00:30Be joyful in the Lord, holy land. Serve the Lord with gladness, and come before His presence with a tongue.
00:45Be sure that the Lord needs God.
00:51If we see that the leaders that must be ourselves, we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
01:04O, do your way to His peace with fasting, and in truth is God with grace.
01:14Be thankful unto Him and speak to the Lord of His name.
01:23O, the Lord is gracious, His mercy is everlasting,
01:32and in truth and joy from generation to generation.
01:46Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,
01:57as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,
02:07world without end. Amen.
02:25O, the Lord, my Son, who thine of my praise,
02:31for the mouth of the ungodly,
02:37yea, the mouth of the deceitful years of the valley,
02:46and they have spoken against me with bold stars.
02:54They compass me about also with words of hatred,
03:03and water gets me without a cause.
03:11O, the love that I have unto them,
03:16Lord why they take now my God's journey but,
03:24but I give myself unto them.
03:30Love someday rewarded me even to move,
03:37and rated for my good name.
03:42Set thou a walking man to thee, you Lord of all, and let Satan stand at his right hand.
03:58When sentence is the evil upon him, let him be condemned, and let his bread be turned into sin.
04:14Let his grace be few, and let another take his office.
04:25Let his children be farthest, and his wife are made.
04:36Let his children be farthest, and make her bread.
04:44Let them seek it all to our desolate places.
04:52Let the explosion consume all that we have,
04:58and let the stranger spoil his neighbor.
05:06Let there be no man to be dear,
05:13or to have compassion on by his fatherless children.
05:22Let his prosperity be destroyed,
05:28and in the next generation there's his name we've been put out.
05:38Let the weakness of his father be found in repentance,
05:45in the sight of her own.
05:48And let not the sin of his love be done away.
05:57Let them know they be before the law,
06:03that he may root at the memorial of death from what he had.
06:12And that because his mind was not suitable,
06:20but persecuted the poor, helpless man,
06:25that he might sway him that was then set the heart.
06:31His delight was encursing, and it shall have more than to him.
06:41He loved and blessed him,
06:45therefore shall it be far from me.
06:52He loved and blessed him,
06:56and it shall come into his bounds like water,
07:06and lying over him to his bones.
07:11Let it be unto him as the cloak that he hath upon him,
07:20and as the girdle that he is,
07:25who are very girdled the whole.
07:31Let it just happen from the Lord unto my enemies,
07:39and to those that see me,
07:43he will forget my soul.
07:50But live now with thee, O Lord God,
07:55but call me now to thy name.
07:59What sweet is thy bounty,
08:05O deliver me,
08:08for I am ever sent home,
08:15and thy heart is wounded within me.
08:22By God hence, my first shadow that departed,
08:30and have driven away as the cross upon.
08:39My knees are with you farting,
08:44My flesh led to stride,
08:49for want of fattest.
08:53I became old so than in no chance unto them.
09:02They that looked upon me shaped their heads.
09:11Oh, give me, O Lord my God,
09:17who saved me,
09:20and bore him to thy mercy.
09:25And then shall know God that raise his thigh hand,
09:34and that the whole world has done it.
09:44Only thousands yet less come
09:49and let them be confirmed and rise up against me
09:56but let my soul not rejoice
10:00let my handless enemies be glorified
10:08and let them cover themselves
10:12in their own for future past with us, Lord.
10:19As for me, I will give faith and son
10:25to the Lord with my heart.
10:30And praise him, Father, our multitude,
10:36for he shall stand as the light of the Lord
10:42to save his soul from the righteous magistrate.
10:56Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost
11:09As it was in the beginning, it's now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
11:43A reading from the Gospel according to St. John chapter 3.
11:50After this Jesus and his disciples came into Judean territory.
11:54And there he spent time with them and was baptizing.
12:00John was baptizing at Aenon, near Salem, because water was more plentiful there.
12:06And people were coming to him and being baptized.
12:09For John had not yet been thrown into prison.
12:13Now a dispute came about between some of John's disciples and a certain Jew concerning ceremonial washing.
12:20And so they came to John and said to him,
12:23Rabbi, the one who is with you on the other side of the Jordan River, about whom you testify,
12:29see, he is baptizing and everyone is flocking to him.
12:36John replied,
12:37No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven.
12:42You yourselves can testify this, I said.
12:44I am not the Christ, but rather, I have been sent before him.
12:49The one who has the bride is the bridegroom.
12:52The bridegroom, the friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly when he hears the
12:58bridegroom's voice.
12:59This, then, is my joy and it is complete.
13:02He must become more important, while I become less important.
13:09The one who comes from above is superior to all.
13:12The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks of earthly things.
13:18The one who comes from heaven is superior to all.
13:21He testifies about what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony.
13:27The one who has accepted his testimony has confirmed clearly that God is truthful.
13:33For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he does not give the spirit sparingly.
13:42The father loves the son and has placed all things under his authority.
13:46The one who believes in the son has eternal life.
13:50The one who rejects the son will not see life, but God's wrath remains upon him.
13:57This is the word of the Lord.
14:00Thanks be to God.
14:11John's Gospel gives us an insight into human behaviour.
14:15And in this reading, we start to read of the competitiveness of the disciples of John the Baptist.
14:22They were jealous of Jesus and I suspected they wanted an answer and more from their master.
14:30But John knew his place in the scheme of things.
14:33To his disciples, he was the boss.
14:35They could not imagine someone greater than him.
14:38Hence their concern when they hear of the works and the teachings of Jesus.
14:45However, John tried to put them in their place.
14:49Remember, he said, I am only a mere man who can only baptise with water.
14:54It is my place to prepare the way.
14:56But I am not the way myself.
14:59Jesus is infinitely greater than I am.
15:05It can be hard for us to know our place.
15:08To accept limits on our actions or ambitions.
15:11And to be able to say, no, that is not for me.
15:14It belongs to someone else.
15:17It can take a vision.
15:18But it must also take continuing prayerfulness.
15:22And remaining tuned to God's will.
15:27Our faith is not about competition.
15:30It is about forming a bond with God through Jesus.
15:34Not about trying to get one over the other church members or other churches.
15:39For before God, we are all equal.
15:42And we are all his children.
15:48As the language of true nobility of character.
15:53Is it not refreshing to come across a really great man?
15:57A man who has too much of Christ within him ever to be ignoble.
16:03John's language here is not the language of a sullen acquiescence.
16:07It does not need any grace to talk in that way.
16:13It is not, well, he must increase and I must decrease and I can't help it.
16:20No, it is the language of joy.
16:22This is my joy, therefore, it is fulfilled.
16:29It is the lack of the spirit which gives rise to so many great splits in our churches.
16:35It is the want of this great heartedness which takes away the power for testimony
16:40and causes the wretched smallness of soul which cannot rejoice in the success or the greater success of another.
16:50As the language of prophetic utterance, he must increase, on and on ever increasing, and I must decrease.
17:00John was the last of the prophets who foretold the coming of the kingdom of Christ.
17:05He was the forerunner, the herald, and now that the Messiah had come forth to found his kingdom,
17:12John's mission was fulfilled.
17:15This is his last sermon.
17:18Remember how he cried,
17:19Behold the Lamb of God!
17:24As the language of a believer's heart, we commence life with all of self and none of Christ.
17:31It is the I in our aims, in our thoughts, in our conversation, in our actions.
17:37It is ourselves we worship, ourselves we admire, ourselves we seek and ourselves we serve.
17:45But in the day of conversion, Christ comes into the heart, and there is a new I, and Christ within
17:52the same rest.
17:54There is a new nature, and there is an old.
17:57It is the house of David waxing stronger, while the house of Saul waxes weaker.
18:05If I am being sanctified, Christ will occupy more and more of my thoughts.
18:11Thoughts concerning Christ and his kingdom will flow with an ever-increasing volume through the channels of my mind.
18:18As Christ increases, my self must decrease.
18:26John the Baptist gave witness to the provenance of Jesus.
18:30Whereas the Jews of old had prophets who had been rejected by the people, here was the Son himself.
18:37The prophets, who had come from the earth, had spoken the words that God had given to them.
18:43But Jesus, being from heaven, was the very word itself.
18:48Jesus was, if you would like, the first-hand witness.
18:53He was from heaven.
18:55He was from the Father.
18:57This was no hearsay evidence.
18:59He knew both, and was of both.
19:02When he spoke, he spoke as God.
19:07As if this introduction from John was not enough, we have the message in verse 36.
19:14If we have faith in the Son, we will have eternal life.
19:17In the alternative, if we are without faith, we will be condemned to face the wrath of God on our
19:23own.
19:26How is it that we can find true faith?
19:29True faith comes only from the Spirit.
19:32Jesus sends the Spirit to those who love him.
19:36And we show our love for him through obedience to his word.
19:45Let us pray.
19:48O God, who declares your almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity.
19:55Mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace that we, running the way of your commandments,
20:02may obtain your gracious promises and be made sharers in your heavenly treasure.
20:08Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
20:11Amen.
20:12Amen.
20:17May the Lord bless us and keep us from all evil, bringing us to everlasting life.
20:25Amen.
20:25Amen.
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