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of their um yeah his word abilities or or natur what we might call natural
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abilities um and one of those um we see is just in um I I think in in Gideon um even though it said you know coming upon him but there's there's a sense in
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which um Gideon had some leadership ability but he needed the power of the spirit to to move and actually
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understand it it's it's time um it's time for you to to gather men together um another instance would be the fitness
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and we talked about Fitness to govern um the that abiding of the spirit in men so some political skill um but I think also
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uh moral courage to to do what was right to do what men ought to do um and finally uh at the end last week we
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men in particular and I'm going to read um from Exodus again uh not the same [Music] um one that I read last week but further
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on when it kind of summarizes this idea and and the reason I'm I'm kind of recapping this part a
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little bit is in my reading this week um I realized I realized that um and it I was focusing on the
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definition of these words in the Hebrew the coming upon coming upon mightily the abiding the filling and as far as it went I thought okay
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that's where we needed to stop but again as I read I realized that I I didn't really in the particular case of the the
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Craftsman and and the the artist uh mentioned in in Exodus bezalel uh in particular and I I'm
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I ohab um in Exodus 35 and I'll read that but I think again I kind of came up short to
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where we really needed to see and I'll try to uh take us a little further let me read from Exodus 35 the the last five
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uh six verses there starting at verse 30 then Moses said to the sons of Israel see the Lord has called by name bezalel
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the the son of Yuri the son of her of the tribe of Judah and he has filled him with the spirit of God in wisdom in understanding and in knowledge and in
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all craftsmanship to make designs for working in gold and in silver and in bronze and in The Cutting of stones for settings and in the carving of wood so as to perform in every inventive work he
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also has put in his heart to teach both he and ohab the son of ahisamach of the tribe of Dan he has filled them with
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skill to perform every work of an engraver and of a designer and of an embroiderer in blue and in purple and in Scarlet material and in fine linen and
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of a weaver as performers of every work and makers of design and you read that and you I think that's kind of where we we stopped it's
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pretty awesome you know he's not only um an engraver a designer and an embroiderer but he's an inventor of these things he's he's able to create uh things um
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like this as as a Craftsman but he was also able to teach so he have these extraordinary um things that these these men were
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doing but what were they they working on they they're they're they're working on the the Tabernacle they're working on the place where where God would come and
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dwell among his people and as I was looking at I think it's uh sin Sinclair Ferguson uses this phrase in his book um which I think kind
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of summarizes all of what we see here the the the the term ruach the Breath of God has its dynamic as as he says it's
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air in motion and so we get that idea of the power and force of the Holy Spirit but he kind of looks at that ruach
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as not only the power but a power presence that the holy spirit is a a power presence through these men because
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what does um the the the Tabernacle symbolize um and Ferguson went on to
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quote John Calvin where he said the Tabernacle was a sort of visible image of God that here was a place where the
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worshippers came to meet God to uh well I'll read it in the Psalms uh Psalm
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29 um and it's it's not in the New American Standard it phrases it a little differently but in my mind I was I guess I I found it in the KJV uh Psalm
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29:2 where the psalmist uh declares give unto the Lord the glory to his name Worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness see it's not
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just that but it's that which brings us to this and this and so I guess in the back of my mind as as
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we're traveling this week I I was thinking about Dr filer's um study where we we went through the designs of all the cathedrals and the the temples and all
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the ordinate things and I'm thinking man can build some magnificent things but that's not
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where that's not where the emphasis in the Old Testament is leading us to create these monuments to man so we read these and I can remember
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years ago saying you know um I wish I was a bezo I wish I had some you know I was wishing to be artsy craftsy which
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I'm I'm not very much okay but that's not where the spirit is really driving us that power among men
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is D driving them in and we see it in the the design and the making of the temple that that the spirit is creating
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and in a sense with Fallen man he's recreating the beauty of of creation but he's creating it in this
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the beauty of Holiness of of God that we might come to worship him um the writers um well here's the psalmist
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David in Psalm 27 one thing I have asked from the Lord that I shall seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life life to behold the beauty of the
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Lord and to meditate in his Temple um this power presence I think captures at least helps me to see that from the
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beginning the the the holy spirit is setting forth a pattern of wanting people to come into the
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presence of the Lord to conform to his will will to conform to his holy character and and of
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course again as I think about the temples the cathedrals the churches uh all the things that that man
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builds um we we can never lose sight of the fact that what is the final pattern or I should say it this way who
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is the final pattern who is the one who will be the pattern to us of the will of God of of conforming to his will for his
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glory for his holy character to be displayed we read in John Chapter 2 Jesus answered them destroy this Temple
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and in three days I will raise it up then the Jews said it took 46 years to build the temple and you will raise it up in 3 days but he was speaking of the Temple of his
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body so when he was raised from the dead his disciples remember that he said this and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had
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spoken um I guess my my thought is yes these men did extraordinary things in the work that they did one or
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two men having all of this um ability and yet their their work was bigger than them it
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was to bring a place for the presence of God to dwell among the people so I'd like this phrase this idea of the power presence of God uh working among men uh
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even even in the Old Testament even as it is special and occasional we see him uh working for the beauty of Holiness
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for the glory of God and um I I guess like I said it just kind of hit me this week that um that's where all this
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really needs to go um and needs to be pointed out so um that it was was helpful to
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helpful to me and me and yet we sometimes uh forget that and we haven't really mentioned it but we write this
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word he is the Holy Spirit and even in the working of the spirit from the fall to the Messiah even in the very beginning even in the The
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Exodus um He is building a moral and ethical or showing the moral and ethical characteristics of of God to us and um
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I'd like to to look um if we can this morning at Isaiah 63 and 63 and um the connections
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what Isaiah is writing about here is is is the mercy of God and reminding them of the mercies specifically in the The Exodus I'm going to read uh
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from Isaiah 63 7-14 so if you bear with me um then we'll look at a few of these passages related to the spirit
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he says I shall make mention of the loving kindness of the Lord the Praises of the Lord according to all that the Lord has granted us and the great
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goodness toward the house of Israel which he has granted them according to his compassion and according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses um loving kindnesses that's
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the word that's kind of put together and then he adds the multitude of his loving kindnesses is uh that's a prettyy awesome phrase right there and he said
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surely they are my people sons who will not deal falsely so he became their savior in all their Affliction he was afflicted and the angel of his presence
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saved them in and in his love and in his Mercy he redeemed them and he lifted them and carried them all the days of old but they rebelled and grieved His
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Holy Spirit Holy Spirit therefore he turned himself to become their enemy he fought fought against them then his people remembered the days of old of Moses where is he who brought
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them up out of the sea with the Shepherds of his flock where is he who put his holy spirit in the midst of them who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses who divided the
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waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name who led them through the STS like the horse in the wilderness they did not stumble as the cattle which
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go down into the valley the spirit of the lord gave them rest so did thou lead thy people to make for thyself a
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name um there's a lot here the activity of the Holy Spirit but we see the Holy Spirit has
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order of the passage but first as as witness um to the things that that God did uh among them
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um actually I'm going to make that number two let's look at this first and then we'll come back to
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um yeah then he remembered in verse 11 he remembered the days of old of Moses he's speaking there of the bringing out uh from uh from the from the land across the the Red Sea
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and uh dividing the waters before them but we also see in The Exodus uh passages itself in Exodus chap 8 we see um we
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read these words then and the Lord said to Moses say to Aaron stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth that it may become gnats throughout all
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the land of Egypt they did so and Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and struck the dust of the earth and there were gnats on man and Beast all
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the dust of the earth became gnats through all the land of Egypt The Magicians tried their secret ARS to bring forth gats but they could not so
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there were gats on man and Beast then The Magicians said to Pharaoh this is the Finger of God but Pharaoh's
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heart was hardened and he did not listen to them as the Lord had said um I again that kind of that astounding
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phrase you know that The Magicians did some things that replicated what Aaron could do and then it got to a point with the
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plagues where they tried and they couldn't but they recognized something extraordinary here in in Moses and Aaron this is the Finger
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of God they said this is what we see is the the Holy Spirit um in the midst of them I think uh the Holy Spirit giving them uh the power to do these things uh
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and we know uh the scriptures say that the the spirit Came Upon Moses um so what we see here is in the Miracles the
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things that they perform it's the power of God through
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spirit and in that same verse we see the Holy Spirit as as
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witness to the things that were happening um and the things that uh were done in the Miracles the writer to the Hebrews in Chapter 2 uh helps us with this
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so I guess I need to write these up here as I
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go listen to the writer to the Hebrews for this reason we must pay much closer attention attention to what we have heard so that we do not drift away from it for if the word spoken through
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Angel angels prove unalterable and every transgression and Disobedience received as a just penalty how will we escape if we neglect so great a
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Salvation after it was the first spoken through the Lord it was confirmed To Us by those who heard God also testifying with them both by signs and wonders and
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by various Miracles and by gifts of the holy spirit according to his own will he goes back to to acknowledge that
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that the holy spirit is active in these things that the the signs the Wonders the Miracles that he mentioned here were were for our benefit as well as theirs
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and and he he says how how will we escape if we neglect so great a Salvation Among Us um so we we see the Holy Spirit as witness to those things
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in Isaiah 63 uh looking at verse 14 we 14 we read that uh after God had led
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them so that they did not stumble verse 13 as the cattle which go down into the valley the spirit of the lord gave them rest so did thou lead th thy people to
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make for thyself a glorious name um I don't know that we see that we we we see the the Holy Spirit as as yes
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as comforter as the one that comes alongside and yet the one who to me the clearest one uh as Jesus walked I think
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in the power of the Holy Spirit um and again I'm I'm still probing uh that as much as I can on on how Jesus walked in
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the Holy Spirit um I think that's one that that I'll never be able to Plum adequately but we read these words from from Jesus come to me all who are weary
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and heavy laden and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my
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yoke is easy and my burden is light um these are the characteristics of of a holy God of a
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a willing God to comfort his people to bring them uh rest to bring them to a
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a a place of um understanding who he is and coming for strength and help
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um the holy spirit is involved in from again to me from the beginning in these things among among men that we it's not an isolated thing that's only in the New Testament is just more explicit in the
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New Testament and then finally in this uh passage uh Isaiah
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63 we look at back to verse 9 and 10 um in their Affliction he was afflicted and the angel of his presence saved them in his love and in Mercy he redeemed them and lifted them and
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carried them all of the days of old but they rebelled and they grieved his Spirit therefore he turned himself to become
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their enemy he fought against them um I don't know that again I can Plumb the depths of this but we are warned in
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Ephesians 4 in a section where uh Paul is is
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Ephesians with with many exhortations at the end of chapter 4 um talking about their life let it let him him who steals steal no longer but let
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him labor performing with his own hands what is good in order that he may have something to share with him who has need let no unh wholesome word proceed from
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your mouth but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment that it may give Grace to those who hear and do not
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grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with malice and be
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kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving each other just as God in Christ also forgave
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you um I think we can lose sight uh we read those things and we perhaps as human beings want to make a checklist for
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ourselves you know I I don't steal I work hard I don't say bad words I do this I do that but in the midst of that
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it's do not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption um there's
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a again from the beginning we see it in Isaiah recounting The Exodus and prior to the Exodus the sins of the people the forgetting God the not acknowledging that it's his strength and his power
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um and how they grieved the the spirit that it was not um I I I I think there are some
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Who Um take the previous verse to that and say well it was the the people were grieved because God had turned his back but it
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as far as I read it it's the holy spirit that is is grieved that he is the one who had been
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rejected um be because of the thoughts the or the ungratefulness and their
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forgetfulness um of the people and so so we're reminded that all of these things that we do as we interact and Paul is is
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speaking in Ephesians 4 uh of the Church of the body not just the individual um but the members of the body um in the midst of this I guess you
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could use the the term the one another chapter here chapter here um and um and yet it's by the guidance of the Holy Spirit um it's it's by the fact that
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that you were sealed by him um there we look back at the Old Testament and see that even in the in the midst of
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they saw the saw the Miracles they they witnessed the knats and the frogs and the blood in the river and all of those
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things they heard perhaps told to them how the magicians could not follow on and do what they were doing this must be the Finger of
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God they saw that God had brought them out and safely crossed the Red Sea dividing it up into walls and letting
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them March not on mud but dry ground all and brought them safely to the other side bringing them toward the
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the promised land his promised land and yet we read that they rejected him and they forgot him um it's a it's a
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deep thing it's um and I I don't mean that that's a very simplistic way to say that but um in understanding that the
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holy spirit is is Holy and there is this not just so much again of the
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spirit using men to do both ordinary and extraordinary things but there's a larger purpose to to to show that power
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to bring us into God's presence to to be worshippers of God to see his glory and
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to in a sense back ask in the beauty of God's holiness let's
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pray Our Father we do thank you for the Revelation that you've given us in your word that you are not alike the little G gods of men
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who make people wonder what they ought to do and how they to do it you have revealed yourself to us and
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yet these are just as our brother repeats sometimes the fringes of your ways and yet how awesome the privilege of being your
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people of coming into your presence knowing that we come to you through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit
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to he has that ability that power power presence to bring us into your presence to worship to give your name all the
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glory and the honor that it deserves and to to truly do what the say to give Glory give Glory give Glory we
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pray that your people would Grant you glory and honor and all praise in Christ's name we pray amen
