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Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim

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truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. You want to be possessed by the

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Holy Spirit. You want him to animate you. You want him to control you. You want him

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to be the governor of your life. You can get the outlines of this podcast by

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going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and

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encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave

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us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes. Then

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that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's

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word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs.

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Philippians chapter 2 verses 12 to 13 says this,

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I love verse 13. Just when verse 12 scares you to death, verse 13 says, but don't

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worry about it. I'm the one working in you. And so for that, you know, it's

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blatantly right there before your face, but it seems to be a secret and it

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shouldn't be. And that is Lord God. Then if that's the way you do things, then

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you do all of this by your spirit's work in my life. You do whatever you want to

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do, God. But I'm yielding to you. I'm going to submit to you. And every single one

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of us as believers, the Holy Spirit will see to it in your life that we're in

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hot pursuit of the nearness of God in our lives. And the work of the Holy Spirit is

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such a great comfort. Remember, I told you that's one of his names in the Bible,

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the paracletos, the comforter, the one who comes alongside you. And we know from

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Jesus, as we'll see in a moment again, that he's the one that dwells within us.

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But it's a wonderful thing to be, listen, to be possessed by the Holy Spirit in

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life. You say, possess, that's kind of scary. Yeah, that's if you just watch

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scary programs. No, you want to be possessed by the Holy Spirit. You want him to

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animate you. You want him to control you. You want him to be the governor of your

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life. And so the beautiful thing is, is that God at work in you is the spirit of God and

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you experience him by this nearness, by this interaction. Genesis chapter three, verse

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eight, the Bible says, and they, that is Adam and Eve, heard the sound, listen to this.

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They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. The

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best we can do is imagine the nearness of God. Imagine what they experienced, Adam and

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Eve, before they fell, before they went into sin, that they heard the sound of God. What

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does it sound like? Pretend for a moment I'm teaching the fifth, five year olds in

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class. When you're teaching children's ministry, it's amazing. You cannot get away with

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quoting that verse and moving on because a little hand will pop up and say, what did he

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sound like? What did that look like? If God's walking to the garden, is it like this?

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Or did his feet touch the ground? You think about that from a moment. We have no idea what

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that was like, but Adam and Eve knew God so close and so well and so perfectly that

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when they heard the sound of him, that was a common thing. Unfortunately, the Bible tells

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us when they had sinned, all of a sudden the sound of him walking in the garden in the

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cool of the day was not a happy sound. It's a sad day when things are blessed and precious

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in our lives. Listen, I'm going somewhere with this. When things are innocent, as they

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ought to be, and then evil comes in and pollutes it from the outside, when somebody introduces

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something that taints and makes ugly, the things that God has made beautiful, you know,

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God's greatly offended at that. You're not the only one offended at it. God has offended

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at that. And all of that comes from Adam and Eve's rebellion against God. And God and

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his great redemptive work introduces to us in his salvation and sanctification of the believer,

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the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Church, remember, just quickly, last time that way back

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in verse 23 regarding war on our ways, that we saw the heartbeat of heaven. Heartbeat

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of heaven. Number two, in verses 24 and 25, we saw that there's a hope of heaven. And

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then we left off with this argument last time, and that is the help of heaven. And the

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help of heaven is none other than the Holy Spirit. And it says in verse 26, likewise, the

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spirit that is the Holy Spirit also helps. Remember what that word means? He comes alongside

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and he picks up one end of the plank. Remember how we were hoping and wishing that he picked

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up the entire plank? No, it picks up the word means he picks up one part of the plank.

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And you and I as disciples pick up the other part of the plank. Of course, he takes the

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heavy end. I'm sure. But he comes alongside us to help us. He doesn't snap his finger

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and you do Christianity. He spirit fills you with the power of the spirit to live out

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Christianity. Big difference. It's just for, he helps us in our weaknesses where we do

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not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit himself makes intercession

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for us with groanings, sounds that have no earthly application which cannot be uttered

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or understood in articulate technically. Now he who searches the hearts knows what the

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mind of the spirit is because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

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And we looked at this fact that verse 26 tells us that heaven is listening. Do you remember

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that? Heaven's listening. Heaven is listening. Heaven wants to hear from you. And I pointed

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out to you the dichotomy between the believer and the unbeliever. If you're a believer, heaven

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is listening to hear your prayer, to hear your cry, to hear your joy, to hear your worship.

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I said something last week and made some people upset. And so I'll say it again. That

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when we worship, worship, Praskaneo is the word which is the root word to pray. That prayer

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in worship is the same thing to God. He's blessed by it. And so there are people who don't go to

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prayer meetings. They scarcely ever pray. And there's people that take worship as something that

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just gives us more time to park the car. And worship should be top of the list. It should be

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the preeminent thing because worship for us is the encampment of all things. When we witness,

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when we pray, when we study, when we love our husbands and our wives, when we love our

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community for what is good and what is right is all an act of worship. Do you guys remember when

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Pixar did that cartoon? One of the very first ones where the guy was in the little European court

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yard. He had his gestures had on. He had a big drum in the front. He had all these musical instruments

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and he had tambourines and everything. He was a one man music machine and he just began to move

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in all of these sounds and all of these incredible things came from him. And when I first saw that

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Pixar, I immediately thought and I still do the life of the believer. When you and I move, we should

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be moving in an act of worship. Are you going to go to work tomorrow? It should be an act of worship.

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What do you do in this afternoon? It should be an act of worship. I believe it is, by the way,

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if we realize it or not. And so we understood this. That heaven is listening. We saw also that

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heaven is speaking. That's where we left off. That the Holy Spirit himself makes intercession for us.

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And that word intercession is this in the Greek language. It means to obviously intercede, but to

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make petition for or on the behalf of another. This is very encouraging people. Listen.

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For the believer, when we pray, God is listening. For the non-believer, God is not listening except

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but for one prayer. Listen up. So I'm not a Christian, but I've been praying for years into deep

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space. You have been praying. According to Isaiah chapter 59, the Bible tells us that God's hand is not

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short that he can't save you. Neither is his ear deaf that he cannot hear you, but your sins have

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separated you from God so that he will not save you nor will he hear you. That's a very terrifying

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verse. But then when the believer comes along, the Bible tells us that when Christ forgives us of

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our sins, you and I are in a worshipful prayer and that's how we maintain fellowship. And that

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part of that great fellowship is, please mark this down. Part of this great fellowship that you and I

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enjoy is based upon the intercession of the Holy Spirit. That the Holy Spirit, according to the

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Bible, is speaking to the Father constantly all about you, all about me, constantly, without ending.

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The word means without ending. The Spirit of God never stops talking to the Father about your life,

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my life. That brings me great comfort. Does that come for you? I hope it comforts you. If you

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believe the Bible, that's going to come for you. Because do you have problems? Anybody have any

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problems? Four of us. We're going home with the rest of you people today.

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In all of our problems, he comforts us. We had part of our Christian family this week. Several of

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our Christian family meet Jesus this week and family weeps, family cries. Of course they do.

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They're going to miss them. But we have to remember that their lives, listen, they may have been sick

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in this world or that accident may have happened. But the fact of the matter is they had just passed

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through the valley of the shadow of death. The moment they passed, they're in the presence of Almighty

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God. And every day the Holy Spirit is interceding on behalf of we the believers. Man, if you're not

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a Christian today, you need to change that now. Because all you have is luck, right? Luck in the

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grace of God. Luck's a joke. Even as a non-believer, you're existing by the grace of God. He could

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snap your fingers. The Bible tells us that those who are without God, that in due time their foot

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will slip. The Bible says in the book of Isaiah that hell opens up its mouth wide to receive those

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that are coming into it. That's terrifying. You say, yeah, that's scary. Well, is it scary enough

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to get you to run to the arms of Jesus? Because he loves you, but his love will not override your will.

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I find that fascinating and sometimes at the same time frustrating. I love God, but only like this

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much. Be honest, I'm saying this for you too. So don't even look at me like that. You love God

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about this much. The moment you say, God, I love you so much. Listen, if we love God so much,

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we think it'd be different. We must confess that the love we have for him is genuine and honest,

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but it's like a candlelight compared to a raging fire. I think one of the great pleasures of

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heaven is being able to love God perfectly without destruction, but an amazing thing. But he

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praise for us, and we need prayer. Apparently, we need it constantly. Listen to what FF Bruce has

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to say. It's a long quote, but it's beautiful. Through our inarticulate groanings, now listen carefully

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because there's various theologies on this. And I don't want to sound like some sort of compromiser,

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but I actually embrace the two prominent arguments, even though they're diametrically opposed. FF Bruce,

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pastor of yesterday, you're said through our inarticulate groanings, either in size or utterances,

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we speak to God. That is a fact, no matter what your theology is. If you are of reformed theology,

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or if you are penicostal in your theology, whatever your persuasion is, that first statement is a fact,

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because you can groan on the inside of yourself. You can just look at the world around you

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and be grieved. And without saying a word, you can just be just, or you can visit the children's

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hospital of Orange County and you see those babies that are there in the condition that they're

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in and you just, there's no words for that. Grieved. It also indicates that there is a prayer or

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spirit language that is unbound by earthly words. It may be included in this teaching that

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expressions, longings, pain, sufferings, aspirations, coming from the spirit of our new man,

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that's the born again us, that has been created within us, that which wells up from inside the

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depths of our spirit, as our prayer is offered, having now been born again by the spirit of God,

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we can no longer be imprisoned by human limitations. I find that powerful. Such prayer prompted by the

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indwelling Holy Spirit who communicates our true need. This God ordained intercession which comes

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forth from us is immediately, listen, immediately heard and understood by God the Father, to whom the

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prayer is addressed and in the name of Jesus Christ through whom the prayer is offered. God the Father

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is listening to the Holy Spirit who is speaking from within us. He being transcendent of our

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frail human nature, praise on our behalf and all God's people said, have you ever been to that

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place in prayer, pain, suffering, sorrow, and you don't even know what to pray? You know, you should,

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you know, you have to, but you don't know what to say. Well, whatever your theology is, if you're

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penicostal or not, we can agree on this. We're grieved and we groan. We're also clearly taught that

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the spirit himself groans. That is the Holy Spirit to think that he who dwells within you

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grieves over sin, grieves over the horrible things that we witness, we see in this life. Can you

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imagine? Can you imagine the control of God? I was talking to a police officer recently and he was

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telling me about an investigation that he was involved in with the child molestation ring.

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And he was telling me about it and I'm listening and I asked him, I said, when you came in upon this,

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did you have a gun? And he said, of course I had a gun. And I said, okay, he goes, why did you ask

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me that for? I said, well, to me, I'm beyond impressed listening to you tell me this story, this event,

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this account. And it's clear why I'm not a police officer. I mean, I start shooting people and

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then turn myself in and I'd be smiling about it. When you catch these people in the act,

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seemingly God does nothing. Oh, no, no, he's doing something. Remember, he doesn't move according to

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our time. God will bring justice. And Jesus said in any way, shape or form, it'd be better for a

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person to have never been born for that person in the day of judgment when Christ gets a hold of them.

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If you offend a child, what about God's children? Are we not offended over the sin and the grief

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of this? Well, of course we are, but we're reminded we're not home yet. We're on our way.

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But that word groaning, groanings, that word means grieving, sign, to mourn, to bimmon, or to lament.

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We all know what that's like. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's a child's illness.

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And the word uttered, inexpressible words, words that cannot be

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understood by human means. There are no words is what it means. It means it's too deep to express

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the spirit of God does that. It's amazing. So you, I don't understand it, but this all I know is

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what I feel, what you feel, what we go through, what you're going through right now.

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As I believe, the Holy Spirit inside is grieved that you are going through this.

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The spirit of God turns to the Father and speaks to the Father with words that cannot be

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articulated. That's the Holy Spirit. I'm not talking about you jumping up and speaking in

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tongues. That's not what we're talking about. That's not even the same thing. We're talking about

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prayer. The context is prayer. And to think that when the spirit of God speaks to the Father of

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God, it's considered prayer. Never think about that, huh? You never think about God in a sense

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praying to God. But he does for you, for me.

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