Episode Transcript
Hosea chapter 11 verse 1. So I was telling my wife this morning about the spies going into Egypt,
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and I'm sorry into Canaan and how they did not trust in what God would do, but how they trusted in what they would do.
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So here I am having to take that message this morning to the children that Miss Tammy taught, and I'm having to apply it to myself.
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Because all I have is this little tiny sliver of a verse with extremely complicated prophetic principles involved.
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So I do have the scripture verses, but all of my notes are gone.
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So anyway, just bear with me. If I seem like I'm out of order, then that's why.
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But you know what? I'm looking forward to see what God's going to do because we still have His Word,
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and we're going to teach it for all that's worth by God's grace this morning.
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Father, we thank You so much for Your precious Word. And Father, Lord, we come to You now.
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Lord, not trusting in the arm of the flesh, as Brother Shepherd said, Father, in an earlier Sunday school,
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Lord, with them as an arm of flesh, but with us as the Lord our God.
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And Father, Lord, we pray all attention will be upon You in Your Word this morning, and we love You so much.
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And I pray, Father, that You'll speak through Your servant this morning to Your precious people and feed us, Lord, with the bread of life, we pray, in Jesus' precious name.
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Amen.
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Hosea 11, verse 1, God says, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt."
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That's our text this morning.
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"When Israel was a child, then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt."
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The title of the message this morning is "Reasonable Accommodations."
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When we go on a trip somewhere, we expect to have reasonable accommodations, hopefully indoor plumbing and heat and cool and a nice place to lay our head.
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But that's not the kind of accommodations we're talking about this morning.
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We're going to learn about the word "accommodate" or "accommodations" in its literal meaning this morning and learn, God willing, something about Bible prophecy.
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And if you don't understand Bible prophecy, if you don't understand the principles of Bible prophecy, then here's what's going to happen.
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You're going to start reading some of the Scriptures.
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You're going to then get into the New Testament.
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And I'll just see if this has ever happened to anybody this morning.
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I'm just going to ask.
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We don't have any notes.
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We might as well just scroll with it, right?
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How many of you all have ever gotten to the New Testament before?
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And you've read something the New Testament says, and this fulfilled that which the prophet said in the Old Testament,
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and then it quotes what the prophet said in the Old Testament.
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You go back and you read what the prophet said in the Old Testament.
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It has nothing to do with what just happened in the New Testament.
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You think, "How does that fulfill that?"
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Honestly, has that ever happened to anybody?
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You?
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The three preachers are raising their hands.
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It sure happened to me.
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If you don't understand some of the principles of prophecy, that used to happen to me.
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I'd really think, "God, what is it?"
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In all honesty, I'm looking here at the prophets in the Old Testament,
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and I believe your word.
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If you say it fulfills it, I believe it fulfills it,
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but I just don't make the connection here.
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And then in time, as I grew as a believer,
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I began to realize some principles that existed in prophecy.
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And if you don't understand them, then when you get the New Testament, you'll think,
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"How does this fit?"
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And we're not supposed to make it fit like that.
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There's a way you're supposed to apply that Old Testament prophecy
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to the New Testament fulfillment.
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And when you understand it, it unlocks everything,
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and it will give you the freedom to be able to read the New Testament,
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understand how it was fulfilled in the Old Testament,
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and you won't be troubled anymore.
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And God willing will understand that this morning.
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And if you don't get anything else, and if all we do is to stay 10, 15 minutes in here,
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because there's no notes, that will in and of itself will be worth coming here for.
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I sure would have loved someone to explain this to me when I was a younger pastor.
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The reason I'm saying that is what we just read is prophetic.
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We just read a prophecy.
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But to understand the principles of this prophecy,
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we have to understand on the surface what God is directly saying here
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through Hosea to the people of Israel.
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He says, "When Israel was a child..."
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Now, there is a man named Jacob whose name was changed to Israel.
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Israel then had 12 sons, and those 12 sons became the 12 tribes of the man Israel.
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Here, God is not speaking about the man Israel being a child,
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because when Israel was a child, his name wasn't Israel, it was Jacob.
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He's not talking about the man Israel being a child.
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God is talking about the nation of Israel being a child.
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This is prophetic. This is euphemistic.
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And what he's saying is, when Israel was in her infancy as a nation...
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Now, when was Israel in her infancy as a nation?
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She was in her infancy when the man Israel was alive,
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and his sons were just now forming through their descendants the nation of Israel.
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And what happens to every one of them in that infancy,
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they go into a land called Egypt.
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Remember? Because of the drought.
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And so now here's the man Israel with his offspring, his 12 sons,
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and they began having children in Egypt,
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so much so that finally Pharaoh says,
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"Hey, there's going to be more of them than there are us.
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We're done with this. We can't let them get stronger than us."
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Had they just blessed Israel, God would have blessed Egypt.
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But they didn't. So they began trying to destroy the men of Israel
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and they began making them slaves, the people of Israel slaves there.
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And so when Israel, the nation of Israel, was a child,
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that's what God is speaking about.
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When they were in their infancy, when they were a young nation,
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they're in Egypt, God says, "Then I loved him."
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So God is using one person, one child here to represent a multitude.
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That is one of the principles in prophecy that God uses an individual
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to represent a multitude.
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If you take your Bibles, turn to the book of Daniel, chapter 8.
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Daniel, chapter 8, that's going to be in the Old Testament.
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Daniel, chapter 8, in fact, if you got your Bible open, just turn to your left.
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It's the book right before Hosea.
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And in Daniel, chapter 8, God is giving very complex prophecies
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about nations that are going to come up and get strong,
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and one nation is going to conquer another nation,
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all the way down to the time of Christ in the book of Daniel.
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And if you look in Daniel, chapter 8, verse 20, look how God explains things.
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God is using animals to describe nations.
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Daniel 8, verse 20, God says to Daniel, "The ram which thou saw
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"st having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia."
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One animal with two horns, it's the Medo-Persian Empire.
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It's one empire, so it's one animal, but it's a Medo-Persian Empire
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consisting of two different power groups so that one animal has two horns.
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Now look in verse 21, "And the rough goat is the king of Grisha,
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"and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king."
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And so we have animals representing empires,
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the single representing the multitude.
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You see, individual representing a multitude.
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That's what's happening here when Israel was a child.
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Right now we have a child, an individual that's representing a multitude.
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Take your Bibles now, if you would, and turn to the book of Revelation, chapter 17.
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Revelation, chapter 17.
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[silence]
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Here we are, the very last book of prophecy in the Bible,
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and God's still doing the same thing.
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By the way, it's very good to have Linda back with us this morning.
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Linda, it's so good to see you out there.
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[applause]
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We're clapping for you.
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Revelation, chapter 17, look here now in verse 18,
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"And the woman which thou sawest is same God,"
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just talking to John just like he was talking to Daniel.
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He says, "You remember that goat? The goat represented this,
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"the ram represented this, and now the same God is talking to John,
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"and he's saying the woman which thou sawest is that great city
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"which reigneth over the kings of the earth."
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Again, an individual representing a multitude.
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So with that in mind, go back to Hosea, chapter 11, verse 1.
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Hosea, chapter 11, verse 1.
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"When Israel was a child," we have a child representing a multitude.
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And God said, "When Israel, in the infancy of her being a nation,
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"I loved that child."
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Why is a child being referred to here as a nation of Israel?
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Of course, it was the infancy of Israel, but again, it's an individual.
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It's because this child here is how God viewed the nation of Israel at this time.
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God viewed Israel as his own child.
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In fact, God viewed Israel as his first-born son.
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The whole thing there in Israel and in Egypt, when on Passover night,
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which is how God called Israel out of Egypt,
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he called them out through the power of the Passover Lamb.
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And the whole point of God slaying the first-born in Egypt
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was premised upon the fact that God considered the nation of Israel
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to be his first-born son.
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And so God says, "Here's what we're going to do, Pharaoh.
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"The nation of Israel is a child,
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"and the nation of that child is my first-born son.
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"You've got my first-born son here locked in bondage in your nation,
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"and I'm telling you, let my first-born son go,
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"and if you don't let my first-born son go,
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"then I'm going to kill all of your first-born children in your house."
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That's what the Passover was all about.
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First-born son, that's what Israel was.
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Man, this is getting good.
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Now watch this. Turn to Exodus chapter 4.
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Exodus chapter 4.
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Go to verse 22.
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Exodus 4, verse 22.
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Look what God told Moses to tell Pharaoh.
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"And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh,
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"Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son."
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Now we can see why God is saying when Israel was a child,
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"I loved him," because God considered Israel
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to be his first-born son.
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"Thou shalt say unto Pharaoh,
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"Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my first-born.
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"And I say unto thee, that is, I'm telling you, Pharaoh,
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"let my son go, that he may serve me.
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"And if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son,
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"even thy first-born."
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Take your Bibles and turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 1.
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The Gospel of John, chapter 1.
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When you get there, just hold on just a moment.
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We're going to go over some principles here.
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So what do we have so far?
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Israel is God's first-born son.
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Now wait a minute.
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I thought that Jesus was God's first-born son.
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How can Israel be God's first-born son?
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And Jesus be God's first-born son.
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See, that's what makes this a prophecy.
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That's what makes it a prophecy.
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God is calling Israel his first-born child
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because the whole point of having the nation of Israel
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was to have the seed of the woman descend from that nation.
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God's only begotten son.
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And through him, Abraham would be blessed.
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The curse would be removed from the people of Israel
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that believed on him.
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And all nations of the earth that believed on him,
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they too would be blessed and saved by this coming Savior.
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The only way that Israel could have been God's son
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was based on Jesus being God's son.
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Now the Bible says that we are the body of Christ.
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Now, if God forbid, Brother Shepherd were to come up missing
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and finally he's found one day, he's out in the ditch somewhere
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and the Lord's done taken him home.
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If you could look at his face,
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y'all could say, "That's Brother Shepherd all right.
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I recognize him anywhere."
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He stood up and taught me Sunday school for years.
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I recognize Brother Shepherd anywhere.
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You could identify him by his face.
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Let's say the coyote has got to him.
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You couldn't recognize his face.
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So let's say you go to his hand.
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Can you identify him off his fingerprints?
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If you run those fingerprints,
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it's going to come back to that man's face, isn't it?
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You're going to run those fingerprints,
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his driver's license photo is going to come up.
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His body has the same identity as his head.
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You see how that works?
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And so because of Christ, we are the body of Christ,
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we have the same identity as our head.
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If Jesus is the Son of God,
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then we all being in Jesus are the sons of God.
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Makes sense?
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We're God's firstborn in him.
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Look here now if you would, the Gospel of John chapter 1,
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verse 12, the Bible says,
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"But as many as received him that has received Jesus,
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to them gave he power," that means the authority,
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the legal standing,
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"to become the sons of God,
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even to them that believe on his name."
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And we'll go on just a second.
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I know it's not on there, "which were born not of blood,
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nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man,
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but of God."
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When Israel was a child, then I loved him.
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Look back in your text and called my son out of Egypt.
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Take your Bibles and turn the book of Matthew please,
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chapter 2, Matthew chapter 2.
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[silence]
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When Jesus comes on the scene, the Son of God,
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God's only begotten Son,
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and when Jesus was a child, then God loved him.
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Let me read to you, Hosea, again, 11, 1,
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"When Israel was a child, then I loved him
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and called my son out of Egypt."
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Now, Jesus comes on the scene.
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He is a child, and what happens is,
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when Jesus was a child, King Herod tries to kill Jesus.
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He doesn't want Jesus to take his place, his ruler.
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He likes his job. He likes the benefits of ruling,
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and so he tries to seek to destroy Jesus.
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So God sends Jesus, he says, "Joseph, get Jesus
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into the land of Egypt."
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All of this being a prophecy.
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Israel is God's firstborn son.
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Well, what happened with Israel when Israel was a child
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in his infancy?
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God had to take Israel, his son,
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and send them into Egypt because of a drought, remember?
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He sent Joseph ahead, and through Joseph,
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they come into Egypt, they have bread,
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and they're able to live.
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And Joseph told his brethren,
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"God sent me before you to preserve life."
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So God used the nation of Egypt to preserve the life
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of his son for a temporary time.
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And now we get into the book of Matthew,
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and now we see here's God's son again,
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the true son of God, and if he was not the son of God,
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then Israel, the nation Israel,
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would have never been God's firstborn son.
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Makes sense?
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Israel is only considered God's son because of God's son
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who comes many years later.
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And so now God's son has come many years later,
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and now Herod is seeking to kill Jesus, God's son,
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so what does God do?
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He fulfills these prophecies,
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these shadows in the Old Testament,
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by sending his son once again in his infancy
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when he was a child, he sends him into Egypt to preserve life.
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To preserve--when God sent Israel into Egypt in the Old Testament,
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it was to preserve the life of the entire nation.
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When God sent his son into Egypt in the New Testament,
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it was to preserve the life of the entire nation, me and you,
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because if Christ would have never died on the cross
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and never fulfilled the prophecies,
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never obeyed all of the Ten Commandments,
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then you and us would have never been saved.
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And so God, as he sent Joseph before to preserve life,
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God sent Jesus into Egypt to preserve our life,
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and he held him there just like with Israel,
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he held him there for a time.
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He didn't mean for him to stay in Egypt forever,
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there was a promised land for him,
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just like there was a promised land for Israel.
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And so he held him there for a time.
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Now, when Herod died, God called Jesus, his son,
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out of Egypt to bring him to the promised land,
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back to the promised land.
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Watch this now.
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Matthew 2, verse 15.
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Actually, I'm going to start in verse 14,
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we'll just leave 15 on the screen.
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"When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night
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and departed into Egypt," verse 15,
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"and was there until the death of Herod
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that it might be fulfilled,
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which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet,
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saying, 'Out of Egypt have I called my son.'
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Now, here in Matthew 2, 15,
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the apostle Matthew is quoting the prophet, Hosea.
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He's quoting the verse we're reading from today in Hosea 11, verse 1.
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"He's saying that when God called Jesus out of Egypt,
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after Herod died, it fulfilled the prophet's words,
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'Out of Egypt have I called my son.'"
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Now, clearly, when Hosea said,
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"Out of Egypt have I called," or when God said through Hosea,
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when Israel was a child, then I loved him,
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and out of Egypt have I called my son,"
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he was talking about the nation of Israel.
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But here's a prophetic principle for us this morning.
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You know how we have kingdom truths?
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Write this down. Here's a prophetic principle.
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Not all prophecy consists of mystery,
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hidden meaning, and the foretelling of future events.
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That's the way we think of prophecy, isn't it?
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Oh, there's going to be something mysterious.
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You've got a goat, you've got this,
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you've got a harlot riding on a beast,
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and it's got ten horns or whatever,
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and it's all some mystery,
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pointing to something in the future,
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and we've got to somehow figure it all out.
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Not all prophecy consists of mystery,
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hidden meaning, and the foretelling of future events.
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So what kind of prophecy is this?
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If God is speaking about the nation of Israel here
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in their infancy being called out of Egypt,
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then what is this talking about?
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Here's what's happening.
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If A is true, then B has to be true.
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The only reason Israel could have been called God's Son,
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that's A, was because of Jesus, who was God's Son.
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That's B.
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The only reason Israel was called out of Egypt
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into the Promised Land was because of Jesus.
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Jesus is the only one who can put them in the Promised Land.
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Jesus is the only one who can deliver us
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from the bondage of sin, Satan, and death.
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It's all about Jesus Christ.
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So there is a principle here in the Old Testament
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that can be applied throughout all generations.
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So here's another prophetic principle for you this morning.
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A prophecy can be something that God says
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to one generation in the past
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that can be applied to all generations in the future.
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A prophecy can be something that God says
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to one generation in the past
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that can be applied to all generations in the future.
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So if God loved Israel when Israel was in her infancy
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and called Israel out of Egypt,
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then that can be applied to all generations
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from that time forward.
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Take your Bibles, if you would please,
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and turn to Jeremiah chapter 31.
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Jeremiah chapter 31.
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Jeremiah chapter 31.
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Excuse me just a moment.
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And let's look here in verse 15, if you would.
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"Thus saith the Lord,
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a voice was heard in Rhema, lamentation,
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in bitter weeping,
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Rahal, weeping for her children,
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refused to be comforted for her children
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because they were not."
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That is a prophecy of something that God said
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to a past generation that can be applied to all generations.
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When you get to the New Testament, what happens?
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Well, the king starts killing all the little baby boys.
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I mean, he's trying to kill Jesus,
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so he starts killing all the little baby boys.
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And what happens then?
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The Bible says this was fulfilling the words
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of the prophet Jeremiah that we just read,
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that Rachel is weeping for her children,
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refuses to be comforted because they were not.
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Well, in Jeremiah, Jeremiah's talking about the outcome
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of a Babylon in Assyria,
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destroying the children of Israel.
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He's not talking about someone,
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some king in the New Testament trying to kill the babies,
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trying to get Jesus.
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But the principle applies.
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Why were the little children being killed
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by Assyria and Babylon because of their unbelief
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and their disobedience to God?
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Why were the children being killed when Jesus came?
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By the Roman government, by an unordained people
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that God did not anoint with his spirit
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to put over the kingdom of Israel,
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why are they trying to kill the young child's life?
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Why is Israel in the mess that she's in
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and doesn't have her own Jewish king
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ruling on the throne of David?
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Same reason, because of their unbelief
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and their disobedience to God.
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So if the loss of life can come
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due to her unbelief and disobedience
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in the Old Testament through Assyria and Babylon,
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then the loss of life can come
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due to our disobedience and unbelief in the New Testament.
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Does that make sense?
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Through Rome, through Herod, through whomever.
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And so when this occurs here in the New Testament,
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it is fulfilling the principle of the Old Testament.
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It's not a direct prophecy.
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It's what we call, if you have a pen and paper,
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write down the words of the word "accommodation."
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Which brings us to the title of our message.
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The word "accommodate" literally means to fit,
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to put one thing on another,
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to put one thing on another.
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We use this very thing when we're dealing with people
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in our vernacular today.
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I might say a basic principle.
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I might say, well, you know,
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let's say Brother Doug doesn't work for two or three months.
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Let's just say he just kicks back and watches The View on TV.
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He hadn't paid his bills.
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He don't have any money coming in.
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And so him and his wife,
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they're talking about not having enough money to pay their bills.
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And let's say I just happened to say a principle.
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I just happened to say, you know,
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the Bible says that we should go to the ant
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and consider her ways, you know,
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how the ant labors and stores things up.
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I just happened to make a basic principle like that.
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And Brother Doug, hearing me say that,
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Brother Doug says, "Hey, Brother Fulton,
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are you trying to say I'm lazy?"
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Now, I didn't say he was lazy.
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I'm talking about the ant in the Old Testament.
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I never said he was lazy.
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He said, "Are you trying to say I'm lazy?"
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And I might say, "Well, now, Brother Doug,
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if the shoe fits, wear it."
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You see?
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You see what just happened there?
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I just put the shoe of the Old Testament,
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I just fit it on to Brother Doug,
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because the principle that's set in the Old Testament,
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it can now be applied to Brother Doug's situation.
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That's called accommodation.
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And in the Bible, especially in the book of Matthew,
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Matthew accommodates Old Testament Scriptures.
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He takes principles that God said in the Old Testament,
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like, "Out of Egypt, have I called my son?"
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He says, "Hey, the shoe fits here.
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Let's have Jesus wear it."
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You see what's happening?
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If God loved Israel in her infant,
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in his infancy as a nation,
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and God is going to use that nation
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to bring forth his only begotten son,
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that God is going to become a man,
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take on human flesh, and sit on the throne of his father, David,
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and this is going to be the king of Israel.
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If God loved Israel in his infancy as a nation,
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how much more is he going to love his son in his infancy as a king,
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as the Lord and creator of Israel, as Israel's Redeemer and God?
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And so Matthew takes this principle in Hosea 11.1.
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He takes that shoe.
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He says, "Look, when God called Jesus out of Egypt,
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he had to, because if he loves Israel on account of Jesus
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and calls Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land on account of Jesus,
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then how much more is he going to call Jesus out into the Promised Land?
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And thus the Scripture now is accommodated to Christ.
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And Christ fulfills it, not by direct fulfillment,
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but by biblical accommodation."
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Does that make sense?
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He says, "The shoe fits.
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Here Jesus, now wear it.
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This prophecy belongs to you."
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He looks at the children in the New Testament being slaughtered
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because of their parents' unbelief and disobedience to God.
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He says, "You know what?"
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He says, "There's something in the Old Testament where due to Assyria and Babylon,
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the parents were weeping over their children then because of their disobedience
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and unbelief to God."
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And so he says, "You know what?
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Disobedience and unbelief here, children die.
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Israel's still disobeying God and not believing God here,
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and their children are still dying here.
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The shoe fits. Wear it."
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This fulfills the Old Testament Scriptures.
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When you understand the principle of accommodation,
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then you can read the New Testament, and when it says,
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"And thus it fulfills this in the Old Testament,"
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it's not saying the Old Testament was talking directly about this.
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When Solomon wrote about the ant and said,
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"Go, the ant thou sluggard," he didn't say,
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"And thus saith the Lord, the ant that thou sawest in the proverb is Brother Doug."
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He didn't say that.
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But through biblical accommodation, the shoe now fits, so he'll wear it.
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The application is made.
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There is a reasonable accommodation in God's Word.
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Take your Bibles, turn to Matthew chapter 2,
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and we'll close here, Matthew chapter 2 verse 17 and 18.
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Matthew chapter 2 verse 17 and 18.
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And you'll see how God applied that accommodated this.
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In fact, I'm going to read 16 first.
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"Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked with the wise men,
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was exceeding wrath and sent forth and slew all the children
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that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof,
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from two years old and under, according to the time
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which he had diligently inquired the wise men."
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So he's slaying all these children, trying to get to Jesus, verse 17.
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"Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy,
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that as Jeremiah the prophet sang, in Rhema was there a voice heard,
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lamentation and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children,
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who would not be comforted because they are not."
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That prophecy was fulfilled not by direct revelation,
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but by biblical accommodation.
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And with that, we'll go ahead and close this morning.
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And the ten minutes went a whole lot longer than we thought, didn't it?
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I tell you what, I just love God's Word.
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This is a wonderful tool that you can put in your toolbox
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when you're reading the New Testament,
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and you're seeing how these things are...
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the New Testament's fulfilling the old, and you say,
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"Ah, that's an accommodation.
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There's a principle here.
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The shoe fits."
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And so the New Testament prophets are making
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the people wearing that Old Testament shoe.
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Father, we thank You so much for Your precious Word.
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Thank You, Father God, that when Israel was a child,
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then You loved that child.
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And You called Your Son out of Egypt, Lord,
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because You would call Your Son out of Egypt.
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And, Father, that brings us to the beauty of accommodation,
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that You told Abraham that in Him
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all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
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So if You called Israel out, You had to call Your Son out,
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because that's the only way You could call Israel out.
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It's a reasonable accommodation. It fulfills the Scripture.
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But, Lord, if You called Your Son out,
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that means You had to call us out, too.
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It's a reasonable accommodation,
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because this is a faithful saying and worthy of all
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of the acceptation that Christ Jesus came in the world
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to save sinners.
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So if You called Him out,
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then when You call us out of our sin,
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when You call us out of this world,
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the word "church" means "called out."
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And thus, through the church,
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Hosea chapter 11 verse 1 is fulfilled,
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that You called Your Son out of Egypt.
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Thank You, Lord, for letting us be the church,
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the called out of God.
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In Jesus' precious name, amen.
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