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[Silence] [Gavel] [President Johnson] O Lord, how manifold are thy works, and wisdom hast thou made them all. The earth is full of thy riches.

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[Congregation] Glory to God in the highest. [President Johnson] Let us pray. Good morning God by thy grace you have permitted us to see a new day We thank you for your grace which is new every morning

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Be with us in this service of worship and praise Forgive us of our sins Renew the right spirit within us Grant that we may glorify your name

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name in spirit and in truth amen. You may be seated. May we all turn to number, hymn number 109, 109, In the Garden. And let us all take part in the singing of the song with the choir, choir and congregation.

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And let's make them think that the church is real. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC]

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[MUSIC] [MUSIC] ♪ To the scale of the roses ♪ ♪ And the voice I hear ♪

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♪ Calling out my name ♪ ♪ The song of the disperses ♪ ♪ Oh, he walks with me ♪ ♪ And he walks with me ♪

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♪ And the earth is whole ♪ ♪ And the joy we share ♪ ♪ As we carry it ♪ ♪ None other ♪

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♪ Than the one ♪ ♪ For peace may strike us ♪ ♪ At one in the land ♪ ♪ It's so sweet a voice I've never seen ♪

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♪ And the melody that it made to me ♪ ♪ And in my heart is breaking ♪ ♪ Ah, he walks with me ♪ ♪ And we talk through it clear ♪

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♪ Days we are every old ♪ ♪ And the joy we share as we take it ♪ ♪ Now and forever ♪ ♪ Like never before ♪

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♪ I stay in the mind with him ♪ ♪ And I search for a people ♪ ♪ But he leads me home ♪ ♪ Through the mind come home ♪

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♪ His voice to me is calling ♪ ♪ And he walks with me on the out ♪ ♪ With me on the out ♪ ♪ As we fly in his arms ♪

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♪ And time we share ♪ ♪ As he carries air ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

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♪ Oh, Lord ♪ (somber music) [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]

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[music] In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying,

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"The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. The same John had his raiment of camel's hair and a leather girdle about his loins and his meat was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region round about Jordan and

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and were baptized of him in Jordan confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, oh generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee

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from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance, and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father, for I say unto you,

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that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also, the ax is laid unto the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit

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is hewn down and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear, he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire, whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his flower and gather his wheat into the

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garner but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. The Lord bless to us the reading and hearing of his holy word. Now is our time of prayer, time of communion with God and as we enter into this period those who may feel led to do so I ask to come forward for our altar prayer right at this time.

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Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, unuttered or expressed, the motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast. Oh, what a privilege it is to pray wherever we are, whatever may be our condition or circumstance, carry it to the Lord in prayer. We ought always to pray. Let us bow our heads and

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close our eyes as we pray together. Oh Lord God our Father in whom we live, move, and have being. Again we your children assemble together around the altar to give thanks to you for your goodness to us. We are not here because of the boldness of our goodness, so we come in the humility of our weakness, realizing our human frailties, our failures, our

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shortcomings, we come before your throne of grace asking that as we bow together that you would forgive us, give us another chance, and help us to do those things which you have required of us. Here we are Lord, each one of us with unique concerns, some of us with special problems that only you can solve, but we know dear Lord that you specialize

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in things that are too difficult for us to handle. So it is in this firm faith that we come to you, asking that you would guide us, guide us along the maze of life. And then we ask that you would strengthen us, help us to stand firm and to walk uprightly in your name. And then, O God, we would pray for the sick and the afflicted among us. We

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would pray O God for the bereaved in particular do we ask that you would remember those families that are affected by the airline crash. Be with each one of them those families and help them to recognize that earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. Oh God help us to be lifted beyond ourselves to

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have a concern for the world that in the little time that you have allotted to us that we will be channels of your grace proclaiming your saving power until that day when you shall call us from labor to reward to praise your name forever around the great white throne we ask in Jesus name amen

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[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]

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[coughing] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Good morning.

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This is your announcement period. I have no announcements for you other than those found on your bulletin, so please read your bulletin for announcements concerning this week. As I call the name of the visitor, would you please stand and remain standing until words

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of welcome has been extended? Sandra Herron from Champaign, Illinois, is visiting with her family at 2509 Lee Drive. Do we have any other visitors? If so, would you please stand?

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We're very happy to have you visit with us this morning, and we hope that you will be able to join us throughout the day for our Sunday school training union and morning worship. Thank you. We are to worship this afternoon at the Olivet Baptist Church three o'clock in

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that church anniversary the choirs are to sing both the Ebenezer and the gospel choir and the pastor is to preach. This afternoon also is the ninth anniversary service for Reverend and Sister Robert Williams at the Good Hope Baptist Church in Round Rock, Texas and it's also the time when the Zion Hill Baptist Church

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is celebrating their Woman's Day observance. This is also Men's Day at the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church in 3515 Weberville. This morning a little later we had to have a representative of Tame Texas Alcohol and Narcotic education that will be with us in our Sunday school on Tuesday at Fiesta

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Gardens from 6 to 8 30 p.m. there will be a concert dimensions in blue tribute to the senior citizens of Texas so you asked to bring a box supper and have dinner on the grounds and other entertainment will include a barbershop quartet and minstrels and all of this admission is free to all senior Texans. That's on Tuesday from 6 until 830

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P.M. So you're asked to keep those things in mind. I have announced that next month we hope to have a homebound day which homebound members will be brought to service and the worship service will be focused on them and will be geared in such a way that we hope to have a special experience with our homebound members. On June the 11th, the week of the 11th, the National Congress will be

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meeting in Chicago, Illinois. At the same time the Southern Baptist Convention meets in Houston, Our youth will be going down one day in connection with the youth emphasis of the Southern Baptist Convention in Houston and while I'm talking about that on the 29th of July we will be having a visit from youth of Tulsa.

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They will be making a trip here. They will provide the music, the choir will, and we are asked to provide for them while they're here and this will be a visit which we will return to them next year. The pastor will come with them and will preach and we will do likewise on next

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year. So we want to be thinking about that. This past week I gave the commencement address at the Sonian Seminary in Birmingham, Alabama and also attended the Bishop College trustee meeting. As I have announced before Bishop has experienced or is experiencing a crisis

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a financial crisis brought about by funds which have been withheld by HEW health education and welfare in an audit. They are now in court. Several of the

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administrators of the college have been subpoenaed. But after listening to the report from the attorney, we believe that we are going to be able to

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get the funding restored. We do not know what the outcome of the other matters will be. But all of the churches throughout

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the country have been asked to have a Bishop College Day. That day was last Sunday, but last Sunday was a very special day for us, Women's Day. So we're going to ask that you even plan now to do something special for that institution because it's the more out most outstanding Baptist institutions as we think of church related colleges that the people of of color have west of the Mississippi and

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We Need now to come to the aid of that Institution. I can't say too much about what happened on last Sunday By the women of our church the leadership which they gave for Women's Day in

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in making that one of the biggest days that we have ever celebrated in our church history. The attendance was outstanding, the program was wonderful, and the giving far exceeded the goal which was set of $9,000. I think the total for the day was

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$11,000 which the women raised and again, I want to express appreciation to the leadership sister Gabard Alexander and all of the team captains and all of you who supported that effort in

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Making it what it is and what it was We now have caught up we were a little behind with our budget, but we need to stay up. We're usually a little farther up after Women's Day than we are now so that we take care of the summer slump.

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So I want to ask that we will continue to give liberally. I hope that you will remember that, that it will require constant support in order to keep up with our budget and as we do that, I think we can move ahead.

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And I hope that the men will start planning now. I'm going to ask that they sort of set in motion all that they are going to do maybe for a meeting after service today so that we can begin to keep up the high standard again, make preparations to do that for that we set last year for our

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Men's Day observance. Let us now worship the Lord in our giving. May we all give according to how the Lord has prospered us. Today in our Sunday school lesson the lesson is on giving and

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the emphasis of course has to do with Christian giving. The standard for Christian giving as we think of it is tithing. Some people think of tithing as just being a tenth that was given but when we read the doctrine of tithing, the teaching of tithing, The people of the Old Testament just didn't give one-tenth and that was all they gave away

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but about 40% of that giving was 10% to the temple and other given to the poor and the like they were very generous people God is generous to us and God expects us to give freely lovingly

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superficially to others for the glory of his name. May we pray. Bless us, O Lord, in this time of giving. Help us to recognize that what we have is just entrusted to us for a very brief time,

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that we leave it all here. help us to use it in such a way that our lives are enriched and that your name is glorified. Grant that we may give with love and with generosity we ask in Jesus name, amen.

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[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] (ominous music) (dramatic music)

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[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] ♪ (ominous music) [MUSIC PLAYING]

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We turn to hymn number 416. We want every person to sing hymn number 416. As we stand together, let everyone join in singing, "If Jesus Goes With Me, I'll Go."

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[MUSIC - "IF JESUS GOES WITH ME, I'LL GO"] Let us stand. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]

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[MUSIC PLAYING] [ Music ] It may be in the valley where countless dangers hide It may be in the stormy night where nothing feels so right

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But this I'll take it alone, it needs to be heard from then If Jesus comes with me, a holy prayer. If Jesus comes with me, a holy prayer. Just have it to me wherever I need it is there.

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I counted a privilege in His cross to bear. If Jesus goes with me, I'll go anywhere. And it made me understand His wisdom, lesson, and power of mind. ♪ The clouds, the burning desert ♪

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♪ And all the sand, the sand ♪ ♪ Oh, it'd be a lot ♪ ♪ To bear that God has sent ♪ ♪ If Jesus comes with me ♪

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♪ I'll go anywhere ♪ If Jesus goes with me, I'll go anywhere. He's heaven to me wherever I be in his hand. I count it a privilege, yeah, his cross to bear.

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If Jesus goes with me, I'll go anywhere. Let's repeat that chorus. If Jesus goes with me, I'll go anywhere. ♪ Is heaven to me ♪

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♪ Wherever I be ♪ ♪ If He is there ♪ ♪ I count it a privilege here ♪ ♪ His cross to bear ♪

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♪ If Jesus goes with me ♪ ♪ I'll go ♪ [music] Crying in the wilderness.

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In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Matthew the third chapter and the first verse. the subject of the message crying in the wilderness. It might be well for us to say

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in times like these that there appeared one who was a messenger of God proclaiming the gospel of righteousness in the wilderness. John was a voice crying in the wilderness because the wilderness was crying for a voice. John had grown up near Jerusalem, but his ministry was in the wilderness of Judea because the

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wilderness was crying for a voice. The wilderness, the barren desolate wastelands, the dry solitary places, the lonely uninhabited stretches of land, all crying for a voice. And although John is brought up in the city, he is called to serve in the wilderness, called to walk alone, called to serve in desert

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places, called to be a prisoner of the Lord, a prisoner of righteousness, a a proclaimer of the unsearchable riches of the gospel. In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea. The wilderness remains with us.

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who live in the 20th century are called to live in a grand and awful time. This is a century of crisis in which mankind is caught in the throes of two epochs. We are experiencing the dying groans of the old order and the birth pangs of the new. In such a time as this, the wilderness is crying for a voice. This is a century of bewildering contradictions

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Armed with scientific knowledge and technological skills, we have produced countless gadgets to enhance our comfort and convenience. Discoveries in nuclear energy have made it possible for us to probe into outer space and bring faraway planets in to reach. We have the resources at our command to ascend to the heavens or to make our bed in hell. The wilderness is crying for a voice. The robust optimism with which the 20th

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century began has been reduced to a puny pessimism by a series of world-shaking catastrophes. As Americans we boast of our affluent society and our abundant food supply, but there are millions who are suffering from starvation and malnutrition in other parts of the world. We take pride in our technology, but we

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We are deeply troubled today by a fuel crisis. Our nation's wealth is threatened by mounting waves of inflation, and in such a time as this, the wilderness is crying for a voice. We boast of our military might, yet we are more fearful than we have ever been before.

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Our world has the United Nations as an instrument of cooperation, yet we are torn by conflicts involving divergent political philosophies. The wilderness is crying for a voice. are exploding. The human lifespan is being lengthened through the conquest of poverty

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and the elimination of disease. Mass communication media and rapid transportation have put us in close touch with the remote corners of the earth. Asia and Africa are casting off the yoke of colonialism and demanding the right to determine their own destiny. There is a new birth of freedom in the world and a new sense of dignity and

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respect. Revolution is in the air. The old is being radically abandoned and new lifestyles emerging. The wilderness today is crying for a voice. W.H. Auden has described the 20th century as an age of anxiety. Humanity is sick and the sickness of society is seen in man's estrangement, his alienation from God, social divisions,

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and man's attempt to escape from himself. So 20th century man is a lonely creature wrestling with the anxieties of doubt, meaninglessness, guilt, and death. He is haunted by the failures of the past, perplexed by the problems of the present, and fearful about the uncertainties of the future. The wilderness is crying for a voice.

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So we find ourselves thrust into a world of mass culture, manipulated by hidden persuaders, find ourselves robbed of selfhood and made a slave of superficial conformity. We are confused about who we are. We don't know what to do. We don't know from whence we have come. We don't know where we're going and most of all we do not know to whom we belong. That is the problem of our

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time. So humanity is like a leaf blown about in the wind and the wilderness cries out for a voice. Well John is prepared to be a voice crying in the wilderness. For you see his life is disciplined by the desert. He communed in solitude in the desert when he heard there in the desert when the accents of

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the eternal and to somehow profit from his own experience. If we were to profit from that experience which we find here of John the Baptist, a lonely creature, to put it in the words of Soren Kierkegaard, to be a solitary individual. In the midst of a mass society when it seems that that people are going in a given

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direction and if you don't conform that you somehow don't belong and somehow even though we know it goes against the grain we find ourselves trying to conform in order to be accepted but here is a lonely, here is a solitary individual, here is a voice crying in the wilderness. And to be a voice crying in

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the wilderness is to be a spokesperson for the eternal. It is to be God's mouthpiece, to speak for God, speak for righteousness, to speak for truth, to be the voice of God crying in the wilderness of our time, to be a town crier. That's our mission. You know the town crier was designated, officially

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designated to make proclamations and he was to go and to sound the alarm. He was to make significant announcements to the people. And we who are called of God in our time we have been officially designated as a town crier, as the mouthpiece of the eternal to declare the righteousness of God in our time. The

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The prophetic voice that cries in the wilderness of this world, that's our mission. Preaching in the wilderness involves interpreting the word of God in language people can understand wherever we are. And that's ours to cry.

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Cry out in the name of the Lord. People in the dark ghettos of our land are hurting. People are suffering from many problems, suffering from poverty, yes, suffering

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from centuries of neglect. Then there are those who are not living in conditions that we may call deprived conditions as far as economics are concerned. They have plenty, but they live in a different kind of ghetto. It's a ghetto of indifference.

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A ghetto of really not caring, but here is one who is called of God and moves out from the crowded metropolitan center of Jerusalem and goes to the wilderness where there is a need and he cries in the name of the Lord. What shall I cry, you ask?

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when one is commissioned to cry it's not of his own doing. We are controlled by a higher power for we have received orders from headquarters. When Isaiah asked this question he said that the voice said cry and I said what shall I cry? That's the question, "What shall we do and how shall we do it?" What shall we do in order to

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proclaim the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living? What shall we do in order to make known to others that God has somehow visited and redeemed his people? The eternal word is in our midst. Oh, humanity is frail and feeble, all flesh as grass the grass withereth the flower faded but the Word of the Lord

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stands forever and that's good news that's really good news to have people to understand that in the midst of all of the frailties of human existence in the midst of all of the shifting scenes of life in midst of all of the doubt in midst of all of the uncertainties that confront us in life that there is the

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eternal, that there is that that we can depend upon, there is that on which we can rely no matter what happens, that the flower may fade and the grass may wither it may wither but the eternal God stands steadfastly in our midst. We can depend on that. Things may change and we may wonder about how we're going to make

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it on tomorrow but the good news is that the eternal God is with us and he is not on a vacation somewhere, he's not gone on a stroll somewhere. God is right here present with his people. Heaven is his throne, earth is his footstool. What shall I cry? You ask? We are to make known to others that which God has revealed to us. He has revealed it through Jesus

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Christ, the supreme revelation of his love and to be able to declare that word in language that people can understand that's what it really means to cry in the wilderness. For the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, all flesh shall see it together, for God comes to be with his people. You know God comes in many ways.

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He comes in judgment, he comes to judge us, he confronts us day by day, declaring that even in a world of injustice that justice will be done, that every valley will be exalted, every mountain and hill made low, the rough places plain, the crooked shall be made straight. But shall I cry? Well, to cry unto Jerusalem that

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her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, to prepare the way of the Lord. And that's what our mission is as the people of God in our time in crying in the wilderness. Well, not only is it necessary to ask the question what shall I cry, but where shall I cry? Where is the place of my ministry. So often when one thinks about the ministry one thinks

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about the pulpit. We think about the Christian ministry, those who are so called giving full-time service to the ministry. But the one who is called to cry in the wilderness is called upon to give full-time service wherever he is to be a witness for God. And where is that? Well our ministry is the world. Wherever

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we are, whatever may be our position, whatever may be our lot in life, it is ours to cry in the wilderness. John Wesley said, "The world is my parish. Where shall I cry? Well, anywhere and everywhere. Wherever people are hurting, wherever people are walking in darkness, crying to them that the light shines. Wherever

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people are hungry to tell them where to get bread. In the marketplace, yes, where cross the crowded ways of life, where sound the cries of race and clan, above the... [BLANK_AUDIO]