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[ Silence ] Lift him up, lift him up, lift him up for all the world to see. He said if I be lifted up from the earth, I'll draw all men unto me. Lift him up, lift him up, lift him up for all the world to see.

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He said if I be lifted up from the earth, I'll draw all men unto me. me. Lift him up, lift him up, lift him up for all the world to see. He said if I be lifted up from the earth I'll draw all men unto me. You may not sing like angels, you may not preach like Paul, but you can tell the whole wide world that Jesus died for you. ♪ Oh, to lift him up, lift him up ♪ ♪ Lift him up for all the world to see ♪

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♪ He said if I be lifted up from the earth ♪ ♪ I'll crawl home in unto me ♪ ♪ He came all the way from glory ♪ ♪ To save a wretch like me ♪

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♪ Now yank him out the hurt I brought ♪ ♪ That Christ is saving from everybody ♪ ♪ Oh, to lift him up, lift him up ♪ ♪ Lift him up for all the world to see ♪

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He said, "If I be lifted up from the earth, I'll draw all men unto me." Some say that he's a doctor. Some say a lawyer, too. Stand up and tell the whole wide world.

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Just look, he's got it. Lift him up, lift him up, lift him up for all the world to see. He said, "If I be lifted up from the earth, I'll draw all men unto me." [MUSIC]

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[MUSIC] [MUSIC] ♪ If I be lifted up from the earth ♪ ♪ I'll draw ♪

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♪ Lift him up, lift him up ♪ ♪ Lift him up for all the world to see ♪ ♪ He said if I be lifted up from the earth ♪ ♪ I'll draw a man unto me ♪

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♪ He said if I be lifted up from the earth ♪ ♪ I'll draw a man unto me ♪ ♪ He said if I be lifted up from the earth ♪ ♪ I'll draw all men unto me ♪

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(audience applauding) - What things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, and every mouth shall be stopped,

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and all the world may become guilty before God. Guilty before God. Guilty. All of the major religions of the world have a way of salvation. It is in this epistle to the Romans that Paul presents the Christian way of salvation, the

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of wholeness, the way of following the divine design. This particular passage in the letter has to do with the righteousness of God. The way to salvation is to be right with God. And we cannot be right with God in and of ourselves.

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It depends upon God's action, God's action toward us, to be right with God. My ancestors put it this way, "Do you know the Lord? Do you know the Lord?" Not whether you've heard about Him, not whether you have read about Him, but do you know Him?

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Have you experienced Him? And to really be saved is to be right with him. The old hymn we often sang, "Get right with God, and do it now. Get right with God, he will show you how."

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Down at the cross where my Savior died, get right with God. He moves in this third chapter, the apostle does, to a discussion not only of the righteousness of God, but he talks about all of the world being guilty before God. To be guilty, all of us are guilty of something.

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is something that disturbs us, is sort of a heartening experience or feeling that one has, and then again it's a burden. And this guilt occurs from a sense of oughtness. We know we ought to do this.

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And for some reason, we fail to do it. We sometimes have guilt because of what we do, and at other times we have guilt of what we do not do. Sins we commit and sins that we fail to commit.

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Sins. Sins. to follow the Apostle Paul is to recognize that all of us have broken the command of God. The command is, "You may eat freely of all of the trees in the garden, save one,

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that is, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That tree you are not to eat of For the day you eat of it, you will surely die. That's the Word of God, the Word of the Creator to the creature. That's His Word.

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But there is a serpent in the garden. And the serpent says, "Did God really tell you that you're not to eat of the tree?" In other words, he doesn't want you to be as wise as he is, and so we listen to the serpent, Adam does, rather than to the Word of God.

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And all of us are guilty with Adam. We are guilty of having broken the law of God. We aim and we miss that for which we aim, and we are troubled. We are plagued by a sense of guilt.

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Many times we find ourselves in a situation where we are confessing sins we did not commit. You sit in the courthouse, as I have from time to time, and watch the cases that come before the judge, and the advice given sometimes by the attorney is, "Well, it's easy for you to plead guilty to this, and you'll get a light sentence, and that would be cheaper

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than insisting that you are innocent. I'll put it another way. I had a young man to come to me some years ago. He was referred to me.

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He was guilty of biting off the finger of a policeman. And I asked him, "Why did you bite off the policeman's finger?" He said, "Well, Reverend, he was beating me, and I had nothing else to do for my defense, So I took hold of his finger and I bit it off.

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And sometimes later the word came to me that he would need to pay $2,500 for the policeman's finger and he could get out of it if he just paid $2,500. He said, "But Reverend, he was beating me." we'd had many reports of police brutality in that town and so here was

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what we thought a crystal-clear case if we prosecuted so the time came and they said well you can give $2,500 and you can get out of this but the man is innocent, he's not guilty. What he's guilty of is what we'd expect a person to do in defense. Well, he can make that $2,500 in a matter of a few months if he's out working, or he

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can go and fight it and lose it, and it'll cost him far more. So he pleads guilty when he is not guilty. But here, Paul is talking about every one of us being guilty. Every one of us is guilty before God because God sees everything. He knows our innermost thoughts. He

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understands us better than we understand ourselves. And so Paul says we are guilty, guilty before God. So we stand before the bar of justice and the great judge of heaven and earth declares us guilty. We are guilty because we really not know God, Paul says in the early part of this epistle, we do not know God. We do

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not know the Creator. So since we don't really know God, we don't know whose we are. And Paul says that the whole world is guilty. We can't point a finger of condemnation one to the other because all of us are guilty of failing to measure up to the standard that God has set for us.

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And because we are guilty, we are faced with the decision that the judge announces against us. And Paul goes on to say that the conduct that occurs because of our failure to measure up to the commands of God. It's expressed in dishonorable passions. Women exchange the

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natural relationship for the relationship which is against them. Men give up the natural relationship which becomes one that is inflamed with their desire for each other. We went to Atlanta a few days ago, and they had a hotel where we were to stay. people who were there are just closing the lesbian and gay caucus and I don't

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need to describe to you what strange people we saw. They were celebrating their freedom and Paul is saying that what has happened is they have exchanged that which is a sin, so to speak, that which is unnatural, that unnatural feeling in love, they have exchanged it in ways and expressed it in ways that are displeasing to God.

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So because they do not know God, they have chosen to go against the divine design. God has a divine design for our sexuality, and he wants us to follow it. So those who do such things are guilty, says the apostle, of death. Our guilty verdict is based on our unfaithfulness to God.

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We are unfaithful to God some of the time, but we are faithful some of the time, so we are guilty of being unfaithful. Worship--after the exile, the Hebrew people emphasized the fact that there was a guilt offering that was to cover offenses that were committed against God.

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The prodigal son comes back, and he hears the music that is provided for him, celebrating his return. But as he returns, the Father waits for him and forgives him on his arrival. But the people had a general practice of observing the way that the crimes were set free, the

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people were set free from their crimes because at a certain time the goat was there and all of the sins of the nation were placed upon this goat and this goat was marched into the wilderness so that all of the guilt of the world, of the nation, was carried away by that goat.

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Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing? all of our guilt was somehow taken away and that's what Paul is talking about that Jesus Christ has come and he has taken upon himself all of the sins of the world all of the guilt all of the guilt that is ours for rebelling against

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God all of what he told us to do that we failed to do we're guilty we have disobeyed we have rebelled we have failed to measure up so there is nothing that we can do nothing whatsoever that we can do but submit ourselves to the judge and the judge announces that we are guilty but the wonderful thing is

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that the same judge who announces that we are guilty is the same judge who makes it possible for us to be forgiven the sinner is forgiven and invited into to the great banquet. The brokenness is healed, and the lost restored. The guilty one is forgiven. We cannot be done with this through animal sacrifice. No, no matter how many altars we

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build, how many sacrifices we offer, those who desire not sacrifice, God says that if sacrifice is required, then I would accept it. But wherewith shall I come before the Lord, says the prophet, and bow myself before the "Hi, God, shall I come before him with calves a year old?

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Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body, for the sin of my soul?"

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No, that will not remove the guilt. The verdict remains guilty, guilty. What? What can take away my sins?

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What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. There was a criminal who was on death row, and his mother had pleaded for the governor

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to give her an audience. And finally she talked with the governor and the governor agreed with the mother that he would go to see this boy who was on death row.

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And so the day he came, the boy was so disgusted and it was so contrary he would not even talk. The governor came to his cell and looked in and tried to talk with him, but he would not talk.

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And finally, in disgust, the governor left. And then one said to him later, "Boy, didn't you know that was the governor? He has the power to set you free." And he dropped his head.

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Freedom, forgiveness, it all come to his self, but he did not recognize it and accept it. That's what happens to us. We're guilty. There's a sense of oughtness in every one of us and we cry out from time to time and

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we try to hide it even from ourselves, but here comes one who is concerned about our salvation and who wants us to be whole and he comes to ourself right where we are with the burden as heavy as it may be he comes and he lifts that burden so that we can be free free to live our lives free to praise his holy name he

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He makes us free indeed so that we can no longer be guilty because He has taken our sins upon Himself through Jesus Christ. He comes right where we are. He comes outside the city of Jerusalem, there where the highways cross, there in this busy

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He comes out there and is crucified for our sins to make us whole, that we may enter back. The one who drove us out of the garden is the one who comes back and opens the gate so that we can come back into the garden of life. Isn't that wonderful?

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Praise God that there is a place, there is a place where every one of us can go. There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that blood lose all their guilty stains. We invite you now to come to that fountain that is prepared for all who thirst that living

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one come to that fountain. [ Music ] >> Door of the church is open. We invite you to come.

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[music] ♪ There is a fountain filled with blood ♪ ♪ God's blood we can't contain ♪ ♪ And sinners' blood we need not burn ♪

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♪ To offer His praise ♪ [music] ♪ To all their guilty strains ♪ ♪ As sinners plunged beneath that flood ♪

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♪ To all their guilty strains ♪ ♪ The blinding rejoicing ♪ ♪ Joy to see ♪ ♪ That Thou didst reign ♪

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♪ And every hour ♪ ♪ Thou didst reign ♪ ♪ Was all my sins ♪ ♪ All my sins ♪

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♪ Was all my sins ♪ [Music] ♪ Wash all my sins away ♪ ♪ And then may I, so proud as thee ♪

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♪ Wash all my sins away ♪ ♪ When this forest speaks ♪ ♪ I'm silent in the rain ♪ ♪ When in an oak the sweetest song ♪

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♪ I'll sing, I'm proud to say ♪ ♪ I'll sing, I'm proud to say ♪ I'll sing the song to sleep. And in the hope of sweetest sleep,

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I'll sing the song to sleep. First, we'd like to see the leaders of the missions for just a few moments here in the front, and the director of the Brotherhood and the president of the Brotherhood for just a moment, following the benediction, and also Sister Donna Jackson and Sister Irene Thompson, for just a moment.

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Lord God, our Father, we thank you that you take away our guilt, that we are free to live our lives through Jesus Christ. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.

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May the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you peace, now and forevermore. Amen. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]