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[Silence] [Music] [Music] [Music]

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♪ Is through His blood ♪ ♪ I've been delivered ♪ ♪ Through His blood ♪ ♪ I've been set free ♪

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[music] I've been washed in the blood of the Lamb. I've been set free by God's own hand. Deliver, deliver, deliver, deliver, deliver.

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I've been set free through his blood. I've been given through his blood. I've been set free. I've been washed in the blood of the lamb.

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I've been set free by God's own hand. ♪ He lives ♪ ♪ He lives ♪ ♪ I've been set free ♪

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♪ He used my shadow ♪ ♪ And he set me free ♪ ♪ He gave me love, joy, and peace ♪ ♪ And also happiness ♪

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♪ I've been delivered, delivered, delivered, delivered, delivered, delivered ♪ ♪ I've been set free, oh ♪ ♪ He loosed my shackles and he set me free ♪ ♪ He made me love joy and peace and wholesome happiness ♪

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♪ Deliver, deliver ♪ ♪ Deliver, deliver ♪ ♪ Deliver, deliver ♪ ♪ I've been set free ♪

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♪ He loosed my shackles ♪ ♪ And he set me free ♪ ♪ He gave me love, joy and peace ♪ ♪ And all such happiness ♪

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♪ You are, you are, you are, you are, you are ♪ ♪ I've been set free ♪ ♪ The queen of all emerging ♪ ♪ To hear the God that roamed ♪

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♪ But else it break the fashion ♪ ♪ Which I could not of my soul ♪ ♪ I've heard the voice of my Savior ♪ ♪ He leads me still by all ♪

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♪ He's not a never to leave me ♪ ♪ Never to leave me alone ♪ ♪ No, never alone ♪ ♪ No, never alone ♪

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♪ He taught us never to leave me ♪ ♪ Never to leave me alone ♪ ♪ No, never alone ♪ ♪ You're never alone ♪

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♪ Keep proud and never leave me ♪ ♪ Never leave me alone ♪ ♪ The world will be in trouble ♪ ♪ If you're gracious, strong and mean ♪

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♪ I have a place in all of you ♪ I say, just stand between me. We stand to shield thee from danger. We all are friends of thee.

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We promise never to leave thee, never to leave thee alone. I'm going to read the Scripture passage again using the New English Revised Translation.

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When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit in state on his throne with all the nations gathered before him. He will separate men into two groups as a shepherd separates sheep from goats, and he shall place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left.

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Then the king will say to those on his right hand, "You have my father's blessing. enter and possess the kingdom that has been ready for you since the world was made. But when I was hungry, you gave me food. When thirsty, you gave me drink.

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When I was a stranger, you took me into your home. When naked, you clothed me. When I was ill, you came to my help. When I was in prison, you visited me.

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Then the righteous shall reply, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and fed you thirsty and gave you drink, a stranger and took you home, a naked and clothed you. And the king will answer, I tell you this, anything you did for one of my brothers here, however humble, you did it for me.

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Then he will say to those on the left hand, "The curse is upon you. Go from my sight to the eternal fire that is ready for the devil and his angels." I want to talk about the final judgment, the final judgment. This is a story Jesus told about the judgment of God.

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There is a final judgment day when God will righten all wrongs. There is a set time when the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked will be punished. The Old Testament calls this the day of the Lord. It is reckoning day.

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It is a time of harvest. It is the final examination. The outcome of cases that are considered in our courts It depends on the courts and the judges.

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Some cases are moved to courts that are out of the jurisdiction in efforts to secure justice. Justice Clarence Thomas, who was appointed to the bench to serve where Thurgood Marshall had served,

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some time ago made this statement people who did not agree with him and did not seem to appreciate his decisions. He said, "You're going to have me around a long time, so you just as well get used to it." Well, we're going to have God around a long time, so we need to seriously consider his final examination.

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We have judges who serve in a variety of courts, district courts, state, federal, Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is the court of last resort. There is no escape. It is unavoidable, Judgment Day.

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It's sure to come. as our ancestors were saying, "That awful day will surely come when I must meet my God." Jesus here presents a picture of the judgment scene. It is an accounting time when the sum total of all we have said and done will be considered.

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One final examination. When I was in seminary, I had a British professor, and he had his class set up according to their system even though he was in this country. He taught church history and that course lasted one year. There was only one examination that was at the end

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of the year. There was no other exam. There was no makeup. That was just it. And on arrival, the students informed me of that. There was a great deal of anxiety among those who took that course under him.

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It was a very trying experience. If you had any questions, you didn't ask them in class, you had to make an appointment with him in his office. I had some difficulty because I thought that I was a lover of history but I couldn't understand

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him. He spoke with a British accent. And many times when he told a joke in class, by the time I realized what it was, it was too late to laugh.

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But it was one exam. One exam. knew that this was the way one exam. Well, we have one final exam before the Creator and the Judge of the universe. This is what Jesus is picturing for us in this scene. It's

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It's not something that can be prepared for by teaching the test. It's something that God gives. He knows all about those who are taking it. He is the judge who appears at the end of history.

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It's the time when the crooked is made straight. It's the time when every valley is exalted and every mountain and hill brought low. It's the final judgment. The final judgment is a scene in which the sheep and the goats appear.

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They appear. They've been grazing in the pasture together, and now they appear at the final judgment together, the sheep and the goats. the time when they were grazing out there in the pasture they could mingle

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one with the other but now as they come to the final judgment scene the shepherd the chief shepherd separates sheep from goats it is said that in Palestine that the sheep were white and the goats were black be that as it is they're are separated at the final judgment scene.

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The goats go to the left, the sheep go to the right. The judge's decision is based on loving kindness and compassion. He says to the sheep who are on his right hand,

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I was hungry and you fed me. I was hungry. So often those we encounter in life, we have a tendency to put them in certain pigeonholes.

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We make judgments on the basis of the clothes people wear. and the car that a person drives. We make final judgments as far as our opinions are concerned based on those things. But here is a standard.

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The shepherd says, "I was hungry and you fed me." which means that those who are often considered by society as outcasts, those who come to the soup kitchen, "I was hungry and you fed me." Then notice that as he goes down the line, "I was thirsty and you gave me drink."

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Each one of these has "I's." It's very personal, very personal. "I" and "you." So it is our confrontation by, with, or before the chief shepherd. "I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me drink." Now, the goats are condemned, and the sheep are sent to the right, where they receive,

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"Come ye, blessed of my Father, enter into the joys that have been prepared for you since the foundation of the world." those who are sent to the right said Lord when did we see you? When? In other words it seems that that Jesus here is incognito he's he's among us and we don't recognize him and that's

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the way it was when he walked the streets of Palestine when he went into the synagogues when he went to the temples he was there but they didn't recognize who he was. As the old spiritual puts it, "didn't know who you were." They didn't know. They didn't recognize who he was. So the goats are

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condemned. The sheep are condemned. When did we see? When? They seem not to recollect when they engaged in these ministries, when did we see? You know, so often we're prone to remember every little good thing that we do, but they have done some good here and they don't seem to remember. I had a friend and I borrowed $300 from him and

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I told him I was going to pay him at a certain time about three months later. So So three months later I encountered him and I handed him a check for the $300. And he said, "Rev. what is this for?" He didn't seem to have remembered that he let me have the $300.

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And I never forgot that because he was always doing something good and he was sober-minded and all of that, but he did not remember. took the $300, but he didn't remember. What is expected of us is to participate in random acts of kindness.

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Random acts of kindness. Just as a matter of course you do this. Random acts of kindness. not inviting those to dinner who invited me, but random, just anybody you may see,

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random acts of kindness. So they receive this commendation, "Enter into the joy." It's a joy that comes in just doing good and forgetting about...they forgot themselves into immortality. They forgot. They had provided food for the hungry, they provided water for the thirsty, they provided shelter for those who

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needed it, those who were ill and those who were in prison. You know all of these are outcasts. They're outcasts. Hungry? We pass by the hungry every day with signs You know, people who are thirsty, need water, we pass by those people on a regular basis. But this is done to the Master, the one who is the judge of our lives.

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This is the basis on which he judges us. I was sick, I was hungry, I was in prison, prison. You know, in my ministry I've tried to arouse some people for prison ministry, and they thought I was crazy.

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But we have people in prison, prison, and they are sort of cast away. I was in college I I worked in a restaurant in downtown Marshall and one of my duties was to take food to the prison and they sent the worst food they had to the prison they said the container was an old tin pan with the

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food in it that they couldn't break up or anything the prison so the prison I had no time for prison, but here comes the judge who says, "I was in prison." The Lord above the earth in prison. I was in prison, and you cared for me.

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I was not neglected. I was in prison. I was sick. I was an outcast, but you had time for me.

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You provided for me in the midst of it all. When did we see you? When did we see you, Lord? When?

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I got a call from my wife several years ago. I was in the office and she said Marvin there's a lady here that needs our help. I said what is it? Well this lady had come to Austin with the promise of a job and after arriving here she found that there was no job. She knew no one here and she

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was out in the cold so to speak. Well what do you want to do? Well let's take her in. We don't know this lady but let's take her in and try to work with her until she gets a job. We have an extra room upstairs we are using. I paused for a moment and said all all right. So we put the lady in that room, that guest room, and in that guest room my

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wife had a special spread, beautiful spread, very expensive bed spread, so much so it was considered off limits. I was only to go in with special permission. And so this lady was given that room and she stayed there for a short time in the room and my wife came upstairs to sort of check on her and found her on top of the spread with

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her shoes on and she called me again come get this lady out of here and so I went home where we're gonna put the lid I don't know where we put her but she must get out of here. And so I checked around and I found this lady a room

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at Motel 6. Now it was a long, it's a long way, so to speak, from that room she was occupying to Motel 6. But that's what happened to her

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by not having the right response. So you see, I thought I'd better qualify this, what to do and when to do it. When shall we?

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Because sometimes when we are entertaining, we may get a goat instead of a sheep. So, when saw we thee? That's the question. It's a question that I ask myself every time I pass somebody who has a handout. And I wonder whether or not this is the sheep or the goat.

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And somehow we've got to make a judgment and that judgment is based on the Spirit of God leading us and That and that and that that that that judgment when when it's made and led By the Spirit of God we have a certain satisfaction in knowing that we have done this to the glory of God

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so when when The Son of Man comes in His glory when He comes. He shall separate.

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At our best we make mistakes, but He shall separate the sheep from the goats. He shall send the sheep to the right and the goats to His left. And I know that those of us who have followed on this faith journey

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And the steps of the master want to be sent to the right We want to be simply come He says to those who go to the right come. Oh, I know you've been on the journey a long time, but come Come you blessed of my father and enter into the joy

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That have been prepared for you since the foundation of the world. Oh, that's good news That's good news when you've done the best that you can and and even though there are those who misunderstand Here is why saying come come

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Come ye that love the Lord and let your joys Be known join in the song with sweet accord and thus surround the throne come Come that's that's the word that he extends to those of us who follow in his train who go the upward way come ye bested of my father well the thing I

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want to tell you is as we come to the close here what he says he says in as much in as much well maybe you couldn't do as much as somebody else but it has much as you have done it this is proportionate into into according to your resources according to what's available to you in as much as you have

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done it to the least you have to select some important person to do a lot for you on that basis but in as much as you have done it to the least of these my brethren oh that's what really grips me when I read that my brethren you know what the King the one who judges us is our brother he knows the loads that we

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carry he knows the burdens that are ours he knows the sorrows that we experience he is our brother and that's good news that the one who judges us is our brother as we extend the invitation now we give the opportunity to accept Jesus Christ the one sent by the Father who lived among us as our brother to accept him as

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Savior and Lord. I invite you to come. The door of the church is open. You may come by letter, on Christian experience, or on professional faith.

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We invite you to come, accepting Jesus Christ as Lord of your life. Come. ♪ Here with you here ♪

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♪ The birds of your sky ♪ ♪ Tell the world ♪ ♪ That the Savior has come ♪ ♪ He that is great ♪

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♪ When in your need we come ♪ ♪ He'll understand and save you now ♪ ♪ He will die for you, you know I heard him ♪ ♪ Hear it out loud, and the battle is won ♪

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♪ There is no spell and prologue we can't find ♪ ♪ We'll understand and save the world ♪ ♪ He's our God, our Savior, our Saviour ♪ ♪ Oh, come now ♪

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♪ He was God's only Son ♪ ♪ All fear Him now ♪ ♪ In His power He'll mend ♪ ♪ No one can stand ♪

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♪ The line He has ♪ ♪ Oh, when I come to give of my journey ♪ ♪ The weary of hope and the lonely one ♪ ♪ Carry the weight of the cross of redemption ♪

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♪ We'll understand ♪ ♪ And say, well done ♪ ♪ All the life now ♪ ♪ To live for my world ♪

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♪ Oh, dearie, oh, oh ♪ ♪ And the battle is won ♪ Every man, man, and rose of redemption, He'll understand and say, well done.

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Amen. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]