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[Music] Glendale Presbyterian Church People Moving Power brings you Dr. Bruce W. Thielman with a message, critics but no rival. [Music]

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Twenty centuries ago, God gave the church life and power through the gifts of his Holy Spirit. That spirit was made evident in three ways. First, the sound of a mighty, mighty rushing wind. Secondly, tongues of flame.

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And thirdly, the followers of Jesus Christ spoke in diverse languages, which could be understood by everyone who was in Jerusalem at that time. What must it have sounded like? All of these people speaking the word of God in different languages at the same time.

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We thought we'd like to hear what it sounded like, and so this morning, we have Rena Byman reading the Pentecost narrative in Dutch. We have Walter Quadra reading it in Spanish. We have Erhard Unger reading it in German.

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We have John Paulhemus reading it in Japanese. We have Mark Paulhemus reading it in Malagasy, which, in case you're interested, is a language spoken in Madagascar. And we have Rex McDaniel reading it in Greek.

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All members of the Glendale Church, all together, trying to help you and all of us understand what the sound of Pentecost was like. [Reading in Dutch] [Speaking in Dutch]

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[Singing in Dutch] [Singing in Dutch] [Speaking in Dutch] [Speaking in Dutch]

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[Speaking in Dutch] [Speaking in Dutch] [Speaking in Dutch] [Speaking in Dutch]

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And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Please be seated. Let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

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Amen. This is the 1941st birthday of the Church. And the Church today is bigger than ever before. The Church today is more international than ever before.

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And the Church today is more diverse. More diverse culturally, politically, economically, spiritually, than it has ever been before. And yet, the Church is criticized today more than ever before.

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Of course, criticism is nothing new for the Church. The Church has always, for example, criticized itself. No critic outside the Church has ever been as severe in judgment of the Church as the Church itself is in judgment upon itself.

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But there have always been those outside the Church who are ready to attack it, to accuse it, to denigrate it in every way that they can. And I think of them this morning, and I think of them in these terms. They may be the Church's critics, but they are not the Church's rivals.

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I mean by that to say that I will be able to hear their criticisms better when they start to do what the Church is doing better than the Church is doing it. To this point, they only criticize. They have yet to rival the Church, to equal the Church, in the service of Jesus Christ.

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Which critic of the Church, for example, can rival the Church's endurance? The Church is the oldest institution on the face of the earth, and it is the only institution on the face of the earth which regularly gives itself to self-criticism and humiliation.

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Have you ever seen a business which puts signs about the town or notices in the newspaper or when it assembled its people together, publicly announced that it regularly sins, that in fact it made the same mistakes today that it made yesterday and a hundred years ago, and that in fact sometimes its performance did not in any way, shape, or form live up to its reputation?

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Did you ever hear any business do that? Can you imagine any professional person, any dentist, for example, getting up and announcing publicly, in any way at all, that some of his patients died, that in fact a good number of patients were lost, and that they oftentimes were lost because of the inadequacy of the professional himself?

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You've never heard any dentist or any professional make such an announcement, yet the Church regularly confesses its own sin, its own repeated weaknesses, its own all-too-frequent iniquities. And still, in spite of this honest revelation of its own inadequacy, the Church endures. Even its own sin cannot kill it.

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Across the years, the enemies of the Church have been unable to bring it to an end. We think this morning of Soviet Russia, where for some 50 years, militant atheism has been attacking the Church and seeking to bring it to an end. Last week I was in Arcadia to speak at the 60th anniversary of the Arcadia Presbyterian Church,

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and I sat next to the Reverend Ralph Hamburger, who is an East German, and who spent most of his life in East Germany. Twice a year he goes back and visits behind the Iron Curtain. He has just returned from one of these visits. He was excited to tell me about the new stirring of the Spirit and revival which is occurring behind that curtain. Not with the older people, they have never lost the faith,

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but with young people who from the cradle have heard nothing that atheism preached to them. In the University of Philosophy, for example, in Warsaw, a young man got up and asked the premier professor of the university, "Sir, what is the meaning of life?" At first this communist thought he was joking,

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but then he noticed a serious look on the young man's face and on the faces of all of the other students. So he attacked the question as being un-Marxist, unscientific, inappropriate. But the young people pressed the question, and finally the professor was forced to admit that Marxist thought gave no meaning to an individual life.

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And thus, you see, he admitted his weakness to all of those students. For young people behind the Iron Curtain, as well as on this side of it, are desperately seeking for a meaning in life. And they are coming in greater and greater numbers there and here to the church, saying,

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"To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." The enemies of the church have not succeeded in filling it. Jesus Christ, as I quoted him in the words of Scripture, Jesus Christ announced that the gates of death would never close upon the church, and they never have.

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Which critic of the church can rival its endurance? Or which critic of the church can rival the church's ministry to human needs? In all of the twenty centuries of its existence, the church has stood strongly for the dignity of all men, and has sought to minister to men in accordance with their needs.

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There have been many times when the church has not given enough. There have been many times when the church has been too late with what it has given. But the church still has served more men in the name of Christ, with a balm that heals their wounds, than any other body on the face of this planet.

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There are those today who argue that some social agencies, groups given over to humanitarian purposes, are outstripping the church in the service of needy men. I would respectfully point out today that recent studies have shown

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that the leadership and the financial support, the motivating power behind those humanitarian groups, comes almost exclusively from within the body of Christ, which is the church. The new publication, Philanthropy in America, shows that while 63% of America's citizens belong to the church, out of that 63% comes 90% of America's civic leaders,

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and 93% of the money given for charitable purposes in this country. And another study has shown that 95% of the total resources put into philanthropic activity in the world comes directly from the hearts and the pocketbooks of people who are part of the church. Someone says the church does not do enough for blacks.

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That is true, but who is doing more? Someone says the church does not do enough for Indians. That is true, but who is doing more? Some have said the church does not do enough for the poor.

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That is true, but who is doing more? In Appalachia, when the United Mine Workers decided to close the nine hospitals which are there for poverty people, who took over those hospitals and continues to offer them a tremendous loss, but in need and response to people's hurt?

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The Christian church did it. When minority groups in our society are seeking leaders to direct them as they climb up through the ranks to the place within our society which they properly deserve, where do they go for that leadership? They go to the body of Christ, to the bride of Christ which is the church.

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When Jesus said that the gates of hell would not stand against the church, I believe he was also saying that the gates of poverty and the gates of disease and the gates of ignorance and the gates of bigotry and prejudice, every gate which is symbolic of the powers of hell will in the end fall before the march of the church which is his body.

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Those who will may criticize the church, but they have never rivaled it in that ministry and in that calling. Which of the critics of the church is able to rival the church in the protection and the production of beauty and art? A few weeks ago I was in O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. It is an ugly place, steel and concrete, cold and drafty, crowded and noisy, blatant advertising on every hand,

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crowds about you that shove you and push you and curse you at the same time. It is an unpleasant place to be. I moved from one plane to another plane and as I was being shoved down one of the corridors, I noticed in front of me about ten feet on the floor a spray of lilac.

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I don't know where it came from. I went and I picked it up and the scent of lilac was still heavy on it and it still nodded its head shyly as the lilac does. And as I looked at the flower I thought of springtime.

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And as I thought of springtime there in the midst of all that swirl and all that dirtiness, I thought of beauty. And as I thought of beauty, I thought of God. Beauty, you see, speaks to us of God.

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We are not animals. Our home is not in the dust. Our concepts climb on the stairway of our imaginations. There is within us the overtone of the Almighty. We have a higher heredity.

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And when we give ourselves to the pursuit of art and beauty, we are, as it were, placing our fingers upon the keys once again, trying to discover that locked chord which is always pounding in our hearts. We may not know where heaven is, but we know why heaven is.

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And when we produce that which is beautiful, we are testifying to that in us which cries out for the beauty which is perfect in God. And where do you see that kind of crying out? Where do you see that kind of beauty more frequently than you see it in the Church?

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I care not whether you turn the pages of your history book and see a fat old pope chasing Michelangelo up a stepladder to paint a picture on a sistine ceiling, or whether you look at a busy building committee

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challenging an architect to build a room so high and lofty that when you walk into it, your spirit soars to its ceiling and beyond. In either instance, you are affirming the Church's production and protection of beauty and art. Look about this city.

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New buildings are going up everywhere. But which buildings in this city are so graceful in design, so soaring in concept, so beautiful in detail, that when you look at them, they make you proud to be a man

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because you know that out of the heart and the mind of a man has come this expression, the talent and skill which God has given. The buildings which most grace this community are the buildings which are built by God's people for the praise of God.

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Last week, someone came and stood in front of this pulpit, and they looked at this eagle. The eagle is on the front of the pulpit because the eagle is the symbol traditionally associated with John.

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The Gospel of John is considered to be the loftiest of the Gospels, and the eagle soars higher than any other bird. It is the most lofty of the birds. So the eagle is taken to represent John.

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And so an eagle has been placed upon the front of this sacred desk, representing the Word of God at its highest. But notice that the head of the eagle is not like the head of an eagle on a dollar bill, the symbol of this country, for example,

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an eagle with his head raised up arrogantly staring out at the world and saying, "I dare you," with his beak sharp and prepared for action if need be. No, that's not the depiction we have here. We have an eagle with his head bowed.

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It is turned inward. It sensitizes. It tenderizes the picture. So that the symbol represents, you see, the power of the Word

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and also the gentleness of the Word. So someone standing and looking at this carving said, "Last week, they don't do work like that much anymore." And they don't.

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We live in a time in which taste has been vulgarized and indeed bastardized. We're almost in another time of dark ages. You remember how during the dark ages the light of beauty and art and truth was kept alive within the church?

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I think it is so today. For when you discover this kind of beautiful work, where do you find it? You find it in the house of God's people. The critics of the church may attack it if they will,

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but let them rival what the church is doing. The protection and the production of art, which calls forth memory, challenges the beauty of God. I see this building as a lilac which we have laid by the power of God

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at the gate of this city, speaking of him in its beauty. Which of the critics of the church can rival the church in upholding moral truth? Is there any cry that we hear more often in our day than this? "Give us men of honor! Give us men who will tell the truth!

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Give us men who will obey the truth!" I cry this on every lip, and that is what the church has been preaching for 2,000 years. I got a circular through the mail the other day, asking me to subscribe to a new Christian magazine

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that promised that it would bring me all the news of the Christian world every week. And I threw the advertisement away. There is no Christian world. There is only one world, and it's the world in which we are living.

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And in the midst of that world, there is one group which more than any other has upheld the word and the law of God, and that group is the church. There is about us today a tremendous feeling of anti-institutionalism.

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There are many who attack the organization. There is a kind of anti-establishment mood, very typical in our young people, which I think can be found on every age level within our society. It is poor and it is shoddy thinking,

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and that is nowhere more evident than precisely at this area of moral truth. Please turn your cassette to the other side. Please. The church, you see, organized and established,

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a fellowship getting together, is the reservoir of the moral and ethical verities of the Judeo-Christian faith. When you depart from that reservoir, when you cut yourself off,

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when you condemn the institution and reject the establishment and go off into your own little eddies of private instruction, you yourself teaching yourself, you give yourself to moral subjectivism,

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to moral relativity, to that which does not hold up the word of God, but your word instead. The Bible describes people who do that in these words, "They themselves, judging themselves by themselves, are without understanding."

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Or again, "They did what was right in their own eyes and were condemned." Any text more appropriate than that to be put over our television sets as we see the faces of those who have stained the honor of this country with their perfidy in office. "They did what was right in their own eyes and were condemned."

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But you see, when the only person you permit to teach you is yourself, you cannot tell yourself anything that you don't already know. And when people cut themselves off from fellowship with others, from being in a group where there are those who can challenge their ideas

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and strain their imaginations and demand deeper and more significant discipleship of them, when we separate ourselves from that, we not only bring to ourselves spiritual disaster, but national disaster as well,

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for it's that kind of thing which gives rise to racial demagoguery and to fascism of the most iniquitous sort. And when you speak of loving your neighbor, when you will not come together with your neighbors to praise God.

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I know my own need. I know my own tendency to exalt my own words and to think that I and I only am right. And that's the reason it's important for me to be a part of a people that will stand against me and vote against me

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and will say to me what I need to hear, call me to responsibility as I seek to call them to responsibility. We need each other. But when a family in our church sends us a letter, as they did this last week,

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in which they said that they were going to another church, and that they were going to the other church because what was preached from the pulpit they agreed with. When I read that kind of letter,

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I am ashamed, I am conscious of the weaknesses of my pulpit and the poverty of my preaching, more than any of you because I have to live with it all week long. But I say to you with God as my witness,

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and with all of you seeing and hearing, I would that my right hand would rot and fall festering from my frame before I would ever write a sentence like that sentence in that letter. Before I would ever say that the pulpit is only true when it agrees with me.

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That is a claim to perfectionism. That is the claim of the Pharisee of old. I want a pulpit that disagrees with me. I want a pulpit that calls me to the uttermost,

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that afflicts me when I become too comfortable, that demands that I face my conscience, that forces me to confront the truth, and to change myself, to bring myself into accord with it.

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That is what we do when we come together as the fellowship of God's people. And when Jesus Christ said the Church will never die, he was asserting this. For the Church upholds the banner of truth beyond any other body,

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and truth is eternal. Let the critics hammer the Church if they will. I would repeat what Theodore Bisa said to the King of France a long time ago. "Sire, it is given to the Church to receive blows rather than to give them,

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but a good anvil wears out many hammers." And finally, which of the critics of the Church can rival it in its offering of Jesus Christ to men? These good people have now become a part of our family here.

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They have not become a part of our family because of art, or because of some moral or ethical system, or because the Church has endured so long. They have not become a part of this family, the body of Christ,

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for any other reason than this. They know Jesus Christ as their Savior, and he has called them. In Tennessee a few weeks ago in a preaching mission, I had an 82-year-old man come down the aisle to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord.

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What other institution in America today can an 82-year-old person give his heart and loyalty to, and know that he will be received with compassion and love and strength and support? And behind that 82-year-old man came a 14-year-old girl doing the same thing,

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and it was Jesus Christ who won them. And no one, no one has won the millions to Jesus Christ that the Church has won and brought to his feet. My mind goes back this morning to my high school days,

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to a high school coach, let's call him Howie. He was small of stature, but he was wiry, like a steel spring. He was strong, he was superbly coordinated. He was an outstanding athlete,

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and because of this he was most attractive to all of the boys. They found him a fascinating personality. Tragically, he was within a moral failure. He was an ethical sewer.

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He was then a very perilous person to have in school. You see, he won the boys with his athletic skills, and then he profaned the boys with his immorality and lack of ethics. And then one day the word spread throughout the school

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that Howie had given himself to Jesus Christ in a church service. And none of us believed it. Most of us didn't even know what it meant. Until the next Tuesday morning at 9.25, Jim clasped.

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I can see it as if it were happening at this moment. And he walked in, and he spoke in the softest voice I'd ever heard him speak. He said, "I'm flat out for Jesus Christ." Now, in Howie's vocabulary, the word "flat out" meant everything you had.

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Those of us who were on teams, he coached. When he wanted you to give everything you had, he said, "Boys, I want it flat out." When he said he was flat out for Jesus Christ, well, the effect at that moment and the effect across the years,

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as his witness grew, has been beautiful to see. And he is but one example of those who have been called to Christ by the Church. Let those who criticize it criticize it as long as they find joy in that. But they will never rival the faithfulness of the Church

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in bringing men and women, boys and girls, to the stage. So on this Pentecost, the 1941st birthday of the Church, I speak in answer to its critics, and I hope that some word that I have said finds echo in your heart,

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and that you will go out and say these words to those who would criticize the Church. I say to every Christian who is part of the Church, give yourself to the Church. Invest your time and your talents, your skills, your financial resources. Give yourself to the Bride of Christ Holy, for the Church most stands for Him in this world.

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And I say to those of you who are Christians but who are not members of the Church, correct your discipleship. A hand does not live when it is separated from the body. A foot does not live when it is separated from the body.

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Unite yourself with the body. Do not stand with the critics of the Church, but stand within the company of the committed, which the Church authentically is. And I say to those of you who are not Christian,

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to those of you who are not Christian and in the Church, or to those of you who are not Christian and outside the Church, I say to those of you who are young, and you have the dews of the dawn still fresh upon your brow,

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and I say to those of you who are middle-aged, and who are fighting against that which wastes away at noonday, and I say to those of you who are old, who look out through dimming eyes at sharply slanting rays of sun

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as the light in your life begins to go down, I say to all of you, you need Jesus. And there is no place that you will find Him as sweetly as you will find Him within the Church.

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And there is no place where you will serve Him as significantly as you will serve Him in the Church. Aye, it has many critics, but no rivals. No rivals in the world,

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and no rivals in the heart of her Holy Husband, Jesus Christ, Savior, Master, Lord. Let us pray. God bless the Church.

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Correct it, purify it, do whatever must be done to it to make it fit for her Holy Husband. God bless the Church. For we ask it in Jesus' name.

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Amen. For more information for red light disability species, go to www.fEMA.gov