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Here we are now. This is my fifth in the series of heart-to-heart talks on the Ten Commandments,

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or I like to think of them as God's Ten Rules for Living.

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And I've come to the conclusion that the people of this generation know all about life.

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I do not believe that there was ever a generation where the people knew more about life than those of our present generation,

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and yet so few know how to live.

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And we need to get back again to God's Ten Rules for Living.

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Now, I left you in our last little heart-to-heart talk in that second commandment, and time ran out.

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Time goes so quickly when you talk about the things of God. Oh, my goodness, a life!

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The last time I was at your house, the time went so quickly I had to leave long before I was finished talking with you.

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So we come back again to that second rule, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.

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And this second rule of God I think is one rule that most people feel less guilty of breaking,

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yet more is said about this one in the Bible than any other.

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Primitive man found it hard to realize a God that he could not see,

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and so he made aids to assist his imagination, to bring reality into his worship.

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And it's true today. It is the hardest thing in the world to accept God by faith.

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It's the hardest thing in the world to accept by faith the promises of God, the Word of God.

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Yet Abraham did, Moses did, Elijah did.

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The grand old prophets of old accepted God by faith and the Word of God.

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In our little heart-to-heart talks regarding faith, I reminded you that all on earth they had was the Word of God.

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It was sufficient. They had to accept the person of God by faith.

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And yet man has not changed in this respect.

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It's so hard for the average person to accept the person of God, the personality of God by faith.

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They want to see him. They want something that they can see.

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Even in the promises we say today, seeing is believing.

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But God's Word and the things of God are just contrary.

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First you believe, and then you see.

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We've got the cart before the horse.

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That's the reason that man finds it so hard to realize a God that he cannot see,

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so he makes aids to assist his imagination.

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Now, the danger in this lies in the fact that it's so easy to worship the means instead of the goal.

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The Bible, the churches, music, ministers, and all of our symbols and all of our aids to worship

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are sacred only because they lead us to God.

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For example, even denominationalism can be a violation of this rule.

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One can have all of his faith in the fact that he is a Methodist.

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Regardless of what God's Word says, if his bishop or his church teaches something else,

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they will accept that in preference to what God says.

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They can literally worship their own denomination.

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Even more dangerous than our aids to worship are some other images that we make.

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We're told that God created man in his own image.

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But to live a life in conformity with our creation is difficult.

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In fact, it's so difficult that all of us fall for a chart.

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Thus, instead of being like God, we seek to create him in our own image.

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It's so much easier to make a God like ourselves than for us to be like him.

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That's the reason Paul.

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Oh, I remember the morning when I was in Athens and I asked to be taken to Mars Hill.

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I relived somehow I could just see Paul standing there on the top of Mars Hill

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and proclaiming the very words that I am going to read to you

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and refresh your memory with them from the Word of God.

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And Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said,

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Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.

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For as I passed by and beheld your devotions,

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I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God,

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whom therefore ye eagerly worship.

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You worship him.

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Him declare I unto you, God that made the world in all things therein,

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seeing that he is the Lord of heaven and earth,

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and dwelleth not in temples made with hands.

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Neither is worshiped with men's hands, as though he needed anything,

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seeing that he giveth to all life and breath and all things,

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and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,

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and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation,

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that they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after him and find him,

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though he be not far from any one of us.

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For in him, not in the things that we worship, not in our idols,

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for in him we live and move and have our being,

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as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring.

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For as much then as we are the offspring of God,

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we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone,

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graven by art and man's device.

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Paul is putting the whole thing before us right there.

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He said, why in the world do you want to worship something that is hewn out of stone,

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or made out of wood, marble, silver, gold,

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when it's only made from man's hands, man's workmanship?

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It's nothing. Man has made it.

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It's man's art. It's man's work.

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Don't bow down to that.

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There is only one to be worshiped, the true and the living God,

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for in him, not in that which has been hewn out by man's hands,

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but in him, God Almighty, we move, we live, we have our being.

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He is the power.

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That's God's word.

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That comes from the highest authority in heaven and earth.

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Even more dangerous than our aids to worship are some other images that we make.

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We're told that God created man in his own image,

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but to live a life in conformity with our creation is so difficult.

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God tells us not to do wrong, but there are some things we want to do right or wrong.

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So we create a God who doesn't care what we do.

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We think of the God of the blue skies, the majestic mountains, the lovely flowers,

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but we turn our backs on the God who said,

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You have robbed me in tithes and offerings.

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We turn our back on the God who says, Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

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We would rather turn to what we call nature.

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Nature doesn't talk back to us.

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And we can literally, I mean literally, find in nature a false God,

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using nature as a false God, as a prop to satisfy the longing of worship

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that we feel on the inside of us.

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That's right.

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Much is said today about worshiping God through nature.

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Now, let no one undervalue the ministry of nature, the flowers, the mountains,

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the hills, the valleys, the sunshine, the birds.

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They're all full of beauty.

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But no man ever reaches God through nature.

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Men do get to nature through the God who made it.

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Let a man be right with God,

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to find the mystic key that unlocks all nature to him.

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But the men who try to climb to God through nature never succeed.

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Men cannot use a flower as a representation of God for worship.

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God is the creator of all nature.

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Nature is not God.

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Notice the solemn warning,

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the gracious promise linked to this commandment, the second commandment.

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This is one of those passages of Scripture which is most often and constantly misused.

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I give you God's word. I quote the Bible now.

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Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image,

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nor any form that is in the heaven above,

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or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

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Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them.

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For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God,

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visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children,

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upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me,

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and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.

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I said just a second ago that this is one Scripture that is very often misunderstood, misused.

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There are those who read the first part of that commandment and pass to the second,

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and declare that if a man be impure, God will punish his child on that account.

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Now the subject of the result of the sin of a man as manifested in succeeding generations is not now under discussion.

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What is, is the simple and plain meaning of these concluding words.

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If a man puts something in the place of his Creator,

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that iniquity of making a representation of God

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is visited upon the children of the third and fourth generation of him that hate him.

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That is to say that if in worship, men put something in the place of God,

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if they come under the influence of worship, which is an attempt to put something between God and man,

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then they are not only harming themselves but their children also.

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You will remember that in a previous Heart to Heart talk,

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when we were talking about worshipping God with all of our hearts,

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that I made a very definite statement,

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and that is the fact that there was no law that proved God,

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no place in the Bible does God give proof of himself.

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God took care of that in our creation.

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We do not teach a baby to hunger or to thirst.

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Nature has done that.

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However, we must train our children to satisfy their hungers and thirsts with the right things,

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and that is the responsibility of the father and the mother.

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If you're a good mother, you have the responsibility

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of satisfying the hunger and the thirst of your precious little child with the right things.

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In exactly the same way, if you are a parent,

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it is your responsibility to satisfy the desire of worship

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that your child has with the right God, the true God,

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and there is but one true God, God Almighty.

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Therefore, if you as a parent are worshipping a false God,

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you have your influence, and nine times out of ten,

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you will influence your children with your worship,

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and it will be carried down to the second, the third, the fourth generation,

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and you will be held responsible for your child's worship.

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That's what it means.

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That is to say, if in worship, men put something in the place of God,

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if they come under the influence of worship,

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which is an attempt to put something else between God and man,

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then they are not only harming themselves but their children,

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and the probability is that their idea of worship will be transmitted to their children,

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and their children's idea of worship will be transmitted to their children,

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so that the wrong that men do themselves when they misrepresent God

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is a wrong which they are doing to their children likewise.

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Now, that is the first, the simple meaning of the words

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that's used in connection with this commandment.

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I tell you, it's a solemn thing to pass on to children a wrong conception of God.

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It's an awful thing.

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Men often take lower ground and talk about passing to their children evil forces and habits.

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Nothing can minimize the awfulness of such conduct, but it is the root of it all.

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When a man puts something as the object of his worship in the place of God,

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he passes on the same practice to his offspring.

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Now, let's notice the gracious promise standing side by side with the warning,

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showing mercy unto thousands.

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Now, there's very little doubt that the rendering ought to be showing mercy

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unto a thousand generations of them that love me and keep my commandments,

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and that is to say that if a man sweeps the idols away and gets into a living connection with God,

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worshipping Him without anything between,

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the result will be that his child's child will most likely also worship the true and the living God

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and will have the blessing of God upon him.

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Here is a remarkable comparison.

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God visits the iniquity to the third and fourth generation,

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but He shows mercy unto the thousandth generation.

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Oh, this is marvelous.

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If a man will commit to his posterity a worship which is true, which is strong, wholehearted, pure,

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and will sweep away all that interferes between himself and God,

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he is more likely to influence for good the thousandth generation that follows him

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than the man of an opposite character is to touch that generation with evil.

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That's the word of God. That's marvelous.

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Granted, that man has but one God.

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It is still a question of supreme importance how he worships that God.

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If he is worshipping Him through some other means

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than coming directly into the presence of the God that he worships,

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then, beloved, he is losing that wonderful thrill of that personal relationship.

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And there's nothing more thrilling to any human being.

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There's nothing that is more consoling, more encouraging,

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that gives greater strength than to know that in Almighty God you have a personal heavenly Father

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interested in every detail of your life,

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that you don't have to go through someone else to make your request known,

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that you can come boldly before he is thrown.

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That's the greatest assurance. That's the greatest surety.

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That's the greatest thing in life.

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Make yourself real, I pray.

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God the Father, God Almighty, His person, His power,

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as real as that human being with whom you rub shoulders.

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You can talk with him.

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You can feel his presence as real to you as the air that you breathe.

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Beloved, I pray that shall be your experience and he shall be that real to you.

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Amen.