[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agampic Baptist Church in George, South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please turn with me to Exodus chapter 8, Exodus 8.
[SPEAKER_01]: This morning we begin with a question.
[SPEAKER_01]: The question
[SPEAKER_01]: is the Lord in this land.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is the Lord in this land?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I praise the Lord for the songs we have sung for the scripture that was read.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for the prayers that have been prayed already and how it is, the answer has already been given.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a bit of a spoiler there this morning that yes, he is the Lord in this land yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's explore this question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is the Lord in this land?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's clarify with a couple more questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: So clarifying questions is Yahweh, the God in South Africa, is Yahweh the God over our reign, soil, air, the list could go on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's just generally say, is Yahweh the God of our good in South Africa?
[SPEAKER_01]: or are there other gods, South Africans should look to for joy in this line?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, that might seem like a very basic and simple question.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you ignored people's verbal answer, if you ignored what they said and just looked at the answer that their lives gave, you just looked at the way they lived, what they hoped in, what they worried about.
[SPEAKER_01]: what they live for, if you only consider the way that they lived.
[SPEAKER_01]: Suddenly, there are many answers to this question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some lives answer that there really aren't any gods, and that money and all it buys is what you need to have joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the path to joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some lives answer that there may be a God in heaven, but the only God here on earth that truly matters is me and my desires.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some lives answer that there are many gods, Yahweh being one of them, and you need to make sure that you keep all of the gods happy so that they don't come after you to hurt you.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of these answers are all around us all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Studies show that 80% of South Africans would answer the question, are you a Christian?
[SPEAKER_01]: They would say, yes, I'm a Christian, 80% in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it isn't hard to notice that far less than 80% of South Africans are living as if Yahweh is in this land, as if Yahweh is the God of this land.
[SPEAKER_01]: as if they believe.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the Lord who alone grants our good and eternal joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yahweh is the God alone who grants our good alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no other God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what the Bible claims.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no other God who grants you your good.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is good for you is all a lie, a counterfeit, to enslave you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Exodus 8, the question up on the screen is the question that's being raised in Egypt.
[SPEAKER_01]: God began to answer his question, this question, by swallowing up the symbol of Pharaoh's power, which was the snake.
[SPEAKER_01]: We looked at that several weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: God swallows up the snakes of the Egyptian magicians.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the first two plagues came by water.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was blood and frogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: This morning we will see that the third plague
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the fourth play comes in the air in the form of flies.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord is waging a full frontal attack on the gods of Egypt by demonstrating his unstoppable power over their supposed dominion of Egypt through Egypt's beasts, water, dirt, and air.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's go to Lord and prayer and ask him to open our hearts to the truth in Exodus 8.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, I pray that by the power of your Word and your Holy Spirit that no one will leave here this morning, doubting even even 1% that you alone are God in George, South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, God and Lord of all the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please, Lord, wage war on our unbelief.
[SPEAKER_01]: We wake up daily, struggling with unbelief and doubt.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are constantly a sailed by lies of the devil.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I asked Lord that you would give us unwavering conviction of the truth, that you alone are God and Lord in the earth, amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll begin reading in Exodus 8, verse 16 through 19.
[SPEAKER_01]: Looking at the concept of the finger of God, which is raised in this passage, the finger of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Beginning in verse 16, then the Lord said to Moses, say to Aaron, stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth so that it may become nuts in all the land of Egypt, and
[SPEAKER_01]: Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and struck the dust of the earth and there were nats on man and beast.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the dust of the earth became nats in all the land of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_01]: The magicians tried by their secret arts to produce nats, but they could not.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there were nats on man and beast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the magician said to Pharaoh, this is the finger of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: that Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them as the Lord had said, until there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice with me that the magicians tried again to replicate the sign of calling forth nats from dust.
[SPEAKER_01]: Previously, they had had some success of at least replicating.
[SPEAKER_01]: They couldn't stop the signs, but they could replicate them in a small way before Pharaoh.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here in our passage, they attempt to replicate it again, but could not our passage says in verse 18.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe the magicians of Egypt are surprised by their inability to replicate the sign of the next.
[SPEAKER_01]: They seemed confident that their gods could summon next.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when they were unsuccessful, they came to Pharaoh and noticed what they say.
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't say this before.
[SPEAKER_01]: When they saw the sign of the blood,
[SPEAKER_01]: and of the snakes being swallowed up, but this time when they are stopped.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look what they say.
[SPEAKER_01]: They say, Pharaoh, this is the finger of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The God of the Hebrews had silenced the Egyptian gods and had prohibited them from acting as usual.
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all were had bound and cast down the demons in the land.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what's happening here.
[SPEAKER_01]: from doing what they normally would have done, deceiving the Egyptians.
[SPEAKER_01]: This phrase, the finger of God, is only found in three places in Scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here in Exodus 8, then, when the Scriptures describe how God writes, the 10 commandments on tablets of stone and Exodus and Deuteronomy, and then one other place in Luke 11, verse 20,
[SPEAKER_01]: When Jesus Christ references our passage this morning, I believe that's what he's doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's look there together, a Luke 11, but it began reading in verse 14, Luke 11, verse 14.
[SPEAKER_01]: Looking at how this God, the God of Israel, Yahweh casts out demons.
[SPEAKER_01]: Luke 11, verse 14.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now Jesus was casting out a demon that was mute.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke in the people marveled.
[SPEAKER_01]: But some of them said he cast out demons by beelseable, the prince of demons.
[SPEAKER_01]: While others to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste.
[SPEAKER_01]: and a divided household falls.
[SPEAKER_01]: And is Satan also is divided against himself how will his kingdom stand?
[SPEAKER_01]: For you say that I cast out demons by abelseble.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I cast out demons by abelseble, by whom do your sons cast them out?
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, they will be your judges, first 20.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
[SPEAKER_01]: When a strong man fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Satan being the strong man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 22, but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and he divides his spoil.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Exodus, it is the finger of God that binds and casts down the demons for bidding them to continue to deceive.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now in Luke, we see that the finger of God is with Jesus, binding and casting down the demons.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Father has sent His Son from heaven to invade the kingdom of darkness and bring out a people for His name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus came into the world to overcome Satan and take away the armor in which Satan trusted.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the imagery Jesus is pointing to, the illustration.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus has come as the Son of God as a one stronger than the devil.
[SPEAKER_01]: to overcome him and take away his armor.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is Satan's armor?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it that Satan is trusting in?
[SPEAKER_01]: And this war against God, it is sin and death.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus has come to take it away.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus is now from that time on, and until now, till his return, Jesus is dividing Satan's spoil.
[SPEAKER_01]: As the name of Jesus advances on the earth, the kingdom of Satan is being plundered.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is Jesus plundering?
[SPEAKER_01]: People, souls, eternal souls.
[SPEAKER_01]: People, you and I, souls, eternal souls are the spoils of this war that Jesus is raging on the kingdom of darkness.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified spoken by you and by me, which is the weapon of this warfare.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please, my friends, take this to heart, let it be your joy and your battle cry and your confidence.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not your ability to share the gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not my confidence, and I know it cannot be yours.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that is your confidence, you will fail miserably, and you will become a discouraged, defeated Christian in your evangelism.
[SPEAKER_01]: But know that Jesus Christ has said that his eternal gospel empowered by his Holy Spirit, spoken by you and by me and our weakness.
[SPEAKER_01]: is the weapon, the sword of God, to plunder the kingdom of darkness, and to take captive eternal souls.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus, by His gospel, and by His Spirit, and by His people, is taking captive souls.
[SPEAKER_01]: and what a blessing, what a mercy it is to be taken captive by Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: By any other conqueror we would say we feel defeated, our lives feel like they're over because we've been captured, been taken captive by this invading army, are this invading Lord or King, but when you are taken captive by Jesus, what a mercy, oh, what love.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you witness the finger of God in the words and deeds of Jesus, and you bow the need joyfully to this invading Lord, what does He do?
[SPEAKER_01]: What has He done for you and for me?
[SPEAKER_01]: He receives you into His tent.
[SPEAKER_01]: and he robs you in his kingly garments.
[SPEAKER_01]: No captive has ever been treated so well by any invading Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he goes on further.
[SPEAKER_01]: He receives you, washes you, robs you in his righteous robes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he promises that when this war is over, when your fight is over, and you stand before his heavenly father,
[SPEAKER_01]: His Father will receive you as a victorious returning son.
[SPEAKER_01]: He will receive you as a son.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ladies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, he receives you at his, as his daughters, but see the picture here.
[SPEAKER_01]: You, ladies, will be received as a firstborn son who has got off to battle and has had victory and has now returning home in victory and the father's gonna receive you like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: As a son, a faithful son, because you are in Christ Jesus, are conquering Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the finger of God, overcoming and plundering hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the picture of the finger of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's continue in our passage in verse 20.
[SPEAKER_01]: As we consider that concept of our Lord, being the God and Lord in the midst of the earth, verse 20.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the Lord said to Moses, Rise up early in the morning and present yourself to Pharaoh as he goes out to the water and say to him, Thus says the Lord, Let my people go that they may serve me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or else, if you will not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants and your people and into your houses.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the houses of the Egyptians shall be filled with swarms of flies and also the ground in which they stand.
[SPEAKER_01]: But on that day, I will set apart the land of Goshen, where my people dwell, so that no swarms of flies shall be there, that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thus I will put a division between my people and your people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tomorrow, this sign shall happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Lord did so.
[SPEAKER_01]: There came great swarms of flies into the house of Pharaoh into his servants' houses.
[SPEAKER_01]: Throughout all the land of Egypt, the land was ruined by the swarms of flies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, go sacrifice your to your God within the land.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Moses says, it would not be right to do so for the offerings we shall sacrifice to the Lord our God, or an abomination to the Egyptians.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we sacrifice offerings abominable to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us?
[SPEAKER_01]: We must go three days journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as he tells us.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Pharaoh said, I will let you go to sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness only
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Moses said, "'Behold, I'm going out from you and I will plead with the Lord that the swarms of flies made apart from Pharaoh from his servants and from his people tomorrow, only let not Pharaoh cheat again by not letting the people go to sacrifice the Lord."
[SPEAKER_01]: So Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Lord did, as Moses asked, and removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh from his
[SPEAKER_01]: But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and did not let the people go until there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pharaoh considered the Hebrews to be his personal property, given to him and to Egypt by the gods, to be Egypt's slaves forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is his mentality in how he's treating them.
[SPEAKER_01]: but the Lord repeats in verse 20 saying, let my people go, let my people go.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a distinction made between the covenant people of God and the rest of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, God created all peoples.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every person belongs to God as their creator and sustainer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everyone will give an answer to Yahweh as the judge of all the earth to whom they owe their worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, all people, everyone who has ever been born belongs to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in the throne room of heaven, there is a distinction between those who have entered and to a covenant relationship with the one who God and those who have not.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a distinction in the throne room of heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, God warns Pharaoh in verse 21.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you will not send out my people, which is the literal translation, it's a play on words, if you will not send out my people, then I will send in the swarms of flies.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I send in the flies, they will go around the land of Goshen, where my people are.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're gonna go around.
[SPEAKER_01]: And why am I going to do this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why am I going to spare my people and set them apart?
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, he says that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not because Israel was so good and so impressive and so faithful and obedient and that they never said it complaining word and they never got discouraged or never complained against their God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not why.
[SPEAKER_01]: God shows His kindness to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, that the world mind might know who I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: God says that I might be glorified in the earth by calling out and saving a people for my name's sake, that I can show mercy and grace to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is why, that the world might know.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Egyptians were accustomed to pests, famines, wars, lightning, thunder, disease.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you look in the history books, all of these things had happened before, and Egypt, in the surrounding nations.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they had many ways of explaining why these things happened to them throughout history.
[SPEAKER_01]: They had their gods, they had their mythology, they had, oh, we did this, so we didn't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And many ways of explaining why these terrible things had happened in the past.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the Lord, in this instance, would not permit any of those explanations this time.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was determined to display His power and presence as Lord in the land of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, the implication is if our God, Yahweh, is Lord in Egypt.
[SPEAKER_01]: If He is Lord of the land of Egypt, then He is Lord of anything and of everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the picture in the ancient world.
[SPEAKER_01]: If he was more powerful than the gods of Egypt, he is more powerful than any of the gods of the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why Egypt is being picked on because God had raised Egypt up so that he might show his power and his magnificent glory in the greatest of the lands
[SPEAKER_01]: He is even the gods, the god, over the gods of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_01]: With his powerful presence, he drives forward this army of flies to torment and destroy, overcoming the gods of Egypt and the people of Egypt and Pharaoh himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: But with that very same powerful presence, he draws a line around his people.
[SPEAKER_01]: in the land of Goshen, and he forbids even the smallest fly from crossing over that line.
[SPEAKER_01]: You couldn't see that line other than the fact that on the other side of the line there's a wall, just a solid wall of flies, tormenting the people, but in Goshen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not even as a single fly was permit to cross that line without God's permission.
[SPEAKER_01]: The demons of Egypt are bound and cast down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nature itself is turning against Egypt and the finger of God is poking Pharaoh in the chest.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron into the throne room and starts reasoning with him for a compromise.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ultimately,
[SPEAKER_01]: begging Moses in verse 28 to plead for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's saying, plead with your God to have mercy on me and take away my pain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now many have witnessed the finger of God in this life in our time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many of you can say that there was no other explanation for what happened in my life other than that God did this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many have witnessed the finger of God in their lives, and it has driven them to believe that there is a God in this land.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have maybe believed that Yahweh is the God in the land, and this realization drives them to their knees and they plead for God's mercy and help in times of trouble.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's actually a pretty common thing in our culture, that when people come to times of pain and trouble that they come to God and they plead with Him for help, people have even come to our church and begged us to plead with God for mercy on their behalf.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is not a wrong thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Coming to the church is saying, please come pray with me, plead with God that He would deliver me from my torment, from my pain.
[SPEAKER_01]: People have come asking for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we as a church have pleaded with God, begging for God to pour out His mercy and grace on the broken and sorrowful circumstances in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have done that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Moses gives a warning in verse 29.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gives Pharaoh a warning.
[SPEAKER_01]: He tells Pharaoh that he, Moses, will plead for mercy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He will plead for Pharaoh.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Pharaoh must not cheat and go back on his word again as soon as God removes the suffering.
[SPEAKER_01]: This unfortunately is human nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is natural.
[SPEAKER_01]: that as soon as the trouble or trial or pain is gone, human beings forget their promises and abandon their new resolutions.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do it to other people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And fortunately, we do it to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We forget as soon as the pain or the trouble gets a little further away, it becomes less significant, less important in our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: and we turn and forget, we forget our oaths when we go back many times to our former way of living.
[SPEAKER_01]: This heartening of the heart toward the mercy and grace of God will ultimately bring even more tragedy and painful suffering in the end as Pharaoh soon learned.
[SPEAKER_01]: In second Peter, chapter 2 of verse 20, Peter speaks of those who had come into the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: Had come in sat here with the church, had maybe even served in the church, or even had been teachers in the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: He speaks of those people who had seemed to believe and had called upon the Lord to save them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then had later hardened their hearts and turned away from the faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: Peter writes this, second Peter chapter two, if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, if they are again entangled in them and overcome in those things in the world, the last state has become worse for them than the first, pause for a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is saying,
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have come to know the gospel, to hear the gospel, to taste and see that the Lord is good, to join His fellowship, but then later you abandon the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: The condition you are now in is someone who has heard has believed and then has abandoned
[SPEAKER_01]: verse 21, for it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: What the true proverb says has happened to them, the dog returns to its own vomit, and the sal after washing herself returns to wallow in the mirror.
[SPEAKER_01]: expanded for Christians, or for those who are in the church who are here today, that Moses gave to Pharaoh all those many years before.
[SPEAKER_01]: Moses is saying, but where Pharaoh be very careful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do not cheat the Lord of all the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your pain and suffering will only increase
[SPEAKER_01]: If we have witnessed the finger of God through the words and works of Jesus, and then have been offered salvation and adoption by the Lord of this land, then let us never be found guilty of toying with His mercy and grace.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my friends, the truth is that every morning we wake up, we are again tempted by our own flesh by the world and by the devil to toy with the mercy and grace of God as a Christian.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is Christian warfare because we are under attack every single day to toy with the mercy and grace of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: that he doesn't really mind or care how I live down here.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the temptation we wake up to every single morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will not go away while you still have this breath in this life.
[SPEAKER_01]: That war will only cease when you die or the Lord returns and he glorifies you.
[SPEAKER_01]: and he takes away all of your suffering, including the spiritual suffering of fighting against our own flesh, or what a day that will be.
[SPEAKER_01]: But my friends, we must all consider ourselves in a war
[SPEAKER_01]: or Christ promises that He will grant us everything we need for every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: He promises that there is not a single temptation or trouble that He will sin or He will allow to come your way that He will not also with it provide a way of escape.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no excuse for sin in the life of a Christian because Jesus has promised by His
[SPEAKER_01]: every temptation, way of escape, every temptation, my grace is enough, every question about right and wrong, my word answers it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have everything we need for life and for godliness as Christians, our Lord has promised.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the dominion of Satan no longer is our master.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are no longer required to live according to the flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are now free to serve our Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: So may we never be found guilty of towing with his mercy and grace.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you are convicted at any point that you are guilty of towing with it, of disregarding of it, of playing with it as if it's a cheap thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Father says, come to me, like the prodigal son.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come, run to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm waiting on my front porch looking.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm waiting for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love you, my child.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you have despised me, spit in my face.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was for that sin that my son, the Lord Jesus Christ, had to hang on the cross.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet, if you will come confessing your sin
[SPEAKER_01]: I am waiting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am watching.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will run to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will wrap my arms around you and I will slaughter the fatted calf and we will celebrate and it will be as if it never happened as far as the east is from the west.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot go that far.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no end to the mercy and grace of God for his people.
[SPEAKER_01]: For those who have been washed and redeemed by the blood of the land, he will receive you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So to whatever extent, any one of us have cheated the Lord of all the earth, and have gone back on our promises that I'll never do that again, my Lord, and my God, I know it is wicked and evil to whatever degree we have failed to keep our oaths and have counted it little
[SPEAKER_01]: human nature tempts us to say, he won't accept me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've sinned too big.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't accept me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't forgive myself, surely he cannot.
[SPEAKER_01]: The father says, you make the mistake of thinking that I am like you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You make the mistake of thinking that I am weak and changeable
[SPEAKER_01]: The Father says, as long as the Son stands before me, crucified and risen in heaven, as long as He lives, my mercy is more than your Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: So please, my friends, do not believe the lie that He will not receive you back and wash you clean.
[SPEAKER_01]: The clearest example I can think of is when my children send against me.
[SPEAKER_01]: eight-year-old, and I think the other one's six, going on seven, and in our home, there is sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are saved sinners, Kelsey and I, Emma, and I truly hope that Charlie and Henry are either already saved or are all on their way.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in our home, when we sin, when my children
[SPEAKER_01]: They are to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are to repent.
[SPEAKER_01]: There will be discipline in correction as appropriate.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is sometimes pain in sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then after the discipline is over and the tears have been shed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they have repented.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wrap my arms around them and I say,
[SPEAKER_01]: It is done, it is finished.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the blood of Jesus Christ has forgiven me, and therefore it can forgive you to and wash it away as if it never happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are there still some consequences in this life to our sins, yes?
[SPEAKER_01]: And many of those are so that we never forget and go back like Pharaoh.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we never go back and cheat the Lord of all the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when this life is over, it will not be remembered again.
[SPEAKER_01]: So come to the Lord while he may be found, repent of your sins as I often repent of my name forgiven by my Lord, in walk in this new life that he's offering to us where we can be forgiven, watch clean as if our sins never happened and we can walk in
[SPEAKER_01]: the providing, caring, protecting presence, powerful presence of the Lord in this land in George, South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, I thank you for your promises and for the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: May no one here today leave, still believing the lie, that there is another God they should look to, another joy,
[SPEAKER_01]: That will get before they're good, ultimately.
[SPEAKER_01]: And may no one, no Christian Lord, please Father, I plead with you that no Christian would be permitted to leave here today without repenting of whatever sin is hindering them in their joyful walk with you, they're gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ask this all in our precious Savior's name, Jesus, amen.