Published: May 28, 2023 | Speaker: Tim Freitag | Series: God as Creator - Part 3 | Scripture: Genesis 1-2
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so I mean interesting that man comes up with this idea that from point of neutrality comes up an explosion and everything comes from
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nothing which is basically what we Christians have believed have believed always that God created for nothing yeah well it's it's one of those you know the their theory of the some super dense
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particle somehow implodes and explodes and will throw all this out in the world and eventually with the heat death the universe it'll collapse back again it'll all start over again or something
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you know it's it's one of those uh Chuck's talked about this a number of times one of the things that they like to do in in this question or debate about life or where did life come from well sometimes they'll just say hey it
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came from the Star somewhere you came in on a meteor well okay where did that come from though you've just geo-located your problem to where we can't look at it closely you haven't actually solved
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the issue of if all of this exploded into being life originated somewhere somehow anyhow what we're getting at this morning or we're trying to to look at is this question of
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what do we do with this and I want to go through this a little bit because I think it was it was helpful out of the Genesis study and it's it's been a little bit and I know some of you weren't here at the time this phrase here we find this phrase in
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verse two of Genesis the um tohu babohu
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which is translated I think in most of your versions as formless and void there's a meaning to this and we see this in um Jeremiah as Jeremiah is looking at this
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um Devastation wrought by the Judgment of God in Jeremiah chapter 4 verses 23-26 he says I looked upon the Earth and behold it was formless and void
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and to the heavens and they had no light I looked on the mountains and behold they were quaking and all the hills moved to and fro I looked and behold there was no man and all the birds of
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the heavens had fled I looked and behold the fruitful land was a Wilderness or a wasteland and all its cities were pulled down before the Lord before his Fierce
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anger there's very much a meaning of judgment a repetition this is the only other place that we find this phrase here in Jeremiah and in Genesis 1 verse
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2 this it seems very much to have a concept of of sort of blasting before the fierce anger of the Lord
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it was funny last week I I appreciated I had a picture of The Pillars of Creation so-called the constellation pillars of the creation one of the wells girls came up and asked me which day that was supposed to
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represent because it was supposed to be on a particular day that was a problem because the lights hadn't actually been arranged yet and and I really appreciated that she was thinking about these things this way but one of the questions that people have wrestled with
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that frankly I don't think we have a direct answer from the scriptures which day were the Angels created on when did that happen because if it didn't happen on one of the days of creation then it happened
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between verse 1 and verses 2 right in Genesis or somewhere it happened somewhere we're not told when it happened and the path as we read through The
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Narrative of creation is going to take us through God's creation of the world and his setting up of it as good the creation of man is very good we're going to get the closer look at it and it's
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going to move us right into Genesis chapter 3 where we run into the fall of Man and we run into the Fallen Angel or Satan the the opposer the
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accuser whatever he is understood as at that point in the narrative I think we would all agree that that's Satan but again just to use the phrases accurately
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or Faithfully or Faithfully it shows up um really soon in creation we're not given some given some narrative in in Moses's account of how
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these things came to be that we understand where he came from does has that ever bothered any of you that he just sort of shows up kind of Whole Hog in Genesis
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hey I think we have we have to infer prior existence prior existence the Angels the Angelic hosts
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before verse two and three I don't I mean if we try any attempt to try to fit it in there in there is pure speculation and certainly not enough time to
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establish statement that's the most subtle of God's creatures yeah or the the even worse danger of the Angelic host being co-eternal
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God right I mean theologically we are not going to allow
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so that's part of what we're getting at here is the idea that the Angels predate what we see the creation narrative as it picks up in verses two three and on Aaron there's a lot there's a lot
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because I've heard that it's used as a well that's completely anachronistic to that's that's safe there it is um but to remember also that to whom
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this was written they had they themselves had a history and they themselves had an understanding they were bringing together to the narrative You're right our
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anachronism into sex is Perfectly Natural because that's the way that they were dealing with it right right and so we talked about this a little bit last week that that in the context that this was given to Moses to write down
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it almost certainly had existed as at least an oral tradition if not some pieces of writing ahead of that that Moses knew who Abraham Isaac and Jacob were when he's confronted that the
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people of Israel had a memory of their forefathers and in fact we see them crying out to God do we not in the midst of The Exodus saying remember us remember what you promised to us they
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were aware they were able to understand these things even if Moses is writing only those first five books for us the people had all of those things and
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additionally we talked about this a number of times we live in the light of the New Testament it is frankly Folly for us to read the scriptures trying to somehow
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put a lampshade over that light and pretend like we don't know that as we're um so we're going to look at a couple of those things those things um as we try to figure out where did
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Satan come from in Genesis or where did these angels come from as Chuck pointed out it appears it seems the logic there is that the fall of Satan had to have happened before the
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fall of Man because otherwise he wasn't there to tempt them and so it seems from as we read that it probably happened before their Creation in any sense that we this is happening effectively between
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Genesis 1 1 in which God puts all reality
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what is sometimes referred to as the war in heaven
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that's right so so creation of of all reality God created the heavens and the Earth here Earth here but now we're picking up the Earth formless and void and God begins to work upon the Earth we don't see anything
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happening here with the angels and we're going to walk this down into Genesis 3 Genesis 3 with the fall of Man
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and the adversary
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so what we're getting at is where does this come from Genesis two I mean even this period is less than 24 hours
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you know I mean we're sitting here but not between one and two I mean I said unless I mean we're talking about one day this is so if you
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let's let's let's let's read carefully in Genesis 1 verse one verse one in the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth verse two now the Earth was formless and
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void there's no mention of time frame here Darkness was over the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of waters verse 3 God said let there be light and there was light God saw that the light was good he separated
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the light from darkness and God called the light day the light night there was evening and morning the first day so it's not until we get down there that we actually have that time frame element
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showing up
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I want to do it that way because it was like I don't like this at all so let's read a little bit in um the the the actual Narrative of what we might piece together as the war in heaven and we're running a little bit
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out of time is scattered a little bit in Old and New Testament but there's a common element here of Satan being cast down and in fact it seems cast down from heaven to the Earth
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and he's mad about it um again in Isaiah [Music] Isaiah 14
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um now in Isaiah 14 the immediate context is in fact a rebuke specifically directed at one of the Kings but it does seem awfully
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um we've talked about this number of times in the hermeneutic of things that that a lot of times passages mean more than one thing so as an example the the commonly cited passage about the Virgin birth
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is actually in an immediate context that says like this guy is going to be born in the Next Generation or so and then it's many generations until Jesus shows up because it was talking about a a
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actual period there with the Kings but it also overlaps God is doing something larger with his word often he's accomplishing more than one thing at a time so listen to this in Isaiah 14.
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starting in verse 12 how you have fallen from Heaven o star of the morning son of the Dawn you have been cut down to earth you who have weakened the Nations but you said in your heart I will Ascend to
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Heaven I will raise my throne above the stars of God I will sit on the Mount of assembly in the recesses of the north I will Ascend above the heights of the clouds and I will make myself like the
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most high nevertheless you shall be thrust down to sheol to the recesses of the pit
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there's this connection here this casting out of of the star of the morning star of the Dawn casting it out into the pit into sheol into the recesses and we see as we look
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up and we pick up back in the Genesis narrative we find this Darkness we find Darkness over the surface of the water's Darkness over the Deep Over the the formless Wasteland there's a connection
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of Satan being cast out cast from Heaven um again just read a couple more since we're running a little bit out of time this morning this morning in Luke chapter 10 somewhat disputed
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passage but Luke chapter 10 as the 70 are coming back to Jesus his disciples are returning to him and they say to him uh they returned with Joy saying Lord even the demons are subject to us in
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your name and he said to them I was watching Satan fall from Heaven like
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disputed because the question is when was this happening when was Jesus watching Satan fall from the heavens but I think you can understand it and I think most of you are familiar enough with that section of the disciples being
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sent out and the disciples being brought back and in fact Jesus gives us um his own sort of narrative on this or his own comment on it he says behold I have given you authority to tread on serpents
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and scorpions and all and over all the power of the enemy and nothing will injure you the fact that Jesus is saying this to them I don't think is necessarily saying that Jesus
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saw this happen right at the same moment that the 70 were coming I Think Jesus is holding this up to them saying it's because I have dominion over this because I have
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cast Satan down you are Servants of the one who has expelled him that you can expel the demons because you are the emissaries of
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the Son of God that's why you can walk and not be injured that's why you can cast them out and not be um resisted or denied by them
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they have this power over the Demons by dint of of his power of being under the service of the one who watched him fall from Heaven we're gonna do one
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more before we run out of time this morning in Revelation 12. as a sort of the famous One and I am certainly not going to exegete all of the context of Revelation this
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morning in the next five minutes but in Revelation 12 I'm going to pick up in verse 7 my Bible actually has a heading that says the war in heaven it says then a war broke out in heaven
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Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought back but the dragon was not strong enough and no longer was any place found in heaven for him and his
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angels and the Great Dragon was hurled down that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan the deceiver of the whole world he was hurled to the Earth and his angels with him
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um yeah I'll just read the keep going for a minute her loud voice in heaven saying now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his
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Christ for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down he who accuses him Day and Night Before Our God they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony they did not live their lives so as to
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shy away from Death therefore Rejoice so heavens and you who dwell in them but woe to the earth and the sea with great Fury the devil has come down to you knowing he has only a short time
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we have this um sort of perspective where we read here the ancient serpent this language of antiquity here with him
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um my interpretation of it would be that this is again a retrospective it's a look into the past of connection back to the the creation era in which God is casting down the
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serpent of old he is expelling Satan and I think where where I'm trying to go with this and just to wrap it up
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for us this morning so is I think we can explain the idea of the the world being created as we're told from Isaiah not a wasteland and then
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suddenly in verse two It Is A Wasteland can be explained by the casting out by this war in heaven taking its toll that Satan is sent upon the Earth cast down
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here causing destruction we're told throughout the rest of scriptures even up into our own era that he is in some sense the ruler of this world that he is the prince of the principalities that
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have dominion over the Nations that he has this Authority and these things happening upon the earth when was that granted to him how did that come about and I think we can look at this and say
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okay we we're told in no uncertain terms by the word of the Lord that God created the world the world not formless and we find it formless in verse two something happened between 1 1
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and 1 2 and I would argue that this is where we can put the narrative where we can fit this question in to find Satan cast down that's causing this disruption
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um shifting of God's well-formed creation Ely you have a question brewing in your mind I can see
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three of the world you know Satan just blew it so let's go back to what we talked about last week
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okay and we've got six days that happening and an unspecified number of days but probably not very many
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S I think John Luke is correct it's not just the atmosphere it's the heaven leaves which includes the principalities the powers the very various love the seraphine the chair you've been the the
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uh the living creatures that those that remain Faithful Servants of God that we see in the rest of scripture
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place we talked about this talked about this a little bit last week and we're running out of time but
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[Music] so again we go back to what we read in in Jeremiah it's a judgment from God and maybe I misspoke when I'm drawing this arrow that I've confused folks but it's it's that judgment that power of God
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that we read of in Jeremiah where Jeremiah is looking at the Earth and he says this is formless and void the men are gone the beasts are gone the fruitfulness of the earth is gone it's just blasted formless and void before
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the tremendous wrath of God I think you can connect that wrath of God that Jeremiah is looking at here with his wrath towards Satan producing
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the same result that same phrase that we're reading in Jeremiah Erin
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Powers Etc are present here Moses conspicuously avoided them in his narration of what happened and it may be the subject for more work
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but the fact that he conspicuously avoided him is needs to be included in the analysis of the test I have no
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issue with looking at the profits and their retrospectives on things looking at the Psalms and their descriptions of what goes on but if we don't deal with the fact that the promotion does not
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fall short of a really full-throated understanding of it I think a full started understanding is beyond our beyond our best nowhere is it downward
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this is the this is the problem and and probably this would be the last thing I'll say on this now and we can pick it up next week because we are starting to go over time but
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the problem that we have in picking up anything to do with the angels or the principalities is the incredible you say it's conspicuous
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that Moses didn't address them here it's kind of a little bit conspicuous in the vast majority of scripture I mean frankly if we look at the number of mentions of angels I haven't counted it recently but it's it's very narrow
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similarly the mentions of I think there's actually more mention of demons than there is of angels and even that a lot of those come from the uh gospel narratives where we see people casting demons out we are told very little about
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what's happening behind the scene there so there is one sense in which Moses not Moses not tackling that head-on easy in character
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with the rest of how scripture seems to be treating it additionally again and we'll pick it up next week
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this fall this fall this contest between the will of God and Satan exerting himself apparently as we read in
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um in Isaiah to ascend above the the almighty to be greater than him which is the theme we're going to hit throughout we talked already about where it reflects in Genesis moving into Exodus
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people trying to establish their name above God's name conflict has to sit somewhere
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so we'll we'll address this a little more next week hopefully in a little greater detail because I might have spent too long setting it up and not enough time concluding but we'll um Lord willing we'll pick back up and discuss
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some more in in the next session let's go before the Lord in prayer
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but father we thank you for your word we thank you for the faithful men who have gone ahead of us to dig into it to read and to search and to compile and we ask that you would give us the wisdom that comes from above that we
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would be certain specs and that we would be diligent in our digging to find what is right and what is true and what these things say about you and your
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desire to be glorified and your desire to have man know you as you are you are that you have revealed yourself through this word in a very particular way so father as we gather together and we
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seek to magnify your name to glorify you in song and in prayer and through the word preached word preached that you would Empower Us by the spirit that indwells us that you would build
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these things up by your own labors and that you would Empower us Empower us for the part that you have anointed us to play in it
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that we somehow some way by your will and desire have been given the ability to magnify your name what a glorious mystery in which we
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partake father we ask that you would give us all joy in it as we Fellowship together and bless your Most Holy Name we ask these things in Jesus