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Sunday, January 31, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Truth telling on the sanctity of life
Today is a partial repost from Randy Alcorn's blog.
Today "Sunday, January 24, is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday; marking the 37th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973. There is a great spiritual warfare associated with the issue of abortion. Killing children is Satan's way of striking out at the very heart of God. If he cannot kill God, the next best thing is killing those created in God's image. He is killing God in effigy.
"Today our churches must, once and for all, dispel the illusion that showing grace means not talking about hard issues. Every time the subject of abortion is brought up, some people get offended, others get hurt. But what is the alternative? Not bringing it up, thus offending God and setting up people to follow the lies of culture, which ends up hurting them far more than telling the truth?
"Our doctrine of grace has been distorted by our culture's dogma of tolerance. Many Christians and even some pastors have told me, "It's cruel to bring up the subject of abortion." But by talking about abortion in our churches—with grace and truth—we will prevent abortions and offer forgiveness and healing to women and men who are suffering in silence. The greatest kindness we can offer them is the truth. Women who’ve had abortions and the men who’ve participated in an abortion decision can find help and healing through their local Pregnancy Resource Centers. (Also see the article Finding Forgiveness after an Abortion.)"
Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments
Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The children
This is the new train track that Luke put together himself on Friday. It was his first time doing it by himself with only Rachel assisting him. Look at the three-level inclines (and the three-way raised intersection) he designed and how he wove the track in through the train trestles without anyone older telling him how to do it. I was so proud of him.
The kids last Tuesday night after Financial Peace University sitting at the door going out of the church waiting for us to get our things together.
Last Sunday night, Ava-Grace found and modeled the Russian winter hat in my office that I had bought in Moscow in 1993. Who would have known such a cute girl would have worn it one day?
Friday, January 22, 2010
Linda Graham on Haiti's devastation
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Forgotten prayer plants a church
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Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Michael Youssef on the Haiti Disaster
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Michael Youssef, Founder and President of Leading The Way, offers a biblical perspective on the disaster in Haiti and all the major disasters that impact individuals around the world each day. By looking at a passage from the book of Luke, Dr. Youssef shares the proper response to tragedy. The comments come from a 2005 sermon at The Church of The Apostles in Atlanta, GA.
"You mean Jesus made comments about disasters in life?" asked Dr. Youssef. "Yes, and he was very clear about how we should think about them," he stated. "We have to be very careful not to make judgments concerning the cause of tragedy."
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Robert E. Lee's birthday
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Sunday, January 17, 2010
Exodus 1:6-22 - The Hebrew Midwives
Contextual Notes: Joseph, the Hebrew slave who rose to become prime minister of Egypt, saved the world superpower from the blight of famine and brought his family of seventy persons to live in the fertile delta region of Goshen. Now, two centuries later, that generation is dead and gone, and a new generation is multiplying. A new king who is ignorant of his own nation’s heritage has taken the throne. A new discrimination is lurking, and in the Pharaoh’s ignorance, he has ordered a new liquidation.
Pray and Read: Exodus 1:6-22
Key Truth: Moses wrote Exodus 1:6-22 to teach believers to follow God’s command for life despite a new government sitting, a new discrimination lurking, and a new liquidation ordered.
Key Application: Today I want to show you what God’s Word says about following your convictions in regard to life issues.
Sermon Points:
- A New Generation Rising (Exodus 1:6-7)
- A New Government Sitting (Exodus 1:8-10)
- A New Discrimination Lurking (Exodus 1:11-14)
- A New Liquidation Ordered (Exodus 1:15-22)
Exposition: Note well,
1. A NEW GENERATION RISING (Exodus 1:6-7).
a. The Israelites, despite a new racism and cultural persecution, were being obedient to the first commandment in the Bible, a pro-life commandment, found in Genesis 1:22, 28, “God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”
b. ILLUSTRATION: The president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Danny Akin, gave a major speech in April of 2009, outlining a number of axioms of a needed Great Commission Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention. In Axiom 7, Dr. Akin says that one of those axioms that need recovery is the emphasis on growing families. “VII. We must covenant to build gospel saturated homes that see children as a gift from God and as our first and primary mission field. (Deut. 6:1-9; Psalm 127; 128; Eph. 6:4). Southern Baptists have been seduced by the sirens of modernity in a very important place. We have been seduced in how we do family and how many we should have in the home. We have been seduced with respect to the gift of children. (- Children are a burden not a blessing.- Less is best or at least less is better.- Result: have less children!).[1] c. Psalm 127:3, 5 – Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a heritage from him. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.
d. APPLICATION: We have been seduced by an evolutionary model and liberal population control agenda to limit the size of our families when God has told us to have large families. Too often even and especially in our churches, where children should be prized and held precious, we Bible-believing Christians will complain and denigrate our children even in their earshot and talk of how we don’t want to have too many. We have bought into the lie that having more than two or three children is ‘irresponsible’ or ‘damaging to the environment.’ We continue the myth that children cost a lot of money, as if money were an arbiter in life issues, because the real reason is that we want to be able to buy a new boat or a new house. Our selfishness causes us to limit the size of our families when all around us are couples who desperately want more children. Dr. Akin went on to add that he was scared to the bone when the great Southern Baptist missionary Bertha Smith came to Southwestern Seminary when he was a 22-year old student and told them that taking birth control pills is sin. Bertha Smith added over a quarter century ago that we will never win the war against Islam for this one reason. They have children. We don’t. This is why in another generation Europe will be Islamic, and all the famous old churches of Europe will become mosques. What Islam was not able to do in the Middle Ages with armies they will do with their wombs. What am I saying? I am saying have more children. Have lots of babies. Get off the birth control. Make room in your home for another gift. It is a Biblical command and a cultural necessity.
a. This was a new king, whether of another dynasty or simply ignorant of his own nation’s history, we will leave that to the Egyptologists to debate. The point is that he did not know about what Joseph had done for his nation.
b. “Let us deal wisely with them,” is used here of political craftiness, or worldly wisdom combined with craft and cunning. He could not have been entirely ignorant of the promises to Israel, because he knew they might want to leave to go to their own land.
c. ILLUSTRATION: Pro-family lawmakers continue to be concerned about Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who is now the first Hispanic to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. During a meeting with Sotomayor during her confirmation proceeding, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., asked her if the preborn have any rights. "I was surprised that she said she had never thought about it," DeMint said in a statement. "This is not just a question about abortion, but about the respect due to human life at all stages.”[2] In our day we have a generation which has little respect for God’s gift of life.
d. ILLUSTRATION: In our own nation, we see a new discrimination lurking. Erroll Southers is President Obama’s candidate to head the Transportation Security Administration, the agency which, among other things, controls the security of our airports. He said in an interview, “Most of the domestic terrorist groups that we have to pay attention to here are white supremacist groups. They’re anti-government, in most cases anti-abortion. They are usually survivalist-types in nature, identity-oriented. If you recall Buford Furrow came to Los Angeles, I believe in 1999, when he went to three different Jewish institutions, museums, and wound up shooting people at a children’s community center and then shooting a Filipino postal worker later on. Matthew Hale who is the Pontifus Maximus of the World Church of the Creator out of Illinois and Ben Smith where he went on a shooting spree in three different cities where he killed a number of African Americans and Jews and Asians that day. Those groups are groups that claim to be extremely anti-government and Christian identity-oriented.”[3]
e. ILLUSTRATION: John Piper, pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in a sermon delivered on 2009 Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, chooses a hard line. He chastised our new president, just days in office, who says abortion is an issue of reproductive freedom for women. “You are not protecting reproductive freedom, you are authorizing the destruction of freedom for one million little human beings every year…. Killing our children is killing our children no matter how many times you say it is a private family matter.”[4]
f. APPLICATION: Have you contacted your Congressman or Senator about how you feel about the health care bill or pro-life or pro-family issues? Do you know your Congressman or Senator’s name? Are you teaching your children how to stand in the midst of uncertainty and opposition to the values of the Scripture? Are you teaching them their spiritual heritage? (Do you know your spiritual heritage?) Are you letting the government and the school system teach your children to sit and be quiet and put away their Bibles and their outdated Biblical values and do what they say because “We are from the government and this is for your protection”?
a. Pharaoh hoped, according to the ordinary maxims of tyrants,[5] to break down the physical strength of Israel and lessen its increase-since a population always grows more slowly under oppression than in the midst of prosperous circumstances-and also to crush their spirit so as to banish the very wish for liberty.
b. ILLUSTRATION: In the Netherlands, a nation with government-run healthcare, the numbers of euthanasia cases continue to increase each year, according to the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. In the Netherlands, the Groningen Protocol consists of guidelines for killing babies with disabilities or terminal illnesses. The Groningen Protocol allows infants who are born with disabilities to die by euthanasia based on the request of the parents and the agreement of the physician. On the other end of life, the Netherlands reported 2,500 cases of euthanasia in 2009. Euthanasia involves the deliberate administration of drugs to cause a person’s death at his request rather than to relieve his suffering. But assisted suicides, about 400 a year, are not included in the total, nor the numbers of born babies killed under the Groningen Protocol. Another category of deaths is deaths without explicit consent. The most recent government report (2005) showed that the number of deaths without explicit consent was approximately 550. Many of the 550 deaths are directly and intentionally caused by the physician but not reported as euthanasia because they lacked consent. A 2007 report showed about 10 percent of all deaths in The Netherlands were related to terminal sedation. Many of those deaths were caused by dehydration, due to the physician sedating the patient and then withholding hydration until death occurs, which usually takes 10 [to] 14 days.[6]
c. ILLUSTRATION: In an interview in June 2009, on ABC’s World News Sunday, late-term Nebraska abortionist LeRoy Carhart, also the plaintiff in Gonzales v. Carhart, the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, offered a description of late-term abortion that admitted a baby’s life is being terminated, "It's very much a three day, four day, even five day procedure. And in our procedure, after the first day, the fetus is no longer alive. So it's really a miscarriage of a stillborn fetus."[7]
d. APPLICATION: What will you do about the new discrimination lurking among us? Will you keep quiet? Keep doing your thing hoping they will ignore you? The Jews did that in the Germany of the twenties. It is time you exercise your inalienable rights under the Constitution and given you by God. You need to vote. You need to call your Congress-person. You need to make your voice known before your way of thinking is silenced and you have to tell your grandchildren stories about what it was like when you were young and America was free and prosperous.
a. Shiphrah means “brightness, beauty.” Puah means “splendor.” These women show themselves as bright reflections of God’s glory in a tense situation where they choose to follow their consciences rather than submit to the government’s policies.
b. Birthing stool: This word is only found one other place, and that is in Jeremiah 18:3 where it denotes a potter’s wheel, perhaps a stone where the clay and the baby came out formed.
c. He made them houses: The Hebrew midwives were rewarded by the Lord for their courage, and he gave them houses, meaning husbands and children. He blessed them with what they protected, families.
d. Did they sin when they lied? No, because they apparently were telling the truth.
e. ILLUSTRATION: Our current government has enacted unconstitutional legislation to nationalize our health care system. Included in that legislation is public funding for abortion. Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America, warned that the government may even attempt to force women to have abortions in an effort to cut costs. "Since abortion costs less than delivery of a baby, it is not unlikely that bureaucrats, facing pressure to reduce costs, will sign off on paying for abortion but not for the health care that pregnant women and their babies need. This could lead to women being coerced into abortion by their own government," said Wright.[8]
f. ILLUSTRATION: Under the conscience clause, workers in health-care environments ranging from doctors to maintenance men can refuse to offer services, information, or advice to patients on issues like contraception, blood transfusions, etc..if the workers are morally against it. But that may be changing. Christians who are health care workers may soon have their Biblical beliefs and convictions assaulted in their work. This week the Washington Times reported a significant statement of religious discrimination by a candidate for the US Senate. The Attorney General of Massachusetts, Martha Coakley, who is running in Tuesday’s special election for the US Senate seat vacated by the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, was interviewed by radio host Ken Pittman.
Ken Pittman: Right, if you are a Catholic, and believe what the Pope teaches that any form of birth control is a sin. ah you don’t want to do that.Martha Coakley: No we have a separation of church and state Ken, lets be clear.
Ken Pittman: In the emergency room you still have your religious freedom.
Martha Coakley: (……uh, eh…um..) The law says that people are allowed to have that. You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.[9]
g. ILLUSTRATION: Children of God for Life announced October 27, 2009, that Neocutis, a bio-pharmaceutical company focused on dermatology and skin care is using aborted fetal cell lines to produce several of their anti-aging skin creams. Until now, this was the first time they have encountered any company bold enough to put the information right on their own website and product literature. Neocutis' key ingredient known as "Processed Skin Proteins" was developed at the University of Luasanne from the skin tissue of a 14-week gestation electively-aborted male baby donated by the University Hospital in Switzerland. Subsequently, a working cell bank was established, containing several billion cultured skin cells to produce the human growth factor needed to restore aging skin. The list of products using the cell line include: Bio-Gel, Journee, Bio-Serum, Prevedem, Bio Restorative Skin Cream and Lumiere.[10]
i. APPLICATION: But what if you are sitting here this morning, and weighing on you right now is the weight of guilt over the baby, your baby, that you aborted? You ask yourself, “How can God forgive me when I can't forgive myself?” Statistics show that 43 percent of American women will have an abortion in their lifetime, making abortion as common an experience as divorce. Further, more than twice as many women have abortions as get college degrees. Yet for many, an abortion is a carefully guarded secret shared with only a few close friends, if at all. In turn, many post-abortive women never fully understand the root of their anger, their depression, their damaged self-esteem or their self-destructive and sometimes compulsive behaviors. The abortion clinics are all about getting your payment for an abortion, but there is no free post-abortion counseling for you. Healing exists for you, though, through Jesus Christ. First, you need to grieve your child you lost. That was a person you lost. Then you need to confess your sin of murder to the Lord. Let him forgive you. He will take that pain away. He will take that guilt away. Christ’s forgiveness will cleanse you, whether you were the mother, the boyfriend or friend who encouraged the abortion, or the grandparent who forced it. Grieve the past; Receive forgiveness; Allow healing to begin; Choose to forgive; and End the Silence.[11]
[7] http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/colleen-raezler/2009/06/08/abc-abortion-broadcasting-company#ixzz0csPZwODp
Not crisis pregnancy--multiple miracles
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Wow! Worship?
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Health bill would fund abortion
Despite the pro-life victory in the House which passed the Stupak-Pitts anti-abortion funding amendment, the Senate passed their version of "health care reform" which includes government funding for plans that cover elective abortion. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) inserted a pseudo-compromise on abortion funding which would still violate the Hyde amendment principles by funding private insurance plans that cover abortion and require tax payers to pay for this abortion coverage.
Please contact your Representative and ask them to support the House "Stupak-Pitts" language which passed with the support of 64 Democrats in the House. Speaker Pelosi is in closed-door negotiations with Senator Harry Reid to rewrite a "compromise" health care bill to iron out the differences between the House and Senate bill. E-mail your Representative and urge them "to oppose any health care bill that does not include the Stupak-Pitts language to ban government funding of abortion."
Christian? Pro-Life? TSA will watch you
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Monday, January 11, 2010
Money and Power: Oscar Muriu
Money and Power: Oscar Muriu from Urbana 09 on Vimeo.
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Sunday, January 03, 2010
Numbers 14 - The Price of Rebellion
Opening thought: What a decade the last one was, huh? We started 2000 with a Constitutional Crisis in which the Supreme Court determined the winner of the Presidential election, soon followed with September 11th, the worst day since December 7th, 1941. We are now fighting two wars in far flung places where few to none of the outside empires have ever won. We have seen a rise in powerful diseases. Our economy, our banking industry, and our hallowed American automobile industry, hobbled by massive debt, roared to a screeching train wreck.
Now here we sit, hurtling into 2010. The government seems ready to force nationalized medicine on our people along with riding roughshod over the consciences of people who are pro-life. We continue at war on two fronts and all around the world. They tell us the melting polar ice caps are going to flood our coastal areas. The local economy is not supposed to pick up in the new year. Our area has the highest unemployment in the state. Many have heavy health concerns among us. It would be easy to walk in fear in this new year, but we cannot. We must walk by faith.
There is a passage of Scripture which speaks to walking in faith and not by sight, and the one I’m thinking about is not Hebrews 11. It is found in the book of Numbers chapter 14.
Contextual Notes: The children of Israel have miraculously left the Promised Land, miraculously crossed the Red Sea, miraculously marched two million people through a desert, miraculously fed them a honey bread that fell from heaven called manna, miraculously hydrated them from a rock, miraculously defeated their enemies, miraculously received the Ten Commandments and the Law from the Lord at Mount Sinai, and miraculously received quail meat in the desert. (Pictured: Kadesh Barnea)Now, after twelve spies miraculously explored the land of Canaan, the sons of Israel, who have lived a miraculous existence now for over a year, here at the very edge of the Promised Land, here at a place called Kadesh-barnea, here on the Jewish New Year, they balk. They falter. They fear. They rebel, and they fail. Their whole generation pays the penalty for their unbelief. They will die in the desert for it. For forty years they will suffer from what they do at Kadesh-barnea.
The lessons here teach us about living in an attitude of trust in the Lord. For the Israelites, the challenges seemed too high for them, and they were, but they discounted God’s presence, God’s protection, God’s agenda, and God’s promises.
Pray and Read: Numbers 14
Key Truth: Moses wrote Numbers 14 to teach believers to avoid being a faithless coward, to choose to be a faithful follower, and to follow the All-Seeing Presence of Christ.
Key Application: Today I want to show you what God’s Word says about trusting the Lord.
Sermon Points: In the New Year
- Don’t be a faithless coward (Num 14:1-4)
- Choose to be a faithful follower (Num 14:5-9)
- Follow the All-seeing Presence (Num 14:10fff)
Exposition: Note well,
1. DON’T BE A FAITHLESS COWARD (Num 14:1-4).
a. Note that the text uses “all” of Israel involved (v. 1, 2, 7, 10). Never had there been such resolve of rebellion. (Pictured: Kadesh-barnea plain at the Egyptian border -- still the frontier of the Promised Land).
b. Note that they recognize God brought them there, but they slander him that he wants only to kill them all, enticing them into a trap. The majority want to go the way of rebellion.
c. Here they are at the frontier of Canaan, now ready to step into it, and they stop, they refuse. They shrink from this great opportunity, but not just an opportunity, a deliberate rejection of His rule in their lives, based on nothing at all, no evidence at all except the utter distrust of his word. They failed to rely on YHWH. They failed in a personal relationship with Him.
d. Faith is not in behaving certain ways. That is the result of faith. Faith is not belief in a creed or set of beliefs. That is the organization of faith. Faith is cleaving to a Person whom the creed makes known. For you and me, Unbelief is the same dark and fatal sin. To depart from the living God always results in rebellion and death.
e. Note the short memory and gross ingratitude of unbelief. Often Israel is criticized for being so short in these areas with so many miracles around. Pillar of fire by night, Pillar of cloud by day. Every day. Manna every day. Sinai’s thunderbolts, water from rocks. But one look in our hearts shows we are worse off than they were. The miraculous can become commonplace in our lives not because it is less miraculous, but because we refuse to retain the knowledge of God as Paul says in Romans 1.
f. Note the sin of unbelief. God had said the Land flowed with ‘milk and honey’ and they would conquer it, but they would not believe him unless they could verify his promises. Their own fears were reflected in the bad report of the ten spies. They wanted to believe what they said. Without examination, without thinking, without qualification, they took the bad report, the report of unbelief, as gospel.
g. See the next step. Unbelief leads to unbelieving action – irrational behavior -- otherwise known as rebellion. No, they won’t go back to Egypt. They will go to Canaan by themselves. Real smart. (Num 14:39-45). They bought defeat and then a lifetime of slavery rather than freedom, wealth, and expansion.
h. APPLICATION: We are stepping into a new year, and it is easy to look forward in fear rather than remember God’s miraculous work in our lives in the past and his promises for our future. In this New Year, are you operating in unbelief? Have you forgotten what the Lord has done for you this past year and the years prior? Is your business operating in fear, or is it submitted to Christ this year? Is your family operating in fear, or are you all trusting Christ in this new year? Are you continuing to walk in fear, oblivious to God’s blessings and care, or are you trusting Christ in this new year? Would you like to trust Christ for the first time today in this new year? At the end of this message you can come forward and I will lead you to Christ if you want to be a follower of Jesus.
i. What about our church? This church is congregationally-governed under the Lordship of Christ. It is not run by the pastor or the deacons or some personality. That means every one of us who is a member here is called to responsibility before the Lord. Are we going to operate in fear or will we trust the Lord in this new year? Are we going to do things that open the doors wide to see many come to Christ and participate in Christ’s life here? Or are we going to do things and say things and vote things that close the door and keep us to us four and no more? Keep us to the familiarity of a family-run church where everyone knows everyone? Or are we going to look toward the opportunities in these housing developments around us, these people moving out here, and pray them in and love them into the kingdom? Not always is the majority decision the best one, and many a church has been turned into a useless group of people going through motions. What does this church want to do?
2. CHOOSE TO BE A FAITHFUL FOLLOWER (Num 14:5-9).
a. There were four who were faithful: Moses, Aaron, Caleb, and Joshua. They were in mortal peril of stoning. They stood not just for what was right, but their lives were on the line. They were defenseless, powerless against the mob. Moses, the work of his life crumbling before his eyes, every hope for his people dashed by their own insane fear. What nobler thing could Moses do than fall before the Lord in intercession?
b. Caleb and Joshua were in a different position, to repeat their testimony of the Land and their confidence in the Lord. Tearing their robes in mourning and great distress, they shout about the Land, “good, exceedingly, exceedingly.” “He will bring us into this land to give it to us.” That is the only antidote to fear – to remind yourself and your people of God’s promises. The Anakites: “They are bread for us.” Because “the Lord is with us.” Victory comes in obedience. In trust. Alexander Maclaren: “Obedience turns God’s ‘ifs’ into ‘verilys.’
c. APPLICATION: In this new year, our freedoms are in trouble, our consciences may be crossed by legislation, our families may suffer from want because of the economy. Our security apparatuses have demonstrated their ineptness and emboldened our terrorist enemies to send more attacks. We have no defense save the Lord.
d. Are you going to operate in fear? Are you going to lead your family in fear? Or are you going to cry out for this nation in intercession? Are you going to cry out for your family in intercession?
3. FOLLOW THE ALL-SEEING PRESENCE (Num 14:10ff)
a. The Sudden Appearance of the Glory of the Lord.
b. Alexander Maclaren: “Nothing is more hateful to resolute sinners than good counsel which is undeniably true.”
c. The stones in the hands fell to the ground as the hushed dread of the wondrous Shekinah light came forth from the sanctuary of the Tabernacle. The same light and fire that destroyed the two sons of Aaron for offering strange fire.
d. These people were not fit for the fight, for the land, for the inheritance. It would go to a new generation, reared in the harshness of the desert. God’s sentence on that generation was mercy and judgment. They would not be destroyed, but they would wander in uselessness for the rest of their lives. God didn’t keep them out of the Promised Land. They did it to themselves.
e. Heb 3:17-19: “They could not enter in because of unbelief.”
f. APPLICATION: Unbelief will destroy you and everything you have and your entire future. Unbelief is rooted in fear. Do not enter this new year in fear. Enter it in trust. Trust in Christ. Trust in his heart. Trust him where you cannot see him. Don’t cave in to an irrational, undocumented, foolish, rebellious fear that will lead you away from God’s promises for you in this new year.
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