16.900 --> 00:42:22.940
provides for us, who doesn't disgrace
us, but honors us, lifts us
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00:42:22.980 --> 00:42:28.659
up, glorifies us with his own
name, name of the father and the
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00:42:28.820 --> 00:42:32.489
son and the Holy Spirit. He
doesn't degrade us, he lifts us up
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00:42:32.610 --> 00:42:37.809
and honors US and glorifies us.
He doesn't destroy US and lead us into
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00:42:37.889 --> 00:42:45.239
death. He leads us into righteousness
and life. This is how we flee
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00:42:45.280 --> 00:42:53.000
from idols, BY FLEEING UNTO Christ. The final end of Satan and evil
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00:42:53.039 --> 00:43:05.309
spirits is wrath and death. Shall
we go from being placed as children of
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00:43:05.429 --> 00:43:12.349
God in eating at his table to
going after demons and things of death?
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00:43:14.539 --> 00:43:21.980
We shouldn't. Romans are sorry.
Revelation twelve and says this, and I'll
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00:43:22.019 --> 00:43:28.010
read this now. The Salvation and
the power and the Kingdom of our God
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00:43:29.210 --> 00:43:35.210
and the Authority of Christ have come
for the accuser of our brothers. This
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00:43:35.369 --> 00:43:40.250
is speaking of Satan has been thrown
down, who accuses them day and night
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00:43:40.409 --> 00:43:46.199
before our God, and they have
conquered him by the blood of the lamb
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00:43:46.280 --> 00:43:53.000
and the word of their testimony.
For they love not their lives, even
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00:43:53.199 --> 00:44:00.030
unto death. When the world says
if you don't worship, if you don't
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00:44:00.070 --> 00:44:06.349
participate in our idols, you will
die, we will kill you, we
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00:44:06.510 --> 00:44:12.860
say so be it. I'm not
going to give my honor and my worship
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00:44:13.139 --> 00:44:16.699
and my life to one who would
seek to kill me. I give it
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00:44:16.860 --> 00:44:22.420
to the one who died for me
so that I might live forever. Let's
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00:44:22.460 -->
pray
