The Christian and Obedience (Part 1)

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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, my name is

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Mike Abendroth and it is, I think, in real time, I have to check, it is

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September 21st, 1038 a .m. in Eastern Standard Time.

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I hope you're doing well. You can always get a hold of us, info at nocompromiseradio .com. I'm trying to think about a few things coming up here in the future.

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R. Scott Clark will be here October 11th and 12th, I don't know if this show plays before then or after, but he will be here, here meaning

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Bethlehem Bible Church in central Massachusetts, just north of Worcester, in a little sleepy suburb called

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West Boylston. There's Boylston and West Boylston, and there's

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Boylston Street in Boston. You can study the man named Boylston. By the way, West Boylston, if you look at an aerial photo on Google Maps, you can see quite a large reservoir and they put a dam in and the water in the

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West Boylston Reservoir is for Boston and their water supply. So you,

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I think, can fish from the side of it at certain times. No boats except the types of boats that the state puts in or the federal government puts in.

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I don't know really who does it. There's a title that just escapes me for now. So they can put boats in, but you can't put, can't ice skate on it.

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You can't canoe on it. You can't enjoy it in any way, shape, or form.

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Welcome to Massachusetts. 2021,

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February. We hope to go to Israel and then maybe an extension to Rome. So if you want to get put on the list for future emails that will probably start sometime in the next few months, mike at no compromise radio .com

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and maybe some new filming coming up soon. What else am

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I doing? I'm heading to Saskatoon for a preacher's conference there, a two -day preacher's conference.

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Starting to do a couple of these. There's one here in New England as well, in New Hampshire for the

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New England Center for Expository Preaching, NACEP. You can go to their website or you can go to the,

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I think it's Fellowship Baptist or Fellowship Bible up in Saskatoon. And I think that's

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November 1st and 2nd. And I think I said October 1st and 2nd, but Mark and Steve, two elders there, made sure

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I knew that I was wrong. But they're nice guys in person for Baptists.

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So regularly, you know, on No Compromise Radio, I'm trying to get you to distinguish between law and gospel.

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I don't want you to blend those two. I'm regularly trying to get you to understand, okay, if you don't like those terms, imperative and indicative.

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I'm trying to get you to understand there's a difference between faith and faithfulness. I'm trying to get you to understand that your legal standing before God needs to be perfect.

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That's why you need the perfection of Jesus' life and his death, dying for your imperfections i .e.

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sin. And if you want to have fruit or evidence of your Christian life, that's a good thing to desire.

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But your lack of fruit or your less than great zeal for that fruit doesn't affect the legal standing.

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In other words, the sin of a Christian doesn't undo God's legal standing because the legal standing is based on another.

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And that will free you up if you could just simply get this idea in your mind this year that my legal standing before God, think justification, negatively think condemnation, legal courtroom terminology, forensic terminology.

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We're not talking about what happens inside of you righteously. We're not talking about inherent righteousness.

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We're talking about how God sees you in the court of his law, in his court of law, in court his law of him.

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The way God sees you is based on the work of another. So for all Christians, we realize we can't lose our salvation, even though when we sin, we might have certain feelings, right?

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The guilt objectively is taken care of. We might have guilt subjectively in our consciences are accusing us and we don't want to displease the father.

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Therefore, as I've been going through the book of Hebrews, I have been trying to make sure as the author of Hebrews does, that people get a good view of who

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Jesus is. Now, that will not lead to licentiousness. At least it shouldn't.

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I guess it could, but your standing, dear Christian, is just based on what

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Jesus did. And there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Jesus died for the sins of Christians too, in other words.

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And if he loved you as sinful, ungodly enemy and helpless,

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Romans five, what about now that you're a Christian? Does he still love you? I mean, you were saved by grace alone to start.

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Now do you keep your legal standing by any performance? See, that's where Christians go wrong.

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And that's why Jerry Bridges is good to read. That's why the confessions are good to read.

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You can read either Anglican, Baptist, Congregational, Presbyterian, it doesn't matter to me. They'll all say the same thing in the

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Reformed vein. I know Dr. Clark, Baptist, Reformed.

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Let's just say small, little r, tiny r. But to remind everyone in no compromise land,

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God does expect you to obey. God wants you to do his word.

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God wants you not to be a hearer of his word, but a doer, James chapter one, verse 22.

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And therefore, if you have your Bibles, we're going to look today at Hebrews chapter 13.

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And here's why I want to do this. It's taking me so long to get through Hebrews. I want to just make sure regularly that I punctuate the importance of obedience to you, the congregation at Bethlehem Bible Church, and to you who are listening, who don't attend here, but regularly listen.

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By the way, if you regularly listen, thank you. I appreciate that. Therefore, when it comes to these reminders at the end of the book, chapter 13, our imperatives, there is a so what section.

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That so what section in terms of here's who you think Jesus is, and you're believing in him and trusting in him and relying upon him and resting in him, it's going to affect the way you live.

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Now, this living is not going to affect your legal standing. But since you're a son now of God or a daughter of God, you want to live in a way that would, you kind of live up to the name.

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That's your desire. Of course, you could never do it, but that's your desire. Ephesians 4 talks about walking in a manner worthy of the calling.

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You believe something, credenda, and then you do something, agenda. You believe something, doctrine.

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You do something, duty. You believe something, creed. You do something, Apollo, conduct.

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I know. I know. I'm not a good comedian, but hey, it's my show, as I always say.

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When we see these commands, dear Christian, here's how I want you to look at them. I guess this is my main point of the day, or at least the show.

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Think about the law giver. So he's going to give these commands at the end of Hebrews.

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And I want you to remember the law giver. Now if you forget the law giver and only focus on the law,

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I think lots of bad things could possibly happen. But when you remember this law giver is a gracious, compassionate, kind, self -giving, self -sacrificial

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God. Remember the Father sends the Son to die on our behalf. Remember the

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Son is interceding for us. You could rehearse everything in the book of Hebrews and how the

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Son is so great. And he sits down at the right hand of the Father and he's purged sins and he's better than angels.

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He's better than Moses of all people. He's better than everyone else too, whether it's

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Daniel or David or Miriam or anyone else. He's better. And so since this is the

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God who's loved you, he has a law for you. And that law is for your good.

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And that law is for your pleasure. And that law is for the good of society. And that law is honoring to God and pleasing to him.

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It's not as if we're like, oh, here's the law. No, no. No, no. No, this is good for you. And when I tell my children,

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I'm trying to think of an old illustration because they're now aged, well, compared to what they used to be.

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But when they're little, I might say, all right, we're here at the church and, you know, there's some woods back there.

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You can play in all the woods. You just can't go past that barbed wire fence. I'm doing that for their good.

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It's not like, oh, we can't go do that. What's dad thinking? No, no. This is for your pleasure. I want you to go have fun.

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Let's climb these trees. As I'm looking outside right now, I see some of the change of color here as we get to the end of September.

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And those colors are red and yellow and green and orange. All the colors of death, right, as the leaves die.

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Anyway, the law for the unbeliever comes from the hand of a judge, right?

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So I don't want the unbelievers to forget about who's giving the law. Never separate the law from the lawgiver.

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That will help you. That would have helped Eve in the garden. Here's this great, compassionate, kind, generous

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God. And all of a sudden she disconnected that view of God from,

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I just made a thought and I had to write this down here. She disconnected the law from the lawgiver and his great benefits and attributes.

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Therefore, when it comes to this section, I don't want you to think, oh yes, the law of God.

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No, no, this is for your good friend. And if I were kind of liberal or kind of squishy theologically, or what's the word that people would use today?

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I think wrongly, but I could use it. I could maybe redeem it somehow. This is for your flourishing.

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Listen to what London Baptist Confession chapter 16 says of good works. These good works done in obedience to God's commandments are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith.

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And by them, believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouth of adversaries and glorify

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God whose workmanship they are created in Christ Jesus there unto that having their fruit unto holiness, they may have the end to eternal life.

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And therefore, when we think about good works, these are done in obedience to God's commands.

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But they're just not done in obedience to commands. They're done in obedience to God's commands. And they're done wholly by the work of the

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Holy Spirit in our lives in terms of, you're not going to say, well, I'll take credit for this. The Spirit of God is working in us.

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And the confession is clear. Don't think that these works somehow take away sin, because you might be tempted to do that.

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No, this is in response to. This is guilt, grace, gratitude. This is thanksgiving.

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This is obedience to the law because of the work of Christ and because of Hebrews chapter 1 through 12.

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Yes, there were the warning passages, but essentially high priest of Jesus is held before the people as someone whose life was perfect, whose death was once and done sacrificial, and whose triumph over the grave means that you must trust in him and you must rest in him.

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I like it when it says regarding the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great

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God and Savior Jesus Christ, Titus chapter 2, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

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Since I'm taking such a long time in the book of Hebrews, I don't want you to forget that obedience is important, but I don't want you to forget that not for legal standing, but in light of who you are as a response, as fruit, as evidence, as gratitude and thankfulness.

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And what else does the confession say so well, adorning the profession of the gospel, edifying brethren.

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I mean, God doesn't need your good works, right? Your neighbor does. I think Luther said that. Therefore, let's just look at these 10 commands that you

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Christian need to think of as the law of God from the law giver

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God who wants you to obey him, not to keep your standing, but because of your standing.

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Very, very important. You are a member of the new covenant,

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Christian. And since God remembers your sins no more, there's another side to the story.

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And that is the response. And that is the gratitude. And since you're resting in, believing in the risen high priest,

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Jesus, what's the first one? Verse one, Hebrews 13, verse one, let love of the brethren continue.

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That's what he wants us to do. That's what he wants you to do, Christian. And of course, if you are an unbeliever listening today, this is law from a law giver standpoint that you have to perfectly do this in your life so that you could have eternal life.

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And of course, this is to drive you to say, I could never do that. But if you're a Christian, you say, oh, that's right.

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That's a right response to God, to honor him for what he's done. This is good for other people.

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And it's actually good for me too, because I'm not going to focus on myself or anything else like that.

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Let the love of the brethren continue. Remember, remember, remember, uh, scared, are you scared?

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Remember, these people were persecuted and the persecution was going to get dialed up. And instead of hunkering down and guarding all your resources and not sharing or anything else, this is involved.

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And of course, everything else, other Christians, uh, need your love.

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And there's lots of different kinds of love. And this is a Philadelphia love. This is a brotherly love.

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If you have brothers and sisters in Christ, so, so make sure you love them in a family way, in an affectionate way, in a familial way.

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Don't live for yourself. That's what God expects for you, Christian. And you can just think of, uh, specific areas in your life and you think about ministry and that's what

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God expects. He expects you to have a ministry if you're a Christian. And if you just come on Sundays and that's all you do, and you think your ministry is your work, uh, in corporate

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America or your work at home as a mom, there needs to be something more than that to show how you want to respond to this great high priest.

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Since you're trusting in this high priest, here's, here's what he's expecting. Number two, found in verse two, since you're resting in believing in the risen high priest

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Jesus be hospitable. This is the agenda because of the credenda.

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This is what God expects Christians to do. Now I will tell you, you can't do this perfectly or with perfect sincerity or from the bottom of your heart, but that's no excuse for you not to try to obey based on all the resources

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God has given you. You are in Christ. You have the spirit of God dwelling within you and you're to be hospitable.

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Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

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I think it's hard to have be hospitable when people aren't trying to kill me and take away my, my property.

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That would be difficult, but God knows this is good for you. This is good for society. This is good for the church.

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This is good for other Christians. And for me, uh, maybe it's because I've got burned enough, maybe because I think about total depravity too much.

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It's hard to be hospitable, hospitable to strangers.

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It's hard to say the word hospitable as, as, uh, as you wear it, I'm suspicious.

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That's probably the word. Uh, there's a commentator that talked about, I think it was grow Mackie and people are suspicious of strangers naturally.

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Therefore be careful. And since you're a Christian, your legal standing doesn't matter. Uh, it's not based on this, but because you have a legal standing and God loves you and the son has given his life for you, this is your response.

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And sometimes wild things happen when you're hospitable, like angels show up. Well, it has happened.

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I doubt, I doubt it's happening anymore, but you never know. Maybe a messenger of God shows up, a small

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M number three. Remember the prisoners, you're resting in Jesus, believing in Jesus.

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He's, he saved you. He's making intercession for you. His death is for you. He loves you and, and, and he knows what's best.

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And so you remember the prisoners. Now people have prison ministries now and I don't,

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I actually don't go to the prison very often. We have a small prison here in West Boylston. I don't know what, how, what it's called.

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It's not some federal penitentiary, federal penitentiary, penitentiary it's, it's, it's even that name penitentiary, it sounds funny when

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I'm saying it, maybe I'm mispronouncing it. To make them penitent, we don't have jails anymore in the sense that, you know, we call them prisons.

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Maybe we have jails short term, then it's a prison. I think we've moved to, I don't know, we, we, we went to rehabilitate them in a penitent fashion.

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But here you can imagine Christians getting thrown in jail and I know you're on the run.

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The writer is sane, but you need to go find these people.

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And I, and I think commentators are right, hospitality, well, those people kind of search you out, right?

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They find you. You're not really looking for them, they find you. But for the prisoners, you've got to go look for them.

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You've got to go find them. I know if you go to prison and minister to people, then they might lump you in with the same group and then you might now go to prison, but you need to remember the prisoners.

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And in those days, my, my, my guess is, I think I recall people didn't, you know, it's not like they got three squares a day.

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They got what they could afford by the money you would give them or what you'd pay them.

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Who knows? Number four, here's a big one. Just in light of the lady on Bachelorette or Bachelor, I didn't watch it.

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She said, I can sleep with as many people as I want and Jesus understands. Well, number four, since you're resting in, believing in the risen high priest,

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Jesus, be sexually pure. If you think that because of your standing legally with Jesus is set and therefore that means you can just go sin as much as you want and God's happy to forgive because God likes to forgive and you like to sin and it's a perfect match in your mind.

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I'll tell you, it's not, that match is not made in heaven. Maybe purgatory, maybe eternal destruction and fire, but that's not how we think.

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Here's how we think. God buys us. God purchases us with his own blood, as Acts would say.

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God has ransomed us and reconciled us and because of that, in light of that, number four, verse four, so far this is working out pretty well, isn't it?

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Number one, verse one, number two, verse two, number three, verse three, number four, verse four, but it's going to get messed up after that.

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Since you're resting in, believing in the risen high priest, Jesus, be sexually pure.

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Verse four, let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled for fornicators and adulterers.

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God will judge the law giver. The triune God knows this is good for you, knows this is good for other people, knows this is what honors him and don't forget the law and the law giver.

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The law comes from the law giver and this is what he wants for his children. He knows what's best.

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He understands. If you say, well, you know what, I was so sleazy as an unbeliever and now

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I think celibacy is the highest honor. If you're married, that's not true because it's to be held in honor among all, including the marriage bed.

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The marriage bed is not unholy. It's not defiled. It's not dirty, but the marriage bed and of course the marriage here that the writer is thinking about.

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I almost said Paul. It could be Paul. Maybe I want it to be Paul. The Holy Spirit certainly is the author,

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A, capital A rather. One man who was born a man has always been a man.

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One woman born a woman always been a woman. They're married, right? And therefore what they do in bed, and here it's used for the word coitus, it's the act that that's holy.

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No matter what happened, what your background is, anything else that's holy. And that's honoring

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God and pleasing God and pleasing your spouse and it's what's good for them. And you got married and what was before sinful because that person wasn't yours, now this is holy.

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Even though it's the same act, let's say between fornication and the marriage bed, this is different because God understands and God sees and God knows what's right and wrong and he does this for your own good.

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This is something that we do out of gratitude and to please God and to love our spouse.

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On the flip side, of course, the same truth is there negatively, fornicators and adulterers, God will judge.

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I'm out of time. I just looked at the clock. It's 2415. My name is Mike Ebendroth. It's 2415, meaning time.

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I got 2430 before it stops. Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. We're going to talk more about this next time.

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Don't forget Israel 2021. or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.