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[ Silence ] [MUSIC] The Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Who shall I give to him? [MUSIC]

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[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

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[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

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[MUSIC] ♪ He shall hide me ♪ ♪ In the time of trouble ♪ ♪ He shall hide me ♪

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♪ In the time of trouble ♪ ♪ He shall hide me ♪ ♪ Who shall I fear ♪ ♪ Who shall I fear ♪

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♪ Who shall I fear ♪ ♪ Your law is the strength of my heart ♪ ♪ Who shall I fear ♪ ♪ We'll wait on the Lord ♪

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♪ I'm gonna be a good courage ♪ ♪ Just wait on the Lord ♪ ♪ And be of good courage ♪ ♪ Wait on the Lord ♪

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♪ And be of good courage ♪ ♪ He shall sprint the night on ♪ ♪ Shall I fear ♪ ♪ Whom shall I fear ♪

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♪ The Lord is the strength of my heart ♪ ♪ Who shall I be ♪ - Have a future that we would like to see realized in our time.

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Here the prophet Isaiah talks about the future that God promises

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his people. Though the time may be dark, there may be injustice

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and oppression, But there is a brighter future. And this is the future. It is called the new age.

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And I'm not talking about the new age religions that we have on the scene that may identify it with our time. But a new order, this new age. Not only is it a new day, it's a new order,

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it's a presence that the world has not known before, the future that is promised. I heard during the days of my youth, my father and others always talking about

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when that ship would come in, what's going to happen when that new day came and it never seemed quite to arrive. It was always coming.

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A new age. We have studied about various ages, the periods of our history, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Industrial Age,

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all of these are ages that identify a kind of, a particular kind of civilization. But Isaiah comes forth with poetic praise concerning the new age, which is completely unlike

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any age that humankind has experienced. has experience. It is an age that is different because in a sense we describe our ages as far as civilization is concerned by the weapons.

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We talk about the pelt down man, well we talk about using sticks and clubs, then we come to the stone age, he had little better weapons. He had weapons that were made of stone and then of course we we have the iron, the bronze, and the weapons are made of those materials and they

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identify them, they classify the kind of progress that we have experienced. But But this new age that Isaiah speaks of comes out of the old age. The old age fades away and the new age emerges. A rod shall come out of the root or the stump of Jesse.

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a new age will come. An age that is radically different. The divinic line is not dead. Although the tree is reduced to a stump, life remains.

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A new sprout shall come from the old stump, And that is a sign of the coming of the new age, this new future which is promised. The new age is not described by any particular weapons.

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The tree has been cut down, that old tree has been cut down. The monarchy is no more. The kingdom is divided. The northern kingdom is no more.

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Southern kingdom has ceased to exist. Only the stump remains. But don't give up on this old stump. Do not think that because the stump remains,

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and that is all that we see, do not I think that the tree has no future. A shoot shall come out of the stump of Jesse, and a branch, a tender plant, shall grow out of its roots.

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Old stumps produce new roots. Don't give up on the stumps because they're old. Old is the means through which the new appears. The old age passes, the new age emerges.

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A rod shall come from the stump of Jesse. The ages of humankind are known by their identification with carnal weapons, as I said, but the new age is identified with the realm of the spirit.

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the Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. A new being in a history, the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him and God uses the existing order, the old, the lineage that has existed for thousands of years, God uses that same order through an infusion of his Spirit. Samson represented the old order and

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when Samson did something outstanding the scripture says that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he overcame many Philistines and he did this, he pulled down the pillars of the temple, all of that of the Philistines. When the Spirit of the Lord was upon him he was able to do wonderful things. But here this

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new being that in his history it is said that the Spirit of the Lord will not just come occasionally, not visiting and then come back time and time again and visit, but the Spirit of the Lord shall rest, rest upon him. Always be present in him. Where

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the spiritual presence prevails, a tree may be cut down, but it is permitted to sprout again. The Spirit of the Lord. You see the Spirit knows us. The Spirit looks beyond our outward appearance. The Spirit considers the core of our being. So what we really are has to do with that Spirit which is at the

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core of our being. Oh we can dress up and look real good and still entertain evil thoughts in our being. But the spirit of the Lord, the trouble with the old order is that nations have not received the right counsel. That's the problem with the old order. Nations seek to be strong and to overcome other

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nations and the more nations you can overcome the greater the nation is regarded in our history. That's been the pilgrimage of Western man, what we call the desire to conquer. But here, this is

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a new order. An order that is not based on human judgments, not based on what we've heard, but an order that is based on eternal goodness,

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on eternal truth, and beauty. This is the new order. It's the hope of the new age. Decisive moments in history are introduced by a child. When God gets ready to do something significant and something decisive in history, it's all introduced by a child.

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Egypt had the people of God in bondage and when God looked and heard the cries of his people he introduced in human history a little child Moses and Moses delivered his people from Egyptian bondage. So the prophet here Isaiah informs a nation weary with the scourge of war that the new age is on the

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horizon. It's the Messianic Age. The Lord God Himself will invade history in a special and unique way. The New Age will come and this new age is a new gift which comes from an old source, a new sprout from an old stump. We do not seek a new world composed of new land and new geographical boundaries and new maps. We

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seek a new age controlled by the spiritual presence, not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. This is the word of the one who has legions of armies under his control. God is doing a new thing. He sends forth the rule of his spirit in the Messianic age. The new age has a new order. The wolf

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shall live with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid. The calf and the lion and the fatling together. A new age that comes. So Isaiah says it's coming so wait for it. That's the meaning of Advent season. It is sure to come but wait for it. It is not mere pleasant sounding poetry that we have here but it

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is a prophetic reality. The new order will come. And so Isaiah describes the kind of order, the kind of age that is coming. The wolf living with the lamb, the wolf is dedicated to destroying the lamb. The wolf is a dangerous animal and a symbol of destruction. The wolf and the leopard as well as the lion, all of these,

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the nature is changed here in this new age. The kingdom of David has fallen and there shall come a root out of the stump of Jesse. So hope is not destroyed. Tree may be cut down but a stump remains. The Spirit of God still lives and God reveals himself in new ways in human history. So you see we can't, we can't

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limit God and we cannot judge him by only what we've seen in the past. God is He's free to walk wonders in the future and to do a new thing in human history. So the Spirit of God lives. Today may appear to be a bad day. Evil forces may seem to be in control, but

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Tomorrow will come. Time when the wolf and the lamb lie down together. It's a time when the poor will receive justice. That'll be a new age.

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We look all around us and we see signs where the poor are exploited. You see a sign here where you can get your check cashed for 1%.

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And the poor, first of all, they don't receive much of a salary of what they should receive. And then they have to give 1% of that just to get it cashed. They don't have bank accounts.

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And the poor are getting poorer all the time. The system seems to exploit the poor. The poor. But in this new age, God's gonna correct all these wrongs.

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There will no longer be the exploitation of the poor, but the poor will receive justice. Another prophet said, "Every man," that means woman too, "will be free to sit under his own vine and fig tree,

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and there will be none to make him afraid. Now brothers and sisters, that's the age that will be free of terrorism. Until that age comes,

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we're always going to be tormented by terrorism. In this new age, the wolf shall lie down with the lamb. And I'm not talking about lying down

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with the lamb inside of him either. He will lie down with the lamb and these forces that are separate now and estranged from one another, there will be peace and whenever the wolf and the lamb lie down together that is a sign of peace. Peace. And we've had an ongoing struggle for peace.

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Peace. We were shown the little table on which the peace was signed in World War I. Palace of Versailles, we saw that table. but hardly had the ink dried on that peace agreement before we were making plans, there were plans being made for World War

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II. And so there's hardly been a time when we haven't had war at some place going on in this world. But the future, That is promise. Future.

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Is a future that is peace. You know from your own personal life that there's hardly been a time when you haven't had a struggle.

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You have to keep struggling on and on. It's always a struggle, always a new challenge that we must face, a struggle. But God promises to his people

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a new age in which there will be peace and there will be a new day so we look beyond the troubles of the present, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the The cow will graze with the bear. This order defies logic.

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It does not make sense according to what we are experiencing today. But it's a new age that God ushers in, and we're describing a state of affairs that is beyond sensory experience. It's beyond our reasoning to think of these things happening.

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But God's, in our relationship with him, we go beyond the rational to that which is irrational. God gives us peace in the midst of war. God gives us hope in the midst of despair. And this new age, my brothers and sisters, is on the horizon.

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It's coming! It's the Messianic Age and we look for it and we wait for it and when it comes we have to respond to it, giving God the thanks that peace is not a full-on hope. It's a reality present in the ongoing history of the world. nations will not always be at war, people will not always be engaged in cutthroat

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competition, the strong will not always oppress the weak, there's a new day on the horizon. We pray for it and we pray thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's the new age that is promised. So in this world, the wolf triumphs over the lamb. In this world, the leopard is victorious over the goat. In this world,

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the bear destroys the cow. In this world, we find ourselves victims of deadly weaponry, but the prophet tells us that there is another day. Prophet tells us there is a new age. Prophet tells us that the Messiah comes and as he comes he ushers in a new world, a new state of affairs in our lives and we wait for

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this world. We can't create it by our own wisdom. We can't create it by our own judgment. It's an age that God brings. The old order gone, yes, but God is granting to his people a new order. So, we wait for this new world. That's our hope. That's

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hope of the Christian community. We believe in our heart of hearts that this world, this new world will come. For the time being we just wait for it. So we find ourselves here in the time being so to speak and we wait for the after a while, not yet. We just wait for it because we want but we know that we

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cannot usher it in ourselves. We walk because we know that God himself will bring his kingdom on earth. So there is a new order, there's a new order. Heaven will come to earth, there is a new order. We may be cast down now but we will overcome. There is a new order. The righteous will be vindicated. We shall

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triumph over our enemies as a new order. The Messianic King comes to earth and as he comes he ushers in the new day that is based on the triumph of God's Spirit. So don't worry. Don't worry about the wolf. Don't worry about the wolf because there is one who will cause the wolf to lie down with the lamb Don't worry about the leopard, because there is one who will

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cause the leopard to be with the kid. Don't worry, because God comes. And then the prophet goes on to describe this new age as being one in which the snake is present, but the snake is not able to do what he normally does. Danger of the snake is that the snake is present

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and you don't know it until first thing you know he's crawling or he has bitten you. But in this new age the child shall play right around the hole where the snake is and there will be no harm. And a little child shall lead. It's difficult for us to even phantom this kind of age that the prophet is describing. But it's

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coming. And we are hooked up with it when we hook up with God. When we are with him, we are hooked up with the new age. I was in South Carolina during the 60s when we had the struggle going on for civil rights and I was invited to speak at Morris College to a group of students and I was talking about take no thought of tomorrow and those children in the assembly during that period they were

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smiling because they understood what it really meant. They were being put into the jails and several of them we visited, had been placed in hospitals and yet just a few moments after I spoke some of them were arrested again because they wanted to use the library and they want to use facilities that we should have

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been permitted to use anyway. But they were being-- and the sheriff was fussing and fuming and saying, you're not going to take this city.

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And yet they were smiling when they said, take no thought of tomorrow. They understood what that means. And as we understand the presence of this new age,

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right in here, your mind will somehow become lighter if you understand that God preparing a new age. The confusions of our time seem to sort of fade away, and you have a calm and blessed assurance

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because you are confident of what God's going to do, not only in your life, but what He's going to do in the world. He's going to bring a new order. So it's a new order that God God brings. So rejoice! Be glad. Rejoice! No matter how adverse may be the circumstances, rejoice!

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Because the rod will come out of the stem of Jesse, and a new age will be upon us that God himself rushes in and we can say thanks be to God, rejoice in our pain, rejoice even in disappointment because you have the abiding assurance that that new age is coming. As we sing the hymn of

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invitation, we extend the privilege of the church. There There is a brighter day. It's dark now. You're wondering how to find Ben Lawton

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and what's gonna happen in the relations between the Jews and the Arabs, but there is a brighter day on the horizon. Clouds will fade away and the sun will shine again

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in this new age. It will be eternal light forevermore. New age. (sniffles)

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♪ There's a brighter star ♪ ♪ Somewhere ♪ ♪ There's a bright side somewhere ♪ ♪ Don't you look ♪

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♪ 'Til you find it ♪ ♪ There's a bright side somewhere ♪ ♪ Say it again, there's a bright side ♪ There's a bright star somewhere

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There's a bright star somewhere Don't you stop until you find it ♪ Where the bright sun ♪ ♪ Is a-burning ♪

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♪ I know it's not ♪ ♪ I should leave it all behind ♪ ♪ And I fall down ♪ ♪ On my knees ♪

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I'm not. Hey. we gotta remind ourselves. Can I braid.

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♪ There's a bright side somewhere ♪ ♪ Don't you guess, no ♪ ♪ Will you find it ♪ ♪ There's a bright side somewhere ♪

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♪ Somewhere ♪ ♪ Somewhere ♪ ♪ There's a bright star ♪ ♪ Somewhere ♪

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♪ Don't you look ♪ Until you find it Where the blood starts Suffering

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[ Music ]