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And they that pass by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, "Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross." Likewise also the chief priests mocking him with the scribes and elders said, "He saved

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others, himself he cannot save. If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross and we will believe in him. He trusted in God, let him deliver him now if he will have him for he said, 'I am the

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the Son of God, the thieves also which were crucified with him cast the same in his teeth. Let us stand and sing hymn 135, Amazing Grace. [ Music ] Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

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I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. ♪ Those dreams that draw my heart to thee ♪ ♪ The dreams I feel dream ♪

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♪ A precious gift that brings the fear ♪ ♪ That brings a view ♪ ♪ Beyond my first gleam ♪ ♪ Oh, make me think ♪

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♪ Just hearts and stares ♪ ♪ I have already come ♪ ♪ 'Cause praise and thanks ♪ ♪ We take thus far ♪

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♪ And praise will lead me home ♪ ♪ We've been there 10,000 years ♪ ♪ Life's shining as the sun ♪ ♪ With no last day to say goodbye ♪

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We know this day to sing God's praise, that when we first begun. And as already printed in your bulletin, he trusted in God.

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As we look at the Gospel of Matthew, and as we go into chapter twenty seven particular emphasis should be placed upon

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verse forty two and forty three therefore i would like to read them again he saved others himself

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he cannot save if he be the king of israel Let him come down from the cross and we will believe him. He trusted in God.

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Let him deliver him now if he will have him. For he said, I am the son of God. He trusted in God. he by person of Jesus trusted in God. These are the words that are recorded by

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Saint Matthew concerning the crucifixion of Jesus. Upon first looking at the statement it would appear that these words are words of praise. however when the religious leaders of Jerusalem make this statement is not intended to be words of praise but somehow it is intended to be an insult

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against Jesus. In other words it appears as though the religious leaders of Jerusalem are actually saying he trusted in God and look where he is today. Upon a sinner's cross hung between two thieves would seem as though a person who has placed their trust in God to somehow not be in this situation. But somehow the person

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that trust in God we we think of that type of person as the one who lives the best, who eats the best, who never has a problem, who never has a cure in the world. But here is the Son of God and the statement was made he trusted in God. Throughout his whole three years of public ministry Jesus trusted in God and yet here we

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find Jesus upon a sinner's cross hung between two thieves. It appears that these pseudo religious leaders of Jerusalem were manifesting their doubt in the power of God by saying let us see if God will have him. Let us see if God can spare him. Let us see if God really does have power to bring a sinner down from the cross.

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let us see and this is why I say that these religious leaders of Jerusalem were pseudo they were false they were imitating messengers of God they preached one way they live the opposite way but in their statement he trusted in God let us see if God will save him they somehow manifest their doubt that they

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actually had in God and you know that's dangerous because these are the religious leaders these were the ones who had the say these were the ones who stood across the pulpit or in the temple and proclaim what God had to say to his people but yet the danger within this is that these men who proclaim God's word

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didn't trust God and they said let us see and that becomes dangerous also when a preacher is not really sure whether what he's preaching is correct or not and this is what they were doing let us see if God will come down and save him oh we've read about God and through the prophets we've read about

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God through Moses and in the law but now let us see if God can come in and actually intervene in human situations. When Matthew introduced his gospel to the Christian community by 85 AD there was turmoil in the church. The Christians were persecuted by both Jewish leaders and Roman soldiers the early Christians

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were not allowed to hold religious service in the synagogue but had to find other places to have religious services this is why we find in the in the New Testament and some people try to make support for this that the early church they met in the homes. Well this is true the early church did meet in the homes but it

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was not because they wanted to meet in the homes it was because it was the only place that was safe for the church to meet in the homes. Somehow Matthew's gospel is presented in such a way that it gives meaning to the Christian community of both Matthew's times and of both our times. For the Christian to

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meditate upon the death of Jesus and look upon the words of Matthew when he says he trusted in God this allows the Christian to take this into a more in depth meaning Jesus trusted in God to mean that Jesus's trust was not in vain Jesus who trusted in God had a vision his trust was not in vain because as we

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read in the gospel of Matthew upon the crucifixion and the death of Jesus three days later God raised Jesus from the dead. So the trust that Jesus placed in God it was not in vain. This way as Matthew shows that upon the crucifixion of Jesus the words are uttered he trusted in God. This gives the Christian community during the time of persecution a chance to understand that

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within persecution within the church that that there is comfort somehow and that somehow God will make a way even though God allowed his son to die upon the cross yet God raised his son from the dead therefore it gives the Christian community hope that no matter what the circumstances may be God will

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see us through. As I thought upon these words he trusted in God I was reminded of a particular time in history when most philosophers were concerned about doubt and skepticism but not only were the philosophers concerned about this issue of doubt and skepticism but theologians as well. During the 16th and

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17th century Martin Luther the Reformer led a revolt against the Catholic Church which caused people to wonder is there anything left that we can put trust in before Luther's revolt against the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church was the authority of God, the Pope was the successor of Peter and therefore

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whatever the church, the Catholic Church brought out, this was law, this was it. But Luther's revolt against the Catholic Church caused people to wonder what can we trust in it if someone is going to go against the authority of the church can we actually place our trust in the church well as we go a little

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further doing the 16th and 17th century we find that Rene Descartes and and Lobinitz, who also dealt with this problem of doubt and skepticism. It was because of the situation of Columbus's voyage to the new land. At this particular time, it was always thought upon as England and Spain and Africa as being the only existing world that

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there ever is. When Columbus returned back to Spain and had given his report, somehow the theologians, the philosophers, and the teachers had to re-evaluate their teaching that they once gave and then they had to reassess and place in what Columbus had found. Therefore, people once again said what can we trust in if the philosophers said that this is

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the only existing world if the theologians who are the representatives of God said that this is the only existing land that there is and here Columbus comes back and tells us that there is another land and that there are other people who are living there what can we trust in? Well Descartes who

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decided to put an end to this issue concern and doubt and skepticism is termed of mitigated skepticism it is an antithesis to Lobinitz. Descartes develops a theory and formula concerning God as the guarantor of all truth. In other words because God is not a deceiver and God does not lie and God

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will not lie he can be trusted to lead us in the right direction. direction though this particular theory served good for the philosophers and theologians and the intellectuals of the 16th century in the 17th century to trust in God

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Yet this is not the means and method the way God would have us to trust in him through through creeds and and formulas and and and and and counsels this is not the way that God would have us to trust in him to develop these type of creeds the way God would have us to trust in him is to place faith in God and

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experience of his son Jesus Christ This is the way we learn to trust in God not through different councils not through different different creeds and not through different formulas, but by way of faith and by way of experience. You know I once said that it's very hard for a person to

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trust God if they've never experienced God. I grew up under the teachings that I was always told to trust God. I was always told to put faith in God. As I got older I began to ponder on this. I said how can I trust in God if I don't know God? How can I trust in God if I never experienced God? How can I have

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faith in God if God has never intervened in my life? The only way I could trust in God was to allow God to personally come into my life, to personally give me an experience that he is God and that he is real. And then and only then was I able to place trust in God. Many of us run around and we say yes I trust God.

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Mother taught me to trust God, the preacher proclaims to trust God and that's the reason why we trust but do we really trust? Have you really had an experience of God where you can trust him? Look at the prophet Moses. Moses when he fled out of the land of Egypt, he fled for his life

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And yet when Moses went to the back of the mountainside there Moses met God Moses had never met God Moses had never met the Hebrew God He was raised under the gods of Egypt, but here Moses has a chance and an opportunity of experiencing God

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Moses God had told him to go back down into Egypt Tell Pharaoh to let my people go Moses replied if I go back

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They'll kill me if I go back. They'll take my life from me But then God told Moses Moses. What's that you have in your hand? Moses said it's a staff God told Moses to place the staff down

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Moses placed the staff on the ground and the staff became a snake and Then God told Moses to take the snake and pick it up by its tail and as Moses grabbed the snake by its tail it turned back and to a staff

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But you see Moses could not go back down into Egypt To tell Pharaoh to let God's people go unless Moses had an experience of God Moses could not stand against the armies of Pharaoh and trust in God unless he had an experience of God The same way

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with Daniel in the lion's den Daniel could not go down into the lion's den and Places trust in God unless somehow he had experienced God prior to you know they tell me that you can't use logic and preach. As I look at Daniel I see a situation like this. If they had a placed us in the lion's den, if we had not had an experience

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of God we would have been fighting tooth and nail trying to get out of the lion's den and Daniel, now this is logical, Daniel did not try to run for his life but when they placed Daniel in the lion's den, Daniel went down on his knees and he prayed to God because Daniel had an experience with God and we as a

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nation as we venture into a new decade filled with uncertainties and unknowns if we fail to place our trust in God we may not be around to see the coming end of 1990. This is not a pessimistic view, rather it is a view of the truth. It's truth. The nation that does not place their trust in God somehow will falter

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by the wayside. We look at the nation of Judah, how Judah had taken that trust that they once had in God and placed it in other gods but God allowed a heathen nation God allowed a nation that did not serve him to take over his own children and many people talk about the great battle of Armageddon that somehow that

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because we are the United States and we we serve God that nothing will happen to us. Somehow we sit back and take our ease but but but as Russia is marching through the countryside of Afghanistan they're not only making way to try to control the Persian Gulf but if we do not place our trust in God somehow the

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same way that God allowed the nation of Israel to fall out of his hands, he will also allow us to fall out of his hands if we don't trust in him as a nation. I think we can learn from those past Sunday school lessons. When we look at our technology today is becoming so advanced that there is no room for God

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in our decisions. There's no place for God in decision-making anymore. Our technology is so great that it somehow tries to replace God. There were different arguments that we had in seminary and in four years of college training concerning religious education and the skeptics who did not understand

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the ways of God and did not place faith in God said that everything God does we can do through technology. When Jesus changed water into wine they somehow learned the process of turning water into wine which was not a very hard process but somehow they have claimed that because we can we can work

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miracles like this because we can do almost the same thing that God can do therefore there's no need to trust in God but this is the way our technology has taken us today this is the way our technology has moved us until when we have a problem in our life God is no longer a part of that problem. We have

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different places to go to, different people who we can turn to, we have different organizations that can help us out now. There was once a time when we didn't have these organizations, we didn't have this means of helping us out But now we have them and now somehow we fail to call on God in times of trouble.

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We search for ways to surpass the omnipotence of God. We search for ways to be much more powerful than what God is. There was an article in the magazine just recently the Reader's Digest and it put that have astrologers found God and Yet somehow this is not this is not

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Coincide with what the scriptures teach they're concerning with the book of Job that how can we find God? How can we find God and yet here astrologers are saying we found God? Somehow we're steadily trying to take our technology and move closer and closer and closer to God until somehow we just move God out of the cosmos.

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But we can get closer to God if we give God our hearts. If we place faith in God, we can get closer to God. we who are the light of the world, we who are the salt of the earth, should be able to say the words of King David, in thee oh Lord do I put my trust, let me never be put to confusion

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For thou art my hope, O Lord God. Thou art my trust from my youth. It is but good to proclaim to the world that we ought to trust in God. This is the proclamation of the Christian life, that we trust in God.

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Rather than trust in the riches of the world, we trust in God. And the way that we show the world that we trust in God is by coming to worship God on Sunday mornings This is the way we proclaim to the world that we trust God As we

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Embark to place trust in God we must understand that The only way or one particular way that we can learn how to place trust in God is first of all to

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deny self the hardest thing for Christians to do is to give room to God in their lives to deny their basic way of being and Put their total trust in God. Oh

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Oh, it's in the back of our minds we say, "Oh, I trust God," but we only trust God to a certain degree. We only trust God when things are going okay for us. But when the chips stack up and things begin to get pretty hard on us, we somehow abandon our trust in God and seek our own means and ways

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to solve our solutions and solve our problems. But this is not the way that the Christians should be. The Christians should proclaim to the world, under any circumstances, my trust is not

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in the riches of men, my trust is not in the wisdom of this world, but my trust is in God Almighty. But the only way to do this is first to deny self, to move self out of the way and give God place in your life.

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People who sought God many times in their life, we think about the Apostle Paul in his situation and with his problem when he explained to the church at Corinth that I besought the Lord three times to remove this thorn away from my flesh but God did not move the thorn out of Paul's flesh. The words, the reply that

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Jesus had given to the Apostle Paul it was not okay Paul I'll take this thorn out of your flesh because you've trusted in me but Jesus said Paul my grace is sufficient for thee my grace is sufficient for thee and and and and Christians today when we talk about placing trust in God.

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