LOOSE THE SWORD OF GOD INTO ACTION
January 14, 2001 pm
MF Blume
Joshua 5:1-2 And it came to pass,
when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan
westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea,
heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children
of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither
was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel.
At that time the LORD said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, and circumcise
again the children of Israel the second time.
Joshua 5:6 For the children of Israel walked
forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were men of war,
which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they obeyed not the voice
of the LORD: unto whom the LORD sware that he would not shew them the land,
which the LORD sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that
floweth with milk and honey.
Joshua 5:9 And the LORD said unto Joshua,
This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore
the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day.
Joshua 5:11 And they did eat of the old
corn of the land on the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes, and
parched corn in the selfsame day. And the manna ceased on the morrow
after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children
of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of
Canaan that year. And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho,
that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over
against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him,
and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And
he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And
Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him,
What saith my lord unto his servant? And the captain of the LORD'S
host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place
whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.
Notice all the signs pointing to a parallel with a present-day spiritual
maturity that we require.
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All the doubters were gone and dead.
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The Lord looked at Israel as one person.
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Although one generation had been circumcised and a second required it due
to neglect, God said ISRAEL WAS CIRCUMCISED A SECOND TIME.
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The very time after the doubters died, Israel received a second circumcision.
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And God said the reproach of Israel was rolled away.
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As though the reproach of the doubters was cut off from the nation when
they died, speaking of the carnal element amongst them, freeing the godly
part of the nation to go in and enjoy God’s Fullness.
Second circumcision.
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The first circumcision is pictured by the Red Sea crossing when they began
their journey.
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That speaks to us about our cutting off of sins.
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The sins that tormented us like soldiers of Egypt were drowned out in our
baptism into Christ’s death.
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But a second circumcision is said to have occurred as though God looked
at all the people as one person.
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And this time the doubters amongst them were removed.
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In every one of us is a carnal element and way of thinking that must be
cut off after much time.
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The fleshliness in us all that we carry with us for a while after we are
saved.
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That “stinking thinking” that doubts God, while part of us, our spirits,
want to believe.
Not only that but maturity is shown when they ate grain of the land and
the manna stopped appearing each morning as it had appeared for forty years.
Exodus 16:35 And the children of
Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited;
they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.
For a generation, they ate manna until they got to the land of Canaan.
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And a generation died off.
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There is a carnal generation in each of our lives that needs to die off.
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It occurs when you have eaten enough manna.
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Notice the wording.
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They ate manna until they came to Canaan.
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Manna speaks of the truths of the cross.
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What does Canaan speak of?
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Coming into the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13).
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Jesus said He is the true bread of heaven and He referred to His death
on the cross.
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We need to feast on the truths of the cross until we come to spiritual
maturity.
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Learn about and be made fully acquainted with the work Christ did to us
in our salvation.
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Until the doubting falls away.
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Until that fleshly generation of unbelief and all the bad traits of carnality
fall away dead.
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Until we finally get the point.
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Until it brings us into the Canaan land of blessings — the fullness of
Christ.
Ephesians 4:13-14 Till we all
come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son
of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the
fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children,
tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the
sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
The spiritual part of our lives is infantile at first.
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And this element needs to grow.
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And it does no good for the carnal ways that we inherited from our old
crucified lives to be hanging around over our heads.
The infants are now grown men and women.
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We have come to maturity.
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And whereas Israel did not know that forty years previous, the giants and
“ites” brothers all through the land of Canaan were terrified of them,
this generation has learned who they are.
Hear Rahab’s words.
Joshua 2:9-11 And she said unto
the men, I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror
is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because
of you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the
Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two
kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and
Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard these
things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage
in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God
in heaven above, and in earth beneath.
Read this:
Joshua 5:1 And it came to pass,
when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan
westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea,
heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children
of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither
was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel.
Chapter 5 Verse two says that it was at THAT TIME, that Israel received
the second circumcision.
We’re baptized into Christ.
If that “baptism” struck such fear in the mind of the enemies of Israel,
then how much more did our baptism into Christ’s death strike fear into
every devil that exists!?
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That event struck fear because Satan knows what God did to us when we were
baptized into Jesus Christ.
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We came into union with Christ, and that means Christ’s power is upon us.
Look at the reason that older Israel did not know this and did not enter
Canaan.
Hebrews 3:19 So we see that they
could not enter in because of unbelief.
Hebrews 4:2 For unto us was the gospel preached,
as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being
mixed with faith in them that heard it.
So any fear here today about the enemy is due to not being fully made aware
of the condition God put us in.
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We are in union with Jesus.
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Believe the word.
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Put your faith into it.
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Its so spiritually immature to hear the Word and not even apply it to yourself
and believe it.
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I wonder why some people come to church for years and never apply these
things to their lives.
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Remain immature and infantile when it comes to the truths of the word.
Paul said do not be children any more who are tossed with every wind of
doctrine.
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Come to the fullness of Christ.
In the same chapter where we read that Israel did not mix their word with
faith, and could not enter into Canaan because the opposite of faith is
FEAR....
We read this:
Hebrews 4:9 There remaineth therefore
a rest to the people of God.
We need to rest in what God did on the cross.
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He took care of everything you’d ever need accomplished for you when the
death of the cross was completed.
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He gave you authority to deal with Satan.
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He gave provided the truths and information that if you get them into your
hearts you will have confidence when things go wrong that all things work
together for Good.
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You will rest and be satisfied in what He did.
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That does not mean you will never do anything and rest from all service.
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It speaks of a rest in what God accomplished so that nothing doubtful or
fearful exists in your heart to stop you and hinder you from doing your
work for Him.
I like what one brother pointed out.
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God’s will was to make Adam in His image and have Adam eat life and enter
into God’s rest so that Adam could rule and reign with God.
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He would have done a whole lot of service and reigning if he would have
entered the rest of what God provided for Him.
Back to Hebrews:
Hebrews 4:10-16 For he that is
entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did
from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any
man fall after the same example of unbelief. For the word of God
is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and
marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all
things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to
do. Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed
into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet
without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that
we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
After telling us to mix the word with faith so we can enter our rest, we
read that we must labour to enter this rest.
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The labour is mixing the word with faith.
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Get the word into your heart where you believe it.
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Why?
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We read the term “for” in verse 12, indicating that the reason we should
labour is due to the next bit of information.
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Labour with the word.
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Labour by mixing the word with faith,
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Because that word that you mix with faith is ALIVE AND POWERFUL (quick
and powerful).
That sword will work.
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That word is like a sword that will destroy all doubt and unbelief.
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Your faith mixed with His word will put that sword to work and slay all
unbelief.
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We pointed this out before in another application, but I want to take you
once again to Joshua 5, with this in mind.
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Israel ate the manna until they came into Canaan and they began eating
fruits of the land.
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We need to feast upon the truths of the cross’ accomplishments for us until
w e come into the fullness of Christ.
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And start enjoying the fruits of the fullness.
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This is taking the word and mixing it with faith.
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DIGESTING IT AND MAKING IT PART OF THEIR LIVES.
Excuse some crudeness here, but its an important point.
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Rome was so fleshly and carnal that their feasts were absolutely gluttonous.
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They would eat and eat food and enjoy its taste, until they would walk
out to the vomitoriums where they would induce themselves to vomit that
they might go back and fill themselves again — they so much liked the taste
of the food.
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It reminds me of carnal believers.
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They are not interested in making the WORD a part of their lives by digesting
it and mixing it with faith, but they simply like the taste of it, and
are entertained to simply hear it.
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And when they leave the service they vomit it out and go back for more
next time.
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It is never made part of their lives.
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They do not live by it.
We need to do a bit of work here tonight.
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Take this word and eat it and digest it, mixing it with the faith in our
hearts.
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Let the sword go to work.
Joshua 5:13-14 And it came to pass,
when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and,
behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his
hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or
for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host
of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and
did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant?
Instead of fearing the enemies of 40 years ago, this time Joshua knew what
the enemy thought of them.
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He knew they would be afraid.
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If Israel entered not in due to not mixing the word with faith, and Joshua
entered in, then we know he mixed the word with faith.
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He believed the word.
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He laboured by faith and ingested that word.
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So he went boldly right to the man, and challenged him.
But the truth was that this was no enemy.
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It was an angel of God.
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Captain of the Lord’s host — army.
What happened?
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Forty years earlier, Israel doubted God’s word.
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I am sure the angelic armies were there just as much as they were in Joshua’s
entrance.
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But the swords were not drawn back then.
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The people did not let the swords be unsheathed.
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Their faith did not occur, and God had to hold back the angels.
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What a missed opportunity.
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But Joshua had faith.
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He mixed the word with faith.
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The sword was unsheathed and was going to go to work.
Now where do you suppose the angels and their swords were going to start
cutting?
Joshua 6:1-2 Now Jericho was straitly
shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came
in. And the LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand
Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour.
How do you think walls were going to come down by the Israelites’ shouts
and trumpets?
Folks, the angels of God’s army would draw their swords and bring down
the walls.
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Israel’s part was simply to believe.
Why do you need to get the word down into your hearts?
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 For though
we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons
of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling
down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high
thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into
captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
This is speaking about coming into a place of maturity where you gird up
the loins of your own mind.
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And you cast down imaginations.
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You throw down anything that stands tall and high against the knowledge
of God.
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Any mental barrier of unbelief.
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Your faith in the word will get God’s Sword into action to cut down all
the very imaginations that work against God’s will.
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Those fearful thoughts.
A sword is said to stand at the very entrance into our rest according to
Hebrews 4.
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And all those hindrances that stand so tall in our way...
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Whether they be giants, or huge cities like Jericho...
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All of it will be CAST DOWN.
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God’s sword is kicked into action when you mix the word with faith.
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That word is like a sword.
Genesis 3:24 So he drove out the man;
and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming
sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
A sword stood at the Garden’s entrance, too.
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For the same purpose.
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To slay and cut down everything in our hearts that will hold us out through
fear and unbelief.
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We belong in this place.
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The sword is the WORD OF TRUTH.
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And truth destroys lies and unbelief.
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Discouragements must be cut down.
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These are imaginations that exalt themselves against and oppose the Lord.
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They hinder us from entering into the land.
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We do not want to deal with them because we are afraid that we will lose.
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That is what the error of the people of a generation previous did and failed.
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We need to know spiritually what Joshua knew in the natural.
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That God accomplished a powerful thing when he baptized us into Christ.
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We came into union with heaven and all of its powers.
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And the devil is scared to death of us!
Cast them down.
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Cast down the Jericho’s.
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Here we see how it is done.
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Take what God says and digest it.
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Eat the manna until it brings you to a place of maturity.
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Cut away the reproach of the generational fleshliness.
Conquer your fears through the word.
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Cast down these imaginations.