Ichabod

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and we are talking today about a variety of things.

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And so, maybe it's a variety hour. It's potpourri. I like the word potpourri, but you know what?

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Without my spell check, I cannot spell it. Potpourri, is that right?

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Potpourri? Is that a French word? Maybe that's why I can't spell it. I usually don't get the answer machine messages, but if I'm in and the secretary's gone, our

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Tuesday guy's gone, because it's not Tuesday, I might listen.

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And we got a message today from someone, and they want to meet with me first, and then we'll decide if they want to come to the church or not.

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And our philosophy here is, and of course, there's nothing biblical or unbiblical about it. If you would like to meet with the pastoral staff, we'd love to meet with you.

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Why don't you come to church first? You can get online and learn about our background, our education, our philosophy of ministry.

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You can listen to sermons. You can watch sermons. You can take Institute of Biblical Studies classes.

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You can read our doctrinal statement, and you can get to know about everything you need to know just by going to the website, bbcchurch .org.

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And then, if you come to church and you have a need, of course, we would like to help you.

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But if it is coming down to, if you won't meet with us, then you're

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Ichabod, and you're a Nicolaitan. That was the message today. If the pastor is too big to not meet with us before we come to the church, then

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Ichabod on the church, and the guy's a Nicolaitan. Oh, man.

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So anyway, that's just what we do here, because we are trying to take care of the people that are already at the church.

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And if you've got a doctrinal question, you can email us at info at NoCompromiseRadio, and we'll answer it.

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If you've got a counseling question, you can email us at info at NoCompromiseRadio .com, and we will answer it.

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If you've got a personal problem, we will help you as much as we deem wise and as much as we can.

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But if you are going to be stuck on, if I can't meet with a pastor, I will not go visit that church.

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Actually, let's just talk about philosophy of ministry for a few moments on No Compromise Radio. Here's what

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I usually do. When there's a new couple at the church, new family, a new single person, an elderly person, younger, what

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I usually do is I greet them. I go out of my way to say hello. Sometimes I'll say, oh, we listen to you on No Compromise Radio.

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Other times they just look at me, and they have no idea who I am, and it's their first time here.

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Actually, retention rate is better if you listen to No Compromise Radio and then come to the church, because then you know what you're getting into.

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And then, what I usually say the second or third Sunday that I see them, I say to them,

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I'm glad you're coming on a regular basis. If there's anything you need or anything I can help you with, if you'd like to get together to meet,

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I'd be happy to do that. You can ask any question. I want you to get to know about the church, and you can, you know, quiz me about anything you'd like.

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And the good news is, since Christ is building His church, and He even builds His local churches, that I can just tell people, oh, this is what we believe in.

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And if someone said, are you a Calvinist? I would say, let me tell you what that word means, and I would explain it.

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Or, do you believe in reprobation? Do you believe in transubstantiation? Do you believe in consecration?

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Do you believe in irrigation? You ask me the question, and I'll tell you. And if I don't know the answer,

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I'll tell you, you know what, I have not studied the nuances of superlapsarianism and infralapsarianism for quite a while.

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I'm going to have to just review that before I tell you exactly the five pros and five cons for my position.

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And so then it just works out well. If people come one time, and it's just seemed kind of odd to get together after we meet one time.

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But anyway, for the person who phone calls and says, if I won't meet with them, and they just keep calling and calling and calling, you know, it's a

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Mexican standoff. Is that politically correct to say it's a Mexican standoff? It probably is not.

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Was it Texas and Mexico? It was a standoff at the Alamo Corral?

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At the Alamo? At the OK Corral? The Alamo Corral. Now that would make it, that sounds like wretched compromise.

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That's what that sounds like. But anyway, I think that's fair. I don't think that's odd.

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If you'd like to get to know the pastor of the church you want to go to, there's plenty of things that you can do.

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You could actually go to the radio station for our church and get to know who I am. And you can know pretty much everything you need to know.

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Should I go to that church or not? Well, the man preaches the Bible, and they have solid evangelical orthodox, not heterodox, doctrine, and they are in the vein, they are in the stream of orthodox evangelicalism.

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And you know, I think I could probably go and worship there. But if you say, oh, I've got to meet the pastor before I show up, well,

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I guess you better go find a different church is what you better do, because I find that demand demanding, and I find that demand interesting.

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So I guess we're Ichabod Bible Church, and I am Mike Nicolaitan Avendroth. So isn't that interesting,

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Dorinda? Isn't this a fun world that we live in? And this is what happens when we're on radio, and we can just be beamed, as it were, into the homes of people, into their living rooms.

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And probably as time goes on, you kind of get to know me, feel like I'm a family friend now, don't you?

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You just feel like I'm there talking to you. By the way, People to People, that's an interesting show.

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I think you better do a little background on People to People and find out quickly that you're not going to want to listen to that show nor endorse the show.

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And you're going to find out that Bob George is behind the scenes, and you can just type in and Google away and find out everything you need to know to find out that that is not a show that's going to be healthy for you, hygienic for your soul, full of sound doctrine.

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And besides the personal problems of some of the people who are in leadership in that station that you can find all about if you'd like to, we have a problem theologically, and the theological problem is this.

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They don't understand that forgiveness has a judicial side and a parental side.

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They will teach you that you don't need to confess your sins after you're a Christian because you're forgiven in Christ.

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So see how nice that sounds? But when you think of forgiveness, you've got to think of forgiveness two different ways.

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You think of forgiveness from the perspective of Colossians 2 and other passages where our sins are forgiven, and judicially we are declared righteous based on Christ's perfect life.

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We are declared forgiven because Jesus bore our sins in his body on the tree, according to 1

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Peter. And so judicially, before the judge of the universe, who is also the creator, we stand forgiven.

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But then parentally, with God now as our Father, before we had Satan as our Father, then

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God saved us, and now we have God as our Father. When we sin against God, then we confess our sins.

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That's exactly what we do. And so People to People is going to teach you the opposite, and they make the category era of not understanding judicial versus parental forgiveness.

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And so you need to run from such a show. I think it's like breathing confession. If you just stop confessing for a while your sins in the family, you are going to have major problems.

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And you know, I think I kind of like mercy myself. Proverbs 28, 13, whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

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And if you want to understand the difference between judicial and parental forgiveness, just think of your own family.

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I have four children, one named Ichabod, the other Nicolaitan. Ichabod means the glory of God has departed.

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Anyway, I have four children. They're not named Nicolaitan, nor are they named

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Ichabod. They're named Sardis. My four kids are

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Abendroths, and they will always be Abendroths. I guess the three girls, they can hyphenate their last name.

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Just kidding. And they sin.

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And when they sin, they don't lose their last name because they're already an Abendroth.

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They were born an Abendroth. When they came into this world, they were Abendroths. Now when they sin, there's a problem between the children and myself, and they sin against me, sin against mom.

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And then there's a relationship problem. Communion is broken, although they still have the same last name.

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So, what do we do? Well, you're already a family member. You never have to say, please forgive me.

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That's what people -to -people is going to try to drive you to do. And they get kicked off one station, and then they go to another until they found out, and then to another station, another station, another station.

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And they want to say they're on to 430 after me. Then they're exposed, and they realize what disaster, the people realize what disaster they caused.

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And then off the air they go. And so, they sound so biblical, but they miss this point in a big way, besides any personal issues that are swirling around.

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And so, when my children say, dad, please forgive me, then I say, I forgive you.

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And I'm not saying, you know, you used to be an Abendroth, you sinned, and therefore now you're no longer an

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Abendroth. And now you confessed, and now you're an Abendroth. No, there's a judicial sense of forgiveness.

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We're already declared forgiven. We are given Christ's righteousness.

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We are now a family member, and we even have to pray.

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Our Father who art in heaven, now when God's a Father, the template for prayer in Matthew chapter 6 is what?

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What is the template of prayer? Since you're already my Father, I never have to pray?

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No. I think you should just pull up people to people and pull up a critique, or pull up a critique of Bob George or someone like that, and find out what they believe.

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Our Father, this is how you pray like this. This is not a verbatim prayer. This is a model prayer.

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Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive those, we forgive our debtors.

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I was going back into Revised Standard Version, Lutheran Version as I grew up. So this is just like I said, potpourri.

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Maybe I was discombobulated because of the whole, I'm Ichabod now. And so if I'm Ichabod, I might as well go out with a blazing fashion.

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Let's talk a little bit now for the next portion of our show on No Compromise Radio.

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Let's talk a little bit about assurance of salvation. You know, the

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Bible teaches, no, you know what, let's just not do that. Well, okay, let's do assurance. You talk me into it.

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You sure? Yes, I'm sure. Schizophrenic, Mike. It reminds me of Lily Tomlin, the comedian and great theologian.

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Lily Tomlin said, when you talk to God, that's called prayer.

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And when God talks to you, that's called schizophrenia. When you talk to God, that's called prayer.

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She's got it right. And God talks to you. That's called from the Bible, chapter and verse, and if anything else, and your name's not

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Moses or Paul or someone like that in the Bible, you are in big, big trouble. So let's talk about assurance.

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I was thinking about the thief on the cross when we were going over the series, the thief on the cross, when Jesus told the thief, here's this great criminal, but a greater savior.

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And Jesus told the penitent thief, truly I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise.

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And he uses this wonderful garden language and this beautiful garden and what the

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Persians would use for just, you know, a wonderful place. And here we have this figure of speech.

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You're going to be with me in paradise, like that paradise that Paul was caught up into, that is heaven.

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And he says, I tell you the truth. Truly I say to you, Jesus is telling that thief with emphasis, with importance.

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He could just say, today you will be with me in paradise. So why does he say, truly I say to you, I tell you the truth.

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Why does he say that? Because it's highlighting something, it's emphatic. And here

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Jesus is going to give and grant salvation and then going to give assurance of salvation.

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I don't know if you've ever thought of this as wonderful grace of Jesus granting assurance of eternal life.

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The good news we're going to learn in a minute is you don't have to be next to Jesus dying on a cross to understand assurance, contrary to Roman Catholic doctrine and dogma that you can't know for sure.

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By the way, that's a good way to set up a religion if you want to keep everyone fearful. And by the way, you can motivate people with fear, can't you?

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And so we have this great assurance of salvation. And I just want you to know, especially if you're a

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Roman Catholic, you can have assurance. You can know for sure that if you die the second, you go to heaven.

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You can know that. That's something that can be known. It can be actually experienced.

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When I read 1 John 5, it says, He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the

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Son of God does not have the life. These things, here's the Apostle John, these things

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I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you may know that you have eternal life.

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Now there it is. I want you to get your Bible out, your Dewey Rames Bible, or your, you know,

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Jerome's Latin Vulgate, or your New American Bible, or whatever other

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Bible you have. You open it up to 1 John, and then you underline those words. Run your finger underneath it first, and then underline them that you may know that you have eternal life.

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Listen to verse 19 of the same chapter. We know that we are of God. We know that we are of God.

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We know we are of God. We know we are of God. Now, let's put the emphasis on know. We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

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And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding in order that we may know who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ.

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This is the true God and eternal life. You can know.

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You can certainly be a Christian and struggle with assurance and not know. You can certainly be an unbeliever and have assurance of salvation.

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That's false, and you're not going to heaven. But you could be a Christian—here's the best—to be a

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Christian and to know you are, to know you have the assurance that when you die, you're going straight to heaven.

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Listen to John, the Gospel of John, the Gospel according to John, chapter 20, verse 31.

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But these things have been written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name.

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And so it's like S. Lewis Johnson would say, if you want to know if you're elect or not, believe.

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Come to the Lord. Look to the Lord and live. Look to the cross, repent of your sins, and believe that Jesus Christ is the

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Messiah, the King of the Jews, who died a substitutionary death, who was raised from the dead, who is coming back soon.

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And then you'll know you're elect. And so the way you know that you're a Christian, the way you know you have eternal life, the way you can experience assurance is by believing.

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So here's the interesting thing. Are you believing now? And if you're believing, you should be having assurance.

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The problem is when we sin, or cut theological corners in our lives, then we are chastened.

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And part of that chastening is God can take away the depth and the breadth and the width of our assurance.

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And so you can know. What do you do with the system, with the Roman Catholic system that denies assurance?

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They don't want you to have assurance, so you can go through all the theological rigmarole to keep up your salvation.

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You didn't save yourself, and you can't unsave yourself. If Jesus saved you alone, then you can't unsave what

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Jesus did. But if you think you and Jesus both contributed to your salvation,

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Jesus, oh, he did the most part, but I still did a little part, synergistically viewing salvation, then you think you can lose your salvation somehow.

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So I want you to know, even Jesus there, giving the thief on the cross assurance of eternal life.

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Isn't that encouraging? Isn't that good to know? Why don't you settle it now? Why don't you just get down on your knees and cry out,

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Lord, have mercy upon me, the sinner. Lord, I've been trusting in my baptism. I've basically been trusting in Jesus plus.

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It's Jesus plus baptism, Jesus plus being good, Jesus plus going to church,

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Jesus plus communion, Jesus plus mass, Jesus plus church membership,

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Jesus plus doing things in the coffee ministry, in the donut ministry, in the chair ministry, in the nursery ministry, in the lawn ministry.

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I have not been trusting in Jesus alone. I have not thought rightly about his sufficient and excellent atonement.

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I have not thought rightly about Jesus, the only God, Jesus, the incarnate

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God. And I have been, in fact, Lord, I've subtracted from his death because if his death was so great, then how could

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I add anything? You know, that reminds me of the idea that if someone rescued your son in a lake, rescued them from drowning, and in the process of that lost their own son, and it was a horrible accident and kind of only one could live, and the person with sacrificial love laid down his son's life for your son's life.

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He saved your son. And you went over to say thank you, and you said, you know,

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I just, words can't express how thankful I am that you would save my son. And here's $1 .50

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as a little token of my appreciation. I mean, that's just incredulous is what that is.

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And so when we say, you know what, we're going to add our baptism to help us get saved, and we're going to add our good works, and we're going to have some kind of treasury of merit, and we're going to have some other things, that's like adding $1 .50

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to the death of Christ. Like it wasn't so great. The simple fact is if somebody saved your son at his own son's expense, then you should just say thank you.

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You just tell me whatever I can do for you from now to the day I die, I'm in your debt,

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I'm at your service, I'm grateful, I'm eternally grateful. There's nothing I could do for you that would be too much.

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And so it's the same thing. When Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is sent by the

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Father and goes by his own initiative as well and lays down his life for sinners like us and is raised from the dead, our response should be thankfulness, gratitude.

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It should motivate us. And so on No Compromise Radio today, don't let anyone tell you that it is

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Christ's death plus something. You need to read Colossians and quickly figure out that it is

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Jesus Christ, him we proclaim, Colossians 1, verse 28.

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He is the one that makes everyone a wholehearted follower of God himself.

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He is the one who is the active one with all those verbs in chapter 2 about what he did, about how he forgives, he disarms, he triumphs over.

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It's all about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. And sadly, we live in an evangelical world where Daniel's the hero,

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Caleb's the hero, Joseph's the hero, Paul's the hero, Mary's the hero.

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Those people are all sinful and certainly God used them in such a way where we can even look at Paul and say,

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I'd like to imitate Paul as he imitates Christ. There are men and women who have gone before us and we say,

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God help me live up to the example that these have as blood -bought sinners.

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But in terms of people saying, you know, it's

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Jesus plus something, it's not Jesus plus anything. So today on No Compromise Radio, we started off with Ichabod and then we moved in the direction of,

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I don't know, what did we move in the direction of? I have no idea. If you want to get on our website and snoop around a little bit, the

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Jeff Strucker interview is up. He was one of the guys in the movie Blackhawk Down and he is a

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Christian man, went to Southern Seminary and I found that a very fascinating thing. What does a

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Christian man do when he's basically going to go in and get killed, although God's mercy kept him alive?

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You can go on our website to find that. I don't know if you're a Facebook person, but you can certainly go snoop around on Facebook.

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We are having a concert coming up in the middle of December at Bethlehem Bible Church and that is an evangelistic

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Christmas concert and we have wonderful, world -class music, all kinds of different music from kids' choirs to wonderful classical music.

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Why do I keep saying wonderful? It's like Lawrence Welk, wunderbar. And then

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I give the gospel. You can call Bethlehem Bible Church, 508 -835 -3400 and say,

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A, could we have some of the tickets because you'll need a ticket to get in. They're free, but you need a ticket. And B, if I can't meet with the pastor,

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I don't want to show up for the concert. Oh man.

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So if you want to write us, it's info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. And I think that's it for the day.

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I'm just kind of stalling now. I'm very thankful that we have a great God who we can look to.

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Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. May that be your prayer today on No Compromise Radio, that God will be holy and show himself that way.