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New song here. I trust you'll catch on really quickly to it. In the name of the father, in the name of the son, in the name of the spirit.
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Oh Lord, we come and we are gathered together to lift up your name, to call on a savior, to fall on your grace. We hear them joyful sound of our offering as your saints bow down as your people sing. And we will rise with you lifted on your wings and the world will see that our gods are gods there is in name in the name of father in the name of the son, in the name of the spirit, Lord, we come, and we are gathered together to lift up your name, to call on a savior, to fall on grace, to hear the joyful sound of our offering. As your saints bow down, as your people sing, our God saves there is hope your name. Morning turns and morning day to songs of praise.
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Our God saves our God saves and our God saves
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our
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God saves saves. There's hope. There is hope in your name our gods sing. You've got a hand. And I meet with you, and my soul sings out as your word throws down far away.
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And I sing to you, you show me grace. And I worship you, and my heart drives glory. Hallelujah, father, you are drought or storm. Peace and badasses understand. It's my song and I sing.
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My hope is in you alone. I'll wait on you.
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Amen. You can have a seat.
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As I ask the ushers to come up for our morning offerings, and we ask the Lord to bless that. One, again, go in prayer here and remember Reno's. Wanna remember our missionaries. There is that prayer flap on the side of your bulletin. Don't let that sit there.
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Take it out, tear it out, put it on your mirror in the morning so when you get up, get you outside yourself and thinking about other people's and and their needs. And let's go now and ask the Lord's blessing going We're that. We're send it to the corners of the earth where to you want it to be, to be used for the spreading of your gospel. Lord, as we listen to pastor Don there in The Philippines, we thank you for what's going on there. We thank you for that conference.
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Lord, the leaders there that you are stirring and pointing to you, the living water, eternal life. And so we just ask that you'll continue to move there through your Holy Spirit. Lord, we thank you for the ministry that Kayla and Reno have here, and we ask that you would be with them at this time of grieving and with their whole family. Just ask that you give them safety, give them comfort. Lord, I pray that this time might highlight you, that you might be their portion in this time of sorrow.
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And we just ask that you would work through those situations and and heal broken hearts. Lord, we we do commit to you, Ray and Tanya, and we just ask, Lord, for your moving in their life. And we thank you, Lord, for what you have been doing and are doing and will be doing. And we look forward to them coming, and we just pray, Lord, for safety as they travel. And and, Lord, for those among us who are planning and and organizing all that, we just thank you for their efforts and pray that you will give them wisdom.
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And, Lord, we we ask for our missionaries around the We think of Eric and his urban ministry up in Billings, Montana, Eric Basie. Pray that you bless all these folks. We pray for Peter in Bangladesh. We pray for the Lilos in Nigeria. We ask for their safety as the violence is coming closer.
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Bless his teaching there in the in the school and the academy. We pray for the Grabers and we ask, Lord, as your word goes into the hands of the Chinese people that it will not return void. Pray for the Smiths and Melissa in South Africa with the Zulu people and we pray for souls among the Zulus. We pray especially for our Zulu pastor to be raised up to lead that congregation there. We pray for Norris Williams and Nadim and the ministry to the Lebanon and The Middle East.
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We thank you, Lord, that you are are saving those who are trapped in Islam and that you're bringing them the hope of Jesus Christ. Continue to spread there. We thank you for the Stanfields and their urban ministry in Denver. We thank you for the Bristos and their ministry to the Navajo and the McEuns to the Hispanics here in our community. We ask, Lord, that you will use these funds to encourage, to equip, and to provide for these folks' needs so that many more might come to know you and the freedom and the joy and the transformation power that we have in you.
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In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
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Seated for this one here. But, really, this is as much a a prayer as it is a song as we prepare to to hear from the word as as Ron expounds on it. And so, you know, I just wanna invite you to to to really make this make this your prayer. Let's make it our prayer.
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As we go, Lord, and renew our minds, help us grasp the heights of your plans for us. True sun changed from the dawn of time that will echo down through etern. And our grace will stand on your promises, and my faith will walk as you walk with us. Speak, oh Lord, till your church has been in the earth and spell with your
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Would you welcome Ron Turpin.
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Let's bow our heads in prayer. As you're there in your seat, would you quietly in your heart do the same thing that I will do here? And just simply ask God if He would take, and by His mercy and by His grace, speak to you. And I'll do the same here, and we will anticipate God meeting our hearts. Let's pray.
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Just in the quietness, simply say, near gone, meet my heart where I am. Our father, as we bow our heads, we say thank you for the fact that you know us better than anybody. You know the things about us that no one else knows. And so right now, we pray that you, by your Holy Spirit, would take and do amazing, wonderful thing, and that is to meet our hearts. We pray that as we go through this time in your word, that you would lift up one person, and that one person is the Lord Jesus Christ.
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We don't know how you're going to take the words of scripture and mete it out so that it means one thing to a young girl, another thing to a senior. But we're so sure this morning that you're gonna meet us, and we're so dependent upon you and you alone that with glad acquiescence, we simply say thank you in anticipation for what you're going to do. In Jesus' name, amen. And you don't need to turn there if you want to go ahead of us. We're going to be in the New Testament in the book of John, John's gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
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But in preparation for that, we're going to go back and kind of review a little bit of what in the past we've had a chance to talk about. And so I'm going to read a couple of verses, and then I'm going to tell you where we're going to go, and then we're going to end up in John's Gospel. In the middle of the Proverbs, there's a very wonderful verse just tucked away that gives us some real clear insight as to the way God views all of us. It's a verse that tells us a little bit about how we're made up. It tells us a little bit about why we have problems and why those problems many times take a long time to work out.
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And the verse, I'm going to read it to you. It's in Proverbs chapter 20 and verse 27. It says, the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord. Now, you probably noticed that I came and brought some candles this morning. And basically, what it says is the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.
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In other words, the candle is the capacity for where God invades in a man's life. And we're gonna see that in just a moment. Another verse I wanna read before we get over to John's gospel is found in first Thessalonians chapter five and this is the verse. It says, and the very God of peace sanctify you holy. Now, what that means is, he's talking about the Holy Spirit setting apart your life totally and so he says, the very God of peace sanctify you holy, all of you and then he specifically breaks down the way a man or a woman is made.
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And he says, and I pray God your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless into the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. So when we're dealing with the makeup of man in doctrine, what we're doing is we're seeing that man is made of three a physical body. I happen to have a five feet, six and a half inch dumpy little body. My brother-in-law is here today. David, would you please stand?
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This is a big body. So, we have all kinds of bodies. We have female body and male body, but that's the body. And he says that you're made up of spirit, soul, and body. And just a short note, the world puts it just backwards.
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For the girls, with the hair coming back over your shoulder and the L'Oreal commercial, you're worth it. In other words, what the world tells us is the most important part of us is our body. What the Bible teaches, one Thessalonians five, is the most important part of us, look at the order, is what? Spirit, soul, and body. So when we come here this morning, we need to go all the way back to the way we were made and just begin to move in that direction as we go to John's Gospel.
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Do you remember in the Garden of Eden? God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit all together came together and they said, let us, God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit, let us make man in our own image. And I'm sure the angels were on tiptoe as as God in the person of Jesus Christ knelt down, and he formed in the clay a body looking body. And all of a sudden, it was all done, and God did something with God and with God. God and God and God did something wonderful.
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And this was the capstone of all creation. The angels watched because they knew this was going to be the best, the greatest, the grander of all that God did. And as God and God got down on the knee of the Lord Jesus, He breathed into that pile of dust, and all of a sudden, became a living soul. I'm going to illustrate this. Imagine this is the clay.
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If I can get the lighter going. And God breathed. Remember the candle is the spirit of the Lord. And God breathed, and all of a sudden, what happened? Man became alive.
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Now I'm going to show you two men. This is a man that is physically alive but spiritually does not have God. That's why it's possible to come in the door this morning and to be physically alive and spiritually dead. But when God invades a person's heart, they're physically alive and spiritually alive. So a man was alive.
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And he stood up and he walked with God and God and God. And as he did, there was fellowship. And you know the story how Adam and Eve fortook of the tree that they were forbidden, and all of a sudden, their candle was blown out. And man was physically alive in the garden, but spiritually, he was dead. And that's why Eve looked at herself and said, God died.
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God lied. We didn't die. I'm still alive. But she didn't know that the moment that they partook of the fruit, all of a sudden, their candle was blown out. So as we follow that all the way through scripture, we find out that every single man ever born, a tiny little baby is physically alive but spiritually dead.
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Until all of a sudden in their life, they come to the place in a church service or a camp or somewhere on a freeway or somewhere where somebody introduces them to Jesus Christ and they're born again. And at that moment, God invades their holy invades their spirit with the Holy Spirit. John's Gospel chapters John's Gospel chapter 11. If you'll turn with me there now. With that background in mind, we have an idea of how it works with a man when he dies.
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I brought this older candle here because it kinda shows you that the body goes down and the time doesn't change the spirit or the life inside. John's gospel chapter 11. This is in the shadow of the cross. The Lord Jesus, in a matter of days, will die on the cruel Roman cross. As this time is approaching, all of a sudden, two or several individuals come with a message from individuals that are very close to the Lord.
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Let's look at John's gospel chapter 11 in verse one. Now, a certain man was sick. Named Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore, his sisters sent unto him saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
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When Jesus heard that, he said, this sickness is not unto death but for the glory of God that the son of God might be glorified thereby. Now, you have to kind of see the picture. The Lord Jesus has withdrawn from public ministry and he's now taking and he's with his disciples and the innermost teachings of what He's doing is being shared with those closest to Him. And all of a sudden, an individual comes to Him and says, We've got news. Mary and Martha sent this to us that their brother, Lazarus, is dying or He's sick.
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I don't don't wanna push ahead too much but he they said, he's sick. Could you come and take care of him? Well, all of a sudden, the Lord Jesus looks and he says, well, I wanna let you know, this sickness is not but for the glory of God to be revealed. Now, I don't know how you interpret that passage but I kinda look at it like this. All of a sudden, the guy goes like this.
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Great. And he turns around and he heads right straight back. And I believe he walked into the to Mary and Martha. He said, I just saw Jesus. I mean, I don't how long it took him to get there, but he said, I just saw Jesus, and I got news for you.
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He's not gonna die. He said, in fact, these are the exact words of Jesus. This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the son of God might be glorified thereby. And so all of a sudden, here's Mary and Martha, they sit down, and they hear this word, and they look at each other, and they go, great. I knew that he would come through for us.
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Well, little bit of time passes and Lazarus doesn't get better, he gets worse. And they begin to watch him and they see that as he as he begins to move into a period of of of maybe a coma, they see that it's getting bad. Ever been like that with God? You ever send God a message and say, God, I really need help on this thing right now. I really need you to invade this relationship right now.
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I need for you to come on board in such a way I want you to dramatically meet this need. Well, there they were. Well, the more time that passed, the worse He got until all of a sudden they heard and all the and He died. And I'm sure that between Mary and Martha, there was this look and they look at each other and they go, didn't he say that this is not a sickness unto death? And didn't he say it's gonna come through?
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And here we are. He's dead. Ever been there with God? Maybe there's somebody here today and maybe it happened a long time ago in your life and you just said, that's it. He let me down.
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Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. And when he heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days in the same place where he was. He said, hold a second. He loved them. And it's the word agape.
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It's the word for the love of God involved in somebody's life. And all of a sudden he says, and he stayed around. Wouldn't you think that he'd get up and he would move? Now, you've gotta stop for a minute and go back to our passage that we we spoke about in the introduction. Remember, it's always in the Bible, God and God and God.
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It's never just Jesus. In other words, when you see the Lord Jesus moving in the midst of a crowd, it's God and God and God. It's God the Father. It's God the Son, and it's God the Holy Spirit. They're inseparable.
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It's the great triune Godhead. It's the person that threw the stars into space. It's the one that laid the foundations of the deep. God and God and God. And so all of a sudden, God and God and God are waiting around.
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What do you think was taking place with Jesus? I believe this is it. I believe that there was this. The Lord Jesus speaking. Father, should I go?
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The father saying, no, no, no. Wait. The Holy Spirit says, I'll empower you to have the strength to wait. And there was this great interchange. And one day passed.
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Lord Jesus said, you know, father, I just want to know, do we go today? Because the Bible says that the Lord Jesus never ever did anything of Himself. He said the miracles that I do are not my doing, they're the doing of my Father. He said the words that I speak, the very words that I speak, they're not my words, but the words of my Father. And so we know that the Father was involved, and the Holy Spirit was the executor of the miracles and the words in all of His life.
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And so I believe that God and God and God stood there and waited and waited and waited and waited to make sure of one thing that Lazarus was good and dead. They didn't want somebody that had just died because that had already happened and Jesus had taken that miracle and moved it through. They wanted somebody that was dead. And there's a great message here for us because sometime God has to wait on us to see that it's not in your family, or it's not in the relationship, or it's not in the government, or it's not in the whoever. He wants us to come to the place that we would wait and see that there's only one way we're going to get through this mess, and it's God.
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And so all of a sudden, finally, Lord Jesus said, Father, do we go? The Holy Spirit lifted up Jesus' foot and said, It's time to go. And they went. Remember there's some opposition. But in the Christian life, opposition is what drives us to discovery in the life of Christ.
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How many of you have kids here? Anybody? How many of you have had trouble with your kids? My son is here today, have to be careful here. How many of you have trouble?
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I believe that that is the greatest tool God gives to a man and a woman to drive them through the knees. Why? Because you see, this is where the parent discovers often how wrong they are and how God works often in the life of the child to show them how wrong the parent is. No. To show them that there's hope.
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So all of a sudden, they're there and the disciples are around and Jesus says, Let's go down because it's time to go. And they go, where'd you going? Oh, we're going back down to to Jerusalem. One of the disciples, excuse me. Hold on a second.
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Checking his notes. The last time we were there, didn't they try to stone you? Another disciple. All of us all goes so we can get killed. You ever feel like that?
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You ever feel like all of a sudden, oh, let's just go on down there. This is going to be a total nightmare and it's going but you have to before you laugh at those disciples, you have to realize this, we're the same way and they did love him and they did go with him. So, all of a sudden, they go down there, apprehension, there's a fear in the disciples but what was going to take place is going to be primarily for the disciples. So, they get down there. By the way, how do you think Mary and Martha are at this state?
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I'm probably wrong but I'll find out when we get to heaven. I got a feeling just like this. You know, if he'd been here if he'd been here, he wouldn't have died. Ever been there with your Christian life? What are you doing, God?
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Why is it taking you so long? It's like God's like this in heaven, maybe fixing breakfast while everything is going to pot down. He's not like that. He's watching moment by moment. Because you see, He's the same God that put billions of stars in space, and He knows every single one by name.
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And if there's anything that God knows, He knows the precise moment to step in space and invade your life. Now get the picture. Here's God and God and God going down. Does the Lord Jesus know anything about what's going to take place? No.
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Because He was a 100% man, and a 100% God, and he's drawing off of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, and he's going down there and he's just depending, and they're talking, and they're communing, and God and God and God are moving, and disciples disciples are are behind behind him him, and and all of a sudden, he comes and Mary and Martha hear that he's there and they both come with the same message which we're not going to read. Where have you been? Where have you been? If you've been here, you know what? He wouldn't have died.
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And God and God and God stood there. Now, don't be mistaken. I thought of this this morning as I sat over here waiting for this service. Let me tell you, this room is packed today. It's packed.
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I believe that if you're a born again Christian, the Bible teaches that you're surrounded with a band of angels. I personally believe that you have a couple of angels that are with you your whole life through. And I also believe that if there's one person that showed up this morning, it's the enemy. I believe that he's all around the place. I can remember being with Kirkpatrick down there when the Brownsville Revival was going on, and he said, I sat at the edge, and I looked up, and he said, I could see all around the top of the second balcony, and it was dripping with the mercy of God as angels watched on.
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So this place is packed this morning. And I sat over there this morning, and I thought, oh God, it's going to be impossible to get a message out today. Absolutely impossible. It'll take God. Because there's too many things going on, too many dynamics in this group, too many things that are taking place, and the enemy's throwing, and the enemy's always trying to defeat the Gospel.
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This is one of the most exciting passages. Here's God and God and God and they move. Mary says, If you'd been here, you wouldn't have died. Martha says, If you'd been here, you wouldn't have died. And Jesus, and I'm moving fast to the passage, He says, Let's go where He is.
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Now watch, they move over, and all of a sudden, it was a little cave like place that had a stone in front of it. We'll pick the story up in verse 34. John's gospel 34. And they said, where have you laid him? And he said, Lord, come and see.
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And Jesus wept. And Jesus then said the Jews, behold how he loved him. And some of them said, could not this man which have opened the eyes of the blind have caused that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself, came up from the to the grave. And it was a cave and a stone lay upon him upon it.
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And you gotta see this because it's very different than it appears. Here's God and God and God, and they move up to the edge of a tiny little grave with a big stone upon it, or a stone upon it. And here are the disciples, here's Mary and Martha, and here's a bunch of Jews. Some positive, some negative, and they're all standing around. And there is no doubt about it.
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The angels who watched every movie made. The angels who made it where He would never ever dash His foot against a stone. The angels in all of heaven stood there on tiptoes as Jesus made His way with God and God and God to the whole with a stone upon it. And guess what else? There's a whole crowd of demons that piled up there.
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They were filling the hearts of the Jews, and there were people that hated Him so much that they'd been looking for Him to kill Him. And so there's a theater here. A theater of the unseen and a theater of the seen. And here stands God and God and God. And God and God and God commune with one another.
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And Jesus said, what shall I say? Oh, folks, let me tell you something. Precious how precious is this book? It's so precious. We have every single aspect of it here.
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We know what he said. Look, it's great. Watch. And Jesus said, take away the stone. What do I say?
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Father says, say take away the stone. And God the Holy Spirit supplied the words and He said, Take away the stone. Now, me tell you a little bit about the history here as we quickly move on in this passage. In Egypt, for seventy days they worked on a body to be embalmed. They took the entire insides of a person out and their brain.
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That's why today we have such great discoveries in Egypt. But for the Jews, they didn't. They left the cadaver completely together and they put just a little bit of smelling good things on it. And they wrapped them, they wrapped this leg, and they wrapped this leg, and they wrapped the body, and they wrapped the head, they put it in and covered it with a nice little towel. So what happens when it's 100 degrees and you're inside of a tomb and you've been dead, not one, not two, not three, but four days?
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What? Guess who picks up on? This is a horrifying You didn't make it. You didn't make it. You didn't come on time.
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You waited and you waited and if you'd have come and it'd been alright. No, you don't need to see him now. Behold now he what? He stinks. He stinks.
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Roll away the stone. Well, you know what I read and I thought of that in my life? How many times I've had in my Christian life something hiding behind the stone? No, don't take that stone away. You see, God's in the business of exposing us for the failures and the weak vessels that we are.
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Well, anyway, look at the words. It's just great. Take away the stone Martha. The sister of him who was dead said, Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he has been dead four days. Jesus said unto her, Sat I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst believe, thou should see the glory of God?
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And that's the title of the message. The invasion of God. The invasion of Jesus Christ. Then they took away the stone. Oh, the way, don't you think it's interesting?
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God never wastes a miracle in your life and mine. Think about this. God could have said, Father And they could have blown that whole mountain away just with the Word and the body just laying there. Or they could have taken the top of that stone and had it shot into outer space as if it was a meteor. But what does God do?
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Take away the stone. We'll see that again in just a moment. All of a sudden, what happens? The stone rolls away. And they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid and Jesus lifted up his eyes.
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Now, this is a very, very difficult word. This verse. After the service, you think about it. If you think I'm wrong, it's okay. Man, I mean, I'm wrong about so much stuff, it's unbelievable.
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But just evaluate it yourself. It says, And Jesus lifted up His eyes. Have to take, when I'm doing studying this just like you do, I have to take the whole canon of Scripture. And I have to take every single word, and as I evaluate it, everything has to balance. And I believe to have this idea is totally false.
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I don't believe that Jesus went like this: O Father in heaven, I don't believe He lifted His eyes up like that. Because you see, the Bible says that when we invite Christ into our hearts, we never have to pray service like this for Him to go with us because the Bible says, I will never ever what? Leave you. He doesn't have a choice. He's going.
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In other words, if you get into the biggest mess, you're in the dirtiest part of the world and you're in sin and you're in doubt, you've got Jesus with you. He didn't come to an ugly situation in Baal. So I don't believe that it teaches that Jesus is way up there and we're way down here. I believe that this is what it was like. I believe here He is, and He's there, and all of a sudden He lifted up His eyes, and this is what He did.
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I believe he was looking down into the cave, then he looked to the right to the Holy Spirit. And he looked to the left, and there's God the Father. Now watch God and God and God, and he lifts up his eyes, and he talks out loud to God the father. Watch what he says. It's unbelievable.
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Look, father, I thank thee that thou hurts me. I knew that thou hearest me always but because of the people which stand by, I say it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. It's the key to the gospel of John. The Bible teaches that Jesus said, I am only an individual that was sent. I do not do anything of Myself, I've been sent.
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I don't give a message of Myself, I've been sent. I do not do anything independent of Him. And at the end of the book, He says, As the Father has sent Me, even so, send I you. The message was for us. And so all of a sudden, He stood there and He prayed out loud and looked into the face of the Father and looked into the face of the Son.
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And again, I beg your indulgence here a moment because this is going to be a little different. You think about it and take it home. In the Old Testament, when a saint died, this is what happened. These candles do not want to cooperate. A saint dies, and I believe it's the same today.
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I love Pastor Don last week preaching on the second coming. When John Kennedy rode down the street in Dallas, Lee Harvey Oswald pulled the gun up. Guess what? Second coming of Christ for John F Kennedy. When Michael Jackson finished his audition and he went back to his room, he didn't know it, but it was the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
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Let me tell you, all over this world, the Second Coming is coming again and again and again until the final second coming. Don did such a powerful job because let me tell you, He's coming and for some of us in this room, He might come today. That's the second coming as well. So all of a sudden what happened? When he died, because it was before Calvary, all of a sudden, the Bible says from Luke's Gospel chapter 16, it says this: The angels come and take a saint away to Abraham's bosom.
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Watch. Pretend I'm an angel. Big pretend. Watch. Think about this the next time you're with somebody who dies.
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And I'll watch this candle very carefully. And in the Old Testament all the way up to the time of Christ, it was a place called Abraham's bosom. Got it? Pretty important. Abraham's bosom.
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All the Old Testament saints went to a place called Abraham's bosom. Every single one of them that died in the Lord. If they died without Christ, they went to a place called hell, and they're right between. And this is such a powerfully guarded place that I believe that there was a lock there. And I knew that Thou hearest me always, but because the people which stood by said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent me.
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And when He had thus spoken, He cried with a loud voice. I want you to help me with this, because in the Greek word, it's a unanimity word speaking of a gigantic sound of a crowd. So when I go one, two, three, I want you to say, Lazarus, come forth. You ready? Lazarus, come forth.
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I think some of you are Baptist. Okay, we can do that better. You want to try it one more time? All of a sudden, he comes up, it's an open tomb, and what happens? Exactly.
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And what happened at that moment? All of a sudden, God and God and God, the Holy Spirit leaves. Boom. And he heads as fast as he can, and he goes to where? He goes to Abraham's bosom, and he reaches because on his garment, he has the keys to death and to hell.
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And he takes and he sticks the key in, and all those in hell, all those people that have been roasting and waiting for the first time, see the door open, and one soul come out. One soul. One living soul. The Holy Spirit takes it and he shrouds the door and he locks it, and he takes the key and puts it back, and he moves back, and here's this dead old body of who? Of Lazarus.
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And he hovers over it like he hovered over the deep in the book of Genesis chapter one. Almighty God move. And all of a sudden, He took and He placed it back. And the Bible says that in Song of Solomon, He says, my soul, He said, is like a garden. God blow upon my soul.
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I believe it's such a great thing. Only God can do this. It's great. God goes like this. Holy Spirit blew all that snake out of there.
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Let me tell you something. I don't care what's behind a rock in your life. I don't care how bad you are. I don't care what you've done. I don't care how long you've had it.
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How long you've done it. When Jesus Christ comes into your life, He'll blow into your life, and He'll clean the worst sin up, and He'll run death right out the door, and He'll put a lock on it and slam the door shut after He's locked. Listen, Came back and he cleaned that tomb out so it wouldn't have smelled anything but heaven. When I was younger, used to preach on this, and this is how I was so wrong. Believe me, a lot of times when you preach on stuff, you don't have a clue what you're talking about.
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Here's how I used to preach it. He didn't hop. He didn't hop. They wrapped their legs individually. And you've got to see this.
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It's wonderful. It's a God thing. Here's Lazarus. How long has it been since he had a bowel movement? How long has it been since he had breath in his lungs?
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How long has it been since blood moved through him? And all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit, God and God and God stands over him, and God and God and God fills him with life. Watch. And he walked forth, but he had a problem because he couldn't see. And he was bound.
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So this is how he came. Would you have loved to sing the devil's face? Where'd you get the key? Would you have loved to sing the Pharisees? Mary and Martha, I believe they just poured tears.
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The disciples, I'm glad I came with Him. And Jesus, God and God stood there. Read the verse. Almost done. And he that was dead came forth, bound, handed with grave clothes.
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His face was bound with a napkin. And Jesus said unto them, This is my message today. Lazarus is saved. I believe with all my heart. In the Old Testament sense of the word, I believe he looked forward to the cross and believed it the best he could.
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Now there's somebody here today that's saved. But for all practical purposes, a Christian, your life's been dead. For all practical purposes, somewhere, something came into your life and all of a sudden you decided that it was too big of a cost and you weren't gonna be able to do what it was necessary to do and you weren't gonna for Christ. And I personally believe this is the church today. Lose him and let him go.
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What do you think the first thing he did? What part did he lose first? You think he went down, started with his feet? I don't think so. I think he started right here.
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Would you have loved to have seen the face on Lazarus? You think it was like this? I don't think so. What's next? Don't you think it's true?
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I know it is in my life. I think there are times that God has to invade my life and lose my eyes. So I'll see just what He wants me to see. I'm drawn to all the wrong stuff. I mean, you're not, but boy, I find myself that way.
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Ear. I have a tendency to listen to wrong stuff. Sometimes I know right where God's sending me. You know what? I get caught up and I listen to everything around me and I just Lose Him!
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Lose Him! And let Him go! Lose Him! What's next? Anybody here ever say a bad word?
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Probably not. Maybe I'm the only one that hit my hand. That's a cuss word. Rotten nail? What's the response to be?
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Oh, God, thank you for letting me hit my thumb. Thank you that it makes me You say that transgression and you tell me that unless I was what? In anguish, I often went astray, so thank you. You laugh, but it's the truth. That's how the world discovers Jesus Christ in you and me.
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Crash. Somebody crashed in the back of your car. Here's a Christian. What were you thinking? I'm telling you.
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Or this. Praise the Lord, brother. As the Father has sent me, even so send I you. Listen, never grab a doorknob to open it up and have anybody. Never stick your hand out that you don't go like this when you stick your hand out.
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Oh God, don't know who's on the other end of this. I don't know anything about them, I don't know where they've been, but I pray right now by Your power, by the authority of the Holy Spirit, I pray that God and God and God and God would give me the words to say, as the Father has sent me, even so has sent I You. Amen? I tell you, would save a lot of grief and we'd be ready. Because let me tell you, it's coming.
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And it's fearful. And it's going to take God to stand. Amen? So all of a sudden, loose him and his mouth and his shoulders and let him what? And let him go.
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Loose him and let him Closing illustration. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad for the people that rolled the stone away? And aren't you glad for the people that loosed him? Two weeks ago, I was preaching in China.
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Two weeks and a day ago, they put a little baby that had a hair lip, and was having epileptic seizures, and it lasted thirteen minutes in my arms. And I gotta tell you, she was so ugly. I reject it in my heart. I had to stand there over that child and pray, oh, God, give me the grace to pull her to my my heart. Give me the grace to be one of those people that rolls away the stone.
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One of those people that undoes the bandage. All of a sudden, I felt love come in my heart and picked that little baby up and kissed her. And I remember going back to my room. I told my sister this. She's here this visiting and I get down on my knees and I said, oh God, I oh my God.
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Dude, some of these kids, I just can't love them. It's too hard. And God said, can I invade your life? Can I? Can I in this situation?
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Can you You've told me about the fact that you stink. Let me invade your life. And so I was with a couple the next day when I was Young couple, they're just so alive, man. They're a little Christian couple living in a place about like this, and they're sitting there and they go, Oh, Ronnie, man, I tell you we're so glad to have you for lunch. Hey, listen, next time you come to China, would you like to go with us on a mission trip?
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I mean, I'm up to anything. I mean, I love the Chinese. And I go, Well, He said, Have you ever been to Xi'an? I said, Yeah, I have, man. Terracotta soldiers.
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Oh, no. Not the Terracotta soldiers. He says, About two fifty kilometers out of town. I said, Yeah, go, I'll go. He said, There's 58 of the greatest soldiers you'll ever meet there.
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There's one doctor and a nurse. I said, Great, I'll go. I said, Is it an orphanage? He said, No, it's a leper colony. Me.
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And I thought, What? He said, Yeah, what would we be doing? He said, You'd helping the doctor change bandages all day. I said, Can you get leprosy? He said, No.
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You can't get leprosy if God didn't want you to get You want to go? You know, it's so easy to sit in church and sing, I'll go where you want me to go. When I was 18 years old, I sat at New Liberty Baptist Church Carolina and I sang I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go. And I said, These people are such big hypocrites in this church. I think they're the biggest bunch of ponies I've ever seen.
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And all of a sudden, God just stood like a bolt of knight and said, And you're the biggest. Pastor kept on, I'll go where you want me to go. And I walked to the front of that church and I turned my life over to Christ. And I could hardly wait to get home from that young couple and I went in my bedroom and I got down on my knees and I said, God, gotta tell you, I don't want to go that leprosy. I am sorry, God.
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Don't The couple had been there for fourteen years and all the other doctors had left. They don't make any money. I mean, I did some soul searching there. There. Guess what happened on Wednesday?
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Because I was already discouraged because they wouldn't take any of the medicine I brought for the kids that had epilepsy. And I just was about ready to give up. I went to the next big orphanage. I'm telling you, here it is. I'm not going to tell you what's in the formula.
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I'm just telling you it was a gift from God. It's given to me. We paid for it. You don't owe a penny. You can use it.
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But I'm telling you I had a different attitude. Because I could hardly wait to get any of those little kids in my arms and love them hold them because God gave me new heart. He gave me a new heart. He gave me a new heart. And one little girl was standing there and she was a problem child that had epilepsy and I walked right over and put my arms around and she grabbed me like she would never let go of me.
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They said, Am I doing something wrong? They said, No, she's just in a body and she can't get out and she's happy to see you. Will you go? Will you go? You know, we sit in our nice comfortable automobiles in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
1:00:14
You've got to tell me, there's some people here that God's saying, Go. Go roll the stone away. Go. Go loose them and let them go. If you will roll the stone away, God will raise them from the dead.
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Amen? How much will it cost you? It will cost you everything. This is not an easy gospel. It will cost you everything.
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This church ought to be pouring them out to the mission field. Amen? Listen, that's what it's about. He's coming back, folks. He's coming back and it's not going to be like a baby.
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The Bible says He's coming with 10,000 angels, angels, taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the gospel the Lord Jesus. Let me tell you, not a national election. It's Almighty God coming. Don't you want to be found placed? You say, well, belong in Jackson.
1:01:13
Well, great. This is the biggest mission field in the world. Just like all of them are. We got 2,000,000 folks coming here that need to hear the gospel. Amen?
1:01:31
Let's pray. If you're here today and you've never turned your life over to Christ, you've never been born again. You know you came in the door today. You were physically alive but you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you've never invited Christ in your heart. I'm gonna pray a little prayer right now.
1:01:56
I'm not gonna ask you to come forward. I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand. I'm just gonna ask you to pray the prayer. If you know that you're lost and you've never invited Christ in your heart, would you pray this prayer with me? Dear Lord Jesus, I invite God and God and God into my heart.
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First, I ask you to forgive me of my sins. Ask you to cleanse me, and I turn my life over to you as savior and lord. Come in, please, lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Maybe you're here today, and you don't want that stone that stone rolled away.
1:02:38
Maybe you know there's something in your life that stinks. Maybe it's relationship. Up in there. Maybe it's finances. Up in there.
1:02:51
Maybe it's a habit. I've been there. Would you say, oh, God, lose me, and let me go on the world? This is the most important part of the service. He says in Isaiah, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
1:03:13
Though living red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Would you pray this prayer with me? Dear Lord, I've drifted, but I come to you now, and I ask for your love to flow through me. May God and God and God reign in my heart. And August people said, amen.
1:03:40
I bet you have a song for us.
1:03:41
We do. We do. Hey, if you were if you've received Christ this morning, you're saying, man, God is just pressing in on me.
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I don't know what to do
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about it. Our elders, would you would you do me a favor and just stand up right now? Just our elders. Would you would you look at these men right here? And right before the end of the song, they're gonna duck out.
1:04:05
They're gonna be in the back. I want you to grab one of those elders if you wanna talk with them, you wanna pray with them. Okay? You see them? Alright.
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Let's all stand up together. It's a marvelous light.
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And in tomorrow, I'm a light I'm running. Doubt on darkness, out on shame. Down across you are the truth, you are the light, you are the way in. I once was fatherless, and I once was bothered less. A stranger with no hope, and your kindness waked in me, waked waken me from my sin, and your love is there comes deep in the call to commande, And by grace, I now will come to take this life and take your life.
1:05:36
Sin has lost its power, death has lost its thing from the grave you've risen. The joyously air into marvelous on deepest stage now. Your breath fills up my lungs. Now I'm free. Now I'm free.
1:06:39
Sin has lost its valor. Death has lost its stake from the grave you risen. Thank you. Sleep in
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Amen. Go in peace. Serve the Lord.
