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[no audio] ...Matthew, the sixth chapter, 24th through the 34th verses. [no audio] ...Potion of Sermon on the Mount, delivered by Jesus Christ.

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[no audio] "No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. He cannot serve God and mammon.

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Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, "Now yet for your body what ye shall put on, is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cupid unto his stature?

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And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you? O ye of little faith!

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Therefore, take no thought saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. For your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow shall take thought for the things of itself.

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sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. The Lord bless to us the reading and hearing of his holy word. Our hymn, "Thanks and Praise," is in your bulletin. You will look on the second page of the inside of your bulletin. bulletin you will see the words, how good it is to be alive and see each other's face, to thank and praise our God above for his redeeming grace. What conflicts and what hindrances, what troubles we've passed through, in calm or storm, our weary souls in him are made anew.

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But 'tis through grace that we are here, no goodness of our own. We remember those who walked with us, but are now around the throne. O may we feel each other's sighs, and with them bear apart. May sorrows flow from eye to eye, and joy from heart to heart.

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If you remember to stand, you'll be safe. (dramatic music) [MUSIC] [ Music ]

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♪ From the chalice ♪ ♪ To the altar ♪ ♪ I sing ♪ ♪ Jesus, please ♪

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♪ O come, let us adore ♪ [Music] [Music] [MUSIC]

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♪ What so proudly we hailed ♪ ♪ At the twilight's last gleaming ♪ ♪ Whose broad stripes and bright stars ♪ ♪ Through the perilous fight ♪

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♪ Of gold ♪ ♪ Of silver ♪ ♪ Be to them ♪ ♪ A day ♪

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♪ Of youth ♪ ♪ Or ten ♪ ♪ Or three ♪ ♪ And we are living on the river of hope ♪

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♪ We will go to the land of the free ♪ [MUSIC] ♪ The land of the free ♪ ♪ The home of the brave ♪

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♪ He's here, he's now ♪ ♪ Yes, sir ♪ ♪ And in the end ♪ ♪ All hope ♪

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♪ Is gone ♪ ♪ Oh snow ♪ ♪ From the ♪ ♪ Goodbye, Savior ♪

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♪ From far ♪ ♪ Goodbye ♪ - Let's just come back. ♪ To you ♪

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[Music] (woman shouts) [Music] (wind howling)

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- Gracious God, our Father. Thou who dost give and take away, how happy we are to see this day. And to bless your name. Speak to us the word that you would have us to hear, to strengthen us for the journey that is before us.

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In Jesus' name, amen. Who can make tomorrow? Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself.

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Its own troubles are quite enough, Father David. Who can make tomorrow? This pungent and penetrating question, Phrased in the words of a song popularized by Sammy Davis, "Who can make tomorrow, put it in a dream?" Then comes the answer, "The candy man can. The candy man can. He makes everything delicious. He can even make you eat the dishes. The candy man can. The candy man can." Well, if there were a candy man somewhere to whom we could appeal to make our tomorrow, what would we have him to make in our tomorrow?

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Some would have him to give them peace of mind. Others would have him to heal them from their sickness. Some would have him to relieve them from their debts. Possibly some would have him to make it possible for them to finish up their degree a little quicker without some obstacles.

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What would you have him to do? Well, there's really no man like the Canby man that we can go to and be assured that everything will be sweet and that there'll be no bitterness. There's no one to whom we could go and have the assurance that there will not be a bump in the road as we travel along the way. 1976 is our tomorrow. It's another chance for all of us.

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It's the birth of new hope, a sign of opportunity, and a challenge of responsibility for another year has gone. So we come here again, just as many of us were here a year ago. And as we gather together in the quietness of these moments, the question comes regarding our tomorrow as to what this year holds. We ask, what will it be for me?

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Will it be different from the year that has passed? Or will it be the same old routine? What about our tomorrow? Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace

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from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty pain. Last Sunday we talked about yesterday, how the passing of 1975 is a part of our yesterday.

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Today we would like to focus attention not only on today but tomorrow. So much to do, so little done. Ah, yesterday I saw the sun sink beamless over the vaulted grave, the ghastly ghost of yesterday.

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So little done, so much to do. Each morning breaks on conflicts new, but eager, brave, let us join the fray and fight the battle of today. so much to do, so little done. But when it's all the victory wants,

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ah, then my soul, this strife and sorrow, will end in that great glad tomorrow. What about tomorrow? What is the best way to live in order to be prepared for tomorrow?

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Each day is a new challenge. You know, the old nursery rhyme, Monday's child is fairer-faced, Tuesday's child is full of grace, Wednesday's child is full of wool, Thursday's child has far to go.

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Friday's child is loving and giving. Saturday's child has to work for a living. But a child that's born on the Sabbath day is fair and wise and good and gay.

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Each day is different. Each day represents a tomorrow. It much depends on how we look at a day as to whether we look at it with optimism or whether we look at it with pessimism. There's another nursery rhyme, Solomon Grundy, born on Monday, christened on Tuesday, married on Wednesday, took ill on Thursday,

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Worse on Friday, diet on Saturday, period on Sunday. This is the end of Solomon Grundy. All of it got worse. So the question arises about tomorrow. Will it be better or will it be worse? ushering in the new year to today's show, the NBC network had a panel to discuss what kind of world we will have 100 years from now. And there were various ideas suggested as to the kind of world, kind of country we will have a hundred years from now.

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But who can make tomorrow? You know some people find it rather difficult to make a fresh start and whenever a new year comes we think about a fresh start a new beginning beginning again a fresh opportunity

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another change But often this isn't difficult for many people to make a fresh start to have a new beginning because of the fear for tomorrow

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Tomorrow, we worry about what may happen. And this isn't something that is just true of our generation. This is something that has sort of plagued the human family since the beginning of time.

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And the occasion for the words that Jesus gives here, don't worry about tomorrow. Now he was talking to not people who were well-to-do in a material sense, not people who had good bank accounts, not people who could bolster owning their homes and being rather secure in society. No, no, he wasn't talking to a congregation like that, saying, "I don't worry about anything, you've got a name."

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He wasn't talking to that kind of people. But not to a group that was well-dressed and had their cupboards filled with bread and had enough to spare no more. He was talking to people who were poor, who were wondering where they were going to get the next meal many times. He was talking to people who were wondering how they were going to have enough clothes, how they were going to be able to make it through the winter.

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And yet, he says to them, "Don't worry about it. Don't you worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will take care of itself." You say, "Why have this kind of philosophy?" It seems to suggest being shitless, have no plan, to be careless, and to just wonder about. You're like that man who reveled beneath the moon and who slept beneath the sun and who lived in a world of going to do and died with nothing to do.

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He doesn't. Don't worry about it, does he? Well, the world is a loose garment. He isn't talking about that kind of existence

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where you have no plan in your life. But he is saying, first of all, don't worry. Don't worry about anything. Don't worry about what may happen to you.

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You see, one of the problems is that something has often happened in the past. And we come forth today burdened down with the dead bones of yesterday. And then we have the additional burden of borrowing troubles from tomorrow before tomorrow gets here. And so worried about the lost opportunities and the fails of our yesterdays, and perplexed by the happenings of the present moment,

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and fearful of the uncertainties of tomorrow, we find ourselves totally frustrated as to how to make it. Jesus says, "Don't worry about tomorrow. "Don't worry about what has happened.

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"What has happened, has happened. "Don't worry about spilling milk. Don't worry about the things that may happen, but try to fashion your new opportunity, your gift of new hope, your gift of a new year. Try to fashion it with the kind of courageous faith that it will enable you to go forth victoriously in whatever faces you each day.

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possible for people who lived in yesterday to sleep through a revolution. You know the legendary Rip Van Winkle who slept 20 years? And when he woke up, he didn't know that a revolution had occurred while he was sleeping. And when he awoke, we found out that there were changes all around him. He went to sleep.

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King George III of England was on the throne, but when he awoke, George, the first president of our country, George Washington, was the ruler. Sweeping changes had occurred while he slept. We worry over things that we can't change, things that we are unable to change, and yet we fail to tackle those things that we can, as one popular prayer expresses it, that we ought to know how to accept those things that cannot be changed,

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and to change those things that can be changed, and to have the wisdom to know the difference. Jesus is saying to us that worry is useless, because we cannot change anything by worrying about it. It just uses up the energy we need in order to cope with the situation. Dale Carnegie suggests in his book, and this is interesting, but what Jesus is saying here, when he says don't worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will take care of itself, Dale Carnegie says that the reason people worry so much

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is that they fail to live in day-tight compartments. That they fail to live in such a way that they let each day take care of itself. That you don't borrow anything from yesterday or any of the burdens of tomorrow, but you take everything in stride and you let every day with all of its problems take care of itself.

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So don't worry about tomorrow. And the reason he says this, he goes on to point out that you can only live in this way if you have faith in God, if you trust in God. The only way you can really understand and relate yourself to what Jesus is talking about is to have a kind of trust in God. Stop worrying, he says, because you can't add any inches to your height. Not once you can do that.

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You have no control over life itself. Life is a gift from God. And somehow the God who gives is the God who guides, is the God who guards, is the God who governs. And you commit your life to him, who controls the seasons.

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The one who gives the sunshine and the rain. The one who gives us spring, summer, winter, autumn, whatever the season may be, God gives it. He causes the seasons to come and to go. God controls it. There's nothing we can do about hastening the day. You know, it's rather interesting when you're really anxious about something. When you're anxious about something.

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I noticed when our children were young that many times it was always difficult to get them to get up in the morning. But when they had something to do, if they were going on a field trip somewhere, it was hard to get them up at 7 o'clock ordinarily. But if they were going on a field trip, many times they would wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning, saying, "What time is it? Is it time to go?" Now the kind of anxiety about tomorrow, when we are really concerned, when we are really wrapped up in it, that tomorrow can't come fast enough, But there's really nothing we can do to hasten the day.

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There's only one who's able to push back the curtain of the darkness. And when he lets the curtain of the darkness down, that's the end of the day. And God is saying to him, that's the way he wants us to honor our lives, to let the curtain down on what has happened.

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But when he pushes back the curtain of the darkness, he also pushes in the dawn of a new morn. And God alone can do that. He can turn our midnights into mornings. He can lift the burdens of our lives. He can make the new tomorrow for every one of us if we will but have faith in Him. That's what he said who can make tomorrow well God that mysterious presence

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That mysterious presence. We can't put it with a test to We can't wrap him up and define it to suit anybody's whims or fancies But it is that mysterious presence in everyone's mind That presence is there!

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That presence is there! And somewhere along the line There's a voice There are those of us who have recognized that mysterious presence, and we recognize that God has opened our eyes to his power in the world.

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And he has made us anew. He is the one that makes our tomorrow. The same God who pushes up the mountains and who hollers out the valleys, who shuts up the doors of the sea. He is the one that makes life anew. So you can really approach this year by hitching your wagon to a star, as the old saying was,

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by linking up with the eternal. Of linking up with God! Of saying, "Now, I don't know what's ahead. I don't know what the future holds, but I do know who holds the future.

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And that's enough for me." I think that's what Fannie Cosmo must have had in mind. She was blind, and yet she wrote some of the most precious hymns that we sing. Blind. And yet she knew what it was to lean on that mysterious presence.

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And that presence that we can't see with our naked eye. So don't worry about the things that you really can see because they pass away. But in the midst of those things passing away, they pass away, that we may recognize that which does not pass away. And she said, "Well, this is the way to put it, Savior, more than life to thee."

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More than life, more than anything in this world, more than food, more than clothing, more than formal education, more than anything in this world is to have you with me along this way. I'm going to cling to you a little closer every day. For in clinging close to you, you'll make for me a new tomorrow. Fashioned not the way maybe I would have chosen, but the way you would have it be.

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Knowing that what you decide is best for me. Who can make tomorrow? Don't worry about it. But trust Him who made our yesterday and the one who made this day. As the one who will make tomorrow, no matter how that tomorrow is, how dark, how bitter, how sweet, just having Him is enough for the gentleman. Savior, more than life to me.

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As I sing this hymn, if you believe in the one who has brought you safe thus far, maybe you don't know how you made it, but he enabled you to make it,

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come now, give your life to him. Let him fashion a new tomorrow for you by letter of Christian experience. Unite with the family of God

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here at Ebenezer. Whatever needs it. Trust in him. So come now, give your life to him.

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[MUSIC] [MUSIC] ♪ Oh, fair night to thee ♪ ♪ I am clinging, clinging ♪

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♪ Close to thee ♪ [MUSIC] ♪ My friend ♪ ♪ Just close your eyes ♪

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♪ Ever ♪ ♪ Ever ♪ ♪ Be ♪ [Singing]

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[MUSIC] Let me hear thy cleansing power. Make thy kingdom a love to me. I'm closer, closer, closer, Lord, to Thee.

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Would you trust me? Would you trust me? [Music] Trust him to make your tomorrow.

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[Music] Just give it to him. Don't worry about it. (gentle music) [ Music ]

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Not just one day, but every day. Throughout the year. Trust me. ♪ (ominous music)

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- Mr. Treston. [Music] This is a prayer that everyone can pray. So let's just sing that second stanza together, 326. [MUSIC]

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[MUSIC] ♪ As I go ♪ ♪ Trusting thee ♪ ♪ I cannot stray ♪

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♪ I can never ♪ ♪ Never lose ♪ ♪ I wait ♪ ♪ Every day ♪

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♪ Every hour ♪ ♪ Let me feel ♪ ♪ I'm plenty fine ♪ ♪ I can't ♪

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♪ I want to be ♪ ♪ I need closer ♪ ♪ Closer ♪ ♪ Closer ♪

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♪ To thee ♪ [Music] Trusted News. [Music]

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

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[Music] [Music] (sad music) [Music]

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[Music] Let me love thee more and more, till this fleeting, fleeting life is o'er. Till my soul is lost in love In a brighter, brighter world

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Oh, oh, everybody Every... Every hour That we live

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I'm twenty-five ♪ May my dear ♪ ♪ Come home to me ♪ ♪ I need closer ♪

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♪ Closer ♪ ♪ Warmth ♪ ♪ To me ♪ It's a wonderful thing to have that kind of relationship to God.

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It's a good time to renew our covenant as we stand here at this point, this juncture, so to speak, in the road. Time of beginning again. Let us take our hymnal and turn to the Church covenant, which is page 47-6 in the back of

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of the hymnal. This is not only for those who are newly born to the church, but for those who are pilgrims of the way, been in the family for some time. We come together from time to time to remind ourselves to remember the goodness of God and our pledge to Him. Having been led, as we believe, by the Spirit of God to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we do now in the presence of God, in the presence

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We do now in the presence of God, angels and this assembly most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant with one another as one body in Christ. To engage and form like angels and spirits, to walk together in Christian love, to strive for the benefit of the Church, to honor and to follow the Holy Spirit in Christ.

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to promote its prosperity, spirit, and spirituality, to sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline, and doctrines. [INAUDIBLE]

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We also engage to maintain family and secret devotions, to religiously educate our children, to seek the salvation of our kindred and acquaintances. [INAUDIBLE]

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[Unintelligible] To avoid all tattling, backbiting, and excessive anger. [Unintelligible] We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love.

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[inaudible] To be slow to take offense but always ready for reconciliation, mindful of the rules of our Savior, to secure it without delay. [inaudible] Let those who have received the right hand of fellowship come forward at this time.

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Let's be pleasant. Who have just been buried in baptism, raised in the newness of life as a symbol of her decision to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Let's live this step.

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