Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today on Summit Life with JD. Greer.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
False God's favor the insider. They rewards you based on
how good you are. False gods save through prosperity. False
gods rewards you for your strengths. The Bible's God meets
you and your weaknesses. That's what makes the True God
different from every other god ever concocted in the minds
of man.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Do not say they're all the same.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Thanks for joining us today for Summit Life with Pastor
JdE Greer. As always, I'm your host, Malli Videvich. Okay,
let's be real. When most of us think of false gods,
we picture different world religions unlike ours, with unusual rituals
or little golden statues on altars Indiana Jones type stuff. Right,
But the truth is we might actually be worshiping a
(00:53):
false God right here in our own house, even if
we think we're worshiping Jesus. Today on Summit Life, Pastor JD.
Unpacks four truths that set the God of the Bible
apart from the gods of our own imagination. It's part
of our study of the prophet Elijah titled something Better
and if you missed any of the previous messages you
can find them online at Jdgreer dot com. But for now,
(01:17):
let's jump back into our message titled a God Like
No Weather.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
So here we go verse ten first king to seventeen.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
And when Elijah, finally after one hundred miles, got to
the gate of the city, he saw a widow there
gathering sticks, just like God told him would be there,
and he asked her, would you please bring me a
little water in a cup. As she was going to
get it, he called to her and said, hey, bring
me a bite of bread too. But she said, I
swear by the Lord's your God, that I don't have
a single piece of bread in my house. I have
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only a handful of flour left in the jar and
a little cooking oil on the bottom of my jug.
I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this
very last meal, and then my son and I will die.
But Elijah said to her, do not be afraid. Go ahead,
and you just what you said, But make me a
little bread first, then use what's left to prepare a
meal for yourself and for your son verse fourteen. For
(02:08):
this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says.
There will always be flour and i of oil left
in your containers until the time when the Lord's sins
rain and the crops girl again. So she did as
Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her family continue
to eat for many days. There was always enough flower
and il ofve oil left in the containers, just as
the Lord had promised through Elijah. Sometime later, the woman's
son became sick. He grew worse and worse, and finally
(02:30):
he died. Then she said to Elijah, old man of God,
what have you done to me? Have you come here
to point out my sins and killed my son? But
Elijah replied, give me your son, and he took the
child's body from her arms, carried him up the stairs
to the room where he was.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Staying, and laid the body on his bed.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Then Elijah cried out to the Lord, Oh Lord, my God,
why have you brought tragedy on this widow who has
opened her home to me, causing her son to die?
And he stretched himself out over the child three times
and cried out to the Lord, Oh Lord, my God,
please let this child's life returned to him. The Lord
heard Elijah's prayer, and the life of the child returned
and he revived. Then Elijah brought him down from the
(03:08):
upper room and gave him to his mother. Look, he said,
your son is alive. Then the woman told Elijah, now
I know for sure that you are a man of God,
and that.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Truly the Lord speaks through you.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Four things that you're going to see in this story
about the True God.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Now here we go. I give you four things.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Number one, the True God is a god of the outsider.
Why did God send Elijah to a gentile widow outside
of the region of Israel. Do you know what the
first sermon that Jesus of a priest was. It was
on this passage.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
It's Luke. Chapter four is where it's recorded. Let me
read it to you.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
But in truth, I tell you there were many widows
in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens
were shut up three years and six months and a
great famin came over all the land, and Elijah was
sent to none of them, but only the Zaraphath and
the land of Sidato, a woman who wi a widow.
The famine, Jesus said, affected everybody in Israel, but the
only one that Elijah was sent to rescue was a
(04:08):
pagan widowed woman in Bale's hometown, and that truth. Maybe
the Israelite leaders who were listening to jesus first sermon
so mad that they tried to kill him on the spot.
This first point I'm making to you is what caused
them to be so angry they wanted to kill him.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
God is a god of the outsider. Number two.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
The true God is a God who sometimes contradicts and
confuses us. The true God is a God who sometimes
contradiction confuses us. This woman's son dies and she doesn't
know why. She goes to the prophet of God, Elijah.
Elijah's a prophet, he's a theologian, he is a seminary graduate.
So what's his response, Oh well, let me just explain
to you while all this, No, he doesn't know either.
(04:51):
He goes to God and says, God, I don't understand
why this kid's dying either. Can you help here? Notice
what they don't do. They don't blame God. They don't
start accusing God. The woman acknowledge that she's a sinner
and so God has every right to do what God's
going to do. No, they just go to God asking
God for help, appealing to his mercy. They have what
I call a humble faith. A humble faith. Humble they
(05:13):
recognize that God often does things that they don't understand.
Faith they never cease believing in the goodness of God
even when their questions aren't being answered. Humble faith willingness
to live with unanswered questions, yet confident in God's goodness
even in the midst of those questions. That's what you
see going on with their live in this woman.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Is that like your faith? Is that like your faith?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Some people, when they suffer, they assume that God just
doesn't care.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Some people begin to rage against God. God, how dare you?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Other people turn God into some kind of genie that'll
always heal and always bless if you'll just show enough
faith and that works awesome until it doesn't and you're like,
I did everything right. I named it claim that a
prayde all night, confessed every known sin, thank God in
advance for the answer, and my son still died. Humble
faith is a willingness to live with unanswered questions that
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you cease never, never cease to believe in the goodness
of God. I can't tell you this. Listen to this
humble faith as a miracle of the Holy Spirit. He's
the only one that can produce that faith in you.
I know that from experience because for many years I
learned all the right answers, but had no humility in
my faith. The reason I couldn't have faith because I
wasn't humble. I pretty much needed to have God justified
to me why he said or did anything, and if not,
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I'd be angry at God, or I just kind of
I just felt myself slipping into unbelief. The reason some
of you can't have faith is because you're not humble.
You went to where God took me to the mat.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
On this one.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
It was to read in the Book of Job forty
two chapters and Job I'll summarize before you in like
one point, this is pretty much the who point in
the Book of Job.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Thirty eight chapters.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Job asked Pepper's God with questions and all the his
Theolosion friends are given him answers, and the final scene
God shows up in chapter thirty eight. Now, God is,
you know, on the docket. He's going to answer to
Job why he did what he did. And you know
what God's answer is, Job, I'd say, once you go
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get your universe that you created and bring him back
here and we'll compare. Oh, you don't have a universe,
then why don't you shut up about me running mind?
That's essentially the four chapters. I just put in one
sentence for you. Okay, Job, if you don't have the
power to create it, you know, Job, you can't even
get the DVD lights to quit flashing twelve o'clock. Okay,
if you can't even create a universe, don't think that
(07:33):
you have the wisdom to question my ways. It is
amazing how much arrogance we approach God with when we
want to bring God down to our level and say,
I'm not going to believe until I understand you.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
There's a humility in faith that says.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
God, you sometimes contradict and confuse me, but I never
cease believing in your goodness see you. One of the
greatest earthly examples that I know of this in more
recent history is Charles Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon was one of
the greatest theological minds in the nineteenth century. So what
was remarkable most remark about Spurgeon was not hearing him
pontificate about the mysteries of God. What was remarkable is
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just hearing him pray for somebody. They would say that
when he would begin to pray over somebody. I was
reading this one account of a woman in his congregation
who had a chronic illness, and he lays his hands
on this woman and he just lifts his eyes to
God and he says, God Father, if my daughter was
sick and she was in this much pain and I
could do something about it, I'd do it.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
God.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
This is your daughter, and I know you care for
her even more than I care for my own daughters. God,
won't you heal this woman?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Now?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Spurgeon realized that God sometimes has ways beyond our ways,
but it never caused him to lose touch with the
tenderness of God the Father. In fact, in one account,
he was listening to some guide his church get up
and just just you know, wax eloquent in one of
his prayers about and when he sat back down, the
stage person says, why don't you just shut up, call
God Father and ask him for something. The maturity of
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your prayers is not shown by their theological sophistication. They're
shown by the simplicity of your requests, humble faith. You
don't know everything God's doing, but you never lose touch
with his tenderness.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Number three, the.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
True God has power over death. The True God has
power over death. The one thing that Bill could not
touch was death. That's where all the worlds would be
saviors fall short.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
By the way.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So many things think about this in our world promise salvation,
most secular and religious. But the one thing you always
have to ask about any would be savior is have
they dealt with our primary problem, which is death? Lenin Hiller.
Both of them promised. Both of them said at one
point that their regime would do away with the need
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for religion, do away with the need for Jesus. Both
of them lenn said that his new empire would cure
world hunger. Yet it crumbled a few years ago fall
the Soviet Union because of poverty. Neither of those guys
could deal with death. Both of them are in somewhat
in the dustment of history now, Muhammad, Buddha, some of
the world's great religious leaders all died.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
You can visit their graves.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I remember hearing the one tragic story of a grandmother
out in California who was babysitting her grandchildren.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
At her daughter's house.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
She looked out the window and to her horror, saw
her granddaughter two your granddaughter fall into the deep end
of the pool. She ran outside to rescue or jumped
in the pool. Two hours later, they pulled out both
the body of the grandmother and the granddaughter because the
grandmother couldn't swim either.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Those people that would be.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Savior cannot suffer from the same thing that they're trying.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
To save people that they suffer with.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Does it make sense these people they died haven't been
able to deal with the problem of death. Many of
you think of money as a savior, at least that's
the way you act about it.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
And willis I know we know this. You don't need
me to tell you this, But how crazy is that?
I mean, money can give you.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
A comfortable eye, but you're not taking it beyond the grave.
I mean, the proverb is you know that there's no
hearse you've ever seen. It's pulling a U haul. It's
just absurd. You like, I want to leave a lot
of money for my kids, You leave a lot of
money for your kids.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
You're gonna spoil your kids.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I'm not saying it's wrong, Okay, So to leave your
kid I'm just saying that it's not a savior. You
know that it can make life a little easier here,
but it doesn't take you beyond the grave. Many of
you act like beauty is your savior. Functionally speaking, that's
why you're trying so hard to hang on to it.
I don't mean to be rude, get up on your face,
(11:33):
but you're going to do that for so long.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Right. You can tuck it, you can lift it.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
But.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I mean you know this.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
You can slow the aging process down a little bit,
but you can't stop it. You can nip it, tucket,
tighten it, tan it, tweak it, tight at puffett, twist it,
lift it.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Color at whatever you want.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
All right, it's just getting older, saggier, flimsier.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
It's dying.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Is that really the place that you want to build
your hope? Can your God carry you beyond the grave?
That's why God goes into Bale's backyard, raises a kid
from the dead and essentially says, you can't touch this.
I can make rain where you can, I bring people
back from the dead, but you've never been able to do.
(12:22):
By the way, right after the sermon and Luke four
that Jesus priested by Elijah. First thing he did after
they tried to push him off the cliff, it says
that he just sort of slipped to their midst. I
don't know what that was like, but he just like
just slipped of their mits and they got to the
edge of the cliff. They're like, oh, where to go?
You know, he goes straight from there Luke seven and
he goes to the dead son of a widow and
he raises him from the dead.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
You know what Jesus is trying to do.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
He's trying to show he's walking the same path of
Elijah because it's essentially the same question. He's answering, what
can God do as a savior that no other God
can do? Essentially Jesus twice there and that scene basically says,
can't touch this. I literally can't touch this because I'm
passing through your mits and can't touch this I'm doing
with death.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
You were listening to Summit Life with pastor J. D. Greer,
and we'll get right back to today's teaching and just
a moment, but did you know we have a brand
new premium resource that parallels this teaching series we just began.
If you've been enjoying hearing about Elijah and the miraculous
ways that God worked through him. We would love to
send you a copy of Elijah and Elisha, an eight
(13:23):
day scripture guide through First King seventeen to Second King six.
It's an eight part devotional looking at some of the
highlights of what the Bible teaches about Elijah and Elisha,
the prophet who succeeded him and who will be talking
about on Summit Life very soon. These devotionals are a
great way to take a deep look at why God
works so powerfully through them, and along the way, you'll
(13:46):
discover how God can work through you in much of
the same ways too. You'll read, study, pray, and apply
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We'll send you a copy of this devotional with your
gift to the ministry right now, So give us a
(14:08):
call at eight six six three three five fifty two
twenty or give online at Jdgreer dot com. Now let's
return to today's teaching once again. Here's Pastor JD.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Now, before I move on, to our final point point four.
I want to point out one other thing. I want
you to.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Think about how confusing this whole thing was for the woman.
I mean, here, she's got a need, she's starving, and
a prophet of God shows up who doesn't meet the
need but ask her for something to eat, and then
after he has eventually provided for her, then her sun dies.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
You think about how confusing this is to her.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
But what if God has a higher agenda then simply
multiplying her oil or raising her son. What if there
is something even more important he's after, which is why
he does it the way he does it, and that
higher agenda is that they know the God that is
better than multiplied oil, and a resurrection that is more
permanent than a temporarily raised son. Some of you are
(15:03):
frustrated right now in your life because God seems to
not do the things that you think he should do.
He hadn't gotten you into the school you want to
get into. You've lost the job, you can't seem to
get into the relationship you want to be in.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
He hasn't healed you like you think you want.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
What if God had a bigger agenda, a better agenda,
and that is you coming to with God that is
bigger than all of life? A God so big and
so glorious that it's more important than your son temporarily
living or dying. Write this down. Knowing God is better
than multiplied oil or even a temporarily resurrected son. You know,
I say temporarily, You might know this guy actually been
(15:43):
a zeraphat. We've been through that region. He ain't there.
He did. That means he got old, he died again,
and he didn't get resurrected at that time. His resurrection
was temporary. Every earthly blessing is temporary. What if there
was something better than the temporary? What if it was
knowing a God who is bigger and better than life,
if in a resurrection more permanent than a temporary blessing,
that's the point. That's what God is trying to show them,
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and that's what he is trying to show you.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Hebrews eleven talks about two groups. I love this. It
actually mentions this woman.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Hebrews eleven talks about two kinds of people who pray
in faith and some of them get their prayers answered,
and it mentions this woman specifically. And Hebrews eleven their
son gets rased and the dead. Others pray in faith
and they don't get their prayer answered. But here's what
it says about both groups is both of them watch
this die in faith, neither of them having received the fullness.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Of the promise.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Because the fullness of the promise is not multiplied oil
or a temporarily resurrected son. The fullness of the promise
is fellowship with the Lord of life for all of eternity.
That's the bigger agenda for you to know God number four,
The true God saves through death. The True God not
only has power over death, he saves through death. Now,
(17:00):
could we confess here for a minute that this final
scene is pretty mysterious. Elijah puts the dead boy in
his own bed, then stretches out over the boy three times.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
What is this, well, putting him into.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
His own bed, It's hard to think of a place
more private to you than your bed, right, So he's
putting the boy in his place, stretching out as a
position of vulnerability. In fact, I think of Jesus's words
to Peter that when you're old, they're going to stretch
you out. Talking about his crucifixion and you're not going
to have any control of what you're doing. It's vulnerability
laying on top of him as if absorbing the boy's
(17:34):
death into his own body. This is, by the way,
get this the first account in the Bible of somebody
actually being raised from the dead.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
And don't miss this. The account of the first person
in the.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Bible being raised from the dead begins with the question
is this my son dying for my sins? And then
God has his representative laid down over the boy, stretch
out and absorb, as it were, that boy's death into
his body.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
So the boy lives.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
And is this my son dying for my sins? God's
answer is no, your son is not dying for your sins.
My son, my representative will die for your sins, and
God will save you through the death of an innocent man.
That's how God saved us. And let me add he
continues to work the power of his salvation in us
through our death. That's the big mystery that some of
(18:23):
you can't get your minds around. False Gods always promised
to save around death. If you obey, if you're showing
a faith, you made me happy, I'll prosper you. That
is different than the Christian hope. The Christian hope is
resurrection through death. Many so called Christian preachers essentially their
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message is obey God and he'll enrich you. He'll give
you a BMW, He'll prosper you in your job. He'll
turn the feelings in your mouth into gold. You know,
sometimes God does that. Maybe not the gold billing thing,
but you know he does prosper you. I don't want
to take out at all. What I'm always bothered by
is what they Omit is that the channel of God's
blessing is resurrection through death.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
It is strength through weakness.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
So sometimes God makes us weak so he can show
off his power in us. That's why Paul said, I
delight in the fellowship of Christ's sufferings so that I
could know the power of his resurrection. If there is
no cross, there can be no resurrection. If you want
the power of resurrection in your life, you're going to
have to go through the cross, which means Cross's weakness
is struggling. Cross is you being torn down, because that's
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where God's power begins to go in you. Many of
you want to be saved around the cross, and there's
a lot of false peddlers of religion out there that'll
give you exactly what you're looking for, but not this one.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Not the Bible.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
The Bible says, you want the power of the resurrection,
you go into the fellowship of His sufferings. The fact
that Jesus died in weakness didn't mean that God was
angry at him, that God was cursing him, per se
to mean he was out of the will of God.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
It's just how God was saving the world.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
If you're in the midst of a kind of death,
death of a dream, death of your reputation, death of
your health, or even death of your body, that doesn't
mean that God has forsaken you. He forsook Jesus so
he would never forsake you, and in your death, now
that's where God does his best work. Resurrection happens through
death and weakness. So Paul said, I will gladly embrace
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the fellowship of His sufferings so I can walk in
the power of His resurrection.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
No cross, no resurrection.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
By the way, the word zeraphath comes from a Hebrew
word that means to melt, and the noun form of
that word is crucible cross. First resurrection story in the
Bible took place at the place of the cross. No cross,
no resurrection. The True God is a God who brings
in the outsider. The True God is a God who
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sometimes contradicts and confuses us. The True God is a
God who saves through death. False gods do the opposite.
False gods favor the insider. They rewards you based on
how good you are. False gods conform to all of
our prejudices. False gods save through prosperity. False gods rewards
(21:03):
you for your strengths. The Bibles, God meets you and
your weaknesses. That's what makes the True God different from
every other God ever concocted in the minds of man.
Do not say they're all the same, because they're actually
fundamentally different. The last scene or this whole deal, there's
one thing. I want to turn our attention to the woman,
(21:23):
because she's in exactly the same place some of you are.
In order for the woman to experience this, God says,
she has to take a step of faith right now.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
It's not blind faith.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
She's seen a little bit what God does and what
does He shows her a little she responds, He shows
her a little more. She responds, He shows her a
little more. That's the way God works. Listen, Christianity is
not turning your mind off. But many of you are like, well,
I'm only need to understand and then I believe. And
God says, Christianity is not see and believe. Christianity is
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see a little, believe, see the rest for the rest eternity.
So if you have seen enough that God, you can
hear him beckoning you to follow you Right, he's beginning
to beckon you and he's saying follow you. Got questions
me too, You're seeking answers, me too. But I've seen
(22:18):
enough to know that there is a God that the
God speaks in Jesus, and he has said, come and
follow me. If you're going to wait all your questions
are answered, it's never going to happen.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
That you believe, You see a little, you believe, and
then He begins to show you the rest.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I would invite you to begin to follow, to say
yes to what God you know is doing in your life.
As you begin to obey, God begins to respond. I'm
just saying, as you obey, that's becomes the vehicle that
God begins to pour blessing through.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
And some of you need to take that step.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
You need just to begin to go out and believe
and let God begin to unfold his glorious majesty in
and through you.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Faith proceeds God's blessing in your life. So take a
new step of faith today and see what He'll do.
You are listening to Pastor J. D. Greer on Summit
Life and a message titled A God Like no Other.
We have a special devotional to accompany this study of
Elijah and the second part of the study about Elisha.
It's a devotional called Elijah and Elisha, an eight day
(23:20):
scripture guide through First King seventeen to Second King six.
It's an eight part study and each part includes a
short chapter that aligns with the teaching you've been hearing
and we'll be hearing for the next few weeks. It
also includes space for notes on the scripture readings from
First and Second Kings, a prayer prompt, and then a
challenge to apply the truth to your personal life. We'd
(23:43):
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calling eight six six three three five fifty two twenty.
The number again is eight six six three three five
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us next week on Summit Life with Jdgreer. Today's program
(24:54):
was produced and sponsored by Jdgreer Ministries.
Today on Summit Life with JD. Greer.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
False God's favor the insider. They rewards you based on
how good you are. False gods save through prosperity. False
gods rewards you for your strengths. The Bible's God meets
you and your weaknesses. That's what makes the True God
different from every other god ever concocted in the minds
of man.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Do not say they're all the same.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Thanks for joining us today for Summit Life with Pastor
JdE Greer. As always, I'm your host, Malli Videvich. Okay,
let's be real. When most of us think of false gods,
we picture different world religions unlike ours, with unusual rituals
or little golden statues on altars Indiana Jones type stuff. Right,
But the truth is we might actually be worshiping a
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false God right here in our own house, even if
we think we're worshiping Jesus. Today on Summit Life, Pastor JD.
Unpacks four truths that set the God of the Bible
apart from the gods of our own imagination. It's part
of our study of the prophet Elijah titled something Better
and if you missed any of the previous messages you
can find them online at Jdgreer dot com. But for now,
(01:17):
let's jump back into our message titled a God Like
No Weather.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
So here we go verse ten first king to seventeen.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
And when Elijah, finally after one hundred miles, got to
the gate of the city, he saw a widow there
gathering sticks, just like God told him would be there,
and he asked her, would you please bring me a
little water in a cup. As she was going to
get it, he called to her and said, hey, bring
me a bite of bread too. But she said, I
swear by the Lord's your God, that I don't have
a single piece of bread in my house. I have
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only a handful of flour left in the jar and
a little cooking oil on the bottom of my jug.
I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this
very last meal, and then my son and I will die.
But Elijah said to her, do not be afraid. Go ahead,
and you just what you said, But make me a
little bread first, then use what's left to prepare a
meal for yourself and for your son verse fourteen. For
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this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says.
There will always be flour and i of oil left
in your containers until the time when the Lord's sins
rain and the crops girl again. So she did as
Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her family continue
to eat for many days. There was always enough flower
and il ofve oil left in the containers, just as
the Lord had promised through Elijah. Sometime later, the woman's
son became sick. He grew worse and worse, and finally
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he died. Then she said to Elijah, old man of God,
what have you done to me? Have you come here
to point out my sins and killed my son? But
Elijah replied, give me your son, and he took the
child's body from her arms, carried him up the stairs
to the room where he was.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Staying, and laid the body on his bed.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Then Elijah cried out to the Lord, Oh Lord, my God,
why have you brought tragedy on this widow who has
opened her home to me, causing her son to die?
And he stretched himself out over the child three times
and cried out to the Lord, Oh Lord, my God,
please let this child's life returned to him. The Lord
heard Elijah's prayer, and the life of the child returned
and he revived. Then Elijah brought him down from the
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upper room and gave him to his mother. Look, he said,
your son is alive. Then the woman told Elijah, now
I know for sure that you are a man of God,
and that.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Truly the Lord speaks through you.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Four things that you're going to see in this story
about the True God.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Now here we go. I give you four things.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Number one, the True God is a god of the outsider.
Why did God send Elijah to a gentile widow outside
of the region of Israel. Do you know what the
first sermon that Jesus of a priest was. It was
on this passage.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
It's Luke. Chapter four is where it's recorded. Let me
read it to you.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
But in truth, I tell you there were many widows
in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens
were shut up three years and six months and a
great famin came over all the land, and Elijah was
sent to none of them, but only the Zaraphath and
the land of Sidato, a woman who wi a widow.
The famine, Jesus said, affected everybody in Israel, but the
only one that Elijah was sent to rescue was a
(04:08):
pagan widowed woman in Bale's hometown, and that truth. Maybe
the Israelite leaders who were listening to jesus first sermon
so mad that they tried to kill him on the spot.
This first point I'm making to you is what caused
them to be so angry they wanted to kill him.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
God is a god of the outsider. Number two.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
The true God is a God who sometimes contradicts and
confuses us. The true God is a God who sometimes
contradiction confuses us. This woman's son dies and she doesn't
know why. She goes to the prophet of God, Elijah.
Elijah's a prophet, he's a theologian, he is a seminary graduate.
So what's his response, Oh well, let me just explain
to you while all this, No, he doesn't know either.
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He goes to God and says, God, I don't understand
why this kid's dying either. Can you help here? Notice
what they don't do. They don't blame God. They don't
start accusing God. The woman acknowledge that she's a sinner
and so God has every right to do what God's
going to do. No, they just go to God asking
God for help, appealing to his mercy. They have what
I call a humble faith. A humble faith. Humble they
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recognize that God often does things that they don't understand.
Faith they never cease believing in the goodness of God
even when their questions aren't being answered. Humble faith willingness
to live with unanswered questions, yet confident in God's goodness
even in the midst of those questions. That's what you
see going on with their live in this woman.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Is that like your faith? Is that like your faith?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Some people, when they suffer, they assume that God just
doesn't care.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Some people begin to rage against God. God, how dare you?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Other people turn God into some kind of genie that'll
always heal and always bless if you'll just show enough
faith and that works awesome until it doesn't and you're like,
I did everything right. I named it claim that a
prayde all night, confessed every known sin, thank God in
advance for the answer, and my son still died. Humble
faith is a willingness to live with unanswered questions that
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you cease never, never cease to believe in the goodness
of God. I can't tell you this. Listen to this
humble faith as a miracle of the Holy Spirit. He's
the only one that can produce that faith in you.
I know that from experience because for many years I
learned all the right answers, but had no humility in
my faith. The reason I couldn't have faith because I
wasn't humble. I pretty much needed to have God justified
to me why he said or did anything, and if not,
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I'd be angry at God, or I just kind of
I just felt myself slipping into unbelief. The reason some
of you can't have faith is because you're not humble.
You went to where God took me to the mat.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
On this one.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
It was to read in the Book of Job forty
two chapters and Job I'll summarize before you in like
one point, this is pretty much the who point in
the Book of Job.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Thirty eight chapters.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Job asked Pepper's God with questions and all the his
Theolosion friends are given him answers, and the final scene
God shows up in chapter thirty eight. Now, God is,
you know, on the docket. He's going to answer to
Job why he did what he did. And you know
what God's answer is, Job, I'd say, once you go
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get your universe that you created and bring him back
here and we'll compare. Oh, you don't have a universe,
then why don't you shut up about me running mind?
That's essentially the four chapters. I just put in one
sentence for you. Okay, Job, if you don't have the
power to create it, you know, Job, you can't even
get the DVD lights to quit flashing twelve o'clock. Okay,
if you can't even create a universe, don't think that
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you have the wisdom to question my ways. It is
amazing how much arrogance we approach God with when we
want to bring God down to our level and say,
I'm not going to believe until I understand you.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
There's a humility in faith that says.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
God, you sometimes contradict and confuse me, but I never
cease believing in your goodness see you. One of the
greatest earthly examples that I know of this in more
recent history is Charles Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon was one of
the greatest theological minds in the nineteenth century. So what
was remarkable most remark about Spurgeon was not hearing him
pontificate about the mysteries of God. What was remarkable is
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just hearing him pray for somebody. They would say that
when he would begin to pray over somebody. I was
reading this one account of a woman in his congregation
who had a chronic illness, and he lays his hands
on this woman and he just lifts his eyes to
God and he says, God Father, if my daughter was
sick and she was in this much pain and I
could do something about it, I'd do it.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
God.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
This is your daughter, and I know you care for
her even more than I care for my own daughters. God,
won't you heal this woman?
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Now?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Spurgeon realized that God sometimes has ways beyond our ways,
but it never caused him to lose touch with the
tenderness of God the Father. In fact, in one account,
he was listening to some guide his church get up
and just just you know, wax eloquent in one of
his prayers about and when he sat back down, the
stage person says, why don't you just shut up, call
God Father and ask him for something. The maturity of
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your prayers is not shown by their theological sophistication. They're
shown by the simplicity of your requests, humble faith. You
don't know everything God's doing, but you never lose touch
with his tenderness.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Number three, the.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
True God has power over death. The True God has
power over death. The one thing that Bill could not
touch was death. That's where all the worlds would be
saviors fall short.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
By the way.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So many things think about this in our world promise salvation,
most secular and religious. But the one thing you always
have to ask about any would be savior is have
they dealt with our primary problem, which is death? Lenin Hiller.
Both of them promised. Both of them said at one
point that their regime would do away with the need
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for religion, do away with the need for Jesus. Both
of them lenn said that his new empire would cure
world hunger. Yet it crumbled a few years ago fall
the Soviet Union because of poverty. Neither of those guys
could deal with death. Both of them are in somewhat
in the dustment of history now, Muhammad, Buddha, some of
the world's great religious leaders all died.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
You can visit their graves.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I remember hearing the one tragic story of a grandmother
out in California who was babysitting her grandchildren.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
At her daughter's house.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
She looked out the window and to her horror, saw
her granddaughter two your granddaughter fall into the deep end
of the pool. She ran outside to rescue or jumped
in the pool. Two hours later, they pulled out both
the body of the grandmother and the granddaughter because the
grandmother couldn't swim either.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Those people that would be.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Savior cannot suffer from the same thing that they're trying.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
To save people that they suffer with.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Does it make sense these people they died haven't been
able to deal with the problem of death. Many of
you think of money as a savior, at least that's
the way you act about it.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
And willis I know we know this. You don't need
me to tell you this, But how crazy is that?
I mean, money can give you.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
A comfortable eye, but you're not taking it beyond the grave.
I mean, the proverb is you know that there's no
hearse you've ever seen. It's pulling a U haul. It's
just absurd. You like, I want to leave a lot
of money for my kids, You leave a lot of
money for your kids.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
You're gonna spoil your kids.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I'm not saying it's wrong, Okay, So to leave your
kid I'm just saying that it's not a savior. You
know that it can make life a little easier here,
but it doesn't take you beyond the grave. Many of
you act like beauty is your savior. Functionally speaking, that's
why you're trying so hard to hang on to it.
I don't mean to be rude, get up on your face,
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but you're going to do that for so long.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Right. You can tuck it, you can lift it.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
But.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I mean you know this.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
You can slow the aging process down a little bit,
but you can't stop it. You can nip it, tucket,
tighten it, tan it, tweak it, tight at puffett, twist it,
lift it.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Color at whatever you want.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
All right, it's just getting older, saggier, flimsier.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
It's dying.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Is that really the place that you want to build
your hope? Can your God carry you beyond the grave?
That's why God goes into Bale's backyard, raises a kid
from the dead and essentially says, you can't touch this.
I can make rain where you can, I bring people
back from the dead, but you've never been able to do.
(12:22):
By the way, right after the sermon and Luke four
that Jesus priested by Elijah. First thing he did after
they tried to push him off the cliff, it says
that he just sort of slipped to their midst. I
don't know what that was like, but he just like
just slipped of their mits and they got to the
edge of the cliff. They're like, oh, where to go?
You know, he goes straight from there Luke seven and
he goes to the dead son of a widow and
he raises him from the dead.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
You know what Jesus is trying to do.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
He's trying to show he's walking the same path of
Elijah because it's essentially the same question. He's answering, what
can God do as a savior that no other God
can do? Essentially Jesus twice there and that scene basically says,
can't touch this. I literally can't touch this because I'm
passing through your mits and can't touch this I'm doing
with death.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
You were listening to Summit Life with pastor J. D. Greer,
and we'll get right back to today's teaching and just
a moment, but did you know we have a brand
new premium resource that parallels this teaching series we just began.
If you've been enjoying hearing about Elijah and the miraculous
ways that God worked through him. We would love to
send you a copy of Elijah and Elisha, an eight
(13:23):
day scripture guide through First King seventeen to Second King six.
It's an eight part devotional looking at some of the
highlights of what the Bible teaches about Elijah and Elisha,
the prophet who succeeded him and who will be talking
about on Summit Life very soon. These devotionals are a
great way to take a deep look at why God
works so powerfully through them, and along the way, you'll
(13:46):
discover how God can work through you in much of
the same ways too. You'll read, study, pray, and apply
what you're learning along the way. That's the way we
structure many of our resources here at Summit Life, allowing
you to connect with God's Word on a deeper level.
We'll send you a copy of this devotional with your
gift to the ministry right now, So give us a
(14:08):
call at eight six six three three five fifty two
twenty or give online at Jdgreer dot com. Now let's
return to today's teaching once again. Here's Pastor JD.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Now, before I move on, to our final point point four.
I want to point out one other thing. I want
you to.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Think about how confusing this whole thing was for the woman.
I mean, here, she's got a need, she's starving, and
a prophet of God shows up who doesn't meet the
need but ask her for something to eat, and then
after he has eventually provided for her, then her sun dies.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
You think about how confusing this is to her.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
But what if God has a higher agenda then simply
multiplying her oil or raising her son. What if there
is something even more important he's after, which is why
he does it the way he does it, and that
higher agenda is that they know the God that is
better than multiplied oil, and a resurrection that is more
permanent than a temporarily raised son. Some of you are
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frustrated right now in your life because God seems to
not do the things that you think he should do.
He hadn't gotten you into the school you want to
get into. You've lost the job, you can't seem to
get into the relationship you want to be in.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
He hasn't healed you like you think you want.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
What if God had a bigger agenda, a better agenda,
and that is you coming to with God that is
bigger than all of life? A God so big and
so glorious that it's more important than your son temporarily
living or dying. Write this down. Knowing God is better
than multiplied oil or even a temporarily resurrected son. You know,
I say temporarily, You might know this guy actually been
(15:43):
a zeraphat. We've been through that region. He ain't there.
He did. That means he got old, he died again,
and he didn't get resurrected at that time. His resurrection
was temporary. Every earthly blessing is temporary. What if there
was something better than the temporary? What if it was
knowing a God who is bigger and better than life,
if in a resurrection more permanent than a temporary blessing,
that's the point. That's what God is trying to show them,
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and that's what he is trying to show you.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Hebrews eleven talks about two groups. I love this. It
actually mentions this woman.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Hebrews eleven talks about two kinds of people who pray
in faith and some of them get their prayers answered,
and it mentions this woman specifically. And Hebrews eleven their
son gets rased and the dead. Others pray in faith
and they don't get their prayer answered. But here's what
it says about both groups is both of them watch
this die in faith, neither of them having received the fullness.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Of the promise.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Because the fullness of the promise is not multiplied oil
or a temporarily resurrected son. The fullness of the promise
is fellowship with the Lord of life for all of eternity.
That's the bigger agenda for you to know God number four,
The true God saves through death. The True God not
only has power over death, he saves through death. Now,
(17:00):
could we confess here for a minute that this final
scene is pretty mysterious. Elijah puts the dead boy in
his own bed, then stretches out over the boy three times.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
What is this, well, putting him into.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
His own bed, It's hard to think of a place
more private to you than your bed, right, So he's
putting the boy in his place, stretching out as a
position of vulnerability. In fact, I think of Jesus's words
to Peter that when you're old, they're going to stretch
you out. Talking about his crucifixion and you're not going
to have any control of what you're doing. It's vulnerability
laying on top of him as if absorbing the boy's
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death into his own body. This is, by the way,
get this the first account in the Bible of somebody
actually being raised from the dead.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
And don't miss this. The account of the first person
in the.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Bible being raised from the dead begins with the question
is this my son dying for my sins? And then
God has his representative laid down over the boy, stretch
out and absorb, as it were, that boy's death into
his body.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
So the boy lives.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
And is this my son dying for my sins? God's
answer is no, your son is not dying for your sins.
My son, my representative will die for your sins, and
God will save you through the death of an innocent man.
That's how God saved us. And let me add he
continues to work the power of his salvation in us
through our death. That's the big mystery that some of
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you can't get your minds around. False Gods always promised
to save around death. If you obey, if you're showing
a faith, you made me happy, I'll prosper you. That
is different than the Christian hope. The Christian hope is
resurrection through death. Many so called Christian preachers essentially their
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message is obey God and he'll enrich you. He'll give
you a BMW, He'll prosper you in your job. He'll
turn the feelings in your mouth into gold. You know,
sometimes God does that. Maybe not the gold billing thing,
but you know he does prosper you. I don't want
to take out at all. What I'm always bothered by
is what they Omit is that the channel of God's
blessing is resurrection through death.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
It is strength through weakness.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
So sometimes God makes us weak so he can show
off his power in us. That's why Paul said, I
delight in the fellowship of Christ's sufferings so that I
could know the power of his resurrection. If there is
no cross, there can be no resurrection. If you want
the power of resurrection in your life, you're going to
have to go through the cross, which means Cross's weakness
is struggling. Cross is you being torn down, because that's
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where God's power begins to go in you. Many of
you want to be saved around the cross, and there's
a lot of false peddlers of religion out there that'll
give you exactly what you're looking for, but not this one.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Not the Bible.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
The Bible says, you want the power of the resurrection,
you go into the fellowship of His sufferings. The fact
that Jesus died in weakness didn't mean that God was
angry at him, that God was cursing him, per se
to mean he was out of the will of God.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
It's just how God was saving the world.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
If you're in the midst of a kind of death,
death of a dream, death of your reputation, death of
your health, or even death of your body, that doesn't
mean that God has forsaken you. He forsook Jesus so
he would never forsake you, and in your death, now
that's where God does his best work. Resurrection happens through
death and weakness. So Paul said, I will gladly embrace
(20:16):
the fellowship of His sufferings so I can walk in
the power of His resurrection.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
No cross, no resurrection.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
By the way, the word zeraphath comes from a Hebrew
word that means to melt, and the noun form of
that word is crucible cross. First resurrection story in the
Bible took place at the place of the cross. No cross,
no resurrection. The True God is a God who brings
in the outsider. The True God is a God who
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sometimes contradicts and confuses us. The True God is a
God who saves through death. False gods do the opposite.
False gods favor the insider. They rewards you based on
how good you are. False gods conform to all of
our prejudices. False gods save through prosperity. False gods rewards
(21:03):
you for your strengths. The Bibles, God meets you and
your weaknesses. That's what makes the True God different from
every other God ever concocted in the minds of man.
Do not say they're all the same, because they're actually
fundamentally different. The last scene or this whole deal, there's
one thing. I want to turn our attention to the woman,
(21:23):
because she's in exactly the same place some of you are.
In order for the woman to experience this, God says,
she has to take a step of faith right now.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
It's not blind faith.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
She's seen a little bit what God does and what
does He shows her a little she responds, He shows
her a little more. She responds, He shows her a
little more. That's the way God works. Listen, Christianity is
not turning your mind off. But many of you are like, well,
I'm only need to understand and then I believe. And
God says, Christianity is not see and believe. Christianity is
(21:56):
see a little, believe, see the rest for the rest eternity.
So if you have seen enough that God, you can
hear him beckoning you to follow you Right, he's beginning
to beckon you and he's saying follow you. Got questions
me too, You're seeking answers, me too. But I've seen
(22:18):
enough to know that there is a God that the
God speaks in Jesus, and he has said, come and
follow me. If you're going to wait all your questions
are answered, it's never going to happen.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
That you believe, You see a little, you believe, and
then He begins to show you the rest.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I would invite you to begin to follow, to say
yes to what God you know is doing in your life.
As you begin to obey, God begins to respond. I'm
just saying, as you obey, that's becomes the vehicle that
God begins to pour blessing through.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
And some of you need to take that step.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
You need just to begin to go out and believe
and let God begin to unfold his glorious majesty in
and through you.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Faith proceeds God's blessing in your life. So take a
new step of faith today and see what He'll do.
You are listening to Pastor J. D. Greer on Summit
Life and a message titled A God Like no Other.
We have a special devotional to accompany this study of
Elijah and the second part of the study about Elisha.
It's a devotional called Elijah and Elisha, an eight day
(23:20):
scripture guide through First King seventeen to Second King six.
It's an eight part study and each part includes a
short chapter that aligns with the teaching you've been hearing
and we'll be hearing for the next few weeks. It
also includes space for notes on the scripture readings from
First and Second Kings, a prayer prompt, and then a
challenge to apply the truth to your personal life. We'd
(23:43):
love to get you a copy of this practical new devotional,
and we'll send you a copy today as our way
of saying thanks for your financial gift of thirty five
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Summit Life opens the door for listeners all across the
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online resources. Join that mission today when you give by
(24:06):
calling eight six six three three five fifty two twenty.
The number again is eight six six three three five
fifty two twenty, or go online to give and request
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you can also sign up for our email list to
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(24:28):
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inviting you to join us next time when we move
to the pinnacle of Elijah's life and ministry. You won't
want to miss it. Happy Mother's Day weekend and join
us next week on Summit Life with Jdgreer. Today's program
(24:54):
was produced and sponsored by Jdgreer Ministries.
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