Hello and welcome to Word Alive, my name is Brenda Critchley. And coming up in today ‘s Word Alive is a message by Derek Stringer on how to manage bad intelligence, impossible jobs and cagey enemies.

Thankss for fall ining us today and I ‘m certain that what Dr Stringer has to state is traveling to be truly relevant for us all. I ‘ll bit in here and at that place but allow me manus the mike over to Derek.

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Thank you Brenda, and allow me add my welcome to hers. This current series we ‘re naming The ‘How To ‘ Of Christianity because we ‘re looking at a figure of practical countries where we need assist in populating a worthwhile Christian life.

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We are doing the recordings available and it will do a valuable resource for you or a friend as it covers so much that we need to cognize that truly does assist us populate a Christian life with significance and intent. I ‘ll give you inside informations about how you get acquire the Cadmium ‘s, merely for our managing charge, at the terminal of the programme. By the manner, we besides make the transcripts available free to an electronic mail reference.

Today ‘s topic is based on 2 Kings 19 – How To Manage Bad News. Derek!

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Brenda! Thanks once more.

Cliff, a adult male in a hot air balloon, realised he was lost. He reduced his height and spotted a adult female below. He descended a spot more and shouted, “ Excuse me, can you assist me? I promised a friend I would run into him an hr ago, but I do n’t cognize where I am. ” The adult female below replied, “ You are in a hot air balloon, vibrating about 30 pess above the land. You are between 40 and 41 grades north latitude and between 59 and 60 grades west longitude. ”

“ You must be an applied scientist, ” said the balloonist.

“ I am, ” replied the adult female, “ How did you cognize? ”

“ Well, ” answered the balloonist, “ Everything you told me is technically right, but I have no thought of what to do of your information, and the fact is that I am still lost. Frankly, you ‘ve non been much aid so far. ”

The adult female below responded, “ You must be in direction. ”

“ I am, ” replied the balloonist. “ But how did you cognize? ”

“ Well, ” said the adult female, “ you do n’t cognize where you are or where you are traveling. You have risen where you are due to a big measure of hot air. You made a promise which you have no thought how to maintain. And you expect people beneath you to work out your jobs. The fact is you are in precisely the same place you were in before we met, but now, someway, it ‘s my mistake. ”

Much depends on one ‘s position in life, does n’t it? Life is complex. Almost day-to-day you and I are forced to calculate out how to manage bad intelligence, impossible jobs and cagey enemies.

I do n’t cognize your precise fortunes, but I would be surprised if you told me that every country of your life is in perfect form. So you have no bad intelligence? You face no impossible jobs? You confront no clever enemies? What a fortunate individual you are! Or are you? The fact is that you likely do n’t be. Or if you do, you do n’t be for long in that problem-less province.

No 1 can belong to God unless he or she passes through tests and subjects. You know your fortunes. What are they? What torment are you sing? What intelligence is bad? What jobs overwhelm you? Is at that place person who is giving you a hard clip?

Make you of all time feel like you are hanging, suspended from a hot air balloon, tardily for an assignment, non even certain where you are?

My purpose in this edition of Word Alive is non to promote self commiseration. Alternatively, I ‘m here to name you and me to a realistic assessment of where we are. What are your problems? How can you manage them?

Let us state you a narrative. It is a narrative of a male monarch called Hezekiah.

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He lived some 700 old ages before Jesus.

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He was the male monarch of Judah.

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Hezekiah ‘s male parent, Ahaz, was one of the most wicked of the Judean male monarchs.

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In that unusual form that sometimes emerges, we see Hezekiah, Born of godless parents, going one of the most reverent male monarchs to reign in Judah. He ascended the throne at Jerusalem when he was 25 old ages old. He reigned 29 old ages. He broke down the heathen graven images.

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He worshiped the Lord. He held fast to the commandments given by Moses.

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This is a unusual going from the ways of his male parent.

Life was n’t peculiarly good to Hezekiah. In fact, life for any of us, no affair how near we are to the Lord, is seldom easy. The Assyrians were at the extremum of their power. They had conquered the northern land of Israel. Samaria had fallen to the powerful Shalmaneser at the terminal of a three-year besieging when Hezekiah had been on the southern throne of Judah merely four old ages.

Eleven old ages subsequently, King Sennacherib attacked the bastioned metropoliss of Judah. He took them. Hezekiah begged for Sennacherib ‘s apprehension. Hezekiah stripped the exchequer of the temple and the male monarch ‘s house, paying testimonial to Sennacherib. That was n’t sufficient. The lecherousness for greater power and money had taken control.

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Sennacherib had a manner of boasting about the testimonial which was paid to him by the states he conquered.

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Archeologists have discovered the “ Taylor Cylinder ” in which he bragged about capturing 46 metropoliss of Judah, taking over 200,000 human prisoners in add-on to a immense figure of cowss and animals of every sort. Hezekiah had paid literally 1000000s of lbs worth of gold and Ag. Still, Sennacherib wanted more.

Have you of all time come to a point in your life when your universe falls apart?

I remember hearing about a divinity professors who had merely lost his married woman in a tragic auto accident. Asked how he was making. His response was distressingly compendious. He declared, “ My universe has tumbled in! ”

Hezekiah had been willing to pay the testimonial. Hezekiah had accommodated the Assyrian encroachers up to a point. Now Sennacherib was naming for the resignation of Jerusalem. He sent Rabshakeh, along with some other military Plutos, to the Gatess of Jerusalem. These Assyrian officers began to sneer at the Jews. They laughed at the possibility of a Jewish-Egyptian confederation. Egypt rarely upheld her terminal of the deal.

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They mocked the God of Hezekiah.

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Yes – They laughed at his military restrictions, offering to give him 2,000 Equus caballuss, indicating out that he did n’t even hold that many horse work forces to put on them. They even claimed to be motivated by the Lord who had told them to “ travel up against this land, and destruct it. ”

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Hezekiah ‘s Plutos begged the Assyrians to talk in Aramaic, non Hebrew.

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They might upset the Judaic soldiers and common people sitting on the walls of Jerusalem.

Rabshakeh ‘s response was, “ ‘Was it merely to your maestro and you that my maestro sent me to state these things, and non to the work forces sitting on the wall-who, like you, will hold to eat their ain crud and imbibe their ain piss? ‘ ”

Then Rabshakeh called out in a loud voice in the Hebrew linguistic communication, pressing the people to listen to the great male monarch of Assyria.

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“ Hear the word of the great male monarch, the male monarch of Assyria! This is what the male monarch says: Do non allow Hezekiah lead on you. He can non present you from my manus. Do non allow Hezekiah carry you to swear in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will certainly present us: this metropolis will non be given into the manus of the male monarch of Assyria. ‘ ”

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He proceeded to state the common people that if they surrendered they would thrive. Ultimately they might be taken into imprisonment, but even there they would hold a reasonably good life.

The enemy took its propaganda straight to the citizens of Jerusalem, seeking to make an internal job for Hezekiah.

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Eliakim and Joah tore their apparels and brought the awful words of Rabshakeh to Hezekiah.

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Hezekiah ‘s universe had tumbled in!

How make you manage the downs of life? How do you manage bad intelligence, impossible jobs and clever enemies? Do you seek to gut it out on your ain?

Football managers have told us, “ When the traveling gets tough, the tough get traveling! ”

That ‘s the manner Samson tried to manage things. He had a strong organic structure and a clever head. Every clip he got in problem he put the two to work. Most of the clip he was successful. You, excessively, may win some of the clip. You ‘re cagey plenty to pull on your ain innate human resources. And you do a reasonably good occupation, do n’t you? You do for a piece.

Your married woman is cold, the other adult female is warm. Your married woman wo n’t alter, so you change the land regulations from “ ’til decease doth portion ” to “ ’til I do n’t acquire what I want. ” The disaffection gets all the deeper. Now the kids are looking at you with those at a loss eyes. You did n’t truly intend to acquire in the jam you ‘re in. You were merely traveling to manage it in your ain strength. After all, you had handled merely about every other job in life.

Or possibly you become resentful and angry toward God?

The Christian religion merely ca n’t be what it claims to be if you end up with the concern jobs you have. How could a good God allow you to no longer be successful?

Your hubby is gone. You face the solitariness of decease. Your kids do n’t care. Your new vicinity is n’t every bit friendly as the town you came from. You are on a commiseration trip. You blame God.

Or possibly you ‘ve turned after other Gods?

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This is what Hezekiah ‘s male parent and boy did. Both Ahaz and Manasseh did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They turned to the Canaanite Gods. They built “ high topographic points, raising alters for Baal. ”

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Manasseh burned his boy as an offering and practiced divination and sign, covering with mediums and aces. Cultic faith has a eldritch captivation for people in problem. Astrology, fortune-telling-all are forbidden by God.

Or, when your universe tumbles in, make you merely give up?

Intelligent and powerful people such as Rabshakeh will press you to run up the white flag. They say, “ You ‘ve done your best, buddy. You ‘re still in large problem. It ‘s all over! Merely give up. ”

I ‘m rather certain that Hezekiah was tempted toward each of these attractive options. They are persuasive. He stopped. He assessed the state of affairs, and he took a better option. By his form he shows you and me how to manage bad intelligence, impossible jobs and cagey enemies.

We see it reflected in the manner our narrative continues to unknot. Hezekiah is at his lowest point. He sees no manner out. Not merely have the Assyrians mocked him publically. Knowing that he was a adult male of God, they send him a missive, specifically warning him what will go on to him if he merely trusts his God. They specifically mention the names of the states which Assyria had already destroyed.

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Then Rabshakeh raised the rhetorical inquiry, “ ‘Did the Gods of the states that were destroyed by my sires present them: the Gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? Where is the male monarch of Hamath, the male monarch of Arpad, the male monarch of the metropolis of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah? ‘ ”

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In the context of this public humiliation and private menace, Hezekiah refuses to gut it out on his ain, become resentful and angry toward God, to turn after other Gods, or to give up.

Brenda is traveling to read what the Bible says Hezekiah did. It ‘s stated clearly in our text for today – 2 Kings 19:14 to 16. . .

Hezekiah received the missive from the couriers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and distribute it out before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord:

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“ O Lord, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you entirely are God over all the lands of the Earth. You have made Eden and Earth. Give ear, O Lord, and hear ; open your eyes, O Lord, and see ; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to diss the life God. ”

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I do n’t cognize any transition of the Bible that I find more stimulating in its illustration of how we are to manage impossible state of affairss of life than this transition.

Take a good, difficult expression at Hezekiah. He is at the really lowest point of his life. He has paid the monetary value of being a reformist for God. He has humbled himself before a mighty military power by paying testimonial. A figure of his metropoliss have been captured. He has been belittled publically. Now he receives this private, diplomatic message. He reads it, and he goes up to the house of the Lord. He spreads the whole job, missive and all, out before the Lord.

That is what supplication is all about. It is taking the most intimate and cherished and personal facets of your life, the most baleful concerns that you have of all time faced, and distributing them out before the Lord.

I hope that you portion some of the enthusiasm that I feel as I read this narrative of Hezekiah. I ca n’t acquire this narrative out of my head.

The indispensable push of this transition is that you and I are privileged to take the bad intelligence, the impossible jobs and intrigues of our clever enemies and merely put them, and all the remainder of the jobs of our lives, out before the Lord.

Now within this basic attack of Hezekiah ‘s, we see some constituent kineticss at work. As he lays his job before the Lord, he takes several actions.

First: Hezekiah humbles himself.

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The Scriptures tell us that he lease his apparels and covered himself with sackcloth.

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You could state that his fortunes of life forced him to humble himself. Is this ever the instance? How many times when we are in problem do we cover our troubles with a cocky, confident, chesty spirit? We fake it. We try to convert people that everything is beautiful. When really it is clip to truly acknowledge our demand.

The Jews have a fantastic tradition. The jubilation of their New Year, which is called Yom Kippur, a joyous clip of new twelvemonth jubilation, begins with a clip of humbling. The faithful Jew examines his ain life to see if there is anyone whom he has wronged and is to travel to that individual and ask for forgiveness. Then and merely so does the jubilation Begin. One has humbled himself and set his house in order.

Second: Ezekias enters the house of God.

We live in an individualistic epoch. Much of modern-day religion in God is anti-institutional. When you are tempted to believe that you can merely speak to God any clip in any topographic point, wholly independent of institutional faith, you are in problem. This may come as a daze to you to hear me state this, for many times I ‘ve urged you to take any job at any clip in any topographic point to the Lord.

The point the Bible is doing is that although God does speak straight to individuals, and you have direct entree to God at any clip, God has established certain establishments. In the Old Testament times, it was the Temple. Today it is the Church. God is a Spirit. You do non hold to go to Jerusalem to idolize Him on Mount Zion, as Jesus so clearly pointed out to the adult female at the well. Yet Jesus has established His Church. In its institutional signifier, it is at times cold and unfertile. It is non the construction we worship. That is devotion. It is non merely in the church edifice that you can speak to God.

However, you are privileged to tie in with the Church. It is through the Church that you receive the Scriptures. For it was the Church that recognised Hagiographas of the Prophetss and apostles as revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. To believe that you can turn spiritually outside the context of committedness to other individuals who profess their religion in Jesus Christ is to deny one of the most of import facts of Christian life. Jesus Christ established His Church.

Third, and closely in melody with this: Hezekiah portions his jobs with fellow trusters.

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He asks Eliakim and Shebna and the other senior priests to cover themselves with sackcloth and travel to the prophesier Isaiah.

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Not merely is the house of God representative of an establishment. The church is the people of God who need each other, who portion their jobs, and who grow together bearing one another ‘s loads. I beg you, if you have some bad intelligence and some impossible loads and are covering with some clever enemies, to take some faithful Christian friends into your assurance. Please do n’t seek to travel it entirely. Traveling it entirely will merely take to catastrophe.

We have to underscore the importance of little groups. These groups are designed with three constituent parts. One is that together we discuss a transition from the Bible. Two, we portion our personal lives with each other. Three, we pray together about affairs of personal concern. This is best done in the context of eight, ten, 12 people who meet on a regular basis together, claiming the Lord ‘s presence.

Granted, it is possible to pray entirely. However, your prayer life will ne’er hold rather the same impact if it is entirely lone in nature. It will take on a fantastic energy if it, at some point, connects with other people.

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In the book Prayer Can Change Your Life, by Dr. William R. Parker, is a narrative of an unusual experiment which applies the methods of modern psychological science to the survey of supplication. Dr. Parker and his co-author, Elaine St. Johns, were trying to happen out if supplications, justly understood and adept, would be the intervention of psychotherapeutics. They interviewed 45 voluntaries, carefully spliting them into three groups of 15 persons.

Group 1 was given the best psychotherapeutics possible in hebdomadal, single guidance Sessionss for the intent of rectifying emotional upsets.

Group 2 was made up of the random supplications who preferred neither psychotherapy nor prayer therapy. They were to pray entirely, every dark, during the nine months.

Group 3, the supplication therapy group, was to run into hebdomadal for a two-hour session to speak and pray together.

All 45 were given five recognized personality trials to find what ballad in the subconscious that might be a hint to the jobs and perturbations in each life. The findings were to move as a usher to find advancement at the terminal of nine months.

In the supplication therapy group, a certain envelope was handed to each person one time a hebdomad. It contained prep. On this faux pas was written some unwanted emotion discovered through the trials about which he was to pray seriously for that one hebdomad.

The following hebdomad he was told to bury about that one and given another envelope with another piece of prep. There was no suggestion made that the contents should be shared. But shortly the group began to voluntarily discourse and portion their experiences and the advancement they were doing.

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Dr. Parker reported that suppressions and barriers crumbled as they recognised that each one needed the aid, healing, and encouragement that came from sharing with the group.

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At the terminal of nine months the trials revealed the undermentioned consequences.

Group 1, having psychotherapeutics with no reference of faith or supplication, showed a 65 per centum betterment and each desired more intervention during approaching months.

Group 2, random supplications who prayed every dark on their ain, showed no betterment at all.

Group 3, the supplication therapy group, showed 72 per centum betterment both in symptoms and in the testing.

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The conclusive grounds of religious healing was indicated by the fact that all of them wanted to assist others as they had been helped.

Fourth: Hezekiah directs his supplication to God, saying the facts of his life and his religion, showing worship to God.

What he is truly making is showing what life is all about when he prays, –

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2 Kings 19:15, “ ‘O Lord, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you entirely are God over all the lands of the Earth. ‘ ”

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Make you catch what he is stating?

If you do, it will revolutionize your supplication life. He is stating that all people are spiritual. There are many Gods of human creative activity. He is stating that he is privileged to speak to the one God who created everything there is and sustains everything there is. What he is making is admiting the fact that he is non in this job entirely. He has friends. He besides has God. Not merely any God. Not merely a coney ‘s pes charming power. His God is non merely the God of the Sun or the river or the rain. His is non merely the birthrate goddess. His is non the cultic God who is provincial and looks out for merely one state, one coloring material, one economic doctrine. His God is the ultimate Sovereign of the existence.

Can you spread out yourself in supplication to admit who God is? I ‘ll vouch you that, although you ‘ll experience a spot smaller, you ‘ll besides experience a spot bigger. You ‘ll experience a small spot bigger because you ‘ll gain that although you may be in the minority, if your bosom is genuinely broken before God, you are in confederation with the One who will finally convey human history to completion in the return of Jesus Christ, the One in whom all human history finds its significance.

Fifths: Hezekiah reviews his job with the Lord.

Make you speak specifically about bad intelligence?

He asked the Lord to tend His ear to him. He asked God to open his eyes to see and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he sent to mock the life God. He is stating, “ God, read this missive. What do you believe about it? ” Then he reviews for God what Sennacherib has done. He has laid waste states, projecting their Gods into the fire, turn outing that they were merely wood and rock made by work forces ‘s custodies and hence destructible.

Hezekiah may hold had a selfish involvement to function. But there was more than that in his supplication. Is at that place more than that in your supplications?

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He prays, “ ‘Now, O Lord our God, present us from his manus, so that all lands on Earth may cognize that you entirely, O Lord, are God. ‘ ”

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He is non so much alarmed for his throne. Hezekiah knows some twenty-four hours he ‘ll decease anyhow. If he survives the Assyrians, he could ever be overthrown in a castle putsch. It had happened before in Judah. At the deepest degree he is concerned that the name of God be non blasphemed. Here ‘s a missive from Sennacherib, mocking the Lord. Hezekiah truly wants the name of God revered. Actually, he is the first male monarch since Solomon that the Scriptures record as holding prayed this manner.

Sixth: Ezekias entrusts his whole life, fate, and the hereafter of the people into the custodies of God.

He is stating, “ I ca n’t manage my jobs entirely. I need your aid, Lord. Here I am. What are You traveling to make to assist me? ”

It is about this clip that the Prophet Isaiah gets back in touch with Hezekiah. He conveys to Hezekiah what the Lord has to state. The Lord has a message for Assyria. The Lord is cognizant of how Sennacherib has mocked Him. The Lord is cognizant how he has claimed to hold won conflicts with his ain chariots all through the Middle East.

He quotes God as really taking the recognition for Sennacherib ‘s triumphs. God has said there was non one triumph which Sennacherib had had that was non in progress permitted by God.

What a authoritative statement this is of the sovereignty of God. Now the game is over for Sennacherib. You can read what God has to state to Sennacherib in 2 Kings 19:21-34.

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Let me merely read three of these poetries. He says to Sennacherib: “ ‘But I know where you stay and when you come and travel and how you rage against me. Because you rage against me and your crust has reached my ears, I will set my hook in your olfactory organ and my spot in your oral cavity, and I will do you return by the manner you came. ‘ ”

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Then God promises rescue for Jerusalem.

That dark the angel of the Lord went Forth and slew 185,000 in the cantonment of the Assyrians. Sennacherib heads place to Nineveh. And, while he was idolizing in the house of his ain Gods, two of his boies killed him in a castle rebellion.

Not all of our problems are dealt with in rather this clip tabular array. It is of import for us to gain that our God maps outside of clip. He is autonomous. He is in charge. In malice of the hurting, the injuries, the disheartenment, the failures of our lives-His is the triumph! God ‘s payday is non ever Friday. He already knows your get downing from your terminal and everything in between. Nothing has happened to you of which He is non cognizant.

So distribute it all out before Him in humbleness, affecting yourself in His Church, sharing your jobs with fellow trusters, admiting who He is, reexamining your jobs with Him, and swearing the concluding result to Him.

What are we speaking about? We are speaking about a critical religion in Jesus Christ. That ‘s how to manage bad intelligence, impossible jobs and clever enemies!

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Thank you Derek. I ‘m certain that you ‘ll desire to reexamine today ‘s message and we ‘ll merrily direct you a free transcript to your electronic mail reference. Merely travel to our web site gnba.net That ‘s gnba.net

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Until following clip, that ‘s all from us – I ‘m Brenda Critchley and Dr Derek Stringer is our Bible Teacher here at Good News Broadcasting Association the production squad behind Word Alive.

Good pass for now and God bless you.

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