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[ Silence ] [MUSIC PLAYING] [ Music ] God is still on the throne

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Within your bosom you have to fall Where'er you walk, you're not walking alone Remember God is still on the throne. God is still on the throne.

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Within your bosom, you have the fall. Where'er you walk, you're not walking alone. Remember God is still on the throne. When in distress, just call Him.

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If you're oppressed, just call Him. When storms assail you, and others have failed you, Yes, God is still on the throne. ♪ God is still on the throne ♪

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♪ Within your bosom you have the Lord ♪ ♪ Wherever you are, you're not walking alone ♪ Remember God is still on the throne. Whenever men abuse you, whenever friends misuse you,

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If you are in doubt, and there's no way out, remember God is still on the throne. God is still on the throne. Within your personal you have the power.

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Wherever you are, you're not walking alone. Remember God is still on the throne. God is the spiller of the throes. Within your bosom.

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Within your bosom. Ooh. You have the gold. Wherever you walk, you're the walking of gold.

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Remember God who is still on the throne. Amen. Hear this word recorded in the book of I Samuel, the third chapter, verses 7 through 11. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord. The Word of the Lord had not yet been

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revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel a third time and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, "Here I am, you called me." Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, "Go lie down and if he calls you say, 'Speak "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."

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So Samuel went and lay down in his place. The Lord came and stood there, calling as at other times. Samuel, Samuel.

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Then Samuel said, speak for your servant is listening. And the Lord said to Samuel, see, I am about to do something in Israel

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that will make the ears of everyone who hears it tingle. The subject, "Oh, Say Can You See?" Oh, say can you see? I have a friend who is blind.

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From time to time, he greets me by saying, "Hello, Reverend, I'm glad to see you." Though without physical sight he sees.

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No vision in the physical eyes, but he has other eyes. Though blind, yet he sees. That's why he can say, I'm glad to see you. There is such a thing as being able to see in the darkness.

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Those who have eyes many times do not see. They have light that was once in the eye, but it has gone out. This particular event, which is the center of the message,

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takes place in ancient Israel. It's a time of darkness. It is nighttime. Eli is in the sanctuary.

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He serves there as the priest. He has grown old and become somewhat feeble. His eyes are weak. He can barely see.

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He suffers from encroaching blindness. Nighttime has come in his life and night has come in the life the nation for the word of the Lord was rare in those days. Samuel was just a boy.

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He had been brought to the temple and dedicated to the service of God. Hannah, his mother asked the Lord for a child. She promised the Lord that if he gave her a child she would give the child back to him and when the Lord blessed Hannah with the child Hannah kept her promise. She brought Samuel to the temple

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and left him with the priest Eli. Samuel was his helper. He had young eyes, quick steps and he was able to do many temple chores. He was useful around the Lord's house. Though advanced in years and with dim eyes, Eli could see things that Samuel was unable to see.

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The doors of the Lord's house were shut up. The lamp of the Lord that burned in the sanctuary had almost gone out. It was in the wee hours of the morning.

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Samuel was fast asleep. Sleep is the pause that refreshes. The day's activities are at an end. Now the day is over, night draws nigh,

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shatters of the evening, steel across the sky. The Lord gives the weary calm and sweet repose. Samuel is asleep. There is a time when we need to stop,

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we need to pause, we need sleep. Sleep is that pause that refreshes. But while this occurs, there is a light that shines in the night.

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God calls Samuel. The vision comes in the darkness. God calls. Samuel hears the voice, but he does not know who is calling. Sometimes our eyes do not see what we are looking at. In the sanctuary, in the dark, Samuel

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does not know who calls. He gets up and goes to Eli and says, "Here I am. You called me." And Eli says to him, "Go back to bed. I did not call you." Samuel obeys. The second time he hears the voice saying, "Samuel!" Again he gets up and goes to Eli and says, "Here I am." Eli said, "I did not call you. Go back to bed." Again Samuel

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obeys. And then Samuel hears the voice the third time and he goes to Eli and presents himself and Eli says I didn't call you. But this time Eli saw in the situation what Samuel did not see. Eli realized the Lord was calling Samuel so he gave Samuel guidance in the darkness he said to him go back and lie down and

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if the voice calls again you answer speak Lord for your servant is listening. Now Samuel had been asleep he had to be awakened in order to see what was happening in his life. God was there even though Samuel was asleep even while he slept God was there all the while. God was present, God was hidden in the

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darkness. For a God we serve is a God who hides himself. He's always present. Sometimes it's very difficult for us to see God in a situation but he's always that. Very, very, very difficult for many people to see God in this present crisis and this this war that looms that disturbs all of us is very difficult. So

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where is God? Well he's always present. He's hidden in the situation. He's always at work even though we do not see how he's working he is at work. God works in in every situation. Samuel does not know who calls,

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but God calls. He calls once, he calls twice, he calls thrice, even the fourth time before Samuel realizes what has happened and he needs the assistance of Eli

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in order to realize that God is calling him. When I was a teenager in Dallas, I threw the Dallas Morning News. I was to be up at 4 o'clock every morning and start throwing the papers. And I was to be through with the job by 6 o'clock.

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I had two hours that were allotted to finish the job. And at four o'clock in the morning, the alarm clock would sound and my mother would call, "Marvin, get up.

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It's time for you to throw the papers." And often she had to call the second time, "Marvin, get up. It's time to throw the papers."

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And I would say, "Yes, ma'am." She'd say, "Are you up?" I'd say yes ma'am sometimes. And I would still be in the bed.

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And I can remember sometimes when I went back to sleep and she thought I was up throwing the papers and she would call at six o'clock saying, Marv, thinking I had thrown the papers

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and gone back to bed. Marv, have you thrown the papers? And I had never gotten out of the bed. Well, it's important that when God calls

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that we get up. that we respond to the call. God calls Samuel, and he calls again and again.

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Samuel, sometimes it's necessary for him to call two or three times for us to respond. Often we hear the first time. I heard her the first time.

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But it looked like you'd just gone to bed at four o'clock many times. Marvin Samuel Samuel and God calls every one of us. He calls us by name. He knows us Every one of us is precious in his sight

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So he has a call for every one of us a call to participate in his service Samuel Samuel Samuel the call gets louder Samuel Samuel has what we call in this experience not only a vision of God but

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he has a human divine encounter. This is an experience in his life where he meets It's the Lord. He sees the Lord. He hears the voice of God calling him.

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Father, Scripture says, "The Lord came and stood there." The Lord came and stood there. God comes where we are.

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Whatever may be our condition or circumstance, God comes where we are. He comes, he stations himself beside Samuel's bed. God calls him, he reveals himself,

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and it's a progressive revelation. A progressive revelation. Samuel, Samuel. What's the first time?

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He calls again. Samuel second time, Samuel the third time, and then again the fourth time, Samuel! Before Samuel really realizes who's calling.

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It's a progressive revelation. So as God calls us, it's a rather progressive revelation. We didn't understand as much about the call of God when we were children as we understand now.

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It's a progressive revelation. We understand more and more and more and more. God reveals himself to us more and more. It's not that God was not the same God.

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It's just that we came to understand him in a different way. I say it's like the moon. The moon is out there. All the moon is there.

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The whole moon is there, but we can only see certain parts of it. we see a quarter of the moon, sometimes we see a half of the moon, and then sometimes we see the full moon. But it's all there all the time. It's sort of progressive revelation. So the Lord calls and calls and calls four times, and it's

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through the assistance of the seasoned leader Eli that Samuel comes to see and realize that the Lord is calling. And this is what God says, "See Samuel, see Samuel, see Samuel, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears it tingle." You see Samuel was known as a seer. He was

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sought out by people because of his perception, because of his relationship with the eternal. Samuel the seer, Samuel the spokesperson for the eternal, Samuel the mouthpiece of God, Samuel the seer who reveals that which has been hidden in the dark. It all happens at a particular juncture in his life. Samuel

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the seer. God reveals himself to Samuel. Before Samuel was born God was there but Samuel didn't know it. When his mother was agonizing and in the temple praying for God to give her a child. God was there but Samuel was not around and God permitted her to to become a mother and she brought that child back to the

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temple. God had been around there before Samuel arrived. God was preparing the way for Samuel but Samuel just comes at the age of 12 now is about 12 they say that Samuel came to realize that God was around and he heard the voice of God so this is the most wonderful thing that can happen in the life of a person to be

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able to see the eternal. We can see so many things. We can see the beauty of nature, but the question is can we see God in the beauty of nature? We can come and we can see the lovely stained windows in our worship service and we can see what this sister has on or what this brother may be wearing, but the

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important thing is do we see God? Do we see the eternal? For we can see so many things that are perishable, so many things that are temporary in our world, but the important matter is whether or not we can see the eternal. We can see God.

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A man who sees God, a woman who sees God, oh it's quite a brightness, quite a brightness. eyes Eyes to be fixed on him. I Remember

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many years ago When we were first married we lived for time one summer in town called Albion New York

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out from Buffalo and We stayed with a family the pulley family and This dear lady Every winter when it snowed

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She became blind The whiteness the brightness of the snow caused her to be blind Well, there is a brightness about The light that holy light that God sheds on our lives

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and And the important thing is to have such a relationship to him that we are able to see him in the darkness of our time. So many times the light can be shining all around us and we just don't see it. We don't have eyes to see. A man was out traveling, seeing the American West for the first time.

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He was traveling by bus and he saw all of the sights and yet he was unimpressed. In fact, instead of being impressed, he was critical of the things that he saw, the wonders of the Grand Canyon, the Royal Gorge, and the Painted Desert. He looked at all those things and he wasn't impressed at all,

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nothing to that as far as he's concerned. Finally the bus driver said to him, "Listen mister, if you ain't got it on the inside, you can't see it on the outside." And that's true.

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If you ain't got it on the inside, you can't see it on the outside. of our college used to put it this way, he'd ask the question, "Where lies the beauty in the object being beheld or in the beholder?" So in Kierkegaard, claimed to have prayed daily, "Lord give me weak eyes for things which are of no account and

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clear eyes for all of thy truth." Well this means to be able to see God, means also to be able to see ourselves as we really are. To see the eternal, to see God's purpose for our lives. For this is an experience where Samuel comes to realize at the tender age of 12 that God has a special purpose for his life.

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Be able to see God's purpose for our lives and to be able to see people. When we get a good vision of God we have a better vision of people. Jesus touched that blind man and the man began to see. Jesus said, "What do you see? What do you see?" He said, "I see trees.

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Men like trees walking. Men were like trees." Then he touched his eyes again and said, "Now, what do you see?" Well, that time he saw men as they really are.

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He was able to see people as they are. What do we see? What do we see? Well Samuel answers, he says, "Yes, Lord."

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And God says to him, "I have worked for you. I want you to be my prophet. I want you to speak for me. I want you to testify in my name.

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I want you to be my witness." So we're called and we're sent. So we first got to have a vision of God. We've got to have a vision of the eternal and related to that vision is also the venture.

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The vision and the venture are connected. Vision and venture. God just doesn't give us a vision of himself without expecting us to relate that vision to some work.

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Samuel! Samuel, yes! Well, Samuel sees God comes and stands there, but Samuel is given work to do. Moses, Moses, well Moses has a vision.

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He has a vision of a burning bush. And Moses decides I'm gonna turn aside and see this great sight. And when he turns aside to see the sight,

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God speaks to him and says, Moses, go tell Pharaoh to let my people go. So there is a vision and there is a venture. We worship and then we work.

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The two are related. Isaiah, Isaiah, well yes. Isaiah said, well I had a vision. It was in the year that King Uzziah died

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and I saw the Lord high and lifted up. His train filled the temple. He had a vision. Saw himself too.

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Said, he recognized that I'm a sinful man. I'm a man of unclean lips. And I dwell among people of unclean lips. But then with that vision also came the need to venture.

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He heard a voice saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And he answered, "Here am I, send me." Well, Satan will use those same words

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when he presented himself, "Here am I, here am I." Speak, Lord! In other words, use me, I'm in your service. Jeremiah is just a lad, but he hears the voice of God.

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And when he hears the voice of God, and gets a vision of the eternal, He also recognizes that he has a commission for he is called to be a prophet to the nations.

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So Jesus calls disciples to preach up. The preacher John the Baptist points to the master and he says, "Behold the Lamb of God." And disciples began to follow him.

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Yes, Jesus calls disciples that they might be with him, that they might enjoy the fellowship of his spirit and that they might be able to share with him in the work. So Samuel's testimony is, "I saw the Lord.

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"I saw the Lord. "I saw the Lord." What do you see? That's the question for us today.

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Samuel saw the Lord. What do you see? In the human situations that are all around us, do we see God? Some months ago, I went to get my glasses changed and they looked at the record and

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they said, "Well, Reverend, you need to have your eyes tested again." And they placed me there in the room. I went, I sat in the chair and of course I looked at the various letters there. Sometimes there was an E or something turned backwards, you know, and they said, "Can you see that?"

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They'd flip down another one, "Can you see that? Can you see that?" And finally, I said, "This, this, I can see that well. I can't see this too well." "Well, what do you see?" That's important. This is sort of an eye examination for our souls, for our spirits. What do you see? What do you see?

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The writer of the hymns said mine eyes have seen the glory Of the coming of the Lord is tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored He has loosed his faithful lightning on his powerful Threshold his truth is marching on seeing God in the midst of the struggles seeing God. What do you see?

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What do you see? Well, I Asked the question of you. I I also need to be prepared to answer that question for myself. What do you see? Well, I look out and I see I see the stars in their sockets.

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I see the beauty of the heavens but in the midst of it all, behind the stars, is the Almighty God who made the stars and threw them out there in the heavens. Do we see God? What do you see?

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What do you see? You look and you see the rocks with all of their beauty, the rocks and reels. And all of the thrills that we have in our souls as we behold them, but to be able to see beyond the rocks and rails and to see the rock of ages, that rock that clasps for every one of us, that eternal rock, to be able to see that God is that sure foundation,

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rock that shelters us and gives us water even in dry places, the rock of ages. What do you see? What do you see? Well, we eat our bread as we sit at our tables, but we ought to be able to see beyond that

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bread to see the one who is the bread of heaven. What do you see? What do you see? What do you see?

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Well, to be able to see, I see God. Be able to say, I see God. I see God. I see the God who never lets go of us.

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God that just keeps picking us up every time we fall, just keeps picking us up. I see a loving Heavenly Father who throws his arms around me and helps me up the highway and over the hills and walks with me through the valley. I see God.

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I see God. Well, his power is real in the midst of this crisis. There's no crisis too great for God. He has all power.

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Be able to say, "I see God." But we face a time when nations are in uproar. We face a time when kingdoms are shaken. But to be able to say with the psalmist, "Though the sea roar, and though kingdoms are shaken,

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I see the works of God!" For the God we serve is able to break the bow and to cut the spear in thunder, and says to us, "Be still. Be still. Be still and know that I am God.

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I will be exalted among all of the nations." So the Lord God Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. I see God.

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Well some of us can testify from our own experience that we've seen God. He's appeared in our lives so many ways, so many places that we didn't even expect Him and we found that God was there. We found Him.

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And that testimony of the hymn said, "I've seen the lightning flashing. I've heard the thunder roar, I felt shin breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul. But I've heard, I've heard, I've heard the voice of my Savior telling me still to fight on. He promise never to leave me, never to leave me alone. Well open your eyes.

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When you need God's help, need divine help to be able to see him, he reveals himself but he also helps us to see him. Let this be the prayer for every one of us as we sing this hymn of invitation. Open mine eyes that I may see glimpses of truth.

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[MUSIC] (indistinct) [INAUDIBLE] [MUSIC]

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[INAUDIBLE] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] ♪ My hands, the wonderful King ♪

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♪ That shall unfast and set me free ♪ ♪ Silently now I wait for Thee ♪ ♪ Ready, my God, Thy will to see ♪ ♪ Open my eyes, they look at me ♪

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♪ Spirit divine ♪ ♪ Open my ears, that I may hear ♪ ♪ Voices of truth, thou stillest here ♪ ♪ And while the angels call on my ear ♪

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♪ Everything false will disappear ♪ ♪ Silently now I wait for Thee ♪ ♪ Ready my heart, I will to see ♪ ♪ Open my ears ♪

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♪ Illumine me ♪ ♪ Spirit divine ♪ ♪ Open my mouth ♪ ♪ And let me bear ♪

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♪ Let evil walk through every hair ♪ Open my heart and let me prepare Love with the children thus to share Silently now I wait for Thee

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Ready my heart, I will to see Open my heart, delude and read, Spirit divine. [BLANK_AUDIO]