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[Silence] [Music] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]

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(dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) ( Pictures pipe organ music)

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(dramatic music) [ Music ] ♪ Lord of God ♪ ♪ I'll be there ♪

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♪ Lord of God ♪ ♪ I'll be there ♪ ♪ Lord of God ♪ ♪ Of Jesus ♪

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♪ He will never lose ♪ ♪ His power ♪ ♪ Oh, how nice to meet you ♪ ♪ Of Jesus ♪

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♪ O the blood of God ♪ ♪ Have they died ♪ ♪ O the blood of God ♪ ♪ Have they died ♪

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♪ He was there for you ♪ ♪ This time ♪ ♪ He was a spiteful jerk ♪ ♪ He was a spiteful jerk ♪

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♪ He would end up sorrowing ♪ ♪ End up sorrowing ♪ ♪ So many things he would do ♪ ♪ He would outwit you ♪

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♪ Raise the high transpassion ♪ ♪ He would lose you ♪ ♪ For outwitting you ♪ ♪ He was the one to find you ♪

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♪ The one ♪ ♪ When I got a wrong dollar ♪ [MUSIC] [MUSIC]

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♪ Jesus, all the blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ Oh Jesus, all the blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ He will never lose his power ♪ ♪ To you and I ♪

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♪ He was the surprise every day ♪ ♪ He was the surprise every day ♪ ♪ And the sorrow, sorrow of waiting to see ♪ ♪ He was good for our wedding ♪

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♪ And for our transgressions ♪ ♪ He was good for our ending ♪ ♪ Girl, I want the sun to morn ♪ ♪ Well, I've got all power in my hands ♪

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♪ Going back to my father in glory ♪ ♪ But he's soon to come again ♪ ♪ Oh, the blood ♪ ♪ Of Jesus ♪

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♪ For the blood of Jesus ♪ ♪ Our Jesus ♪ ♪ All of God ♪ ♪ For our Jesus ♪

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♪ He will never lose his power ♪ [Music] I shall read our scripture which is 1 Peter, the 1st chapter, the 3rd through the 9th verses from the New Revised Translation.

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By his great mercy, he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who are being protected by the power of God through

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faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials so that the genuineness of your faith being more precious than gold that though perishable is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and

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honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you have not seen him, you love him and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your soul.

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May the Lord bless to us this word. The subject of the message, "The Trial of Our Faith." The trial of our faith. Last Sunday was Easter, and we had a record attendance in our worship services.

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It is the Easter what? It is the Easter faith that the disciples of Jesus are to proclaim. It's not a creedal statement. It's a living faith.

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The word we consider as the basis of the message today comes from a letter written by the apostle Peter. It comes to us from an ancient past, yet it is alive with meaning. It is a leaf from the history of the early church.

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A letter written by an apostle, one who was intimately identified with the master. A letter written by Peter, the apostle, who made the confession of faith at Caesarea Philippi, when he said to Jesus, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus said, "This confession is the foundation of the church."

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Peter found it increasingly difficult to live up to his confession of faith and being a rock. Some have referred to him as a running rock. But after Easter, after Peter had been instrumental in being one of the first witnesses to the tomb, after he leads in celebrating the birthday of the church, preaches a sermon, 3,000 souls

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admitted into the kingdom. After this happens, this apostle finds it difficult to live out the meaning of his faith because when various tests come, we find Peter shrinking, drawing back. So this is the same apostle, however, who writes to the church concerning the trials

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of our faith. Faith is defined by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews as the substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen. Faith is commitment.

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It is the kind of commitment that one makes that is meaningful. Not all faith is genuine commitment. When we consider the dynamics of faith, there are two aspects, the subjective and the objective. In other words, we say, "I believe in God."

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Well, to examine that carefully, one must look at who the "I" is. and how much one is willing to actually, genuinely, authentically commit to God. And much depends upon that person, that person who is the subject, who on this side places his or her life in the hands of God.

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Commitment. I believe in God. It is trustful living. That's what faith is.

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One says that I believe that this chair will hold me up. Now, but one must go farther than that and trust himself or herself in the chair. That's authentic faith.

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And sometimes we commit, and some people, instead of getting back in the chair, letting, putting the whole weight of your body in that chair, letting the chair really be tested as to holding you up.

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Some people sit right on the edge, right on the edge of the chair. You see? And so it's easier for them to fall out of the chair. So this is important as we consider the dynamics of faith.

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Who is the person exercising this faith? How reliable is that person? Then of course, in whom or in what, as the case may be,

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do we place our faith? and is that object in which we place our faith reliable? Now there are many people quite a number of people went down to Guyana with the Prophet Jim Jones I believe was his name and they trusted themselves in the hands of the Prophet

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and they ended up meeting their death with Sinai. Now they possibly may have been very sincere people, I believe they were, they were very sincere. Same is true of David Koresh. They put themselves in the hands of David Koresh. But that person in whom they place themselves and whom they put their trust was not

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reliable and was not authentic. Real not authentic because it passed away. So as we look at our faith we need to look at ourselves as the subject. How reliable are we? How authentic are we? And then look at the object in which we put our trust. So we speak often of the leap of faith. And of course if there is no leap

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there is no faith. Faith is defined by some as a leap in the dark. Father in the darkness calls to the child to leap and the child cannot see the father but leaps anyway and lands safely in the arms of the Father. So the subjective part of our faith is determined by the authenticity of our faith, the

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authenticity of the individual or the believer. The objective side of faith is is to be judged by the authority or the authenticity of the objective of our trust, of the object of our trust. Now sometimes we have faith, but it's false. You know we use a lot of things that are false. Now we won't enumerate those,

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but it's false faith and our belief system is corrupted and we may believe that which is not true as I've just pointed out it's not true but we believe it and we believe it with a passion but it is not true we we may commit ourselves to false gods. People who do this find themselves meeting with

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experiences that bring about the shattering of their faith. One puts his or her trust in a false god and life has a way of pushing us, pushing us and pushing us until we find that this false God is not really true and it just keeps pushing, we may select another false God and it pushes us to the point

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where we find that that isn't true. Sometimes we put our trust in our family and give to the family that allegiance that should be given to God. Sometimes we put it in our children and put all of our hopes in our children and then our children pass away we expected for them to carry on the business we expected

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this and that and and all of our hopes for the future was somehow wrapped up in that and then all of a sudden something happens to the child and we find ourselves facing the shattering of our hopes. So this word that Peter addresses to the church is a word that has to do with the trials of our faith, to be prepared for

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the trials of our life. Things that disturb many of us is when we confront the trials of faith. If one puts trust in God, there will be trials, tribulations, difficulties, dangers, certain risks are involved when we place our faith in a particular object. So he says that "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Jesus

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Christ is God's gift to us. It's His gift of faith. God blesses us in the trial of our faith. The trial of our faith involves encountering certain doubts. Now Now when one has faith, it doesn't mean that you don't have any doubts. You get out there and you wonder whether or not this is going to work.

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You wonder. When we were in Russia, I had an experience of having the person who was at the counter tell me that I owed for my bag, which was late. Then they sent a cab out there

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to pick up my bag at the airport. And they said, I owe for that. And I said, no, I don't owe for that. They said, oh yes you do.

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You owe for it. I said, well, Pan American was supposed to pay for that. They were the cause of it being late. I wasn't the cause of it being late.

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They said, well, but you owe us. And after I said this and I left and refused to pay, I got up in my room and I started thinking. I said, you know, I'm in Russia.

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(audience laughing) And I said to myself, I said, I may have painted myself in a corner that I cannot get out of.

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I began to wonder. And many times we began to wonder about God. I said, "Well, I've done it, I'm gonna stay with it. "I'm gonna stay right with it."

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And finally I went downstairs and they told me that Pan American had paid. And how relieved I was! So that's the way it is with our faith.

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We are out here, as the song says, Lord, I'm out here on your way. - Yes, Lord. We're trusting in God and praying that he will bring us through.

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That's the kind of faith that we have, we trust in Jesus. But we have doubts, I said. We have doubts. Tennyson says, "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me than in half the creeds." In other words, we're human and we find ourselves wondering and doubting. Jesus has risen from the dead. He has appeared

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to his disciples and Thomas, who we call doubting Thomas, was not there. "Oh Thomas, man, you should have been here. Jesus Christ is risen! He's risen from the dead! We've seen him. Yes, we put our hands upon him, we touched him, our fingers and the nail prints on his hands and and we felt the wound in his side, told us he's alive.

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I don't believe that. I don't believe it. I'll not believe it, I'll not accept it unless I put my hands in those nail prints and the wound in his side. Well, we have doubts. He is the disciple. You're much closer to those events than we are chronologically speaking and otherwise but there were doubts. So Easter comes

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and in Easter the trial of our faith is not only before Easter but after Easter. trial of our faith. We often wonder, "Lord, why did you let this happen to me? Why?" Jesus on Calvary cries, "Why? Why has thou forsaken me?" So the trial continues after Easter, Thomas did not pass the test the first time, but Jesus comes back

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and Thomas is there and lets Thomas say, "Put your hands there, put your hands there." And Thomas says, "My Lord and my God." He has experienced the trial of faith. He has experienced it and he has come through with victory. So all of us, you know, it's wonderful thing that after Easter Jesus comes back and he just keeps coming back

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keeps coming back in our lives over and over again he comes comes and blesses us with his presence, blesses us with his power he just keeps coming back so So our faith is a journey. It's a journey.

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We're saying we have come this far by faith. It's a journey. Where you are in your journey is important because it tells something of the trials that we have experienced because those who travel by faith have trials. Our faith is more important

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than gold. Gold perishes, gold changes when tried in the fire, but our faith is more important than gold. We're kept by the power of God through faith. Faith that endures, faith that faith that inspires us to be faithful to God, the faith that relies on faithfulness, the faithfulness of God. So we

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travel by faith. You're on a faith journey, a faith journey from bondage to freedom, a faith journey, yes, a faith journey from Egypt to Canaan. We're all on this journey. And we all have our stages through which we pass on this journey by faith. So

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travel on. Keep traveling by faith. Hills are before us, but keep traveling. There's a Red Sea that we must cross, but keep traveling. There, there, there, fiery serpents in the desert through which we must pass, but keep on traveling. By faith, by

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faith, Abraham received the distinction of being called the father of the faithful. By faith, he went out not knowing where he was going. He looked for a city whose builder and maker is God. By faith, Sarah received strength to conceive

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and to give birth to Isaac when she was well past age, by faith. by faith Abraham was tried to sacrifice his son Isaac by faith and by faith Sarah was tried and she laughed by faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau and by faith Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph by faith by faith the children of Israel

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were commanded to carry the bones of Joseph with them to the promised land by faith by faith Moses as a babe was miraculously delivered from the bosom of the deep by Pharaoh's daughter by faith by faith Israel passed through the Red Sea and by faith the spies were protected by Rahab the harlot it all

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happened by faith so what shall I say what more I can't tell it all but There's so much to tell when we are traveling with God by faith. We come through the experience of the resurrection and yet on the other side of the resurrection God is with us. He carries us gently and safely. So what

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more, what more, what more, what more shall I say? Have faith in God. Have faith in God, He's on His throne. Have faith in God, He cannot fail. Have faith in God, He must prevail. Have faith in God. Have faith, yes, have faith in God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. As

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we extend the invitation of the church, there may be someone here who's willing to step out on God's Word to give your life to Him. We invite you to come and unite with the family of God while we sing "My Faith, My Faith Looks Up to Thee." Personal relationship with God, "My Faith Looks Up to Thee."

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You may come by letter, by Christian experience, or on professional faith. We invite you to come. [ Music ] [MUSIC]

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♪ South Calvary, Savior divine ♪ ♪ Now hear me, my way ♪ ♪ Take all my fears away ♪ ♪ Oh, let peace from your face be holy ♪

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♪ The only light ♪ ♪ If I reach grace to call ♪ ♪ Then to my aching heart ♪ ♪ I feel his power ♪

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♪ And love has died for me ♪ ♪ Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ♪ ♪ O'er the land of the free ♪ ♪ And the home of the brave ♪

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♪ O'er the land of the free ♪ ♪ In the cold silent sea ♪ ♪ Shepherds on the oar ♪ ♪ Let us take our fields above ♪

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♪ Here and this past week ♪ ♪ Oh, may we stay above ♪ ♪ For ransom's call ♪ ♪ Amen ♪

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- Amen. The one celebrating the birthday, Sister Jones, would you come down? Oh, yes.

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