Classic: What I Wish People Told Me (Part 3) (2015)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. This is Mike Abendroth, and today is Part 3 in the series of what

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I wish someone would have told me when I was an unbeliever. We live in a culture today that people are at least superficially exposed to Christianity.

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I don�t think they know the deep things. I think they know that the root for Christianity is Christ. There was a man named

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Jesus. He died on a cross and was raised from the dead. I think a lot of folks know that.

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Maybe I am under some kind of false perception, but they generally know who

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Jesus is, but they don�t know particulars, they don�t know his claims, they don�t know what he came to do, why he came to do it, etc.

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It�s just this generic kind of Jesus, and so I wish somebody would have come along to me and said, �Hey, you say you have faith, but there can be a dead faith.

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You say that your religious religiosity can�t save you, and number three, you say you believe in Jesus.

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Well, this is the Jesus of the Bible who comes and gives an ultimatum, �Follow me or else.�

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And I wish people would have said those three things. I think about that last one about Jesus, the ultimatum, and the exclusivity of Christ.

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How about this in Mark chapter 10? He was sitting out on a journey, sitting out on a journey, and a man ran up to Jesus and knelt before him and began asking him, �Good teacher, what shall

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I do to inherit eternal life ?� He was not walking up to Jesus, skipping up to Jesus, but he dashed up to Jesus.

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He was sprinting. He was running. Maybe lots of people were around.

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Maybe there were a bunch of kids around. Not too many would run in such a hot, sunny climate, but here he shows with respect and humiliation and deference for teachers.

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Quite humbly, he falls on his knees before Jesus and addresses him as, �Good teacher.�

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He went to Jesus, knowing that Jesus could solve the problem, �What shall

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I do to inherit eternal life ?� And isn�t that the question? If you�re listening today, that is the question of the ages.

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More important than anything else, your health, your family, your security, your education, your job, your wife, your kids, your house, your car, what shall

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I do to inherit eternal life? Because you will live forever. You are an eternal being.

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You live forever, and you will live and live and live and live. Lots of rabbis were asked this question.

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According to tradition, people would go up and say, �Rabbi, teach us the path that we may inherit the life of the world to come.�

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A regular thing that they would say, �What shall I do? I�m insecure about my destiny.

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I�d like to know for sure where I am going to go when I die.� And if somebody did that to you, what would you say?

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What would you expect Jesus to say? Somebody comes running up to you, and they know you�re religious. You listen to WVNE 760

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AM here in the Central Mass area, and they know, �Oh, here�s a religious guy.�

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And they run up to you. Would you try to close the deal? Would you say, �Let�s pray the sinner�s prayer.

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Repeat after me. I realize I�m a sinner. I realize I�m a sinner.� Would you start giving them the four spiritual laws, some kind of �Accept

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Jesus in your heart. Make a decision. Let�s go get baptized.� Well, at the end of the day, it doesn�t really matter what you would do, because the situation is for Jesus to do.

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And here is a prime candidate to help the ministry. This man is rich and influential, and he�s easy pickings.

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Now, he�s running up to Jesus begging. And I think that your response is going to be quite different than Jesus� response.

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And Jesus said to him, �Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.�

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Friend, you have no idea what you�re talking about. You really don�t know what you�re saying, and you don�t really know who you are addressing.

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Good absolutely is for the use of God alone. And I am

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God. You try to give me this little epithet �good�, you forget who you�re talking to.

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Why do you call me good? There are implications to that truth.

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If you ascribe to that truth that I am good, then you ought to carry that out all the way.

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This is not some superficial goodness. Jesus is the standard of goodness. He is goodness incarnate.

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And therefore, when you call me good, you are calling me God. Only God is truly good.

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Only God is absolutely good. Only God is perfectly good. And your response, knowing that I�m good and that I�m God, should be like Peter when he fell on his face, �Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,

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O LORD�, Luke chapter 5. John Calvin said, �As if he had said,

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Thou falsely call me a good master, unless thou acknowledge that I have come from God.�

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That�s right. Unless you hear these words �I am God� coming from that, then you�re going to not know yourself and your sin and your need and your lack of perfection and your lack of not meeting the standards of this

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God. God�s good and you�re not. That�s basically what�s going on here.

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Mark 10, verse 19. You know the commandments. Do not murder.

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Do not � I think I need to get a cough button around here at the studio. There is a cough button. And I�m looking. I have all kinds of buttons here.

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Power, ring off, AGC, ducking, call, drop, auto answer, send, receive, mix monitor, but I don�t have a cough button.

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I don�t have a cough drop either. Matthew 10, verse 19.

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You know the commandments. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud.

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Honor your father and mother. Matthew 19. I can�t believe

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I�m about ready to yawn. Matthew 19, verse 17. If you wish to enter life, keep the commandments.

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Matthew 19, 19. Honor your father and mother and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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That�s basically what he�s saying. And he said to the teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up.

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Notice what he forgot there. He�s not calling him good anymore. He just called him teacher. No good teacher anymore.

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Forget that. Just teacher. I think I�ve done all these things.

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And I think he really believed that he did. He was blinded. He was callous to what he did.

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He didn�t think through the motives and how he went about doing these things and what reason.

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He thought he was probably really good. He sounds like Paul before Paul got saved. Paul says, when it comes to the righteousness which is in the law,

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I was found, what, blameless. And here the spiritually blind person, just like people today, maybe even you who are listening, hard to admit that you�re a sinner, rotten, dirty, scoundrel, wretch.

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That�s very difficult for people to admit, especially in our self -esteem day and age where we are so myopic, we cannot see past our own, quote unquote, goodness to see the real goodness of God.

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And if we saw God and His goodness, His holiness, His perfection, His just character, we would certainly realize we have fallen short of His glory.

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And he says, from my youth up, since I was a boy, since I was 12, I think

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I�ve, you know, been doing all these things. He doesn�t even blink an eye. And so that�s the problem with people today.

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They think they�re good. They�re grandpas. They live moral lives. Here, this man, a son of wealthy parents maybe, and maybe his family is a pillar in the synagogue.

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Probably there are people walking around who wish their daughters would marry this exact kind of guy.

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But he doesn�t really realize how heinous his sin is. I remember a man who was 18 years old that I met in Los Angeles.

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He came over to our Bible study in North Hollywood, and he told me, �I have never sinned.� And of course, we thought that somehow he was joking, but he really meant it.

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He never sinned. And so this man here in Mark chapter 10 is praising himself, and Jesus says, �One thing you lack, go and sell all your possessions and give them to the poor.�

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He knew something was missing. In the Matthew account, this man said, �All these things I�ve kept, what am

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I lacking ?� Something�s not completing me. And he knew what

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Jesus said, sadly, would require everything, �Go, sell, give, and follow me.�

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It�s like Jesus puts his finger on the most sensitive spot that he had.

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That�s how the expositor�s commentary talks about it. Here�s this Achilles heel, the most vulnerable spot where Jesus knows, here is where his idolatry and covetousness come from.

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And this man needs to have treasure in heaven and follow Christ Jesus, �Come and follow me.�

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That�s the problem. That is the problem. If you look at Mark 10, 22, �But at these words his face fell, and he went away grieved, for he was one who owned much property.�

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His face fell into somber gloominess, disappointed. He loved his wealth.

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He was committed with his heart, soul, mind, and strength to his wealth. His face fell, sour.

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He realized he did not have total commitment to follow Christ Jesus, the land, the real estate, the servants.

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Scruggy said he wanted God, but not at the cost of his gold. Maybe that�s you today. You want

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God. You don�t want hell. You want heaven. You want forgiveness. You don�t want the conscience that�s doing what it�s doing and just drug it and drink it and sex it to somehow wash it clean, even though you know that doesn�t work.

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You want God, but not at the cost of your selfishness, your pride, your self -righteousness.

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Scruggy said he wanted life, but not at the expense of luxury. He was willing to serve, but not to sacrifice.

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I wonder what ever became of that man. I�m not really told. There�s lots of speculation, but we�re not told.

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Jesus looking around said to his disciples, �How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God.�

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He looks around and sees the disciples and sees what kind of impression this kind of encounter has made upon the disciples to see if they got the point.

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How hard it is. It�s impossible. It�s impossible how hard it is, children, to enter the kingdom of God.

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It�s easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God. And they were even more astonished and said, �Then who can be saved ?�

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Looking upon them, Jesus said, �With men it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God.�

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You want salvation? Well, then you need to know it�s Jesus alone. There�s not enough room in the boat of salvation for your self -righteousness, your religiosity, and your other gods.

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It�s God alone. Jesus is the ultimatum, and you must be born again. Well, what else do we have here?

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Well, what else we have here is the fourth thing that I wish everybody would have told me, that everybody believes in God.

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Everybody believes in God. Romans 1 talks about that. There are no atheists. There are no agnostics at the end of the day.

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Oh, they might try to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They might try to say, �No, I don�t.� They might formulate some kind of mental argument.

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They might be able to say things very well, very eruditely, very kind of William Buckley -esque.

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But at the end of the day, they realize, according to Romans 1, that there is a

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God. That there is a God. And so I wish somebody would have told me that, that they do believe that.

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And so I would have spent a lot less time as a young Christian trying to convince people that I believed, that they believed in a

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God. And then lastly, let�s see what else we have here. Lastly, I wish, lastly,

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I don�t think that�s lastly. I�m only 13 minutes in. That�s no good. Jesus requires perfection to get to heaven.

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Now see, a lot of these things overlap. Jesus requires perfection, sinless perfection for entrance into heaven.

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I wish somebody would have told me that. Go to my father�s funeral, grandfather�s funeral.

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I never knew perfection to get into heaven. Why didn�t I know that? My own sin probably,

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Satan blinded me probably, but a lot of people I knew never taught me. Therefore, you are to be perfect as your

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Heavenly Father is perfect. Now, how can I yawn? I�m taping this show now.

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It�s about 510 in the afternoon. It�s pouring rain. I�ve had coffee this morning.

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I�ve had probably a whole liter of Diet Mountain Dew. I�m talking about my favorite subject, the

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God of the Bible, and how could I yawn? I think maybe somebody, one of the producers here, maybe slipped me a

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Mickey or something. I�m not sure exactly. Perfection for heaven. My name is

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Mike Abendroth, this is No Compromise Radio Ministry, and I like to talk about biblical topics.

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Since I don�t have the skills of John MacArthur or Alistair Begg or R .C.

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Sproul, the format of my show is a little different. Some people say, �We don�t like the format of your show.�

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Well, I don�t know what to do. I hope you pray for me, but this is trying to be not like every other show.

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My countenance is not like a David Jeremiah, and therefore, it�s just a little different.

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If you don�t like this style, a little rougher, a little edgier, a little pushing the envelope, we already said at the

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Preface to the show, then it�s okay. You don�t have to listen. This show isn�t for you. You can listen to Jay Sekulow at three o�clock, and then at four o�clock, you can listen to R .C.

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Sproul. You could just say that poor man from 30 to four, he�s just not my cup of tea.

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That�s okay. I know not everyone likes me in this world, and I think it took me to be 40 years old to realize that.

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That was from my mother. She said, �It took me to be 40 years old to understand that not everybody in this world liked me.�

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I guess that could be true for me as well. The good news is I don�t really know who you are.

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The bad news is if you like me, I don�t really know who you are either. I just talk and talk and talk and talk and hope that it gets through some of our thick skulls, mine and yours.

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If you keep repeating things over and over and over enough, you try to speak to people directly bluntly,

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I guess I could put it this way. I teach and preach the way I like to be taught and the way

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I like to be preached to. That�s what I do. I want somebody to just give it to me straight.

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If the bedside manner is nice, great. If not, I just want the facts. It�s kind of a dragnet. Just the facts, ma�am.

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I want those facts to be given enthusiastically, with determination, with doctrinal fortitude, in a manly fashion.

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I want Christ Jesus extolled through biblical exposition. I don�t talk a lot about sports.

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I guess I throw in some pop culture things once in a while just because I�m so affected by pop culture, even though we haven�t had

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TV in our house for a long time. We watch things because we have a monitor. Maybe we get ABC, I�m not sure, but not very well.

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That whole digital deal really messed us up. Here I am talking about what?

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I�m just saying that if you don�t like the show, keep listening. Maybe I�ll grow on you. If you like the show, keep listening.

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Hopefully I won�t bore you. Every day, day in and day out, five days a week, I wonder if I�m going to start running out of shows so far.

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I�m about 22 shows ahead, but yikes. This is the fourth show I�ve taped today.

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Maybe that�s why I�m so tired. And the subject at hand today is what I wish somebody would have told me before I got saved.

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And I�m up to number five. God requires sinless perfection for entrance into heaven. You must be perfect, and therefore, how could anyone make it?

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Well, no one can make it unless God is gracious, and God is gracious because he has his son live a perfect life, and then he has his son die for those who are less than perfect.

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And so, if God just forgives our sins based on Christ�s sacrifice at Calvary, confirmed by the resurrection, well, we�re back to neutral.

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But if he gives us his perfect life, his perfect obedience, then we have that perfection that we need.

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And so, it starts with looking to another for your sins to be forgiven. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the

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Son of Man must be lifted up, that whoever believes may in him have eternal life.

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So, that is what is your responsibility, to believe. And you�ve got to believe in Christ Jesus, the

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Christ Jesus of the Bible. That�s your only cure. You can�t get saved any other way.

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Jesus here is lifted up on the cross. I think of John 12, and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.

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And if you believe in Christ Jesus, you have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten

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Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

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How can you be perfect? Well, Christ�s perfect, sinless life of perfect obedience is credited to our account.

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Our life of sin and all its high -handedness is credited to Christ�s account as he died in our place.

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Galatians 3 .13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.

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And so, we get Christ�s righteousness, Christ gets our sins, that is credited, gets, and by the resurrection

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God demonstrates he accepted the obedience and death of Christ. Romans 4 .25,

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he who was delivered up because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification.

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And so, this God, Jesus Christ, was the sin bearer and God the Father displayed him publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith.

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God�s holy wrath was assuaged to spare man from eternal destruction to all those who would look upon this great transaction with the eyes and ears of faith.

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In pagan religions, the worshipper is the one, not the God who�s responsible to appease the wrath of the deity that is offended, right?

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You say, well, how can I appease the wrath of the deity if I am the worshipper? That�s what all these pagan gods did.

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Oh, here�s some fruit, here�s some animal sacrifice, here�s a virgin slain, here�s a baby killed, but here we have the wrath of God, holy and just, due wrath to men, and God is the one who appeases.

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God is the one who is more than the God of love. So much of evangelism today is trying to make the sinner realize that God loves them.

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I don�t think that�s the best way to go about it. I think evangelism needs to start with the holiness of God and God�s perfections.

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I think people know that God is somehow a God of love. I think it�s a sentimental kind of love and a love that says, you know, like a grandpa, do what you want and I won�t hurt you.

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So, we need to watch out. We need to watch out that in our evangelism, by the way, when I teach kids or go to chapel or meet young people,

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I�ll say, how many people here think you have to be perfect to go to heaven and hardly anyone raises their hand? And then you read

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Matthew 5, 48 and say, well, Jesus said. Or you could read

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John 10, excuse me, John 10, James 2, 10, where if you break one law, you�re accountable for all the laws.

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How many sins does it take for you to commit to keep you out of heaven? And the answer is one.

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And to think that we have thousands and millions of sins if we live long enough. How many sins we commit in a day?

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I don�t know because it�s not necessarily what we have done, commit murder, have hatred in your heart.

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But all the things that you don�t do, not with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, will, emotions, loving

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God, full blast, full throttle all the way. And so, we have a merciful

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God, a gracious God who saves sinners in spite of themselves, who saves sinners based on Christ�s work.

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So, some of these things I wish somebody would have told me. I wish somebody would have told me free will was a myth, and we�re not the captain of our own ships, and God controls the destiny of people.

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And so, therefore, you need to go to the great God of the Bible. Flee from the world.

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Flee from your own sin. Flee from Satan. Throw yourself upon the mercy of the court to say, if you are the one that makes the final decision,

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I beseech you to make the decision to send me to heaven. Please forgive me.

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And if you�re listening today and you�re trusting in your baptism as an infant, well, you ought not to trust that baptism.

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You ought not to trust anything and anyone except Christ Jesus. And you ought to say something like this.

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If I trust in Jesus alone for salvation and still go to hell, then

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Jesus was a liar. I�m hoping. I�m trusting. I�m banking.

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I�m investing. That everything that Jesus said, on the other hand, is true. And therefore,

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I rest my soul and Christ finish work. And I�m going to trust his promises. I�m going to believe his word.

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I�m going to believe that he affirmed the Old Testament and all its canonicity. And I�m going to trust in what

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Jesus says. And I�m going to walk by faith. And I�m going to amen God. Amen is where we get the

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Hebrew word for believe. And Abraham believed God. He said amen to God, as it were.

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And it was accounted to him or reckoned to him as righteousness. God�s own righteousness given to Abraham.

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Not because Abraham deserved it, but because God is merciful and gracious. And that�s how he saves people.

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That�s how he remains loving and just and gracious and holy all at the same time.

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So if you�re listening today and you�re born again, hallelujah! Praise be to the Lord. And you can thank him for that.

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And if you�re not, then you ought to consider the exclusive claims of Christ, the only sin bearer to be raised from the dead, to show that it wasn�t his sins that he died for.

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It was somebody else�s. All those people who believe. All the elect. And so this is

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Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Go to the website.

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We�ve got some new t -shirts. And I�d love to see t -shirts on people in exotic places across the world, meeting people.

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My all -time one is going to be, I want you to stand next to Alice Cooper with a No Compromise Radio t -shirt. And then you�re going to get a special gift.

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God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God�s Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.