Fight the Good Fight

No Compromise Radio

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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 apostle

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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 Mike Abendroth, and we are attempting to do some shows today.

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I haven't recorded for a couple of weeks and just feel awful. Awful, awful.

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But we are going to trudge ahead. You don't call in sick, you crawl in sick.

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Although last Sunday, I did tell Steve, well, I told him on Saturday, probably four in the afternoon.

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Listen, I'm not gonna make it. I think I've only missed maybe two sermons, two

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Sunday mornings because of sickness in the last 20 years. But that was one of them. You have other elders and pastors for a reason, lots of reasons.

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Including that one. I think today, technically, we're talking about repentance, part four, spiritual pygmies, part four.

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Repentance, part four. And it is very much an important subject, yet misunderstood.

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So therefore, lots of talk on repentance. Charles Hodge, though repentance is a duty, it is no less the gift of God.

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A little book called The Way of Life that you ought to read. Man needs to repent, though he cannot repent.

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God says, come and welcome, turn from your sins. Yet people are enslaved, and they do not have the power to extricate themselves.

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God doesn't believe for you. He doesn't repent for you. And you must repent and believe, but you can't.

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So how do we work through this theological sticky wicket? Then I beg you,

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Father, to send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

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But Abraham said, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. And he said, no,

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Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. He said to him, if they do not hear

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Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

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Why is that? Luke 16, 27 through 31. How can that be?

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Well, the answer is depravity. The answer is the fall. The answer is human nature, we do not believe has a

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Pelagian slant to it. We just need a little bit of work, unaided by the spirit of God.

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No man is required to repent, yet man is unable to repent.

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That's why we need to have repentance as a gift. He is the one whom

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God exalted to his right hand as Prince and the Savior to grant repentance to Israel, the forgiveness of sins,

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Acts 5 .31. Acts 11 .18, and when they had heard this, they quieted down and glorified

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God saying, well then, God has granted to the Gentiles repentance that leads to life.

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2 Timothy 2 .25, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth.

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We, as unbelievers, stand before God needing to repent, to think differently, to do then differently, and to think differently about sin and God's holiness, to think differently about Jesus, to think differently about the urgency of salvation, yet we are not able to repent.

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A prior work needs to be done. John Risinger said, because of his sinful nature, man is totally unable to repent and believe.

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All of man's three faculties of mind, heart, and will, which must be receptive to gospel truth, have neither the ability to receive such truth nor even the desire to have such ability.

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Isn't that amazing? Let me reread that. Which must be receptive to the gospel truth have neither the ability to receive such truth nor even the desire to have such ability.

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In fact, the exact opposite is true. Man's total being is not only unable to either come or to want to come to Christ, but every part of his nature is actively opposed to Christ and truth.

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Rejecting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is a deliberate volitional choice.

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It is deliberately choosing to say no to Christ and yes to self and sin. No one is neutral in respect to God and his authority.

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So today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking some more about repentance so that we can have a good doctrine of repentanceology.

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How could we use this? This is, we're making up bad words. All right.

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Now, let's think a little bit more about this and why it's so important for God to grant repentance.

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I think for the most part, our society, our evangelical churches, know that unbelievers should repent.

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I mean, there's only a few wacky grace people. I don't mean Grace Community Church. I mean, the

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Grace Society. I forgot whatever it's called. Grace Evangelical Society would not want to talk about repentance properly.

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But we, for the most part, understand. Unbelievers should repent. That it's the flip side of the coin of faith.

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And so that part we get. But what we don't really understand is how unable, how man is not able at all to do such a thing.

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Unbelief is something that is wicked. It is enslaving.

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It is entrenching the soul. It captures the mind.

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It enslaves the heart. The will is bound. Think about this for a minute.

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If you've got your Bibles, turn to John 5, verse 40. If you're listening in the car, you just listen away.

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John 5, 40, you will not come to me. It's pretty amazing.

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You won't come to me. So let me give you the context because I know that context is very helpful.

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John 5, 39 and 40. You search the scriptures. Jesus is talking. Must be Jesus. It's red letters.

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Wink. You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me.

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Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. You will not come to me.

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You refuse to come to me. You're making a deliberate choice. See, this is not neutrality.

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This is not just kind of getting caught up in stuff. Purposely driven against Jesus.

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You won't come to me. No power.

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No ability to overcome sin. No possibility to extricate self from sinful nature.

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And see, this is where evangelicalism, for the most part, drops the football.

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Well, you know, responsibility and ability. Since you're responsible, therefore you're able.

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Whatever God commands you, you can do. This is the problem. This is why I talk about it over and over.

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This is why there's part four on repentance. Man cannot see the kingdom until he's born again.

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John 3. Man cannot understand gospel truths, spiritual truths, spiritual verities until you're given a new nature.

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1 Corinthians 2 .14. And man will not. He will not come.

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So, God then has to regenerate. God has to give him a new nature so he wants to come.

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Because God is going to give him this new nature through regeneration, that's going to change the cannots and the will nots, right?

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To I want to. The new birth. God gives spiritual life, spiritual vitality that gives us now the ability to do what we have to do.

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We couldn't do it before because we were enslaved to sin. We were wrapped up in a straitjacket of sin.

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We were in the quicksand of sin, dead in trespasses and sins. This is what the

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Bible means when we're discussing theological terms like the bondage of the will, bondage to sin, power of sin.

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Somebody stronger than you puts you down on the wrestling match and you cannot get up.

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No way to get up. Reisinger goes on to say, we indeed need Jesus to die and pay the penalty of our sin, but we just as desperately need the

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Holy Spirit to give us a new nature and regeneration. Did you get that? The Son of God frees us legally from the penalty of sin, but only the

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Holy Spirit can free us from the power and death of our depravity in sin.

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We need forgiveness in order to be saved and Christ provides complete forgiveness and righteousness for us in his death.

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However, we also need spiritual life and ability and the Holy Spirit provides it for us in regeneration.

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It is the Holy Spirit's work of regeneration that enables us to savingly receive the atoning work of Christ in true faith.

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Now that is excellent writing. You need to pull that to man's work and God's work in salvation.

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In other words, God's the primary worker, but what is man's response? John Reisinger. And when you think about how you came to Christ, what portion of the credit would you like to take in your salvation?

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Well, even if you're an Arminian, an Amaraldian, and anybody else, Lutheran, Pelagian, Semi -Pelagian, you'd say,

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I don't want to take any credit at all. But in fact, does your theological system give you credit?

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I know you don't deserve the credit, you would agree with me there, but how do you work through this theologically?

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If you're a Pelagian, you would probably say this, I came by myself. That's what the

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Pelagian theology leads to. What kind of methodology does a Pelagian theology lead to?

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It leads to, I came by myself, I don't really need grace, and therefore, what's the doxology?

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The doxology is self -praise, boast in self, bring and brag.

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So when you have theology driving methodology, driving doxology, the

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Pelagian theology will manifest itself as I came by myself.

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If you're Semi -Pelagian, you would say something like this, I had a desire to come,

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I wanted to come, and God assisted me. God came alongside, God helped me, and there was a cooperation.

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See, man first, then God cooperates, you know, he's a gentleman. Somewhat related, so we've gone from Pelagian to Semi -Pelagian, by the way,

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Semi -Pelagian, theology, methodology, doxology, what's the doxology like for the Semi -Pelagian?

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Is it what it could be? Is it what it should be? Arminian, Arminian might say this as S.

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Lewis has them, quote, God gave me sufficient grace to come because Christ died and I cooperated, admitting total inability, but claiming sufficient grace becomes efficient when we cooperate.

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Now, do you know why you have a rewind button? Lutherans, S.

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Lewis again, God brought me and I did not resist. Okay, man has no power to come, he only has power to resist.

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Man has no power to go forward, but he does have the power not to dig in his heels.

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And then there are those who are Augustinian, who are Calvinistic, who are Paulinian. I remember hearing once a sermon by James Montgomery Boyce, one of my all -time favorite

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Bible teachers, I'm guessing died 10 years ago now and was succeeded at 10th

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Press by Philip Reichen. And by the way, when that all happened,

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Rick Phillips was there as well and Rick didn't want people siding with either

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Reichen or himself causing a division in the church, so he just resigned and went to wherever he is now.

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Where is he, Mississippi, South Carolina? Someplace south. Anyway, I just thought, man, that is amazing.

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Rick Phillips is amazing. The Lord is amazing in what he did through Rick. But anyway,

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Boyce preached a sermon called Jesus Was a Calvinist. Now, I know some of you are gonna get really mad from that, mad by that.

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And so what he meant to say was Jesus believed in sovereign grace. And of course, I understand why you're a little rubbed, but I didn't preach that sermon.

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I never would preach that sermon. I would say that what we call Calvinism, Jesus believed in because he taught it.

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Just read John, read John 6. But I would phrase it a little differently, right?

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Calvin was a Christian, maybe. But it is the doctrine of the sovereign grace, folks.

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It is not the doctrine of Pelagians, semi -Pelagians, Lutherans, Arminians, or anyone else.

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It is the doctrine of those who believe in sovereign grace that say, God saved me.

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I was running the other way. I was resisting. I had no ability either way, positively, negatively.

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And God is the one that saved me. Salvation is from the Lord. Now, what does that do to your doxology?

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God's the one that saved me. I was hell bound and I wanted it. I wasn't a masochist.

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I didn't want hell, but I sure didn't want Jesus. And God rescued me.

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God interrupted me, as my friend Dave Jeffries often says. However you want to parse this salvation of yours, what credit do you give you?

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What's the credit that you give man, mankind, man, woman, child?

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What credit do they get? Friends, if you want zero credit to be given to man, to men and women, then you are by default,

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Augustinian. You're a Calvinist. Because all the other systems have cooperating and sufficient graces and provenient graces and assistance and awakenings.

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And God brought me to Christ. That is the biblical, glorious gospel of sovereign distinguishing grace.

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I love S. Lewis because he would always say distinguishing grace. John Gershner would say sovereign grace.

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By definition, grace is sovereign. Grace is distinguishing. But in our day and age, grace isn't too amazing.

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So we have to put those other modifiers in front of it. Amazing grace.

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The only thing about grace that would amaze you is what? That it's distinguishing sovereign.

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At least that's part of it. Who has the decisive role in salvation? You or God?

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Who is the one that gets credit in salvation? You, God, both?

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God provides and you have to close the deal. God did 99 % and you have to do the 1%.

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God had Jesus die for sins for everybody and now you've got to close the deal.

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You've got to give God permission. Now let's just think about that for a second. My name is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio, info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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You gave God permission to save you. Really? You? You.

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And we're not talking about even someone like a Luther or a Calvin or a Mary Slessor or an

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Elizabeth Elliott. We're talking about you. You let God save you.

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Friends, if I was on the radio, I'd say that that sounds blasphemous to me.

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You didn't let God do anything. When you think of salvation, you want to think of Genesis.

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Why do I want to hold on to Genesis 1, 2, and 3? Well, because it's all part of God's word.

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But when you think about ex nihilo, creation, that's what you should think about when it comes to salvation.

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Think about it. 2 Corinthians 4, 5. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as your bondservants for Jesus' sake.

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Now here it comes. And you think about these different ways of salvation and who gets a credit for what?

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And who does these things willingly? And who causes and who responds? Cause and effect, cause result, primary mover, secondary mover, theology, methodology, doxology, spiritual inability, total depravity, moral corruption.

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Here's what it says in 2 Corinthians 4, 6. For God who said, light shall shine out of darkness is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

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You want to know how people get saved? It's like Genesis 1, 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

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Now, what kind of response did the creation matter have? Oh yeah, there wasn't any matter.

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This is like Lazarus. Lazarus said, I'm Pelagian. I pulled myself up out of the tomb myself.

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Semi -Pelagian, I cooperated, right?

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I wanted to come and God helped me come out of that tomb. How about the Armenians?

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God gave me sufficient grace to come. He called me and I cooperated. I do have inability, but there's sufficient grace and it became efficient when

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I cooperated to come out of the tomb. How about Lutherans?

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You know, God brought me, Lazarus said, and I didn't resist at all. I didn't drag my heels.

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Or how about Jesus made me, raised me from the dead.

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See how that works? Now think about too with the matter. We're going back to Genesis 1, creating the moon and the sun, all right?

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Let's think about the sun, God creating the sun. Now see, 2 Corinthians 4, 6 talks about the tie -in, the way

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God created the world and everything in it is the same way, monergistically, that God creates new life.

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So making things out of nothing is what, in Genesis 1, is the same way he saves people.

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Okay, the same way. So let's think about the sun and the moon and the stars. They are like Pelagians and they say they made themselves.

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How'd you come up with them? I mean, that sounds like evolution is what that sounds like. Semi -Pelagians, the sun and the moon said, you know,

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I wanted to come, I wanted to exist and God helped me. They didn't even exist.

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How about Armenians? God gave me sufficient grace to make myself and I cooperated, even though I don't have any ability,

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I know I have sufficient grace and it becomes efficient when I wanted to follow.

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When I wanted to create myself. See, friends, this is just all, it's

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Looney Tune. How about Lutheran view of creation? Sun, moon, and the stars. Well, God made me and I didn't stop.

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How could you stop? How could you say no? We're talking about God. That's why letting

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God, permitting God, it's okay, God, if you do that. Here's what happened.

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Light shines out of darkness, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus.

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It is God who said that. When God says, let there be light, there's light. That's sovereign, distinguishing,

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Calvinistic, Augustinian, Paulinian, Jesus theology. Johannine as well.

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How could you believe any other thing? Say, yeah, but what about free will?

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I mean, after all that, somebody's in the back of the class and they say, what about free will?

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What about free will? Oh, for me to repent, I gotta have some free will, baby.

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Broseph, repentance and faith. It's the effect of God's work. It's not your part of the deal.

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It's the effect. It's the fruit. There we go. That's a good way to say it, isn't it?

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Glad I didn't think of that. Use somebody else's words. It's the fruit. You've willingly, you must come to Christ through repentance and faith.

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But where'd that willingness come from? Well, you have to think about the triune God and election and redemption and new birth.

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Right? Who gets the credit for this salvation? Who quickened you so that you would repent?

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Friends, your repentance and your faith are not the cause of your regeneration. They're evidences.

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They're the fruit of. They're the effects, right?

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Reisinger said, you would see he was alive because he was walking back to you talking about somebody raised from the dead, breathing, but you would know that these were evidences of a miracle having been performed on him from without and not the result of his own power of will.

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Just so when a spiritually dead man begins to perform spiritual acts such as repentance and faith, these spiritual fruits show that the miracle of the new birth has taken place.

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And these give, this gives the most glory to God. Theology, methodology, doxology.

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I understand the pull, the gravitational pull of Arminianism, but it's not true.

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I don't care what friend taught it to you, which loved one taught it to you. You think of creation.

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You think of Lazarus. And then you think of John chapter five, will not come to me that you might have life.

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Someone has to intervene. And his name is Jesus. We have a savior, author, alpha, omega, captain of our salvation.

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He gets all the credit. Aren't you glad? It was the last time you said, God, thank you for my salvation. You did it all.

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You even granted me the gift of repentance. Let's repent from our repentance.

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

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