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You're listening to The Bible Guys,
a podcast where a couple of friends talk

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about the Bible in fun, in
practical ways. Hey, Jeff, Hey

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Chris, it is I didn't even
I didn't even ask you if you're going

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to do it. I just I
looked at you thinking I was I was

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thinking, if you were gonna do
it, I was gonna call it.

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It's the fanfare. It's the fanfare
announcing the beginning of another amazing episode of

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The Bible The Bible Guys. And
we didn't have some sort of jingle or

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something. The Bible Guys. Oh
that's mail bags, isn't that? They

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whatever it is? Uh, you
remember here's Johnny Johnny. That was very

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iconic for anybody who's forty five and
older. I was gonna say, yeah,

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so all your stories lately have been
Hey, I have one life,

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Jeff. I didn't live too like
I lived my own life. Yep,

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so I can only reference Gillian's Island
and such, by the way. That's

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that's how. That's one of the
very first things I ever did as a

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pastor of high school students. I
was only like my mid twenties, but

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I actually said, hey, everybody
stand up, shake hands, and tell

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everybody your favorite cast member of the
Gilligan's Island. I really said that back

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in like nineteen ninety three. Yes, it was like ninety four. I

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said it like ninety four, and
like ever we looked, you said,

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and they said, Gillian's what good. It was one of the very first

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times I thought, oh I'm old. Yeah, I'm older than the people

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I'm talking to. Right. I
wasn't old, yep, but I was

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older than them. So, Gilligan's
Island. Did you watch Green Acres of

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course? And Beverly Hillbillies? Yes, yeah, and yeah Petty Coak Junction,

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No, I didn't watch that to
Western for me? What else?

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Yeah, there were a bunch of
those back then. That's funny. Yeah,

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okay, So so today, of
course we were watching the reruns.

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Yes, of course it was.
It was really the generation before us.

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It was our my older brother's generation. Okay. So today, Desiree says,

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this today's parable that we're about to
read is about the wedding dinner.

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So we're going to focus today on
food. Yeah, Jeff is going to

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tell you, Chris two truths in
a lie. And I missed breakfast this

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morning. So I'm glad about this
one. Oh yeah, well it's gonna

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make you more hungry. I know
about some of his grilling and cooking experiences.

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Okay, you'll have to figure out
which one's to lie. And by

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the way, for our listeners who
do not know Jeff Is in my world,

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I would call him a master griller. He wouldn't consider himself a master

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griller. Maybe you do, but
he is the grill meister, especially to

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our staff. So for all of
the people out there who work at other

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churches, just coming over to here
to church, we'll grow for well,

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I'm going to brag on you,
Jeff. I've never been a part of

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a church or we haven't even heard
of a church where when there's a staff

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meeting and there's you know probably what
forty staff on our staff, you go

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out there and in the hot sun
in some cases and slave and cook and

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delight us with some of the best
food ever. And I think honestly that

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our staff doesn't appreciate it, because
if this is their first church they've ever

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worked out, this is just what
happens. That's it's just all they know.

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The CEO always cooks for everybody,
right, and here I am coming

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in from other places and I'm going, you do what and I and I'm

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I'm eating and going like, guys, this doesn't happen everywhere else like this

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is. This is a privilege and
it's so good, dude. It's so

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you know, Jesus to show that
he loved his disciples and to serve,

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he washed their feet. And I'm
never going to touch your feet. I

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will never touch your toest breast.
But I'll grow you a steak, I'll

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make some tacos. It is the
twenty first century, you know, it's

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it's the twenty first equivalent. Yeah, so I love it. It's a

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it's I love So. I'm kind
of a recipe guy in that I'm not

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very innovative, or I'm not I'm
not very inventive. I don't make up

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a new thing. Yeah, but
I love to get a hold of some

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kind of a formula and then tweak
it right, make it a little better.

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Yeah. So that that's that's what
I love about it. So,

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even though cooking is so different from
everything else I do, I usually cook

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from a recipe of something, and
so that's why I do that. Hey,

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by the way, let me let
me since we already opened the can

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of worms about the foot never touching
the fins. Let me just go ahead

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on which is coming up in a
few days. Yes, oh that's right,

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it is. Let me go on
record and say, oh, well,

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you know what, We'll save it
for two days, Cliffhanger. Okay,

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I don't know that it's two days, but it's it's it's coming up,

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okay, because we're in the last
few days of Jesus life. He

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does it in the upper room.
Yes, okay, So Cliffhanger, for

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I have something to say about it, very special story. Well kind of.

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It's more of a opinion about foot
washing in general. Oh okay,

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but it's a biblical opinion, okay, about why I will never do it.

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Okay. And by the way,
for some people, that is like

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that's it's almost as big as communion
and baptist Yes, yes, And I

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want to acknowledge that, Like,
I'm not saying that my way is the

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best way, and I'm not trying
to disrespect foot washing. I'm just saying

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I'll never do it. Right.
So anyways, my grilling is is the

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way that I like to serve people. So let me give you a couple

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of stories I have to give you
two truths. Oh yeah, I thought

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we were done with a segment.
Let me go quickly here, Yes,

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go ahead, So this has to
be super fast. One time I cooked

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for about what was it, about
six people, and the chicken was a

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little raw and everybody got sick.
I one time had my grill too close

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to my house and I destroyed a
six foot by six foot plate glass window

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because the heat broke the glass.
I once cooked grilled for over one hundred

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people. Those are the three.
Okay, so so almost killing six people

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with raw chicken just sick destroying I'm
being I said almost, I was being

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dramatic. It was just under cooked, breaking a glass window from sheer heat,

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or cooking for one hundred people,
because that's a lot of people cook

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for. I'm going to say the
lie is cooking for a hundred peop.

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Yeah. No, I've cooked for
a hundred people. Yeah, yeah,

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we for a hundred people. One
of the guys in our church helped us

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one time, and we did smoked
pork for eight hundred people for heritage at

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one time. Holy But I didn't
do hardly any of the smoking. He

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did all of it, so that
was great. But yeah, I've served

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on a hundred people. Now,
the lie was, I've never had anything

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get sick from my food that I
know of. Nobody's ever told me that.

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Ok, yeah, sick, Yeah, but I did. You gotta

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be careful having your grill too close
to your house because you can melt siding

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and break windows right right, And
that's just from the heat. And you

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only have to learn that once.
It was just one time. One time.

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It was our second grill, and
it was our very first house that

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we ever owned. Oh no,
so we'd only been in a few months.

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We had this nice little porch that
I just built on the front of

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it. Yeah, and then I
thought, oh, the grill looks perfect

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right here in front of this window. Yeah, and yeah, they broke

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it. So there you go.
That was it. That was thrill.

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Yes, by the way, it
had to been just people are like,

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are you serious? Yes, Okay. So today we are reading Matthew twenty

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two one through fourteen. This is
the only place that Jesus tells this story

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specifically, and he's telling about a
wedding dinner, which is why we're talking

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about this. Yes, Jesus told
them other parables. He said, the

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kingdom of heaven can be illustrated by
the story of a king who prepared a

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great wedding feast for his son.
When the banquet was ready, he sent

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his servants to notify those who were
invited, but they all refused to come,

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and so he sent other servants to
tell them the feast has been prepared,

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the bulls and fat and cattle have
been killed, and everything is ready.

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Come to the banquet. But the
guests he had invited it ignored them

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and went their own way, one
to his farm and other to his business.

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Others seized his messagers and assault them
and killed them. The king was

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furious, and he sent out his
army to destroy the murderers and burn their

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down. And he said to his
servants, the wedding feast is ready,

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and the guests I invited aren't worthy
of the honor. Now go out to

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the street corners and invite everyone you
see. So the servants brought in everyone

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they could find, good and bad
alike, and the banquet hall was filled

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with guests. But when the king
came in to meet the guests, he

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noticed a man who wasn't wearing the
proper clothes for a wedding friend. He

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asked, how is it that you're
here without wedding clothes? But the man

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did no reply. And then the
king said to his aids, buying his

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hands and feet, throw him into
the outer darkness, where there will be

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weeping and gnashing of teeth. For
many are called, but few are chosen.

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Woo. Yeah. So, so
if we're connecting the dots here,

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the wedding feast is the Kingdom of
Heaven can be illustrated by the story of

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this. So obviously it's a story
about heaven. It's about the kingdom,

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which means that God the Father is
the king, right, the wedding feast

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is a celebration for his son,
right, So this is almost a continuation

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from yesterday. Yeah, Well,
do you remember a few days ago it

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said that he was teaching every single
day in the temple, right, Remember

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he was leaving every evening and going
out to the hillside or Bethany or the

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Olive Mount of Olives or whatever.
But then he was coming in every day

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and teaching in the temple. So
he did it the first night, so

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we're left to assume that he probably
did it every night. But it did

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say he was teaching every day in
the temple. Yes, and so these

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are the teachings. Could have been
a different day, yeah, yeah,

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this is, or it could have
just been last hour. I taught you

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this one in this hour, I'm
teaching this one right, right, something

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similar, which he sometimes did to
reinforce the same point. But this is

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all from the teachings in the temple, is what I'm saying there. So

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yeah, and then so so it's
sort of left to assume that the same

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application of yesterday's podcast, you know, the ones he invited, you know,

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killed and murdered and seized the messengers
that would be the prophets, right,

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they didn't come to the feast,
they didn't come to the celebration of

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the sun, which means they're not
receiving the sun. Right. So it's

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just like the stone that the builders
rejected has now become the cornerstone thing.

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And then uh, and then he
goes out to the highways and the hedges,

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he goes out to the you know, to everybody, and he invites

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them and and so he's going to
other nations. That's just like yesterday's pod

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or you know, podcast or topic. And then he finds one guest without

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wedding clothes and so what do you
think that represents. So that's the biggest

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topic in this whole thing, right, So I personally believe that, uh.

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Well, one, so just understand
it was customary when a king would

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invite people to his party that he
also uh would do a couple things.

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It would be multiple invitations, the
reason being. The first one would be

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the invite would you come, and
then you affirm yes, I will come.

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Okay, we'll let you know when
it's ready, because they didn't have

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microwaves and timers to be able to
They're cooking over fire, right, all

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that kind of stuff, so it
takes a long time to prepare and it's

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not very precise, and so okay, I'll send my servants back to come

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and get you when it's ready.
And so that's why there's two invitations.

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There's the first one, would you
come, second one, Hey, it's

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ready, come uh in the second
one or in the first one if you

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agree, then then in the second
one you would receive wedding clothes. Because

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nobody had the resources that the king
has, right, so you'd receive wedding

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clothes from the king, and that
would be like showing your ticket. The

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fact that you were wearing. You're
not wearing peasant clothes like everybody else wears.

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You come walking in wearing clearly whatever
the outfit was, that we're supposed

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to be wearing for the for the
feast. So if that is the analogy

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he's using, that the king is
the one who provides the wedding clothes,

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that's why he would have noticed that
somebody wasn't wearing wedding clothes. Right,

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Hey, I sent out specific stuff
and I didn't send that. So in

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that case, then I think it
refers to personally. I think it refers

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to where the Bible says, like
in Romans, chapter eight, verse one,

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there is now therefore no condemnation for
those who are in Christ Jesus,

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over and over and over again.
It talks about the Bible talks about when

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we're truly saved, we are in
Christ and metoric it talks about we're clothes

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and his righteousness, right, and
we put on His garment of righteousness.

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And so that would be the thing, is that what he noticed was that

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this guy's an impostor. Everybody else
was clothed by the king and he is

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not. This is an imposter trying
to say he could be an enemy,

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could be from a foreign land.
He's definitely not someone who and again and

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to me, to me, by
the way, side note, it makes

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more sense if the king was the
one providing the clothes and they were the

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ones who refused the clothes, meaning, you know, we preach the gospel,

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those who receive it receive it.
Those whore rejected rejected it. Yeah,

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because this story is not saying this
guy tried real hard and just didn't

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have good enough clothes, right,
right, It's that the tradition would be

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that the king provides the clothes and
a lot of that. But it's also

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they go out of their way to
say the man had no reply, because

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if he was a person who said, hey, I tried, I just

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don't have any clothes. I'm just
poor, that's not what he's saying here.

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The man had no reply, no
excuse, is what it's saying.

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And so many are called, but
few are chosen. Right. The chosen

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ones were the ones who showed up
in the clothes they were given, right,

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right, That's what that's really referencing
there. Yeah, So in my

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mind, whether or not the king
provided the clothes or whether or not,

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it was just absolutely customary. And
again I'm a believer that the king did

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supply the clothes, by the way, but whether or not they just it

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was just absolutely an insults against custom
to show up without the proper clothes.

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Either way, what he's saying is
you have to be the parable is you

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have to be clothed in a certain
way to be part of the wedding banquet,

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which again could represent salvation. Right. So whether the king provided the

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closer didn't, I don't even think
it even really matters, but it makes

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way more sense than the king would
provide and that they would reject. But

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the point is is that there is
one at the dinner party who refused to

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put on the right clothes. So
and it had no reply, right,

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So I think that you know,
the word picture is clear. So you

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know Jesus talks about in John chapter
fourteen. He says, I'm the Way,

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the Truth, and the life,
and no man gets to the Father

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except through me. And if there's
anybody listening now on the podcast, maybe

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around the world who doesn't think that
that's a you know, a reasonable claim.

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You know, and we've said this
before in the past, Well,

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Christianity is the only one, you
know, that is all inclusive, right,

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right, I mean everybody, it's
for everybody, because you know,

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in other world religious systems, you
know, there's no passing grade, there's

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no you know, like there's no
clarity on how many good deeds are enough

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to get to heaven, you know. But in Christianity, it's it's true

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that everybody is invited, everybody is
qualified, and everybody gets in the same

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way. Everybody can make the cut. Everybody's in, and everybody gets in

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the exact same way, And no
other world religion is that actually true.

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So it's not an exclusive and everybody
that gets in gets in through the gift

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of the Father. That's right,
through the gift of the King. It's

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not it's not that they bought their
way in, right, because that they're

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clothed in His righteous Because only in
the story of Jesus does God himself pay

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for our sin, right, right. We don't have to pay for it

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ourselves. We don't have to do
good deeds because God himself loves and sacrifices

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for us. So it just requires
faith, it requires belief, and so

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it's not an exclusive claim to only
get to God through Jesus. It's the

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most inclusive invitation that exists in mankind. In Ephesians chapter five, it talks

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about it says, husbands, love
your wives as Christ loved the church and

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gave himself for it, right right. But then it goes on and it

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talks about how he clothes his bride
in the cleanest and holiest of gowns.

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Right well, the Christianity, the
Church is the bride of Christ, right

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right. So when you get to
the Book of Revelation and he's talking about

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the Church of Sardis, he talks
about how they soiled their clothes, their

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clothes were dirty clothes. He had
to give them white robes, holy robes.

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Right, that's because the church had
walked away from him and back into

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the world. And then he's like, no, I have to clothe you

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again in my righteousness. And then
when you get to the final thing,

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and this is what I just looked
up. In Revelation chapter nineteen, verse

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seven, it says, let us
be glad and rejoice. Oh, let

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me go above. Verse six it
says, praise the Lord for the Lord,

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our God. The Almighty rains,
and it says that this is a

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vast crowd of people singing sounds like
the roar of a mighty ocean waves that

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crashed aloud thunder, So just shake
in the whole thing, right, And

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they're singing, Praise the Lord,
for the Lord, our God, almighty

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rains. Let us be glad and
rejoice, and let us give honor to

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him. For the time has come
for the wedding feast of the Lamb,

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and his bride has prepared herself.
She has been given the finest of pure

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white linen to wear, for the
fine linen represents the good deeds of God's

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holy people. Right and uh so
the only people I believe that this story

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is alluding to that final great feast, the great banquet, right, the

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marriage sepper of the Lamb, and
it was it's the groom gave the bride

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the clothes. Yeah, well it
definitely would support that, right right.

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Yeah, so I think it's the
same because there will be no impostors at

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that point, right, And that's
it. It's that's what I think Jesus

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is talking about here. Personal.
That's that's very cool. Yeah, And

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it's a it's a pretty clear uh
uh you know, indication that there's there

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is an eternity separation from God.
It'll be weeping, and they'll be gnashing

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of teeth, they'll be they'll be
casting into outer darkness. You know,

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when people want to erase, erase
the idea of hell. It's really hard

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when you hear parables like this and
you're like, what does that mean?

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Right? Right? So you know
that's why, that's why it's so imperative

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when when when God says to share
my message with other people, uh to

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you know, let everybody know about
God's radical love and his grace for them.

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The reason why you are so adamant
about you know this this initiative around

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the world more than most. You
know, you're a part of an organization

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that concentrates on planting churches, starting
churches in villages and in places where there's

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no churches. Our goal is a
church in every village everywhere, a chief

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the first letter of each of those
a church and every village of achieve.

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We want to achieve achieve. Yeah. And the Timothy Initiative is what you're

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a chairman of on the board.
And it's like and there's other organizations that

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are like that, none by the
way, as effective as the Timothy Initiative.

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Side note, But the reason why
is because of this, it's because

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that's our mission, that's our goal. Our goal as Christians is to first,

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primarily a chief priority above anything else, is to give the Gospel and

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tell the story of Jesus, which, by the way, is exactly why

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we choose to use our weekend services. And we gear it towards those who

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don't know God. Right right now, not everybody does that, right,

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I've always said our good friend Nick
Nick says, there's all kinds of churches

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for all different kinds of people,
right And so I don't know, people

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can actually have their own opinions and
that's fine, and they say like,

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oh no, the church on Sunday
morning should be geared for worship and the

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Christians and everything else, And it's
of course it's for the Christians. And

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what we're talking about is the church
the worship service or what's happening on Sunday

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morning the gathering. So my big
answer to my board when they were asking

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this when I was like thirty four
years old and I had just kept thirty

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five, I just come to hear
to church and they were asking what is

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the purpose of the church. Is
it for lost people or is the church

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for Christians? And you said right, And I said, well, I

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think that it's the question itself is
faulty. I think what you're asking is

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what is the purpose of the church
services? Right, that's what you're asking

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because we are the church and we
are here for the world. So then

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my question was, if that's the
case, we are the church. The

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people are the church, not what
happens for an hour on Sunday morning.

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But we are the church. The
building is not the church. We are

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the church, and God left us
on this planet to reach the world to

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invite everybody to the banquet. Right, that's our job. We're here for

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the world. Then that changes the
question because now I'm asking what should I

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what should I be doing together as
the church at different times during the week,

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what's the most strategic time in our
community to bring people to Christ to

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hear the gospel? Right? And
we did a survey. We surveyed five

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hundred people. Don't if you knew
that. We went to the mall and

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we just went around and asked people, Hey, are you a regular church

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attender? And if they said yes, we'd say okay, thank you,

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you know, and whatever. But
we had five hundred people who said no,

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I don't go to church regularly.
I'm not really big on faith.

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I'd say, Okay, if you
wanted to get right with God, let's

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just say suddenly there was this moment
you want to get right of God.

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What would you do? And I'm
telling you, I don't remember the exact

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number now, is like four hundred
and seventy five said I would either go

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talk to a priest or pastor,
and I'd go to church. So of

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the ones, the four hundred of
them told us I'd go to church.

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He asked when would you go to
church? They'd say, I'd go on

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a Sunday morning. What time?
What time is the best time? Oh,

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I don't know what time? Did
they go? Like ten or eleven?

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And so then I go back to
my leaders and I say, in

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our community, this isn't in every
community, but in our community, if

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a lost person says I need to
get right with God and they don't know

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where to go, they're going to
show up at a church building somewhere in

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the middle of the morning at ten
eleven o'clock. Well, you had to

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back up your answer. I did. Well, I'm that guy, though,

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I'm the guy who goes and gets
evidence. I don't just argue right.

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And so I went and got the
evidence and came back and said,

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hey, four hundred people told me
that they would go to church. They'd

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go to a church building. So
I'm not saying that everything the church should

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do is and four non Christians.
But our ten o'clock, our eight thirty

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are ten or eleven thirty, and
our one o'clock gatherings on Sunday morning we

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target at lost people and not for
lost people. But we're targeting them at

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lost people. We are aware that
lost people in the room. Everybody benefits,

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right, We're aware that they're there. We're translating it. We're trying

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to capture people's attention long enough,
capture hearts for Jesus, but everybody benefits.

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Lost people can't worship, you know, they can't do those things,

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but they can enjoy the music.
They can be inspired by the message.

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Yeah. My favorite thing to say
is when Jesus told us to go be

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fishers of men, the biggest question
is did he want quantity of fish or

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quality of fish? And the answer
is yes, yes, he wants both.

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He wants both. I want lots
of big fish, right, lots

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of big fish, which means which
means that Sunday morning should be for both,

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right, like you can, by
the way, you can do both,

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yeah, right, But it takes
incredible intentionality to make certain that you

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know that everything gets funneled through the
eyes of the first time guest, which

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is what we do anyway. All
that to say, it's because of passages

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like this, because the importance of
it. Right, So when it talks

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about how the stakes are high,
how souls are at steak, and eternity

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is at stake, and then God
gives us the mission, it's like,

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how could you possibly not include that
somewhere prominent in your ministry somewhere, And

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for us, it's on Sunday mornings. So anybody who attends heritage or knows

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about heritage, this is just a
great reminder for us of why we do

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what we do and how we do
it. It's fantastic. So, hey,

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I think that's a great place to
end, and we'll see you hopefully

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on Monday on the Bible. Guys,