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I'll pay whatever the difference is and then Jesus turned to that smart aleck. He asked him the question which he had to answer. Now which one of these do you think was the real neighbor? I think there's another reason why Jesus told this story, not just for that man but also for us.

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For you see, you and I are like that Samaritan. You and I have been knocked into the ditch by sin. We've been beaten up, we've been stripped naked, we've been left for dead. Various things have come by to try to analyze our situation and to provide a remedy.

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Philosophy has come by and looked on the condition of man and has analyzed it, but it had to pass by on the other side because there was nothing it could do except to analyze. Theology has come by and it has looked at our condition and it has pronounced judgment, but that's all it could do.

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But thank God, thank God, along came Jesus. He not only looked on our condition, he not only had pity on us, but he had compassion. And there's a difference between pity and compassion. Pity looks at the situation and says, "Oh, what a shame."

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But compassion looks at it, says, "Oh, what a shame, but what can I do to change it?" Jesus had compassion on us. That compassion led him to a cross called Calvary. Thank God he got up on the third day and with his getting up

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he now makes himself available through the Holy Spirit. You and I no longer have to be robbed and beaten and stripped and left in sin. We've got a Savior. More than that, we've got a constant guide, a constant companion.

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(somber music) [Music] [Music] ♪ One so love the world ♪

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♪ One so love the world ♪ ♪ That he gives only the ultimate ♪ [Music] ♪ We leave him, we leave him here ♪

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♪ Children of Paris ♪ ♪ Children of Paris ♪ ♪ Why have you forsaken us ♪ ♪ For God's been God, His Son ♪

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♪ Into the world to bind Him the world ♪ ♪ God's been God, His Son ♪ ♪ Into the world to bind Him the world ♪ ♪ God's had the world ♪

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♪ To live and be saved ♪ ♪ God ♪ ♪ So loved ♪ ♪ The world ♪

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♪ God ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Thy redemption ♪ ♪ Is only begun ♪

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♪ Since I have lost all believing ♪ ♪ Believing in Him ♪ ♪ Children of the rich ♪ ♪ Children of the rich ♪

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♪ Born of everlasting life ♪ ♪ Everlasting life ♪ ♪ Everlasting ♪ ♪ Everlasting life ♪

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♪ To sing my ♪ ♪ God ♪ ♪ So loved ♪ ♪ The world ♪

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♪ God ♪ [Music] [ Music ] When Jesus comes again,

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When Jesus comes again, Will you be ready when Jesus comes? When Jesus comes again, when Jesus comes again, we'll be ready when Jesus comes.

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I know that Jesus is coming back again. No more sickness when he comes back for you and me. Oh, what a day that will be when Jesus comes for me, when Jesus comes again.

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He'll say, I've come just for you. ♪ No more sadness when He ♪ ♪ Comes back for you and me ♪ ♪ Oh, what a day that will be ♪

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♪ When Jesus comes for me ♪ ♪ Will you be ready ♪ ♪ Will you be ready when Jesus comes ♪ ♪ When Jesus comes ♪

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♪ When Jesus comes ♪ ♪ Will you be ready ♪ ♪ Will you be ready when Jesus comes ♪ ♪ Oh, I know that Jesus ♪

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♪ Jesus ♪ ♪ Is coming back again ♪ ♪ No more sickness ♪ ♪ No, no, no, no ♪

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♪ When he comes back for you and for me ♪ ♪ Oh, what a day that will be ♪ ♪ When Jesus comes again ♪ ♪ When Jesus ♪

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♪ When Jesus comes ♪ ♪ To say I've come just for you ♪ ♪ No more sadness when He ♪ ♪ Comes back for you and me ♪

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♪ Oh, what a day that will be ♪ ♪ When Jesus comes for me ♪ ♪ Will you be ready ♪ ♪ Will you be ready ♪

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♪ When Jesus comes ♪ ♪ When Jesus comes ♪ ♪ When Jesus comes ♪ ♪ Will you be ready ♪

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♪ Will you be ready when Jesus comes ♪ ♪ Will you be ready ♪ ♪ Will you be ready when Jesus comes ♪ ♪ Will you be ready ♪

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♪ Will you be ready when Jesus ♪ ♪ When Jesus comes ♪ ♪ When he comes again ♪ ♪ When he comes again ♪

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♪ Ready when Jesus ♪ ♪ Ready when Jesus ♪ ♪ When Jesus comes ♪ ♪ Will you be ready ♪

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♪ Ready when Jesus comes ♪ ♪ Will you be ready ♪ ♪ Ready when Jesus comes ♪ ♪ Will you be ready ♪

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♪ Ready when Jesus comes ♪ ♪ When he comes again ♪ ♪ When he comes again ♪ ♪ Ready when Jesus ♪

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♪ Ready when Jesus ♪ ♪ When Jesus ♪ ♪ Come ♪ ♪ Ready ♪

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♪ Ready when Jesus comes ♪ ♪ When Jesus comes ♪ ♪ When Jesus comes ♪ ♪ When Jesus comes ♪

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♪ When Jesus comes again ♪ ♪ We'll be ready when he comes ♪ ♪ Let even Jesus Christ ♪ - In Psalm 34 and four,

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is the text for the message today. I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears would you repeat that after me I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears. The subject of the message is overcoming fear, overcoming fear. W.H.

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Auden has called this an age of anxiety. It's a time when people in large numbers live in a state of fear. Afraid to be themselves, afraid to stand up and be counted, afraid to speak out, afraid to venture forward. People are afraid because they are haunted by the failures of the past.

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They're afraid because they're baffled by the challenge of the present. because they are agonized over the uncertainties of the future. Our nation is afraid of what the Russians may do and the Russians are afraid of what we may do. The Israeli are afraid of the Arabs and the Arabs are afraid of the Israeli. Our

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world is in a climate of fear. There is fear of big government, fear of high places, fear of closed places, fear of other people, and fear of ourselves. We often fear the things that we hate. There are certain conscious fears which we can target. We know what they are. We can assemble our weapons and wage war against them. These fears are out in the

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open. We know what they are so we can prepare ourselves to cope with them. On the other hand, there are unconscious fears. There are hidden fears, fears that are tucked away in the closet of our lives that we are unaware of. We do not know that they are there, neither do we know why they are there. We are unaware of our fears because they are buried in the

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subconscious. Fear is in a room in the house of anxiety. We're nervous because we're scared, And we worry because we are afraid. We are anxious because we are fearful. There are fears, however, which are healthy.

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Then there are fears which are unhealthy. It pays good dividends to be afraid of a lion, be afraid of a rattlesnake. It is wise to be fearful in another sense of the eternal. For it is said that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

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So have that kind of reverence, to have that kind of respect, to have that kind of honor toward God that there are certain things that we do and certain things that we refuse to do because of this fear. This is the beginning of wisdom.

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It is good to recognize, however, that there are unhealthy fears which undermine our confidence. They cripple and dwarf our spiritual development. fear keeps us from being ourselves, keeps us from developing our God-given abilities, and fear prevents us from reaching our potential. The wicked and slowful servant who buried his

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talent in the earth said to his master, "I was afraid." And he asked, "Why did you do this? Why didn't you do like the others and go out and go to work and invest? He said I was afraid. Afraid to run the risk of investing himself. Afraid to share the gifts that he had been endowed with. afraid and fear you see was his trouble. Fear is a fact in life. There's no doubt about

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it many of us are afraid of each other. We're afraid. We're afraid to say certain things to certain people. We are afraid and many times we are afraid to say what ought to be said. We are afraid. And I think one of the problems that we have in this country, in this community, in our world in fact, is that we are afraid of each other. That's one of

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barriers of in race relations is that we are afraid we are fearful of those who belong to other races and then many times we are afraid of those who are within our own race we are afraid of that which we do not understand so first we need to try to understand what is the cause of our fears. Every one of us, if we would

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be truthful, we would admit that there is something and sometimes someone that we are afraid of. We ought to ask ourselves the question, "What am I afraid of?" And sometimes what we think is happening is not taking place at all. You know that story of Chicken Little, Chicken Little, an acorn just fell and Chicken Little ran around

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saying the sky has fallen, sky has fallen. Hers was a message of fear. We need to carefully consider the world around us. We are fearful of the fire, fearful of what the fire may be, what the fire may do to us, we are fearful of what the water may do to us. But you know fear comes from

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putting our trust in something that is ultimately untrustworthy. I want to say that again, that Fear comes from putting our trust in that which is ultimately untrustworthy. Fear is based on an idle God. It is to put one's confidence in that which is unable to deliver.

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Fear is a false God. The psalmist here says I Put my trust in God and He delivered me

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from all of my fears And so some people who find it difficult to sleep at night Some who must always sleep with a gun under the pillow.

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And some who have gone to a great deal of expense to put high fences and bars to be sure that you're protected and all of these things somehow still leave us in a state of fear. It's like Reinhold Niebuhr said that America will all of her weaponry,

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will all of the power that we have in a military way, and you would think that we would be more secure than ever before in our history, But that's not the case. He goes on to point out that we are more fearful than we have ever been before.

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So you see the the the weapons of the world don't mean that you can eradicate fear. You can have all the guns that you can possess, but that doesn't mean that you have conquered fear.

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There was a man who lived in Waco that I had the privilege of pastoring early in my ministry and He lived in a section Where he was the only person of color that lived in that section and it was a very dark period in that city they had

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lynched a black person during that period and Drug the person down the main streets of the city took him to the city square and

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sold the links of the chain and the teeth of the individual for 50 cents and 25 cents and yet he lived there and he was a blacksmith

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And there are just certain things that he wouldn't take and And when he was threatened, he just said, "Now if anyone puts his feet in that front yard, "they will drop right there."

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Well, they said he was crazy. They said that man doesn't have good sense. That man was Mr. Hines, who was a father, Papa Hines, that we know in this community.

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had the courage and he had what the other people had what H. Rap Brown calls the equalizer the gun so when you have a gun the other person ever has a gun well you're both equal so this is sort of an equalizing effect but that doesn't really mean that you have eradicated fear. You see fear is a is a false God

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and it comes from putting your trust in that which is not trustworthy. Sure if If you can keep a person fearful, you don't have to worry about it if you keep them scared. I remember when I was a boy in my class

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in elementary school, it was much larger than I was. He was, I think he's about almost seven feet now. He was always, he was the tallest person in the class. But I could just bluff him and push him around

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'cause he was fearful. But one day when I pushed him around, he decided to stand his ground. And you'll never know how that scared me. Because he was no longer fearful.

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And that's the way life is. We find ourselves running away from problems and running away from challenges because we are fearful. We bow before the false god of fear. When the false god of fear gets into our lives,

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it torments us and it troubles us and it does this all along the way. The Israelites were in captivity and the Egyptians were able to maintain this captivity as long as they could keep them fearful. And so they were afraid. They were afraid of Pharaoh's army.

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They were afraid of his weapons of destruction. When they had the courage to leave Egypt, they reached a point of crisis as they were down at the Red Sea. There was the water before them, the raging waters of the sea were before them, And there was Pharaoh's army behind them and they were fearful.

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Fearful because somehow they thought that the waters would swallow them up if they entered the waters and if they did not they would be overcome by Pharaoh's army. And Moses cried unto the Lord. And we cried unto the Lord and the Lord said, "Well, you shall stand still.

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Don't be scared. Don't be fearful stand still and you will see the salvation of the Lord fear of The unknown fear of the difficult fear of hardships Well, they were tormented and troubled all along the way, you know the story of the wilderness wanderings

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Those who worship this false god called fear constantly Was saying let's go back to Egypt And they wandered for some 40 years and finally they

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came to the edge of Canaan and then there was fear as to how they were going to cross the Jordan but in the midst of all of their fears there was that faithful trust in the ultimate and Joshua led them across the Jordan and it wasn't over then because they still had battles to fight So you see life is a struggle but the best antidote for fear is faith. Faith in

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the living God and I'm not talking about some kind of weak flabby faith but a faith that will not shrink that authentic faith that genuine faith that overcomes fear and as Franklin Roosevelt said we have nothing to fear but fear itself so in order to overcome fear we have to get close to God some think that

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well the material things if I have enough of that I'll be secure but I know I know some people now who have a great deal I know one man who has a million dollars he's worth he's worth over a million dollars and he's afraid as to how he's gonna make it he's afraid that that as inflation eats away into this that

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that he won't have what he now has and he's disturbed he's fearful about what's going to happen fearful of the material and many of us are like that we are fearful about whether or not we're going to have the kind of job we'd like to have, fearful about whether or not we're going to be able to have the kind of living conditions, but

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fear is that which undermines our confidence and it keeps us from being ourselves. Fear of other people keeps us from having the kind of fellowship that we are made to enjoy. Fear ourselves keeps us from being what God wants us to be. But we have been told to endure hardships as a good soldier. So don't flinch, don't run away. Whenever you

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face a crisis, the first thing that the demonic forces of this world seek to do is to make you afraid and then we begin to run but whenever you face the hardships of life don't think that God has been unkind listen to the words in this world you shall have tribulation but be of good cheer I have overcome the

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world so be not fearful don't be afraid don't be afraid about how we're gonna make it tomorrow that's what Jesus is saying he said don't be anxious don't be fearful. Don't worry about whether or not you're going to have bread on the table. Consider the lilies of the field and consider the sparrow and if God takes care of them how much more important are you in his scheme of things.

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"Fear not, fearful, fear not what men may do to you, fear not." That's the first word that we have in the advent of the Savior in this world, in the flesh. "Fear not, for behold I bring you tidings of bread joy, fear not." And in the midst of every crisis that you face, the word comes, "Fear not!"

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Jesus says, "Fear not, little flock, for it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." And so what really enables us to overcome fear is our commitment to the living Lord of history, the Lord of hosts who controls nature and who controls men. Our refuge is in Him. When you really know the Lord, when you really understand what it is to walk with the Lord,

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when you really have your hand in His hands, you don't have anything to fear. And the extent to which we fear is the extent to which we are not in right relationship to God when we are afraid as to what's going to happen. Thursday of this past week

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The afternoon there was no session being held I'd made arrangements for one of the deacons man some 60 years of age To take me to an island that was near my beat some 20 miles away to where he lived

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place called Sandy Island An island is just inhabited by black folk until recently some 200 black folk live on that island. No school on the island No paved roads just sand and so they call it Sandy Island But when I asked him about taking me there I wanted to see this island and

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visit there for sometime He said well Reverend you sure you want to go that out?

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He said, "You have to get in a boat and you have to ride in that boat a mile or two in order to get to the island." Well, I don't swim. So I said, "Well, do you have a life jacket in the boat?"

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He said, "Yes." I said, "Well, you go there every day, don't you?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Well, I can go there every day."

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He said, "Well, you can go there every day." I said, "Well, I can go there every day." He said, "Well, you can go there every day." I said, "Well, you can go there every day."

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He said, "Well, you can go there every day." I said, "Well, you can go there every day." He said, "Well, you can go there every day." I said, "Well, you go there every day, don't you?"

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He said, "Yes." I said, "Well, I can go too." That's your home. That's the only way he has to go home. But the first thing he said was to let me know that there was the water there. And if I was so fearful that I didn't want to run the risk of getting in the boat and getting on that water,

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the boat that he was going to drive, if I didn't have enough faith to do that, then of course I would have said no I don't think I'm going to go. And so that was the first thing and many times when we are told what the challenge is, someone would always tell us well there's the water there and there's a certain risk that you have to take. There are the raging waters of life and the winds are howling and the waves are angry

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and the boat is there but God has sent Jesus and he is in the boat and we can he'll get in the boat with us and when we can go safely to the other side so the stars will come but you need not fear ye fearful saints fresh courage take for the clouds you so much dread and shall break in blessings over your

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head so don't run away don't be afraid don't become hysterical be of good cheer fear not be of good cheer so your refuge is in God some people are scared of what what somebody's gonna say about it. And they go to pieces when they hear some malicious gossip that's directed toward them.

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But the word is still not that this, if you would be a good soldier, if you're gonna be a good soldier, you can't be just flabby, sitting around with everything going your way. In order to be a good soldier, you have to endure harm. So whatever someone says, something, whatever life, go forth and use the grain and you can expose yourself to it, sir. The pleasure as well as the pain.

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God is equipping us to be a good soldier. A good soldier. Refuge is in God. Storms are going to rain, but our refuge is in God. And that's what the psalmist is talking about David says he delivered me from all of my fears Oh I had my fears but God, God my trust in God delivered me, he delivered me from all of my fears

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God is our refuge, our strength, our very present help in time of trouble He'll deliver us, he'll deliver us from all of our fears no matter what may happen He's able to deliver us from all of our fears. Mountains may be carried into the midst of the sea.

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Ground on which we stand may be moved from underneath our feet. And the waters may roar and be troubled, but be still and know that I am God. Be not afraid. Don't be fearful. Trust God. Love Him. For a perfect love casts out all fear.

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So as we sing now the hymn of invitation, "We Shall Overcome." overcome fear by trusting in God. Trust in God. Commit yourself to God.

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Well, Lord, I don't know what's going to happen to my-- I don't have any deep anxiety about getting old, because I know that the world is in your hands. Trust God.

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Yes. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust Him. And put in your trust in God.

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[Music] (dramatic music) [MUSIC] (dramatic music)

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(dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music)

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[Music] We shall overcome. We shall overcome. We shall overcome someday. ♪ Holy infant ♪

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♪ How I love you ♪ ♪ How I do believe ♪ ♪ In the power of your love ♪ ♪ We shall overcome someday ♪

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♪ The Lord will see us through ♪ ♪ The Lord will see us through ♪ ♪ The Lord will see us through ♪ ♪ Now and ever ♪

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♪ Holy is ♪ ♪ In my heart ♪ ♪ I do believe ♪ ♪ The Lord will see us through someday ♪

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♪ We're on to victory ♪ ♪ Run to victory ♪ ♪ Run to victory ♪ ♪ Someday ♪

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♪ Oh, deep in my heart ♪ ♪ I do believe ♪ ♪ The new victories ♪ ♪ Are ready ♪

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♪ We shall overcome ♪ ♪ We shall overcome ♪ ♪ We shall overcome ♪ ♪ One day ♪

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♪ Hold deep in my heart ♪ ♪ I do believe ♪ ♪ We shall overcome ♪ ♪ Someday ♪

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[Music] O God in heaven, creator, maker of the entire universe, We thank thee for our presence this morning. We have come and have assembled ourselves together

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to mingle our voices and to sing praises to glorify thy holy name. We pray, O God, if thou would clean the thoughts of our hearts as we come to this communion. Enlighten our minds by the Holy Spirit. Deliver us, O God, from all our incentive to be in satisfaction with ourselves. We come, O God, confessing our faults, confiding in Thy grace.

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We realize, O God, that You made us and You know all about us. You know our hearts, You know our minds. We ask thee, O God, to go with us, guide our feet around pit holes, sometime our eyesight are dim.

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