Sermon
Living Waters of Grace for April 6th, 2026
Publisher transcript
Transcript
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This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
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Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
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County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
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continues teaching through God's Word.
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Jesus is the perfect example of forgiving us, isn't it?
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And everything we did to him, he never once said, hey, I'll
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forgive these people, but no way am I forgiving them.
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They're just like they hurt me too much, they did too much
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evil. They just, they're worthless.
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No, God sees value and worth in every human being, and He died
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for our sins. And so how can I, how can you
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not be willing to forgive other people for their offenses?
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Forgiveness is one of the single most difficult topics in the
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body of Christ. Stop and think about your own
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struggles and the struggles of the people you know.
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They're almost all deeply rooted in an unwillingness to forgive.
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Pastor Clark will remind us today that forgiveness is
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central to the life of a follower of Jesus, and Jesus was
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our very best example. While we were yet sinners,
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Christ died for us. So we need to walk in the
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forgiveness that Jesus walked in.
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Now. Here's Pastor Clark in
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Revelation Chapter 11 with today's edition of Living Waters
Revelation 11 chapter mention
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of Grace. And you look at the goal of
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modern healthcare today, it's it's fascinating.
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They want to deny the reality of death.
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I mean, the last thing that they want to tell you in the hospital
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is like there's no more hope. I mean, an honest doctor will
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say that they'll be upfront with you, but most of them say, hey,
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we can do this, we can do that. They got all these ideas with
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magic tricks they can pull out of their hat and maybe give you
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another couple years. They don't tell you like how
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miserable you might be or you might you don't have to be
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forced to be on artificial life support and that kind of stuff
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because it's a point on the man wants to die and after this a
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judgement. So my question is at times, when
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does medical science become a blessing and when is it becoming
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a curse? Because if it gets in the way of
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God's preordained plan, right, and begins to try to make life
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its own sustainer as opposed to God himself, then these poor
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people are are on these tubes unconscious and staying alive
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for a sometimes a very long time when they're already pretty much
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gone. It's an interesting discussion
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and I'm sure all of us might have some different points of
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view on that, but it's the medical and the new age gurus
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today that have this philosophy that it's just a matter of time
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before we conquer aging. Isn't that good news, guys that
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make you feel better than any? This a matter of time, brother,
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before we conquer aging. You're going to live to be 500?
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No, boy. Yeah.
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I have a friend. He's a doctor in Charleston and
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a fascinating guy who developed a good friendship, good brother
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and a Lord. And once in a while I go down
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there. He invites me to stay at his
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house and I do business down there.
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And one morning I'm getting up, having coffee there and I'm
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talking to his son and I see this guy, this picture of this
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guy on the wall, physique guys like in his early 70s.
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This guy's cut man. I mean, he looks like he's like
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a Charles Atlas of like 73 or whatever.
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And he, his claim to fame, doctor life is that you can have
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perpetual youthful longevity. If you deal with these youth
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hormones, you know, you get shot up.
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He's the guru doctor of all the Hollywood stars, all the glamour
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people, right? And so I'm like, looking at this
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picture, I'm thinking, what's the connection here with my
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Christian friend? Why would he have the picture of
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this guy on the wall? Is he like, is he into this?
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Is this what? And so I asked his grand.
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I asked his son, who is that guy?
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This is my grandfather. So David wakes up.
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I said, man, I read about that guy.
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I mean, what's he into? He says, Clark, my dad's he's
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he's a great guy, but he's like totally out of it because he
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thinks that he can conquer death.
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And in other words, instead of the body dying, it can be
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restored through all these metabolic changes.
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You know, And I said to him, I said, what's interesting, maybe,
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you know, for a few years, but his does he realize that
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eventually this isn't going to work?
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I mean, eventually he's going to die.
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I mean, it's appointed unto me and wants to die.
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And after this is judgment. And so the society is always
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trying to like, push away the inevitable.
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The church should be the most clear, peaceful place for us to
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learn about our destiny, right? What's in store for all of us
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now? The idea of Christianity being
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reconciled with death. You know God hates death.
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It wasn't his intention to have death.
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When he created us in the garden, He created us to live
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forever. We're the ones that changed the
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setup, didn't we? We took it upon ourselves to
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take life in our own hands, and sin and the wages of sin is
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death. Christ is our life and death,
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Christianity proclaiming it to be namely an enemy to be
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destroyed and not a mystery to be explained.
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The scriptures teach about death as being abnormal.
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It's not God's plan, is it? If it was his plan, there would
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be no resurrection. God wouldn't have come in the
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flesh to die and to go through what He went through for you and
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I if death was his plan. He's done everything he could
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for you and me to sustain us in eternity.
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Turn to John Chapter 11. This is Jesus own experience of
John 11 chapter mention
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death with Lazarus. See how he feels about it.
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He's God in the flesh, fully God, fully man.
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John Chapter 11, verse 28. And when she had said these
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things, she went her way, and secretly called Mary her sister,
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saying, The teacher's come and is calling to you.
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As soon as she heard, she quickly arose and came to him.
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Now Jesus had not yet come into the town, but was in place where
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Martha met him. And then the Jews who were with
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her in the house and comforting her, when they saw that Mary
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Rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, She's
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going to the tomb to weep there. And then when Mary came where
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Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him,
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Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
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Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came
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with her weeping, he groaned in the Spirit and he was troubled.
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And he said, Where have you laid him?
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And they said to him, Lord, come and see.
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Verse 35, Jesus wept. Jesus didn't say, don't worry,
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he's in a better place, everything's OK.
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Death is the final enemy, isn't it?
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God hates death, what it does to people, what it does to
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families, what it does to human existence.
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And the Jews said, see how he loved him.
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And some of them said, could not this man who opened the eyes of
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the blind also have kept this man from dying?
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Then Jesus again, groaning in himself, came to the tomb.
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You know the darkness of death, the horror of separation of
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family and loved ones, the waiting of the Conqueror who had
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not yet gone into Hades to set the captives free.
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This is pre death burial and resurrection that is occurring
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here and Jesus senses obviously the extreme intenseness of the
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demonic spirits and the hatred of the devil and all his demons
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and dark powers. And Jesus groans in himself and
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he comes to the tomb. It was a cave, a stone lay
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against it. And Jesus said, take away the
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stone. Martha, the sister of him who
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was dead, said to him, Lord, by this time there is a stench, for
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he has been dead for days. Jesus said to her, Did I not say
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to you that if you would believe, you would see the glory
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of God? And then they took away the
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stone from the place where the dead man was lying.
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And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that
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you have heard me, and I know that you always hear me.
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But because of the people who are standing by, I said this now
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that they may believe you sent me.
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Now when he said these things, he cried with a loud voice.
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Lazarus come forth and he who had died came outbound hand and
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foot with grave clothes, and his face was wrapped in a cloth.
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And Jesus said to them, lose him and let him go.
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Jesus wept. He doesn't again say, hey,
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everything's OK, he's in heaven, everything's well.
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He's gone from this difficult life, He's in a better place.
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Have you ever found yourself saying that kind of stuff?
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We have to see death as God sees it.
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Now Paul tells us to be absent the bodies, to be present with
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the Lord. But keep in mind the final
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resurrection has not occurred yet.
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You know, we understand today the Lord in some small degree,
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don't we? All of us?
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We have some insight of His love, His grace, and His mercy.
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Do we know it all? I mean, my understanding of
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God's love and His grace is so small compared to the way it
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really is because I can't grasp it in my fallen human condition.
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I know God's good. He loves, He's merciful, He's
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forgiving, but I don't know him today like I will know him one
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day. When Jesus said through Paul, I
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hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of
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man the things that God has prepared for those who love him.
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None of us can comprehend that yet, can we?
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We get, we're looking through a glass darkly, Paul said in First
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Corinthians 13. We're seeing a little bit right
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now, but one day the Bible said we will see him face to face,
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for we shall see him as he is, and we will become like him.
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Now when we think of Christ, it tells us in the Word that he was
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crucified and he was buried. He suffered.
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He's a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.
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Christ lived a life of constant suffering for your sake and
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mine. He had joy, He had pleasure, he
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loved the children, he obviously loved communing with the Father,
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because every chance he got, he was alone with his Heavenly
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Father, praying and glorifying, worshiping him.
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But he was a man of extreme sorrow and grief, it says.
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He looks out over the city of Jerusalem.
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He looks out today in the city of southwest Greensburg.
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He looks into your homes, your neighborhoods, your families,
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this country, this world. And he still is broken.
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His heart is grieving because he sees the majority of people on
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the earth as sheep without a shepherd.
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He sees people trying to live life without him.
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And so the suffering and death is interwoven in the human
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experience. And the presence of 1 implies
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the presence of the other. Suffering and death are entwined
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together in Christ. When he died on the cross, his
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suffering wasn't removed, was it?
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He experienced extreme agony and pain and sorrow.
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Everybody abandoned him and forsook him for the most point
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except for his mother and John. He died alone, even to the point
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that he allowed himself to be separated in the greatest
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mystery of all. When he said, My God, my God,
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why have you forsaken me? He understood in a brief second
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what you and I deal with every day.
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If we don't have God in our lives, Can you imagine never,
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ever being disconnected from the reality of the Trinity, Father,
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Son, and Holy Spirit? But He became one of us, and for
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that brief second when He took upon Himself our sin, to atone
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and pay the price for all our sin, He knew what sin did.
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It cut us off from our Creator. And yet in His suffering He
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transformed death into victory, and His death in a cross becomes
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our victory. Without His death, there's no
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way into the Kingdom, is there? There's no hope for anybody
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apart from his death. And so we enter into the Kingdom
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because of what Christ has done, and that's where we receive our
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true healing. Our final victory is one day,
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the resurrection of the dead. And when you think about these
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things, you have to put them in the context of us being
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reconciled first to God before we can be resurrected in
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immortality and incorruption. Every one of us have to come
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first to God in repentance. We have to come and confess our
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sins to Him. We have to repent.
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The Bible tells us if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just
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to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all
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unrighteousness. So we ask God to forgive us, and
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he's faithful, isn't He to forgive us?
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And then we need to be reconciled with one another as
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human beings where there's strife and where there's angst
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and where there's unforgiveness and bitterness for all the
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things we've been through in our lives that other people maybe
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have caused us or we've caused them.
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Jesus tells us in the Lord's Prayer when we pray, forgive us
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our trespasses as we forgive one another, right?
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Later on, Jesus says if you don't forgive others their
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trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you of
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yours. So all this reconciliation, all
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this truth of resurrection comes out of our lives being
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sacrificed for the sake of others.
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Jesus is the perfect example of forgiving us, isn't he?
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And everything we did to him, he never once said, hey, I'll
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forgive these people, but no way am I forgiving them.
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They're just like, they hurt me too much.
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They did too much evil. They just, they're worthless.
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No, God sees value and worth in every human being.
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And he died for our sins. And so how can I, how can you
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not be willing to forgive other people for their offenses?
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When someone's on their deathbed and you have a chance to
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minister to them, you want to lead them in the Lord's Prayer
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and remind them of God's mercy, right, and his forgiveness.
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And you also want to ask that person to forgive you and you to
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forgive them and thank them for their lives and tell them you
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love them and then tell them goodbye.
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Jesus says to the guy down by the pool, Besazia Besavia.
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He was lame. And Jesus asked him, do you want
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to be made well? That's the ultimate plan of God,
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Wellness for every one of us, spiritual, physical, emotional,
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psychological wholeness throughout all eternity.
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And one day it will come to pass.
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He's restoring us right now to the likeness we had before the
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fall. I'm becoming a little bit more
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like Jesus every day. And you are too, if you're a
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Christian. We still got a lot of flaws, a
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lot of things. None of us are perfect, but
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we're being conformed to the image of His Son.
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That's what thrills me when I can look back and think about
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the way I used to be. And I'm certainly not what I
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want to be yet, but I can look back and say, thank God, I'm not
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like that anymore. And I can't take any credit for
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it, and you can't either. All you can say is God's grace,
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right? His mercy, the power of his Holy
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Spirit. There's a testimony of this guy
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back in the 11th century. He was a very sick man from his
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youth, but he had this heart. He just wanted to love God and
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to serve him at a young age and radically be a disciple of Jesus
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Christ. So they took him to this place.
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It was known for healing and he stayed there until his death
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actually. But what he prayed for when he
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was there, he prayed more to be content in his sickness and for
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health. Isn't that an interesting
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perspective? Sort of like Jesus.
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Not my will, but your will be done.
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One night angels appeared to him.
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You ever believe angels can appear all through the
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scripture? I remember when my uncle died.
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He was in Torrance Mental Hospital and he spent most of
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his life there with schizophrenia.
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He had a simple faith in Jesus and he'd always tell us.
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Every time we left his presence, he'd say tell Melanie and
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Jessica. He'd tell me my kids tell them I
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love them with my heart, soul and conscience and I would I was
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with him when he was dying of Melanoma.
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My mom and dad went out to take a break for a few moments and he
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was laying there belabored breathing very difficult.
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And he's he's getting ready to pass and he had no strength to
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so weak. And he's laying there I'll never
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forget on the bed and all of a sudden I see him get up like sit
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straight up in the bed. And first of all, it's a miracle
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because the guy had like no strength.
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He put his arms out and he had to smile on his face.
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And I believe that he saw the angels coming for him and he
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just laid back down, stop breathing.
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And that was it. So one night the angels appear
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to this man telling him he would be sick until his death, but
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would be healed at that very moment of his death.
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So he lay sick for 20 years. And yet this man worked many
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wonders in his life for others. During his life of suffering,
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people would come to him because he was a very deep Christian.
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He would pray, give them counsel.
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People would get healed. I mean, that's a wonderful, true
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servant of God. And I think about the testimony
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of this man again, reminds me of Jesus, a man of sorrows,
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acquainted with grief. And just at the time of his
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death, he got up from his bed completely healed.
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He prepared his grave and he entered into his rest in the
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Lord. To be healed of God of our sins,
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we must first acknowledge that we have sins before we can made
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be made whole. You got three groups of people
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here today. You have believers, unbelievers
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and pretenders and only God knows our hearts.
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But for all of us today, no matter for believers,
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unbelievers, or pretenders, we need to always go back to the
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basics of what God asked us to do, and that's to repent.
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I don't repent anymore to get saved.
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I repent now to stay close to the Lord.
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But if you're lost today and you've never come to Christ,
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your first act of repentance would be to admit your need of
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Christ and that you're a Sinner and that you want him to make
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you whole. For Jesus is the healer.
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He said, you will know the truth and the truth shall make you
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free. And we can't receive God's
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forgiveness until we realize our utter helplessness to change our
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hearts apart from God's mercy and grace.
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Sometimes Cindy and I'll sit and talk and maybe we're working
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through something on our marriage and, and one of us will
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will say something like, well, I'm trying, but I'm having a
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hard time letting this go. You ever say that to each other?
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And we look at each other and she'll remind me or I'll remind
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her. I'll say well.
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We can try until doomsday. We can't change our hearts, only
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God can. We have a willingness to change
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and then we ask God to do and us what we can't do for ourselves,
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right? And God's faithful to do that.
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So as we conclude here today, just some practical things that
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give some thought to the essential element of healing our
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own lives today. First of all, we're to give
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glory and worship to God on all things.
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Maybe today there's something in your life you're not happy
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about, you're not thankful for, you're bitter, you're upset,
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you're like angry, you're just, maybe it's something you've
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carried around for years in your life.
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But I can't think of a better place to give glory and worship
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to God. Our relationships with God and
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our neighbors have to be made right.
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You know, whatever's going on in your hearts with people,
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situations, make it right, guys. Go to the people and let them
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know you forgive them. You're not going to hold any
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grudge. You're not going to be bitter.
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This, this, let it go. And as Jesus said, love one
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another as I've loved you. And this is a powerful thought.
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When Jesus became one of us, God Incarnate in the incarnation, it
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is only because Christ assumed our entire nature except for our
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sin nature and he entered into death itself that we can be
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healed. Because he died and resurrected,
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He overcame death. The acceptance of our own death
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and repentance can be our cure and our own healing cause.
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Life comes out of death, death to self.
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And Jesus says, if anyone of you will follow me, let him deny
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himself and take up his cross daily and follow me every
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Sunday. We celebrate the Lord's death,
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don't we? Maybe you come here and you
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think that's sort of odd. I go to some churches, they
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might do it once a month or once a quarter, or, you know, why do
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we do this every week? The early church did it every
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week. Every time they gathered
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together, they broke bread. The signal signifying the
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remembrance of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus
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Christ. And I can't think of a greater
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thing to do to honor our Lord when he says, as often as you do
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this right, eat the bread and drink the cup, you do this in
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remembrance of me. Then I, John, saw the holy city,
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New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as
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a bride adorn for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from
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heaven saying, Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with men,
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and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and
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God himself will be with them and be their God, and God will
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wipe away every tear from their eyes.
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Are you looking forward to that? There shall be no more death,
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nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for
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the former things have passed away.
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Then he who sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things
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new. And he said to me, write, for
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these words are true and faithful.
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And he said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega,
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the beginning and the end. I will give of the fountain of
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the water of life freely to him who thirst.
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He who overcome shall inherit all things, and I will be his
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God, and he shall be my son. But the cowardly, the
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unbelieving, the abominable murderers, sexually immoral,
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sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in
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the lake, which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the
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second death. We are digging into the Book of
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Revelation here on Living Waters of Grace.
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Pastor Clark is tackling this challenging book as we try to
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discern the messages that are within its pages.
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There's so much imagery, and at times you're not always sure
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what's literal and what's metaphorical.
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At one point, there's a reference to an adulterous woman
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riding on a beast. And as someone else mentioned,
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at one point, it almost sounds like a rodeo from hell.
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And in actuality, it kind of is. You learn about the downfall and
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demise of a sinful and rebellious world, falling down
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in worship to someone who is the anti hero, the enemy, Satan
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working his insidious ways into the minds of fallen people.
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It's sad and it's heartbreaking, but it's a classic story of good
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versus evil. Thankfully, we know how this
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story ends. Jesus wins, Jesus reigns, and
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evil is conquered once and for all.
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We pray and trust you've received Jesus as your Savior.
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But if you haven't, don't wait until the events and revelation
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become what's happening on the streets.
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None of us wants you to be there at that time.
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Instead, we'd love for you to be with us in heaven as we
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celebrate the marriage supper with Jesus as his bridegroom.
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To get a better understanding of where we are in the Book of
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Revelation, to listen to any messages before or after this
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one, you can find them at our website,
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calvarychapelonline.com. That's it for today's edition,
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but we hope you'll want to hear Pastor Clark teach more from the
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Book of Revelation. It can be exciting to think
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about the future for believers, but it can feel a bit harrowing
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for those who don't believe. Come here more next time on
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Living Waters of Grace.