Category: Podcasts

WEBVTT

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Today, we’re talking about the people of the way who repented and partnered with Christ.

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By my holy name will humble themselves and see my face.

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We’re looking to the prophet Isaiah chapter one

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and verse 18. Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

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Yeah. This is a prophetic, word from Isaiah. The chapter one begins with describing the vision of Isaiah. Isaiah had a vision of the people of God in the future who were perhaps laden with sins, and he represented them as scarlet, as as red. But they were transformed from the scarlet to whiteness, white as snow.

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That means that through repentance, the people of God were transformed. They were purified by the spirit of God and the word of God. We’re turning now to Mark chapter two. We’re gonna read verses eight through 11.

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And immediately, when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, why reason ye these things in your hearts whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, thy sins be forgiven thee or to say, arise and take up thy bed and walk. But that you may know that the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, he say it to the sick of the palsy. I say unto thee, arise and take up thy bed and go thy way into thine house.

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Okay. This is a a strange question that, Jesus proposes here. He says, what is easier for him to heal somebody or for him to forgive that person? I used to read this scripture and say, man, it it’s the same thing. It takes the power of God to forgive somebody, and it takes the power of God to heal somebody.

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But later, as I got deeper into the word and understood the question and its roots, I understood that Jesus has the power to do both. In fact, he can heal us without our our knowledge. In John chapter five, there’s a man that was healed. And at first, he didn’t even know who healed him or how he got healed. He was not aware.

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But with the forgiveness of sins, it takes a cooperation of the person that has the sins. They have to come in repentance to Christ to receive the forgiveness of sins. He cannot forgive you of your sins if you don’t ask him, if you don’t come to him in contrition and a sincere desire to overcome those sins. It’s really harder. It’s a harder thing for him to forgive sins.

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In fact, we’re gonna see in the next scripture how he did many miracles, but nobody repented. We’re gonna turn now to Matthew, chapter 11. Read verses twenty and twenty one.

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Then began he to upgrade the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done because they repented not. Woe unto thee, Carise. Woe unto thee, Bethesda. For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

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This is an is an amazing thing to wrap our heads around this. But in that area, they call it the scholars call it the evangelical triangle of these three cities that are up on top of the Sea Of Galilee. And and that’s where he did most of his mighty works were done there. And yet, they repented not. Nobody repented, which tells us that we can experience a lot of things in life.

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We can experience miracles and people in the church experience oftentimes through prayer and seeking God. They receive a healing. The most important thing is the repentance because that is the function that cleanses us from sin, the remission of sins. He healed the blind and healed the deaf and cleansed the lepers, even raised people from the dead and did all those mighty miracles there. These people were not prompted to go into repentance.

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Yes. God is is a lover. He he wants to bless people. We’ve seen many miracles in our life, and I’ve even seen people that have received miracles that never have fully repented. So if we wanna spend eternity with Christ, we are going to have to repent.

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Now let’s turn to verses 28 through 30. This is the the end of this particular chapter. He’s culminating a formula for his people.

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Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.

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If you’re laboring and you’re heavy laden, he says, you need to come on to him.

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And I will give you rest.

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And he will give us rest. He is our shalom. Now, the people in the Old Testament were given the Sabbath and that was a wonderful thing. They call the Sabbath the queen. God is the king.

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And Christ, he is our Sabbath. He is our rest. And we can turn to him no matter what day it is. No matter where we are, we have to learn to return to Christ continually. And and it has to become intuitive that we can do it without really putting a lot of thought behind it.

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It just becomes natural for us. Take my yoke upon you. Take his yoke. I would teach people about how we learn to walk the path of teshuvah is we take Jesus’ yoke. Now in the ancient times, the most powerful animal was the ox, and they would train a young oxen by yoking them with the old ones.

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And the old ones would help them to walk the path and to to walk the narrow path and up through the mountains or wherever they had to haul things. That old ox was steady there teaching the young one, and and this is what Christ is talking about. He wants us to yoke with him, be linked with him on our journey. Sometimes we’re in perilous times. We’re we’re high up in the mountain and we could fall off and be destroyed.

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But if we’re linked with him, we have the protective cover and we have his guidance as we yoke with him. And learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart. So as we yoke with him, we become more personalized with him. He becomes our friend. He said, my sheep hear my voice.

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They know my voice and they follow me. So as we’re yoked with him, as we return to him intuitively, The word of God begins to work at us and and intuitively we know what to do. Sometimes the best thing for us is just to keep our mouth shut in situations or give a kind word. The bible says a soft word dispelleth much wrath. The the tongue is the most difficult thing to control.

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This is why Peter in chapter two first Peter chapter two, he talks about laying aside all guile and all evil speaking. Gotta lay that stuff aside. If we’re gonna yoke with Christ, he’s gonna be with us. He doesn’t wanna hear us gossiping or bad wrapping some other person. We need to lift them up.

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Have compassion for those that are lost and are contending with themselves.

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And ye shall find rest unto your souls.

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Okay. When we’re doing all this, we can find rest no matter where we’re at. We can be in the middle of the fire. I’m talking about spiritual fire.

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For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

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For his yoke is easy. Now those of us that have come out of worldly situations where we’ve had an addiction, I had the addiction of alcohol. And I could tell you that’s a heavy yoke. And there’s millions and millions of people, I don’t care how highly educated they are, doctors, lawyers, judges, people in the government, and people in high positions that are dependent on alcohol to get peace in life. I’m telling you, you can get peace and joy through Christ.

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Return to Christ. And he will give you peace. He will give you joy. All of the things that you need are available in him. God bless you.

WEBVTT

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We’re turning to Genesis twelve and four to learn how to become a Hebrew.

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By my holy name will humble themselves and see my face. If they pray, if they pray, if they pray and seek my face, I will hear.

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So Abraham departed as the Lord has spoken unto him and Lot went with him and Abram was 70 and five years old when he departed out of Haran.

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He departed out of Haran and what he did was he crossed over the River Euphrates. The Hebrew word for Hebrew is ibrit and ibrit means one who crosses over. Now, studying the life of Abraham, he crossed over from the civilized area, the urban area, so to speak, over to the land of Canaan. Abraham and his father had been makers of idols. They had made a fortune in making idols.

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He knew perhaps every idol that people could worship. And he made them and made a lot of money. But at age 75, he was tired of a lifestyle, of making money and something that he knew was not right. When Abraham crossed over, he crossed over from a prior life that was devoted strictly to materialism, making money, creating idols. And this is the way our world is today.

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The world is filled with idols. People make idols out of cars and houses and boats and businesses. And, they even make idols out of singers and athletes and they worship their idols. But, God wants us to worship Him. And, Abraham at 75 said, I’m sick and tired of idols and materialism, and he became a God seeker.

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He went from total materialism and total self indulgence to seeking the face of God. God called him out of there and perhaps God is calling you out of wherever you’re at and wanting you to cross over because when you cross over from your past into a life of serving God and loving God and obeying God, you become a Hebrew. You’ve crossed over. You’re on a journey of Teshuvah and Abraham began seeking a city whose builder and maker is God. He wanted to commune with the people of God.

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He wanted to commune with God. Let’s turn to another chapter in Genesis chapter 14 verse 16.

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And he brought back all the goods and also brought again his brother Lot and his goods and the women also and the people. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and of the kings that were with him at the Valley Of Shavu, which is the king’s dale. And Melchizedek, king of Salem brought forth bread and wine and he was the priest of the most high God.

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We see here that Abraham was doing a righteous thing. What has happened here is his nephew Lot got caught and captured by enemies that were going to enslave him And, Abraham goes after to save Lot. Now, Lot didn’t treat Abraham with great respect when the two of them had much cattle. Abraham had his cattle. Lot had his cattle.

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They each had people that worked for them. Abraham told Lot, he said, look, our people are fighting over the land. You take your choice of what land you want and and I’ll take the other portion. And so Lot, instead of deferring to the elder and giving him the option of the first choice and the better choice, Lot chooses the best area for himself. He was selfish.

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But, in the end, God told Abraham, Abraham, all of this is yours anyway. This is this is all yours. But, Abraham, even though he got mistreated by his nephew, went to risk his life to save his nephew. He was able to fight off these people that had captured him and he came back with spoil from the enemy’s camp. And, he told the people from Sodom, I’m not gonna take any of this spoil.

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But he did have an encounter there with Melchizedek, which is an interesting character. In Hebrew, it’s called Melchizedek or king of the righteousness. And so Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek. Melchizedek ministered the word of God to Abraham and it was a spiritual epiphany for Abraham in that he gave him tithes. He was in a sense surrendering his life by giving these tithes.

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The tithe is a representation. It’s like giving the top profit or 10% to God and it means you’re giving God everything ultimately. And this is what God wants from us is for us to cross over from the past life into a new life with him for us to give him everything. Our lives, our money, whatever talents we have, we’re gonna give them to God. We’re gonna turn to Hebrews chapter seven verses one through four.

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For this

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Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God

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Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God.

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Met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him.

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He met Abraham as Abraham was doing this righteous act to save his nephew. And Melchizedek blessed him. He blessed him with the word of God.

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To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being by interpretation, king of righteousness and after that also king of Salem, is king of peace.

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So, we see that this is a priest of the Most High God. It’s an archetype and the thing is that’s important here is that this Melchizedek is a type of Christ. The Bible says that the people of the Old Testament are types and shadows of what we find in the New Testament. Melchizedek, it says he’s first the king of righteousness. And in Hebrew it’s called Melech Sodok.

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Sodok is somebody who operates in righteousness and Melech means a king. So he’s first king of righteousness. Everything that he does is righteous. His word is righteous. His actions are righteous.

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Everything that Christ did was righteous. Even and especially his work on the cross. We see that he is first the king of righteousness and then he becomes the king of peace or melek shalom. In Hebrew the word peace is shalom. And Shalom is a multifaceted blessing.

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It means comfort. It means help. It means purity. It means holiness. It means happiness, contentment, joy, integrity.

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All of the things that you would like to be and like to do are incorporated in that word shalom. Jewish people today, it’s a greeting. Shalom. Shalom alaikum. Peace be unto you.

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And so, God is saying that as we do these correct things, as we obey His word, then we become righteous in His eyes. And then he adds comfort. He adds peace to our life. One of the things that the people of the way in the book of Acts, the important characteristic, they were people that were at peace with themselves. The Bible says that the people that are lost are contending with themselves.

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They wanna do right, but they can’t do right. They They wanted to do this but they did the other thing. And even the Apostle Paul talked about it. He said, When I wanted to do the right thing, I didn’t do it. I did the wrong thing.

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And when I didn’t want to do the wrong thing, that’s what I did. And he said, Who can help me out of this? And that is the Lord Jesus Christ. But we have to become a Hebrew. We have to give up the past and move on to the high prize and calling in Christ Jesus.

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But he will take our desire, our walk in righteousness as we obey his word and he will apply peace to our soul. We’re turning to John chapter fourteen and one verse, verse 27.

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Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

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Jesus is expressing his desire to give us his peace, his Shalom. As we become a Hebrew and we cross over from our prior life into a life that is ordained of God, a life that is subjected to his word and seeking to do the right thing As we go on this journey, we just seek to do the next right thing. And that’s what righteousness is. He said, The peace that I give, the world cannot give. People look for peace.

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They’re looking for the Shalom, but they’re looking in the wrong places. You can look for it in the comfort of alcohol or drugs or the things that money can buy. Nothing compares to the peace that Jesus gives. If you pass over from the life of serving yourself over into a life of serving God, serving Jesus, Peter said that you’re gonna have the peace that passeth all understanding. Thank you and God bless you today.