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Second Timothy chapter 3 verse 1.

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We're almost through with Second Timothy.

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We've been going through First and Second Timothy for the last couple of months.

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And we've seen some good instruction in here for Timothy in particular, but really for

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all of us, even if we're not all going into a ministry type position as Timothy was, there's

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still good instruction for us in here.

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And that's true of the passage we're looking at tonight too.

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In the context, it appears to be speaking of some specific people in a specific situation

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that was going on there.

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But as Ecclesiastes says, there's nothing new under the sun.

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And so the things that we see in these few verses tonight still happen today.

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So we'll look at this passage and kind of talk about what it means and then maybe talk

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about some ways that we can apply it to ourselves.

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So let's pray and we'll get started.

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Father God, we come to you.

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We thank you for a good night.

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I thank you for the freedom and the privilege to come here tonight and to be able to look

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at your word.

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I pray that your Holy Spirit would be with us, that you would lead me, dear Lord, that

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I'd be able to present your word in a way that helps us to grow and understand it better.

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Dear Lord, we want to understand your word better and what's going on when it was written

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and how we can apply it to us.

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So I pray that your Spirit would move in that way and just hide me behind the cross that

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I'd be able to preach and teach in a way that brings glory to you.

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In Jesus' name I pray it.

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Amen.

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All right.

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First, excuse me, second Timothy chapter three, verse one.

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But know this, difficult times will come in the last days.

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Now let's pause there for a second because it's not exactly clear when we see in the

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Old Testament the phrase last days.

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We may have an idea of what we think it means and it may be the right idea, but it may not

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be.

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Now typically when we hear the phrase the last days, we almost always tend to think

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the end of time, the time before Jesus is going to return.

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And it's possible that that's what last days means here and in other instances too.

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However, when we look at that phrase, the few times it's used in the New Testament,

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what we see clearly in Acts chapter two, verse 17 is that at the day of Pentecost that it's

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said there that these are the last days that Joel talked about.

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That is the days that Jesus brought about.

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That is Jesus brought about these things that were going to occur.

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We see that in the book of Hebrews.

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You may remember way back in Hebrews chapter one at the very beginning, I think verse two,

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that it says in these last days, Jesus has spoken to us.

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And so there's a couple of ways, really three main ways that we can look at this phrase

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last days.

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One is the one that might come to our mind first, that this is talking about something

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that's going to happen in the future at a time before Jesus returns, that this may be

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some kind of sign.

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And it's possible that that's what that means.

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It's also possible that the term last days is talking about the whole period from Jesus

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onward, from Jesus until, until Jesus returns from that whole period.

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We see it applied in that way, it appears in the New Testament.

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So it could be talking about that.

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Sometimes when we see this phrase last days, it could be speaking of the last days of the

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old system.

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Now when this book was written and all the New Testament books were written, the old

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Jewish system that Jesus had said was going to pass away was about to pass away in 70

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AD is when the temple was destroyed and the old system was going to pass away.

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And so some believe that when we say that phrase last days, that it's applying to the

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audience in scripture.

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And it was the last days of the old system, but a new system, a new covenant had been

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established through Jesus.

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So don't want to take too much time on that.

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But when we say that phrase, we need to realize that it's, it's not necessarily used as speaking

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of something that will occur at the end time.

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It may be, but there are other applications when we compare it to other occasions where

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it's used, where it's pretty clear that in those instances, it's not talking about an

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end times thing.

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It's talking about another time.

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And so maybe this whole period from Jesus onward is the last days.

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Nonetheless, it doesn't matter which interpretation we hold to there.

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What we need to pay attention to is what's going on.

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And the things that are going on have been going on in this world forever.

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They've been going on as long as people have been here.

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They've been doing these things and they will continue to do these things until this world

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is no more.

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Verse two, for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers,

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disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without

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control, self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited,

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lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

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So we have a long list of things here that is not good.

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People are lovers of self, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure.

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One Bible teacher I heard said, these are very loving people, but they love the wrong

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thing.

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And so Paul says here to Timothy, look, you're going to be exposed to these type of people

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who are not good people, who are evil people.

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And this is a pretty exhaustive list of sinful things.

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And he points these things out to Timothy.

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And then he goes on to say in verse three, he says, holding to the form of godliness,

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but denying its power, avoid these people.

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And so even this group of people that are pretty rough based on the list of things that

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they're involved in here, even so, Paul acknowledges that there is some godliness in their life.

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That is they know God to some extent, and even though they've been exposed to God and

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the word of God, they are denying the power of God.

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Now do we ever fall into that trap?

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Maybe we're guilty of the same thing.

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Maybe we know about God, but we don't really experience the power of God because we're

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too busy living in sin.

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We're not really trusting in God and growing in our faith.

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We're not letting God work in our life.

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We're not experiencing joy that comes from God because we're not content with God.

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We are discontent with the world, and that begins to kind of take over in our life.

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And when we're not focused on God, those who are God's people, then we do miss the power

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of God.

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We miss the strength of God.

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And so he says of these people, well, they have some form of godliness.

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They know a little bit about God, but they're not experiencing the full power of God.

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Why is that?

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Because they're evil people.

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They're not living for God.

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And that's a trap we have to make sure that we don't fall into because we may be guilty

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of the same thing.

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It's possible for us to fall into that same trap, to go through the motions and to know

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about God and to be kind of godly people, at least in some way, but not really experiencing

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the freedom and the joy and the peace that comes from a relationship with God.

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And so he tells him, avoid these people.

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So you're going to encounter these people who are going to be evil and they're going

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to have some appearance of godliness, but they're not good people.

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And so he says, avoid these people.

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Now, this is important for us to pay attention to the people that we hang out with.

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Who do we hang out with?

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Are they pretty good people?

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Are they pretty rough people?

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Now, we may say, well, I'll hang out with rough people and I'm going to help them to

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help to make them better.

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Well, maybe you are, but then again, maybe they're going to help to make you worse.

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So we have to pay attention to the people that we surround ourselves with.

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That's very important.

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Now, we want to be a positive influence to people who aren't living right.

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And we want people to be positive influences on us when we're not living right.

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So it's very important that we surround ourselves with good people and we avoid people who are

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living in a way that's not good.

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And that's what we see in this list here that Paul says, look, stay away from the people

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who are practicing these things.

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These are not good people to hang around with.

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Verse four, six, for among them are those who worm their way into household and capture

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idle women burdened with sins, let alone by a variety of passions.

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Okay.

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So now we see a little bit more about what this group of people are doing.

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Now it appears to be that these are people who are there during Timothy's time that Paul

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is describing something that, that maybe is already going on.

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And cause he calls out something specific that they're doing.

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They're finding women that are easy targets for whatever reason.

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They're women who are idle, it says, they're burdened down with sin.

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So the women that they're targeting are women who are easy targets to accomplish whatever

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it is that they want to accomplish.

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So these people that Paul is telling Timothy to avoid are not good people.

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They're not good people at all.

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And instead of taking care of the women and treating the women with respect as, as we've

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already seen Paul right, they're doing just the opposite.

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They're finding some opportunity to take advantage of people.

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And you still see that in our world today.

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You see many people today who were looking for somebody that to take advantage of.

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Sometimes you even see that in the ministry, you see preachers or you see people in ministry

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positions who are looking for easy targets because they're greedy and they try to find

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people that are easy to get money from or easy to get other things that they may want

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from them.

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And so these people that, that Paul is talking about, these are, are pretty, pretty rotten

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people.

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They're not, they're not good people at all.

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And it says in verse seven, always learning and never able come to come to a knowledge

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of the truth.

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Now, I'm not sure if he's talking about the women here in this passage or if he's applying

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this back to the ones who are taking advantage to these women.

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Either way, the point is the same.

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And that is that they are learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

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We want to be those who are able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

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We don't want to just be spinning our wheels when we try to read God's word and seek God's

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word and grow in God's word.

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We want to be those who are really coming and grasping the knowledge of the truth.

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Of course, they're not able to grasp knowledge of the truth, obviously, because their lives

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are sinful.

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They're described as sinful women here are these people, whoever they may be, these men,

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it appears, are sinful men living in these sinful ways.

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And so even though they are ever learning and they're exposed to the teachings of the

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truth and knowledge, they don't ever grasp it.

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And what a shame it is that we can sit and hear God's word and listen to God's word and

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read God's word and never really grasp what it says.

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And we have to be on guard because maybe there's been seasons in our life that we've done that.

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Maybe there's seasons in our life that we went to church a lot, but we didn't get anything

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out of it, or we read the Bible a lot, but we didn't get anything out of it because there

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was sin in our life or there were other things on our mind.

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And so we were continually learning, but we weren't really learning.

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We weren't getting any knowledge from it.

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And so that's a bad place to be in.

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And that's where this group he's talking about.

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This is where they were.

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Verse eight, just as Janus and Jambres resisted Moses, so these also resisted the truth.

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Men who are corrupt in mind, worthless in regard to the faith.

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Now this name's Janus and Jambres here.

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This is the only place that these names occur in the scripture.

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And so it's not perfectly clear exactly who these two are.

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However, it appears as though these would be the magicians who performed some of these

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miracles that Moses performed.

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If you remember, when Moses went to Pharaoh, there were some miraculous things that God

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told Moses he was going to be able to do.

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And Pharaoh's magicians were able to copy some of those miracles and say, oh, well,

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what he's doing, his God's not that spectacular.

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Look, we can do these things too.

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But ultimately they ran out of magic or whatever they were doing, whatever sleight of hand

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they were doing to perform those things that Moses was doing.

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Eventually their abilities, whether they were manmade or demonic, whatever they were, eventually

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their abilities ran out.

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And so he says, look, there's some evil people here that are among you, but have no fear

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because they are just like those who came against Moses.

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And even though it looks as though they have some power, even though it looks as though

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maybe they're on the same level and are going to be trouble for you, remember the story

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of Janus and Jambres who came against Moses.

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And it says, so these, excuse me, they resisted Moses.

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So these also resist the truth.

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Okay.

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So the ones that Moses went to, to Pharaoh and to the magicians there, they resisted

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the truth that Moses said, hey, God is going to deliver these people.

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And they resisted the truth that Moses tried to tell them.

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Ultimately as Moses continued to do the miracles and the plagues were poured out on the people

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and the magicians were not able to, eventually they could no longer resist the truth.

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They had to give in and say, let the people get out of here.

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He says that these men are corrupt in mind, worthless in regard to the faith, but they

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will not make further progress.

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For their lack of understanding will be clear to all as theirs, that is Janus and Jambres

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was also.

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So obviously Timothy is facing some opposition and going to be facing some opposition in

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the future possibly.

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And Paul is saying, look, don't get frustrated, don't get discouraged because even though

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these people are coming at you, these evil people, they will not be able to stand up

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as time goes on, eventually they will fail.

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Eventually they'll crumble, but those who trust in God will remain steadfast and remain

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firm.

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And so he's giving him some good instruction here and just a word of warning, hey, pay

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attention to these that you may encounter.

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And so that's kind of the context of what he was writing, but I think it's important

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maybe for us to look back at verse two and to look at this list of these things.

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This is a good opportunity for us to take a test.

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Now it's easy for us to look and think about these people that are being talked about and

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say, oh yeah, these are pretty evil people.

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They did some pretty evil things and indeed they were doing some evil things.

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But we need to look at this list and see how we're doing in these areas.

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Maybe some of these areas we're not doing too good either.

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What are some of the things he says?

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For people will be lovers of self.

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Okay, well, we need to test ourself here.

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Are we lovers of self?

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Do we think too much of ourself?

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Are we pretty proud?

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Do we think we're the best looking, the smartest and all these things?

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Sometimes we have a real high value of ourself, especially in this culture.

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It's even encouraged, it seems like in this culture to really have a high value of yourself

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and put yourself first.

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But the scripture says just the opposite, that those who are first shall be last and

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last should be first.

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And so we want to make sure that we don't fall into that trap, that we don't become

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lovers of ourself.

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What else does it say?

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Lovers of money.

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Are we greedy?

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Are we those who are seeking money and love money and want more of it?

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Well, there's a difference between working to earn money and to have things and to be

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able to do things and make a living and save a little back for rainy days.

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There's nothing wrong with that.

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But somewhere along the line, we can kind of cross that line and we can really begin

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to love money too much and begin to seek money and do anything we want to get money.

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We see that in the world today all the time.

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As people become greedy, there's a show that we watch sometimes called American Greed.

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And you see people on there and they do some of the worst stuff you could possibly imagine.

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It starts out as some little something and then pretty soon they need more money and

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for long they willing to kill or cheat or steal or whatever to anybody.

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It don't matter if it's their own parents.

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They'll do whatever they got to do.

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So we don't want to get to that point.

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That's why it's important for us to look at lists like this and remind ourselves that

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greed is a bad thing.

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We don't want to be those who are lovers of money.

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Boastful, proud.

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Well, those two things kind of go together.

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Do we boast in ourselves?

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Are we boasting?

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Oh, look how good I am.

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Look what I've got.

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Look what I did.

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Look at me.

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We need to be careful that we don't become boastful, that we don't become proud.

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Blasphemers, disobedient to parents.

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Well, that's a good one to remember.

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That's a command we see all the way back in the Old Testament to honor your father and

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your mother.

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These are pretty simple things for the most part to understand and maybe we're doing all

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these things, but then again, maybe we're not doing these things.

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And so if we're not, we need to pay attention to this because the things on this list are

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bad things.

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If we're doing these things, then we need to ask God to help us to overcome these things.

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Ungrateful, that's a good one for us to think about.

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Are we ungrateful?

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Are we happy with what we have?

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Are we content with what we have?

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Are we grateful for what we have?

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And sometimes we see in our world, and I've been guilty of this before, we have something

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and it may be really nice, but it's not what we want.

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We're not grateful for what we have.

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We want more.

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And the Bible says here that that's not a good thing to be ungrateful.

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We should be grateful.

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Unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control.

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We won't go through all these for time's sake, but what about that one?

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Without self-control.

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To have self-control is a good thing, but to not have self-control is a bad thing.

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So we need to work on that in our life maybe.

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We need to work on being able to have more control, to say no when we need to say no,

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or to hold out on something when we need to hold out on something.

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We need to be able to have that control that we don't give in, but that we're the ones

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who are in control of our life and the decisions we make and the situations that we are involved

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in.

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Brutal, without love for what is good.

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Holy smokes, that's a bad one.

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Without love for what is good.

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Hopefully we don't fall into that trap.

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Hopefully we love some good, but these that's being talked about here, they don't have any

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love for any good, it doesn't appear.

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So when you get to that place, you're in a bad place.

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Traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

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So this is a long list of some pretty bad things.

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Maybe we need to look at this list, and others like it in scripture, and say, okay God, am

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I falling into any of these categories?

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Am I doing any of these things?

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Because these are not the kind of things that God wants us to do.

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And maybe we're doing pretty good in some of these areas, but maybe there are some that

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we need to work on.

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So we want to be those who live a godly life, who live a righteous life, who live more like

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Timothy than these guys.

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So that we will be able to grow in the Lord, to be able to grow in our knowledge and understanding.

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That we are not those who continue to learn but don't have knowledge and truth, but we

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are those who look at God's word, we learn from it, we see the areas where we fail, and

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we grow in the truth of God's word so that it can transform our lives into the men and

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women that God wants us to be.

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Let's pray.

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Father God, we come to you, we thank you for your good word, and I pray that you would

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help us to examine our own lives, to see areas where maybe we are not where we need to be.

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This is a pretty intense list of things that are just not good, dear Lord.

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And I pray that you would help us to see if there are areas that we are guilty of these

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things.

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Areas like this, dear Lord, that maybe we're living in these sins.

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Help us to see that.

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Help us to repent of those things.

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Help us to be able to overcome those things by your power, dear Lord.

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I pray that you would help us to continue to come and read your word and hear your word,

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both here and in our own time, dear Lord, that we would learn and come to knowledge.

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That we wouldn't be those who are just spinning our wheels, dear Lord, but that we would be

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those who are really seeking you and really growing in you in every way.

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God, I pray that you would help us not to be discouraged, just as those who came against

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Moses and were overcome, dear Lord, by your power.

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So it will be for us, God.

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Maybe there are times that there are some that come against us in situations that are

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discouraging, in people that are discouraging, dear Lord.

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But in the end, God, you always win out.

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So let us never be discouraged by whatever we're up against.

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And I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.