Myth-Busters: Faith Precedes Regeneration

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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 divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her
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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Pastor Steve Cooley is here in the building.
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I won't say the church because we might get a letter. And I'm here with my co -host and illustrious senior pastor,
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Mike Abendroth. Dr. Mike Abendroth. A doctor reverend. High holy doctor reverend.
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What is the right reverend, by the way? The left reverend, the incorrect reverend? And the middle -of -the -road reverend.
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The right reverend. I don't know, I have absolutely no idea, but it just sounds too holy for me.
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Steve, I think people probably say the same thing to you. I often get asked the question by new people at church, what do you want me to call you?
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And I say to the adults, Mike, Pastor, Pastor Mike, Mike Abendroth, you can call me anything you want.
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For kids, though, probably, they should say Pastor Abendroth. I just say Father Steve. Father Steve.
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Had many sons. Many sons had Father Steve. Actually, not so many.
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And not so many grandsons, either. Yeah, so how many grandkids you up to? Four. Four? Four, oh, yeah.
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Is it the best? Yeah, it really is. Have we talked about the one in the bathtub on the air?
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I know it's a Mother's Day. Did we talk about that? That was pretty exciting. I think we did talk about it, but it's still just as exciting as it was before.
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It was pretty amazing. I mean, it's not every day you have a child born in your home that you weren't really expecting.
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So Joey and Megan were with us for a couple months while they were between homes here. Recently moved into another home, and so Karis, our fourth granddaughter, was born in our house because they were busy doing other things and just never got around to get to the hospital.
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Well, see, with my kids, Steve, I could say something like, well, Haley and Luke, you were born at St. Joe's Burbank in California.
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And Maddie, you were born at St. Vincent's, the old one, before they turned it into something else.
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And Gracie, you were born at the new St. Vincent's down there, the Worcester Medical Center.
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And Karis, you were born in a tub. Yeah, but at Grandma's house. You know,
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I mean, it's funny. It's always Grandma's house. I don't, you know, January, one of our other granddaughters,
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I want to go to Grandma's house. And she said to me the other day, you know, you live at Grandma's house. And I'm just like, well,
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Grandma, boy, she's, she's. Actually, tomorrow night, I get to go to Grandma's house with my two girls and have dinner.
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Yeah, it's fun. It'll be good. I like that. So Steve, we're doing a little series here, a series wrapped in another series, cloaked in another series.
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Wrapped in an enigma. Uh -huh, cloaked with a mystery. And the series is called Mythbusters, common myths that Christians tend to believe.
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Myths that some Christians do believe. Myths that we don't want you to believe anymore because we can dispel the myth with the truth.
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We're going to bring the light to the myth. Yes, how do you get rid of wrong thinking?
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Well, you have to put good thinking in there. Right thinking, the reverend right thinking. NT, right?
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Oh, don't even, don't even. There's a difference between the right reverend and the reverend right.
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That is correct. Yes. Yeah, that is correct. See how I'm just biting my tongue -eth? Yes, you are.
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Yes, okay. Well done. So the first, we're not going to review the myths, but we'll just get to the first one for today.
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First one for today is, this is the myth, so we have to put it in the negative. Okay. That faith precedes regeneration.
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Belief first, and then after you believe, God is allowed to then change you, save you, justify you, sanctify you, whatever you want to say.
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Allowed. Allowed. That's an interesting word. Okay, so why is this a myth?
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Or maybe I could ask you, Steve, what is faith, what is regeneration, so then we could figure out who's on first.
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Well, faith really is the belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, a complete trust in him.
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You know, when we look at Pestuo throughout the New Testament, it really is an investment of one's being, you know, in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
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Good, and we could expand that a little bit. I won't give you the fiducia
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Latin kind of terms, but it would be of knowledge and of assent and of trust. So not just a head knowledge, not just a heart knowledge.
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I don't know, I said the investment of one's self. I know, you know what, I was impressed because I don't think
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I've ever heard a definition of faith with the word investment used, but I'm going to steal that from you.
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Well, because I'm a faith preacher, you know. If you invest, it shows your faith.
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I showed Steve the prayer rug that I received in the mail the other day with the spooky
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World War Z Jesus eyes. It was weird, man.
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That's spooky world for sure. Very scary. So faith we have as a reliance upon, a dependence upon.
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When you think of the Hebrew word, even closely related to amen, I believe it.
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I commit myself to, I take God at his word. So that's faith. That's a pretty well -rounded definition.
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So how about regeneration? Well, regeneration, as Jesus said, Nicodemus in John three, means to be born again.
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Don't I do this every January 1st? I put my list together again for my regeneration.
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I'm not really sure. Well, you know, regeneration implies a once dead state.
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Let's just put it that way, you know, because why do you need to be born again? Well, because the first one didn't last.
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Yeah, so we have a generate and then we have regenerate. You've got to be made alive. Colossians two says
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God made us alive. Ephesians chapter two, he made us alive.
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First Peter one, he caused us to be born again. That's kind of harsh language there. You must be with that Calvinistic ESV version.
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What do you mean caused us to be born again? I mean, caused us. In fact, I think the Greek is for made, you know, it indicates to make or, you know, to bring about something.
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So, you know, the point there is what? That it's an action of God. You know, in John three, when
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Jesus is speaking in Nicodemus, he refers to the Holy Spirit. It's the work of the Holy Spirit.
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So what we don't see in scripture is what we so often see in evangelical
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Christian churches, this kind of broad based appeal to the will of the unbeliever.
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I mean, we want them to believe, don't get me wrong. And we do, I appeal when I preach, I do appeal to the will of the unbeliever.
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But we don't see, what we don't see in scripture is this idea that of an autonomous free will that somehow has to be convinced by a preponderance of evidence, by the promise of benefits, whatever.
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You know, this isn't closing the sale. The gospel isn't, you know, winging a deal and trying to get somebody to restore their own soul.
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It is using the word of God so that the spirit of God will then regenerate the person on the basis of what they've heard.
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So since someone has to be made alive, then they have been dead. In other words, they were dead before they're alive.
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And so, Steve, don't you think it's helpful when we tell people about spiritual depravity, total depravity, spiritual inability?
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If people are really dead in their trespasses and sins, and they're blind to the things of God, and they cannot do anything to please
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God in the flesh, it's impossible to please God, then this act of God regeneration must take place.
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God must do it since they're so enslaved to self -sin Satan in the world. Right. God, again, you know, over and over again, it's
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God who makes alive. And, you know, Jesus often says things like you don't believe because you're of your father, the devil, or whatever.
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You know, in other words, he knows their hearts. He knows their predispositions. He knows their spiritual condition.
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And because he knows that, he knows that they're not going to believe. And, you know, even with Nicodemus, he could have given him a sinner's prayer.
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He could have done a lot of things that evangelicals want to do today, but instead he just looks at me and he goes, you know what, basically,
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Nicodemus, there's nothing you can do. You have to be born again. Steve, with Nicodemus, it just dawned on me, out of anybody that needed to get saved, he certainly wasn't one, was he?
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No. Where you go, he's a teacher, he's moral, he's upright, he's on the top of the stratosphere in terms of the social elite, educated, intelligent, probably has money and has a house and all these things.
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Certainly Nicodemus doesn't need to be born again because you're already there. Yet deep down in Nicodemus' heart, he goes because he knows he's a rebel.
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And you hit it on the head. I think it was just something, because we know from the text there in John 2 and John 3, that he was one who had seen these kind of miraculous works, these signs that Jesus had done.
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And he comes to him and he says, we know nobody could do these signs, these miraculous works, unless he's from God.
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So there's an implied question there, like what is the source of your authority or who are you kind of thing?
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And Jesus just responds, you must be born again. I'm not gonna tell you about these spiritual things because you don't even know the basics.
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And here he is the teacher of Israel and everything else. And Jesus just kind of, in theological terms, he sort of dresses him down.
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Steve, would it be fair to say that the Bible teaches monergistic regeneration?
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And if so, what is that? Yes, and monergistic regeneration is one alone working, mon being alone, mono, and then erg, work.
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So it's one working alone. God alone works in regeneration. We are entirely passive.
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One way to think about it, and this isn't directly bearing on regeneration, but if you read
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Genesis 15 and you see the covenant between Abraham and God, Abraham was entirely passive.
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Why? Because he was in a deep sleep and it was God who went between the animal parts. Well, it's the same thing.
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In spiritual regeneration, we are completely passive. Why? Because we're dead, dead people don't do anything.
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Just like Abraham in the coma couldn't do anything, we can't do anything because we're in a spiritual, it's really worse than a coma, it is spiritual death.
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Ephesians 2 says, we're not mostly dead, we are completely dead, nothing we can do.
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Can't raise a finger, can't raise a hand, can't wink or blink at the pastor while he's preaching, trying to get this -
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I see that eye, I see that wink. Can't wave our tie around, there's nothing we can do. I love the coma part because it makes me think of the song in the 80s,
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Abraham in a coma, I know, I know, it's serious. All right, how about this?
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1 John 5, verse one, everyone who believes, so we're talking about faith and regeneration, everyone who believes that Jesus is the
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Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one, the one that the Old Testament spoke of, and of course the
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New Testament speaks of, has been born of God. Everyone who believes, currently believes, is believing, believing right now, everyone who is believing right now that Jesus is the
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Christ has already been born of God. I think that pretty much settles which one comes first.
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Logically, and here even exegetically, regeneration must precede faith because the unbelieving dead person isn't alive to exercise any faith.
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Well, the picture of being born is a great one. Why? Because just like Chorus, our little granddaughter, she didn't choose to come out.
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It wasn't, she said, mommy, it's time. I think we need to get going here. It is something that is done to her.
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She wasn't climbing her way out. She was born. You said this
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Sunday night, nobody ever says, I bore myself on February whatever.
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Talk about birthdays, yeah. Well, when did you bear yourself? Oh, May 12th. We would never say that, but when it comes to being saved, people wanna say, when did you get saved?
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Well, I received Jesus on whatever day. Well, good for you, but when were you saved?
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At least that one, Steve, it sounds more passive. I received, he did something to me.
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But people often mean, but I'm the one who is in charge of the receiving. Yeah. There's something called passivity in redemption, passivity in regeneration.
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It's something that's done to you. Jesus is the Savior, the one who seeks and saves, and we can't save ourselves.
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And if we could, then who needs a Savior? And we believe that regeneration precedes faith because the fall of Adam was real.
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It was complete, affecting Adam's mind, soul, will, emotions, in total,
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Adam's being, even though he was still an image bearer, he had fallen, and so he needs to have someone who comes to save him, to rescue him.
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And so when it comes to faith and regeneration, logically, regeneration must precede faith.
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But do we still teach that people must believe, Steve? They have to, God doesn't believe for you now, does he?
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No, he does not. You absolutely have to believe. And the question comes about, of course, well, can he be born again and not believe?
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And the answer is no. And here's what I would say. It is like you've got, really, it's worse than a life -threatening condition.
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It's a deadly condition because you are dead. And suddenly, you're brought to life and you're shown the antidote for everything.
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You now recognize yourself as a sinner. And what do you do? Go, well, I don't know if I wanna be saved.
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Well, you absolutely do, because for the first time ever, you're allowed to see Jesus for who he is. You look at his word and you see
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God for who he is in yourself, for who you are. You know you're condemned, and so you don't, you're not resisting.
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You willingly go to the cross. You know, people say of Calvinism, they're like, well, you know,
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I don't believe in a God who drags me to salvation. Well, he doesn't, but he so inclines your will.
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Listen to that again. He so inclines your will to where you don't even want, why would you resist?
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Once you become convinced of the truth by the Spirit of God, why would you resist? You won't. Steve, when it comes to faith, don't you think that most people believe today, and this is mythological, this is like the chimera, it's a fake kind of beast.
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How'd you like, I threw that. Is that a chimera or a trimera? I looked at it this morning, matter of fact, and clicked on it, and it's a
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K sound according to the dictionary on my phone. Hmm, because I think when they used to have them in those -
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Sinbad. In the Japanese movies, I think they always called them chimera. Well, according to my iPhone, it was chimera.
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Okay, I think that was camera, by the way, that you're looking at. Camera. So when
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I'm thinking about faith, faith for most people, because when they first believe, they think in their mind because they're uneducated and they don't know the
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Bible yet, that their belief then started this chain reaction, which ended in their salvation, that they let
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God, they finally believe now God can save them. Instead of the other way around, and you begin to look at Scripture, and you say, now
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I understand that my faith was a result of God working in me.
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It didn't initiate anything, it didn't cause anything, because, Steve, at the end of the day, if your faith caused your salvation, that would be praiseworthy.
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That would be, you could boast in your faith. I did believe. So what's wrong with this statement, then?
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I have decided to follow Jesus. Well, in our modern context, it tends to yield,
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I'm the one that let Jesus save me. If you mean by I decided to follow Jesus that in eternity past he chose me, the
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Son of Calvary died for me, the Spirit of God in time regenerated me, and then I responded with,
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I decided to follow, I guess I can take that, that's fine, but it smacks of decisional regeneration, and that's what we're driving at today.
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Your decision to follow Jesus doesn't save you. Your decision, your belief didn't die on the cross, as Spurgeon said.
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Repentance didn't die on the cross. Faith wasn't raised from the dead. Jesus is the one, and I find it fascinating,
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Steve, and encouraging to boot, that in Ephesians 2, everyone runs to, for by grace you've been saved through faith, in Ephesians 2 .8.
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I believe that verse. I love that verse. Through faith, not because of faith.
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There are different Greek words, and it's through, as the reformers would say, it's the instrument, faith is the instrument of means.
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It's not accomplishing, it doesn't merit, it doesn't do anything except say, I believe what God has said.
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But earlier in Ephesians 2, to make sure that we don't ever deviate into works righteousness and merit -based salvation, our own merit at least, it says in verse five, even when we were dead in our trespasses,
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God made us alive together with Christ, by grace you've been saved, but then it doesn't say there through faith.
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It's true you're saved through faith, but it's almost as if Paul wants to say early on, you're saved by grace, and grace alone.
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Well, I love even the few words before that where it says God made us alive, you know, and you go back to Ephesians 2, there's a one, you know, you were dead.
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You were dead in your trespasses and sins, and then God makes you alive. Well, there's a transformation.
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You know, you were in the grave, spiritually speaking, and God made you alive, and that's why you believe. You know,
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I was even thinking of another context, First Corinthians chapter two, where you cannot understand the word of God, you know, apart from the
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Holy Spirit. So how do you have the indwelling Holy Spirit before you're saved? The answer is, you don't.
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You know, so what happens? You know, the Holy Spirit convicts you, and now, all of a sudden, for the first time, you can understand the things of Scripture.
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And now, you know, your eyes are open, and now you flee to the cross. But before that, I mean,
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I don't even know how many times I heard the gospel before I got saved. You know, I mean, because it would bounce off me like, you know, rain off of a platypus.
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I don't know, you know, I mean, it was nothing. Steve, let's talk about that for a second and expand that, because I think it's important.
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If faith is just some intellectual understanding and comprehension, we have two people sitting in the congregation, both unsaved, and one believes and the other doesn't.
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They both heard the exact same message, though, about Christ, his life, his death, resurrection, the response to believe and repent.
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Why does one who hears the exact same thing and can comprehend it, unbelievers can comprehend the gospel intellectually, what makes one different?
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And the answer is because God has regenerated the one. And some people will say, well, he's just hard -hearted. Well, guess what?
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Before salvation, who isn't hard -hearted? And the answer is everyone is hard -hearted before God regenerates them.
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Steve, let's talk about testimonies in light of this truth. So if you want to give your testimony at church or maybe at baptism or to your friends who are
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Christians, to encourage them, or if you want to give one to your unsaved friend, how important is it to remember this fact that God did the saving and you didn't do anything except just responded?
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You basically said amen. You didn't do, and even that didn't count for anything, but you said, I just amen what
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God did. How does this affect testimonials? Well, you know what? To just kind of use this verse as a jumping off point, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
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Well, if I'm gonna give my testimony, why would I not want to all the more give glory to God and how do
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I do that? By making God the center of my testimony. It's not about me and how
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I diligently did this or how I, you know, whatever. I mean, people want to go,
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I, I, I, I, I, I, and it's really about God. It's really about Christ. It's really about the
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Holy Spirit convicting me of my need for a savior because you know what? Most people walking around this planet today are not convinced that they need a savior.
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They think they're good enough, they're smart enough, and you know what? God kind of likes them.
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Steve. When you give your testimony,
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I still trying to get rid of that thought that's in my mind now that you just planted in there. I'm gonna have to just interrupt this moment for a message moment.
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Uh -oh, uh -oh, I've been waiting for this for months now. Message moment. Ephesians 2, verse one says in the message, slay a phrase.
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That's my new word for paraphrase. This cost a lot of money to be on this station.
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No laughing. Okay, sorry. Ephesians 2, one. It wasn't so long ago that you were mixed in that old stagnant life of sin.
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Wow. You old mixer, you. What's that mixer that my wife has? It's a pretty nice mixer.
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KitchenAid, she has a really nice KitchenAid. I think that cost me a lot of money. Yeah, it probably did. Yeah, we have one of those too.
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Everybody has one of those. I mean, if you cook, you have one. You're in one of those mixed up relationships of sin with you, aren't you?
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Oh boy. You're courting sin again. Wow, you've gone full blown
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Southern Baptist now. Are you courting sin? So the myth we talked about today on No Compromise Radio, you can always go to info at nocompromiseradio .com
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to write us, our Tuesday guy at nocompromiseradio .com. We've talked about faith and regeneration.
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We believe in both, and we believe that regeneration logically must precede faith.
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In time, I don't know if there's a split second, a nanosecond, I don't know. I don't think we're supposed to know.
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Regenerate people believe. I don't think you can have a regenerate unbeliever. It's impossible to be born again and not believe.
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It's a simultaneous thing. And there's no one who is born again who will not believe.
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Well, let me put it positively. Everyone who is born again will believe. That's pretty basic, isn't it?
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I think that's 1 John 5. Okay. I like that. And so what we're trying to do here on No Compromise Radio is to get you to think through these issues biblically, go back to the text, and for me,
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Steve, I'm sure it's the same for you. I learned a lot about the Bible before I was saved, and some of it was true, right?
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But some of it was false, and so how do I pick what's true and false? What my pastor said, my first pastor, second, third, fourth, fifth,
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Bible teachers, what does the Bible say? So we want to encourage you to read your Bibles, and your assignment today is
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John 3, 1 John 5. Excellent. That's an excellent assignment. That is an excellent assignment.
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That's better than telling the people some Stuart Smalley deal. I have no idea what you're just talking about.
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Now, are we gonna be checking up on people? If you read this, maybe you should just write a little essay and send it to Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com.
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Well, that mail doesn't exist, but Tuesday guy at No Compromise does. 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 six. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.
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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.