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Well, Dr. David Jeremiah, it's great to have you on the Charisma News Podcast.

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Thank you so much for being here to talk about really why, why the Nativity.

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I mean, this is an amazing film that you guys have created to really explain the depths

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behind the true meaning of the Nativity story.

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Well, we've had so much fun doing it.

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It's been a three-year journey for us and having it now being seen by everybody and

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even in Spanish, we are so excited about it.

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That's awesome.

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So just before our interview here, I decided to look on YouTube and I saw that people have

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viewed this docudrama, Why the Nativity, over 12 million times.

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It's reached far and wide.

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So how did you hear that God wanted you to invest your time and money and resources to

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explain this amazing docudrama?

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Well, I wrote a book back in 2006 called Why the Nativity for a publisher who had asked

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me to write the answers to some 25 questions people have about Christmas.

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And that book was released and it was read by a lot of folks back then and then Paul

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Joyner, who is the head of creative department here and kind of part of the core of Turning

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Point, he took that book and began to realize that it had the possibilities to become a

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movie script.

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So he actually took the book himself and wrote the script and he actually had storyboarded

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the whole film before I even knew we were going to do this.

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And then when I saw the vision they had and began to learn some of the ideas that everybody

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had like building Bethlehem on a farm not too far from our headquarters here, I think

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all of us just it was kind of like a groundswell that happened in our hearts and we began to

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realize this could be an amazing thing if we can do this right.

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And we didn't want it to be compared to other Christian films.

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We wanted to do a Hollywood film on the Virgin Birth of Christ and do it at that level if

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I can say that.

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And that was our vision.

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That's what we set out to do.

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And this Why the Nativity film, if I can call it that, I mean you guys promote it as a docudrama,

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but it's really a film.

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It feels like you're at the movies watching it or at least it deserves to be on the big

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screen in my opinion.

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And you mentioned the set of Bethlehem.

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On your website, whythenativity.org for everyone that wants to find out more information about

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that, you put some behind the scenes videos and I was so impressed.

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I thought this set already existed somewhere and you guys just use it because of your proximity

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to Hollywood or other things out in California.

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But you guys built this yourselves.

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That's amazing.

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Well, it was truly an amazing thing.

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I heard we were going to do that and I have to honestly tell you, I didn't even know how

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you go about doing that and with the set and all of that.

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And then I found out you build it around a set of scaffolding and that's, I went out

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there when they started to do it and I thought, oh my goodness, I can't believe we're doing

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this.

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When it was done and we had the Hollywood design on the scaffolding, it really looked

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like and felt like you were in Bethlehem.

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I've been to Bethlehem four or five times.

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So it was pretty realistic.

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Yeah.

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So one of the things that has inspired me and I love your interpretation or your understanding

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really about the Magi coming from afar and how that's portrayed in this film.

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And if we were looking for a little litigating scene underneath the Christmas tree, you probably

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have just three of them and there's nobody else, but you're talking about, there's like

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caravans and families of people.

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How did you come to understand that?

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And I'm always interested in the Magi and the mystery of these people will.

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Well, you know, we have sort of bought into the idea that since there were three gifts,

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there could only have been three wise men.

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We believe there were many more than that, that people came from the East to find the

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answer to this star that God created to lead them.

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And I think one of the exciting things for me was the guy who wrote the musical score

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for this in that particular part of the movie has music from about five or six different

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nations that are woven into the score.

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And it is just amazing to see these people coming to worship the Lord.

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Yeah.

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And it really does demonstrate because you have, it's not just one type of nationality.

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You have different nationalities represented there as well with those wise men.

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And it really does demonstrate that Jesus came for the whole world.

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Yes, he came to the Jewish people and you know that that's where he came from, but his

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death and on the cross and his sacrifice and his resurrection was for all mankind, not

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just for one people.

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Our guys on set here call that the John 3 16 moment of the movie.

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And that's kind of what it was.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I love that.

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That is so beautiful.

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Dr. Jeremiah, you have been studying the word of God and preaching the word of God for

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so many years and it has impacted my life that listening to your radio teachings from

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my parents were listening to that.

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So I grew up listening to that in the car from a young age.

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Your teaching has really impacted my life.

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I want to hear from you, what has impacted you the most as you have studied about the

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nativity that you didn't know necessarily before you wrote the original book in 2006?

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You know, I think one of the things that really I hope comes through in this movie is the

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supernatural thing that happened in a very natural setting.

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Jesus didn't show up in any other way.

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I like to tell people God sent his son to us and delivered him through the birth canal

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of a woman.

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He didn't show up as an adult ready to redeem the world.

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He showed up as a helpless baby.

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And he showed up in that way to demonstrate to us that we're helpless without God, that

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we don't have any way to show up before God with any meaning.

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God has to come to us just as you come to a little baby.

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And the story as it's played out and as I went to the set every day, this is overwhelming

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more and more.

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This was a real story.

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These were real people.

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As you mentioned, real animals, real angst in the setting.

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One of my favorite moments, for instance, is that moment when Joseph discovers that

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Mary is pregnant and that he knows that it's not his baby because they haven't been together.

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And I think for the first time when I saw this, when we were finished with it, I realized

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what it must have been like for Joseph.

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He loved this woman.

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He believed she was a pure woman.

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And now she's pregnant and he doesn't understand it.

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He hasn't heard from the angel yet.

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And I think the movie portrays the suffering he went through, actually cries on the set.

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And his contemporaries reject him and they ridicule him because he's been so foolish

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to believe in this woman.

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That's the way it was.

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That's what was happening.

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I think the reality of that in the way that we see stories was perhaps the most important.

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Yeah.

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And that's really important for us to be able to understand the human element of a

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nativity story.

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I mean, Jesus came for all of us.

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You have Joseph and Mary looking from the outside like an unwed couple that is expecting

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a baby.

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That had to be very difficult.

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And those are things that we can relate to even now.

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You know, it's not hard to think about how many people ask Joseph or Mary about this

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and the difficulty that they would have had trying to explain what we now know from Revelation.

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But this particular thing that happened to them had never before happened in the history

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of the world.

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It was the first time God ever allowed a human to be a part of this world in that particular

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way.

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So there was no precedent for it.

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It was just, it was God's miracle moment.

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That is something that you point out in so many of those miracle moments in Why the Nativity.

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Dr. Jeremiah, I know our time is running short.

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And I know that you've got other things that you've got to do to get ready for Christmas.

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It's a busy time.

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But I just want to give you the opportunity just to talk to our viewers and listeners

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here about why they need to watch Why the Nativity.

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Well, you know, we have a lot of stories about Christmas these days.

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They're everywhere.

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We have whole channels that do nothing but play Christmas movies and Christmas stories

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are everywhere.

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But what I'd like to suggest is that the real story is the best story, not only best because

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it's got the best message, best because it is the best story that there is.

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No one's ever written a story like this.

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This is obviously God's story of redemption.

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And the birth of Christ is phase one of our redemption.

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God becoming a man so that as the God man, he could represent us at Calvary.

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I don't think you can really understand Easter if you don't understand Christmas.

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If you don't understand how Christ came to be one of us, how God gave up his own

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son and sent him here to this little speck in the universe so that we could be could

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be with him.

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Someone has put it this way.

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God gave us his son so that we could be with him forever.

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God wants us to be with him.

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He wants our viewers and listeners to be with him.

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And the only way we can be with him is if we accept the plan that he's given us.

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Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except

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through me.

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So I would say watch this movie and let it draw you to Christ.

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Let it bring you to the realization that this is not just some fairy tale that somebody

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made up.

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This is the reality of history.

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God became a man and he did it for you.

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Amen.

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God became a man and he did it for you.

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And Dr. Jeremiah, you said in that in your last answer there that we need to accept the

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purpose and the plans that God has for us.

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And I just want to thank you for accepting the purpose and plans that God has had for

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you as you have taught for so many years.

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And your turning point has made this amazing film, Why the Nativity.

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Whythenativity.org.

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Everybody, go check it out.

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Watch that with your family.

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It is something that you will be entertained with, you will learn by, and you will feel

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closer to Jesus.

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The baby, the man, God who came to earth.

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God Emmanuel, God with us.

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Let me just end our interview with this that we just found out.

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The Catholic channel is running this movie on Christmas Day for us.

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And it is a good Catholic movie because it is about Jesus, it is about Mary, it is about

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the baby.

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And I just pray that our friends in the Catholic world will watch it and be blessed with it.

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That would be our hope and prayer more than anything else.

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Amen.

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Well, we will be praying for that too.

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Okay, thank you.

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Dr. Jeremiah, thank you so much for being here on the Charisma News Podcast.

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You're welcome.

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God bless you.

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God bless you.

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This has been John Matarazzo for the Charisma News Podcast.

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God bless you.