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[ Silence ] (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

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♪ We come to praise the Lord ♪ ♪ We come to praise the Lord ♪ ♪ For all that you've done ♪ ♪ We give you the praise ♪

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♪ We lift our hands before you ♪ ♪ Yes, we do adore you ♪ ♪ We come to praise the Lord ♪ We sing hallelujah to your name.

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Yes, we praise you. We lift you. We magnify your name. We come to praise the Lord.

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We come to praise the Lord. We come to praise the Lord. For all that you've done, we give you a praise. We lift our hands before you.

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Yes, we do adore you. We come to praise the Lord. We sing hallelujah to your name. Yes, we praise you.

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We lift you. We magnify your name. We come to praise the Lord. Amen.

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Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

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Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

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Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen, Amen, Amen.

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Amen. (chanting) (chanting) (chanting)

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(chanting) (chanting) (choir singing) (choir singing)

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♪ Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen ♪ ♪ Oh we come to praise the Lord ♪ ♪ The Lord ♪ (audience applauding)

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- What is it that you see, Jeremiah? What do you see? That's the topic. What do you see?

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Amen. There are a number of significant questions in life, questions that concern human existence. We hear them early in life.

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What do you want to be? Where are you going? What will you do? Now comes a question that is asked by God.

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Of one of his subjects. What do you see? Sometimes it seems that life is a series of questions. To which we do not have answers.

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What do you see? This is related to the call of Jeremiah. He has been in a dialogue with the Eternal concerning his mission in the world. His mission must be examined before he is to go forth and speak in the name of God to

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the world. His vision of himself comes first. Oh, for some gift, some gift to give us to see ourselves as others see us. How does Jeremiah see himself?

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As a lad, he sees himself as timid, bashful, defenseless, unprepared for the great challenges that face him. But God works here with this lad, Jeremiah, to change his vision of himself. What do you see? Israelites, when they went to Canaan and came back and gave the report, they said, "Those people over there are giants,

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"and we see ourselves as grasshoppers." What is your vision of yourself? Some see what is happening, some people make things happen,

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and others do not know what is happening. But Jeremiah sees himself as young. The Lord tells Jeremiah not to be discouraged. He will give him words to speak.

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He will give him safety. And he will give him power to deal with the nations of his time. Imagine a boy from a humble village called Anathoth,

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lifted to such lofty heights, that he has a vision of the world and sees his task as being a prophet, a spokesman for the eternal to the nations. Jeremiah, what do you see? After God asked this question, it seems that he gives

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Jeremiah a telescopic lens through which to look and then He's confronted with the task of having dealt with the question, "What do you see?" But Jeremiah answers, "Lord, I see an almond tree.

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I see an almond tree. I see an almond tree. What do you see in the almond tree? He said the two men looked out of a window.

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One saw mud and the other saw stars. What do you see? What do you see? Jeremiah is called to see the world

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through the eyes of God. He sees an almond tree. The Hebrew word for almond tree is shei-kweed. Shei-kweed.

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Shei-kweed. And the word for wakeful is shokwif, just one difference in it, shokwif. The difference is one word is spelled S-H-A, Q-E-D, Q-E-D-T-H, and the other one is S-H-O, just a difference of a vowel.

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so sort of like a play on words, almond and wakefulness, because the almond tree was looked upon as a tree that was a sign of the coming of spring, wakefulness. It was the first to bud forth in wakefulness.

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and announce that winter had passed and spring is on the way. So it receives its name from the word

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to wake, to wake. Now what does this have to do with what Jeremiah is to say? do in serving God. It means

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that God is wakeful. That God is awake. That he's not asleep. Many things are happening

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and we wonder what God is doing. We look at things happening in our community It's been brought to my attention that efforts are being made to sort of deny us some of the full benefits of our education by having a charter school at Keeling that will exclude most of us, because it would be focused on this special emphasis that we have of what

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kind of school? Magnet, that's right, magnet school. Now, the significant thing is whether or not we will be awake, or whether we'll sleep. That's a significant thing. Rip Van Winkle is said to have slept 40 years.

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When he went to sleep, George I, George Washington, the father of our country, was on the scene as the leader. And when he woke up, King George III of England

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was on the scene. Slept! Now, almost anybody can sleep. We do that every Sunday.

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We can sleep 40 years, so to speak. But while he slept, a revolution took place. While he slept, a revolution occurred. Jeremiah, what do you see?

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I see an almond tree, it's a sign of spring with its blossoming rod. Yes, that's right, because I am awake and I am blossoming and I am working to perform my will

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and to have my way. Now above all that is happening, God is watching. An election will take place on Tuesday, no matter how it comes out, God is watching.

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He sees all we do, hears all we say. He is watching and writing all the time. So we see different people of different races, and yet sometimes we do not see diversity.

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How significant it is that diversity enriches our education. It doesn't take away, it enriches our education. So the almond tree is a divine sign

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to wake up, to be alert, to be sensitive to what is happening. Winter comes and goes, seasons come and go. But it is the barren, chilly winter that passes

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and leads into the coming of spring. So Jeremiah, you are to be a prophet. And a prophet is to be a seer, but before you go out telling others what you see,

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I wanna check your vision. What do you see? In other words, you must be able to see the Word of God. To see the Word of God working in history, performing His will His way. What do you see Jeremiah? Do you see what I see? God's watching over His world with His Word. We need

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somebody to watch over us. If left to ourselves we will destroy ourselves. There is an almond tree on the horizon signaling the fact that God is wakeful. You know many times Sometimes we are in the midst of what's happening,

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but we don't seem to be, I was reading an article on foreign policy the other day, and it was saying that our foreign policy is headed in the wrong direction

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because we've been focusing on Europe, what's around Europe, and the Cold War, and Russia, and that's all over. But what's really happening in China,

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and India, these are the most populous places in the world. looking and that we need to take a new look. What do you see? The king of England made a journey some years ago and returned and had a press conference and he said, "England

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must wake up or else the other nations of the world will have far excel over her. We must wake up. And people all over the nation began to say, "We must wake up. We must wake up. We must wake up." What do you see? God, who is our leader, our

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protector, he never sleeps, never sleeps. So, Jeremiah says, "I see an almond tree." I see myself in relation to the eternal. I see God's world.

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and God, did you see anything else, Jeremiah? He said, oh yes. I see a seething pot from facing the north.

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It comes from the north. The fire is in one direction and the pot is in another. I see, I see. It's a hot pot.

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Hot pot. Most of us are familiar with a, when I was a boy we called it a tea kettle. You put it on the stove,

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you pour water in it, and you have the fire underneath it, and then it first begins to simmer. And then it moves to the point where it boils,

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And then if you don't check it, it'll run over. That's what Jeremiah says. A fall from the north. Every one of us has something that we're up against.

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Up against. Now some people may not be aware of it. Young lady was in our church when I was in Cleveland. And she was saying, "Oh, I don't have any enemies."

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She said, "Everybody loves me." And so the pastor was in the class and he said, "Oh no, I just heard a young lady here today "talking about you, talking about you thought you were

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"so much and you were so cute that she couldn't stand you." You see? All of us have some enemies. Sometimes the enemy is within and without.

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But we have powerful enemies that are on the scene. And Jeremiah, what do you see? Well, I see this seething pot. Here we have this happening in international affairs,

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the seething pot. Israelites, the nation of Israel, over against the Palestinians. We still haven't settled the question in Yugoslavia.

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We have seething pots all over the world. - Right. - We took a trip to the Middle East, some people said, "I don't, I really don't think

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"Rev. Lord will be going over there with all that trouble." Everywhere I went, there was trouble, and there's trouble all over this world. We have enemies to fight, and we must recognize it.

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So, Jeremiah, what do you see? Well, I see this pot. This pot, it's at the boiling point. And it's from the north.

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And it is a sign of war. You know, war is a terrible thing. We have to deal with our enemies. And really, some of the wars we fight

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for such foolish purposes. Yeah. I was reading the other day where a woman was, a woman committed suicide in Turkey. And she committed suicide because her relatives, her parents, beat her because they said she

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was wearing her skirt too tight. And when they found her, she was hanging a rope in the barn. And it has to do with the freedom of women to live their own lives.

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And it ought not be necessary for a nation to go to war because of that, because it seems so simple. But what do you see, Jeremiah? I see a seething pot is turned from the north.

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This pot represents the wrath of God. We talk about justice and there comes a time when God tolerates injustice, but that comes an end. He will not always tolerate it.

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There comes a time when God arises in his wrath, in his fury, and he says through this pot that judgment is on its way. You know, my grandmother used to say to me,

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you know, you go ahead, I got the water on for you. You know what that meant? when they have the water on for you. Well, this is that seething pot.

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That somehow in history, it is so embedded in the fabric of humanity and history that if we do wrong, judgment is sure to come. And judgment is swift and sure.

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There's no escape. The pot. The pot is down. They must say, I see it.

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And it's Jeremiah's task to go out and tell people that the water is on for the nation. And that's not a popular job for some lad, go out, speak to the king,

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speak to false prophets, speak to priests and speak to the rulers, the ruling class, and to tell them thus saith the Lord. Well, the party's on.

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Other nations have had theirs. In other words, Israel has been overcome by Assyria and now Judah has her time. She will be overcome by the Babylonians.

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Nebuchadnezzar, Nebupolessa, or whatever may be the ruler, the pot is there and it's a sign of the judgment of God. And this is not a sermon to talk about how bad God is. He's good.

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He just has certain ways of doing things. And if we do wrong, we're going to get punished. If we do right, you know, His mercy is there to sustain us.

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It's like the principal when I was in school. Two boys were fighting and they were taken to the principal's office. And they got to the principal's office

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and they said, "Were you boys fighting?" "Yes." "Do you wanna fight?" "Yes."

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They were wanna fight. So he took them out there and he had them to fight. And they fought until they could hardly raise their arms. And then he took them into the office and gave them a whipping.

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Now, they punished themselves. Their own punishment. God doesn't have a perfect group. He doesn't have a perfect race.

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So when one race does wrong, he uses another to help in the punishment. We do it one against the other. We do it together like those boys. God is at work in that way.

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But God is at, in charge. And what I want to say in this message now is that the pot is boiling. It's been on for some time.

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The fire has been burning. The water has moved from the simmering point to the boiling point, and it's boiling over. And soon you will see the judgment of God.

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That's what Jeremiah sees. And every prophet needs to be able to see and announce the judgment of God. But remember, he says, God is in charge.

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You know, when you're sure that God is in charge, no matter what happens, you can rest because you know that he's in charge. He has control.

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When the pot is boiling, that's the sign that things are in disarray and we are going to undergo the judgment of the eternal when the pot is boiling.

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When the pot gets hot, When the pot gets hot and it overflows, changes occur when the pot gets hot. When the pot gets hot, watchmen leave their stations on the wall when the pot gets hot. When the pot gets hot, the priests leave their altars when the pot gets hot.

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When the pot gets hot, the prophet leaves his pulpit when the pot gets hot. And the walls, the hallowed walls of Jerusalem fall when the pot gets hot. When the pot gets hot, the holy vessels in the temple, the communion cups are taken by pagan raiders when the pot gets hot.

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the pot gets hot, God turns that which is turned against him, he turns it upside down when the pot gets hot. But God stands over the pot and as he stands over the pot he watches what happens and God has control of the world. As we sang a few moments ago,

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this is my father's world, oh let me never forget, although the wrong seems oh so strong, God is the ruler yet.

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So in view of all of the discontinuities of history, God stands, and I'm glad he does. I'm glad that I'm in the hands of God. you glad that you're in the hands of God? So no matter how hot the pot gets that

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you're in God's hands. Truth may be on the scaffold, wrong on the throne, but there in the dim shadows standeth the Lord God Almighty keeping watch above his own. And that's good news. I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I know not where his islands

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lift their fronded palms in air. I only know I cannot drift beyond his loving care. So in the maddening maze of life and tossed by storm and flood to one hope, my spirit cleans. I know, I know, I know that God is good and that's enough. That's enough no matter how the almond tree may blossom, no matter how hot the

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pot may get, that God is over it all. He keeps watch above his own. So as we - As we come now, - Yes, yes. - To the hymn of invitation,

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we extend the privilege of the church to accept this God who comes to us through Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. We ask you to join by letter,

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by Christian experience on professional faith. We invite you to come. The door of the church is open. Come.

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Come. (piano music) Come. That you may see the goodness of the Lord

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in the land of the living, come. Behold. Come. journey. Him 41.

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♪ Sweet songs of memory ♪ ♪ Till my friends are gone ♪ ♪ Where did I lost peace, my soul ♪ ♪ What did I forget ♪

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♪ Lord, my Lord, lead me on ♪ ♪ Oh, that I might just be ♪ ♪ Oh, I want to see Him ♪ ♪ Oh, I want to see Him ♪

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♪ Up upon His face ♪ ♪ And to sing forever ♪ ♪ Of His name in praise ♪ ♪ Down the streets of glory ♪

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♪ Let me lift my voice ♪ ♪ Cares all past ♪ ♪ Cares all past ♪ ♪ Home at last ♪

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♪ Home at last ♪ ♪ Ever to be close ♪ ♪ When in service ♪ ♪ When in service ♪

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♪ All my heart ♪ ♪ Dark may be the night ♪ ♪ But I'll cling for love's to give ♪ ♪ Even you, dear love ♪

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♪ Satan's strength against my soul ♪ ♪ Turns my thoughts to spite ♪ ♪ When the Lord ♪ ♪ Holds our hand ♪

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♪ He's there in time ♪ ♪ When in valleys ♪ ♪ When in valleys ♪ ♪ The Lord ♪

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♪ Holds a mountain high ♪ ♪ And behold the second hand ♪ ♪ We became a bond ♪ ♪ With our tender hand ♪

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♪ Our strength for the family bond ♪ ♪ Riding in I can see ♪ ♪ That time on the road ♪ When before me billows, when before me

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♪ When before me billows rise ♪ ♪ Lord, invite me in ♪ ♪ Sing a hymn, my Lord, my rest, my help ♪ ♪ Heal the sick, the ill ♪

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♪ Let me this week gently hold ♪ ♪ To this world I belong ♪ ♪ He's a real friend to me ♪ ♪ Oh, I love him so ♪

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- Do you want to see him? Oh, I want to see him. ♪ Look upon his face ♪ ♪ Let us sing forever of His saving grace ♪

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♪ On the streets of glory ♪ ♪ Let it be in our hearts ♪ ♪ Let our deaths come at last ♪ ♪ Heaven to rejoice ♪

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- We come now to commune at the table of the Lord. It's the table that the Lord God himself has prepared through Jesus Christ. It is our nourishment.

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It is the means of our strength. It is our energy. [ Silence ] [BLANK_AUDIO]