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To learn more about Passion City Church, including our gathering times in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

visit us online at Passion City Church.com.

Today's talk comes from Pastor Ben Stewart.

Well, we are continuing in our series on Nehemiah, and we entitled this series, Rise Up, because it answers the question,

how does the people rise up to be all that they're meant to be under God.

And if you recall the context, we see in the Old Testament scriptures

that when humanity went astray,

God chose a people group, a people, and he placed them strategically on a piece of land.

The one piece of land that's a land strip between three major continents, and God chose his people, the nation of Israel, the people of Judah, to be

a kingdom of priests, to be an entire nation whose job was to help other nations know and love their maker.

That's why he put them in such a strategic piece of real estate.

And yet if you follow along he tells them I will bless you and you will be a

blessing and the nations will know me and then in due time I will send my son Jesus Christ to bind all the nations together in a new kingdom under God.

But if you read through the scriptures you see that God's

people not only did not live up to their lofty ideals, they became wicked almost

immediately and exploited their people.

So as we talk about this series, we're talking about renewal or revival,

but the truth is it's not going back to some ideal day.

They never lived up to their lofty ideals. And so God sent them profit after

profit warning them. If you persist in your rebellion and your exploitation of people,

I can't bless you. Not only can I not bless you, I will cast you out.

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