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[ Silence ] [THEME MUSIC] (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

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♪ Jesus, Jesus ♪ ♪ One more time ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus ♪ ♪ Angel of new life ♪

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♪ Bring angels to sing ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, glory, glory ♪ ♪ Glory to you, oh Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus ♪

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♪ Oh, what a wonderful child ♪ ♪ Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus ♪ ♪ Yes, oh glory be to my ♪ ♪ Through the fire, through the fire ♪

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♪ Through our hope, through our hope ♪ ♪ All we pray, we pray ♪ ♪ Listen to the angels sing ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, glory, glory to the new born king ♪

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♪ He was heralded by an angel ♪ ♪ Born in a lowly manger ♪ ♪ The Virgin Mary was his mother ♪ ♪ And Joseph was his earthly father ♪

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♪ Three wise men traveled from afar ♪ ♪ They were guided by a shining star ♪ ♪ To seek King Jesus ♪ ♪ Lay, lay, lay in a manger filled with hay ♪

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♪ Oh, Jesus ♪ ♪ Wanna call his name ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus, oh ♪

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♪ Oh, what a wonderful child ♪ ♪ Oh, precious Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus ♪

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♪ Wanna call his name ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, yeah ♪ ♪ Make him my new life ♪ ♪ New life ♪

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♪ New hope ♪ ♪ New hope ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, glory to the new born King ♪ ♪ Whoa, he was herald by an angel ♪

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♪ Born in a lowly manger ♪ ♪ The Virgin Mary was his mother ♪ ♪ And he was a good man ♪ ♪ He was a good man ♪

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♪ And Joseph was a lovely father ♪ ♪ Wise men traveled from afar ♪ ♪ They were guided, guided by a shining star ♪ ♪ You know what, they were seeking King Jesus ♪

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♪ While they lay in a manger filled with hay ♪ ♪ I wanna call his name this morning ♪ ♪ Jesus ♪ ♪ Yes, I do ♪

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♪ Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus ♪ ♪ What a wonderful child ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus ♪

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♪ Jesus, Jesus ♪ ♪ There's a savior, so holy ♪ ♪ Make him mine ♪ ♪ New life, new hope ♪

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♪ Holy priest ♪ ♪ Listen, seems like I can hear him singing right now ♪ ♪ Oh, glory, glory, glory ♪ ♪ Oh, glory, glory, glory ♪

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♪ To the newborn king ♪ ♪ Oh, Jesus ♪ ♪ Somebody ought to call his name ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus, oh ♪

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♪ Oh, what a wonderful child ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus, Jesus ♪ ♪ There's a savior, so holy ♪ ♪ So holy ♪

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♪ Make him mine ♪ ♪ New life, new hope ♪ ♪ Holy Grail ♪ ♪ Listen, can you hear them singing ♪

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♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ Oh glory, glory, glory, glory ♪ ♪ To the newborn King ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, glory, glory ♪

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♪ To the newborn King ♪ ♪ Glory, glory, glory, glory ♪ ♪ Glory to the new ♪ ♪ Newborn, oh ♪

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♪ The newborn, newborn king ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh yes he comes ♪ - The one who comes to meet us.

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- Amen. The one who comes to meet us. Are you the one who is to come, or are we to look for another? It's interesting to observe persons who are seeking

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to meet someone, and they don't know exactly who the someone may be. Some have their name written on a sheet of paper that they show, pass it from one to another.

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Other name may be written on poster. Others have the name announced, requesting that the named person meet them at the information desk. Sometimes complete strangers are approached,

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all in an attempt to locate the person who is the object of the search. I am when there are many false messiahs. I remember in the days of my youth,

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Father Divine, who claimed to be God. He said that he was not God, but he produced God. And he had two heavens, one in Harlem and another in Philadelphia.

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[INTERPOSING VOICES] When I was younger, I visited the heaven in Philadelphia. But it was not quite like the heaven I had envisioned. [LAUGHTER]

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As I recall, Father Divine had some domestic problems. He had two wives, one black and another white. And he divorced, or they separated the first wife. And then he died mysteriously.

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There was no funeral. He just disappeared. Father Divine was a false messiah. During this time also, there was another false messiah

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whose name was Daddy Grace. He was usually attired in dazzling white suits and was carried from place to place in a sleek Cadillac. But Daddy Grace went the way of all flesh.

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He died. And then there came another that many of us younger persons will remember, Father Jones. He had a number of followers and they went away to Guyana. They were going to create a new world order, but it did not work out, for they all died,

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Father Jones and his followers, in a suicide pact. And he disappeared from this earthly scene. After that came David Koresh, who was located near the bonnie banks of the Brazos in Waco, And you know the story, how he and his followers made their exit from this worldly scene in

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a blaze of fire that destroyed them all. They were all false messiahs. People were looking for a messiah, but they did not find the answer in either of these. Father Divine, Daddy Grace, Father Jones, or David Koresh.

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So this is not a new thing. The church has been looking, the world has been looking a long time, asking the question, "Are you the one, or shall we look for another? Are you the one, the special one, the particular one, the most unusual one?

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Are you the one that should come, or should we look for another? Now, the Advent season is the period leading up to Christmas, and the word "Advent" means "coming." Are you the one that is coming?

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There is another word that is associated with coming, and that is parousia, which is a Greek word that has to do with coming. The early Christians anxiously looked forward to the coming of Jesus Christ. They called it, at least many of us have named it, the Second Coming.

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He had been here once and was crucified, suffered an ignoble death, and he went away from this world. He descended into hell in his death and he came back from the grave. Some call that the second coming.

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And the coming which we are yet looking forward to, they call the third coming. They looked anxiously, I said, for the second coming of Jesus. When will he come? And Paul wrote saying that it's like a thief, he's like a thief in the night.

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don't know when he is coming. But the church looked anxiously looking forward to that day they thought that Jesus may come any moment. Some of them in there in the first century gave up their jobs and just waiting for Jesus to come back. And And Paul issued a mandate, if they don't work,

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they shouldn't eat. So that changed it. But what really occurred, the church, when it became identified with the empire,

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when the Christian religion became the religion of the Roman Empire, when that occurred, then the church being prosperous and identified with the state, identified with what we call today civil religion, when that happened,

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then Christians began to pray that Jesus would delay his coming. So people today, in large measure aren't anxious for Jesus to come if they tell the truth. We're not ready for him to come. It's like the story of the man who prayed, you know, every night he prayed that the Lord would come and take him home to heaven. And some of his friends, since

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he was praying at the same spot every night, they decided to get under the tree there and And when he was praying, they said to him, "John, I have come for your soul." And he said, "Wait, Lord, I have some business that I need to take care of." So the church began to pray that Jesus would delay his coming.

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And you ought to understand that. Delay. Not like for you to come, but not today. Delay it.

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So, who is this one that we look forward to coming? So Jesus, or we can say Christ, Jesus Christ has come, Jesus Christ is coming, and Jesus Christ will come again. And if you remember those three lines, you have remembered the sermon.

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Jesus Christ is, has come. Jesus Christ is coming. And Jesus Christ is coming again. He's come.

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He has visited planet earth. He has dwelt among us. And the scripture says, "We beheld his glory." He is a historical reality.

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He has come. He has--he suffered under Pontius Pilate. So his coming on this earth, the fact that he has been here is well documented by official records.

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He has come. He is coming. He is in history. He is marching on through history.

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No matter what is happening in the world, the world is still a better place because he has been here. And it's getting better. He is still coming.

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Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed his fateful lightning of his powerful swift sword. His truth is marching on glory,

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glory, glory. Hallelujah. His truth is marching on. He's, he's marching through history. We, we, we see it in what is happening in the world. the time is drawing nigh. God may not come in the way that we

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want him to, and he may not come in the way when we want him to, but one thing is certain, he's coming. And the ancient creed of says that he is coming again in glory. He's now seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty and he's coming again

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in victory. He's coming. And John gives us a picture of this in the book of Revelation when he says, "I looked and I saw a that was in the midst of heaven. And there was not a committee that sat upon the throne. Only one was on the throne. And there

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were seven seals. And they were looking for someone who could open the seals. And John said, "I will." Because there was nobody to open the seals. But he said, one spoke and said, "Do not we, for the Lion of the tribe of Judah is able to open the seals." And he opens the seals. You see, Jesus

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is able to open the mysteries of your life, the things that make no sense, the absurdities as well as the anxieties of our lives, Jesus comes and somehow we're able to reconcile many of these things that seem so out of place. He comes, he comes.

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This is the mystery of our history. Christ is, has come. Christ is coming. Christ is coming again.

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So the early Christians greeted one another by saying, "Maranatha," which is another Greek word that means, "Come, Lord Jesus." And so when you open your Bible, the last thing that's stated

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there in the book of Revelation is "Maranatha," "Come, come." And it's translated not only "Come," but "Come soon." So here we come today to celebrate the coming of the Lord. John's disciples visited, John's disciples visited the disciples of Jesus and they come

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asking this searching question. John really wants to know things aren't working out. He has come to prepare the way for the coming of the king and things aren't working out.

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In fact, Herod has risen up against John, cast him into prison and John thought that if the Messiah came that all of these things would be a thing of the past,

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but it hadn't worked out that way. And we want to know, are you the one? Or shall we look for someone else? Many times we wonder.

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We wonder about the coming of the Lord in our lives. And he comes and so many things happen that we think that ought not to happen. And we look about and we wonder,

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Lord, are you really here? Are you really with me? are you involved in this struggle? Where are you?" "Where is God?" we ask so many times. But He is not only present--and

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that's the second word for "advent"--means that He's present. He's present with us in our struggles. He's present with us in our disappointment. He's present when our dreams are He's there with us.

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He comes. Thanks be to God. He comes. He comes to carry us from a higher to a higher level of life.

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He comes. There was a store that was built in Philadelphia that was named Wanamaker's. And when it was built as a department store some years ago,

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it was considered one of the largest department stores in the world. But after the store was built after some time, people had difficulty because it was so large

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that they went into the store and they got lost. And the management considered it, and they came up with this solution that they would have on the first floor,

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a centralized place, a fountain. And they put words over that fountain, "Meet me at the fountain." So then when people came into the store,

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they went from one place to the next, one floor to the next. But they said to one another, "Meet me at the fountain." Before they left, they said, "Meet me at the fountain." Well, the one who comes to meet us has left us a good word.

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In the midst of all of the turmoil that we may suffer, there is this word, meet me at the fountain. In the midst of all of the frustrations that we may experience, there is this comforting word

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from the Lord of life, meet me at the fountain. And someday, somewhere, we shall meet Him at the fountain. This is the word, it's good news, because He's the only one.

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Oh, we have many, many, many religions, but there's a certain commonality. He is the one that can give meaning to our lives. He's the one that gives hope.

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He's the one that gives us strength in the midst of our difficulties. He is the one who comes to help us. As we come to this point in our service,

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we extend the invitation to Christian discipleship. It's the invitation to accept Jesus Christ as Lord of your life. We invite you to come by letter, by Christian experience,

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on profession of faith, because he is the one who's the Savior. He's the one who is Lord. He is the one that God has ordained to change our lives, to make us whole, to give us the healing that we need.

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He's the one who invites you to come. Come. [MUSIC PLAYING] Come.

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Come. (SINGING) Is there anyone can help us? One who understands our hearts. When the thorns of life have pierced them till they bleed.

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♪ One who sympathizes with us ♪ ♪ Who in wondrous love imparts ♪ ♪ Just a very, very blessing ♪ ♪ That we need ♪

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♪ Yes, there's one ♪ ♪ Only one ♪ ♪ The blessed, blessed Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus, He's the one ♪

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♪ When afflictions press the soul ♪ ♪ When waves of trouble roll ♪ ♪ And you need a friend ♪ ♪ He's the one to help you ♪

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♪ He's the one ♪ ♪ Is there anyone can help us ♪ ♪ When the load is hard to bear ♪ and fall beneath it in a long.

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One who tenderness will lift us, and the heavy burden bear, ♪ Can support us with an everlasting arm ♪ ♪ Yes, there's one ♪ ♪ Only one ♪

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♪ The blessed, blessed Jesus ♪ ♪ He's the one ♪ ♪ When afflictions ♪ ♪ Wrench the soul ♪

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♪ When rains of trouble roll ♪ ♪ And we are here to help you ♪ ♪ Be so wonderful ♪ ♪ And we're here to share a smile ♪

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♪ Yes, there's one ♪ [MUSIC] ♪ God bless us ♪ ♪ Blessed Jesus ♪

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♪ Peace, oh God ♪ ♪ When all is calm ♪ ♪ Rest the soul ♪ ♪ In peace ♪

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♪ Of gold ♪ ♪ Can you be a friend ♪ ♪ To that blue ♪ ♪ Heap of gold ♪

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- Amen. - Amen. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [Music]

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[ Silence ]