Hold fast (Part 2)

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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.

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My name is Mike Abendroth. Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. We do have a

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Facebook account, just look up No Compromise Radio. The website is NoCompromiseRadio .com, Twitter at NoCoRadio, and YouTube, the channel is, any guesses?

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No Compromise Radio. And like we tell people all the time, give your money to the local church, and if you know a millionaire, you can go to the

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No Compromise Radio Patreon site. So far, no takers.

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I think there are 13 people who are giving on a regular basis, and we appreciate that. Thank you very much. If you want a sticker, we've got the little

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NoCo stickers, I don't know, four inches by four inches, something like that, three by three, probably seen them online. If you send a self -addressed stamped envelope to No Compromise Radio, 307

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Lancaster Street, West Boylston Mass, 01583. That is the address of Bethlehem Bible Church, if you can't get it, 307

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Lancaster Street, West Boylston Mass, 01583, and just send it to Spencer, Attention Spencer, he'll get it, and then his girls are putting those stickers in the mail, and we'll send those out.

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I'd also like to have that same style with maybe some type of hoodie or a sweatshirt. It's just hard to get all this stuff done.

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NoCo is essentially my hobby, and therefore

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I can't let it go crazy. And if you saw how much was given on a monthly basis, you would realize it is a hobby.

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I mentioned last show that I was back from Canada, and I did the expository preaching tune -up, and that was

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Friday night, 6 p .m. to 10 p .m. I was kind of sick that night, so the voice was cracking a little, and then the next day

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I felt better, and it was 8 a .m. until 4 p .m., with one hour break for lunch, so that was, let's see, 7 and 4, 11 hours of teaching, and then

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I preached there for Pastor Steve at Fellowship Baptist Sunday morning. I preached John 3, dear people there, warm, and I think

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I do another expository preaching conference in New England, that'll be in New Hampshire, for the

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NECEP, New England Center for Expository Preaching. That will be, I believe, at the end of January, if you're nearby and you could pull it up on NECEP.

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And there are a few things you've got to do ahead of time, because I need videos of your preaching or teaching, because that really helps me help you as I critique you.

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And of course, you can critique me anytime you want. Oh, you can go to sermoncritique .com,

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I guess that's another avenue for NOCO, and for $99 I'll critique your sermon.

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I just need a video somehow, iPhone, anything else, I need to watch. Hearing is not enough.

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Well, so much for all that. We're in the book of Hebrews, and we're talking about Jesus, the high priest. In the old days,

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NOCO was essentially, we did a lot of whacking, I think, and you know, it was whack away for Ann Voskamp and Beth Moore and all these kind of people who were involved in shenanigans and heaven is for real, and just whatever was coming down the evangelical pipeline, and there was a lot of it.

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And we would try to work through that. We had episodes that we would discuss book turners, page turners, you know, book turners, page turners are book burners.

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We would have these kind of ceremonial things where you would send him a picture of some book being burned, and I'd post it, and then some kind of whack, whack away, whack -a -doodle -man was starting to burn things, other religious books in Florida.

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So we had to abandon that, and now we're forced to go back to our roots, and that is talking about the one who never compromised.

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And I don't mean me, I mean to Lord Jesus. So therefore, I'm glad you're listening. I talked to some people lately, and they said when they go on car trips, they listen, or when they drive the truck, they listen, and if I could offer anything to you that would be edifying and encouraging, positive

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K -love kind of thing. I think my favorite shows, well, I like sitting and talking with Pastor Steve.

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That's kind of fun for us. We deal with a lot of pressurized situations, and we just joke around and try to teach maybe one biblical truth.

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But I like also Wednesdays, because I get to interview people, and lately I've interviewed

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Todd Pruitt and Pastor Russ Baker, and I think about a couple other things ready to go as well.

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If you have someone you want me to interview, send me their contact info, and tell them I won't try to ambush them.

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I don't argue on no -compromise Wednesdays, I'm not trying to be

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Mr. Debater or anything like that. Speaking of which, it seems like there's a lot of craziness going on in evangelicalism.

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A lot of leaders doing a lot of dumb things, and I don't know how to take all that.

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I guess I could say time tells, and what people really are finally comes out. It could be the

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Lord kind of just makes sure we don't worship any celebrities on earth, because they are all fallible, frail men, myself included.

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Therefore, let's keep our eyes, and fix our eyes on Christ Jesus, and look to Him for everything, since we have such a great

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Savior. I don't know, but the whole celebrity culture, it's pretty crazy. The celebrities running around demanding certain amounts of money to speak, and I guess that's the good thing about me.

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I run around, and I fly different places, and some places pay pretty well, some places don't.

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Like, I flew all the way there for that. It's just a good reminder, though. Why do I do what

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I do? I think honestly, and I know you want me to be honest.

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In the old days, because I wonder if I'd still think the same way as I used to. Here's how I used to think.

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I would pay somebody to teach the Bible, and by the way, they pretty much would earn it, because I was such a bad

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Bible teacher. This has nothing to do with the show today, but since it's just, as you know, ADD Radio.

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Why are new pastors, and preachers, and Bible teachers so awful when it comes to teaching?

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Oh, Jonathan Newton, who helps with No Compromise Radio a lot, he wants me to go through all the old sermons and tell me which ones go online and which ones don't.

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I mean, any sermon that was more than about eight years ago, I don't think I want to listen to. I mean, some maybe four years ago, but I think, you know, in my mind,

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I'm starting to think about the supremacy of Christ in preaching about eight years ago, maybe, or something like that, and thinking in different categories, reformed categories, and making sure that I wasn't just a moralist or tell people to obey without telling them why.

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But when I listen to new preachers, if you're a new preacher, this is what I say in my preaching workshops.

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I kind of got a taste of what Steve Lawson does as he flies around the world doing these workshops. I don't know, maybe when he retires,

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I'll take over his job. I don't think so. I don't know how many men have the stamina that he does to fly around the world.

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I pretty much get sick of airplanes. So where was

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I? Oh, new preachers. You preach too long, so quit that.

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When you're a better preacher, preach longer. But actually, when you're a better preacher, then you'll realize longer isn't better.

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Very few, don't give me the exceptions to prove the rule, but very few people can really carry folks along past 45 minutes.

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So don't preach more than 45 minutes. If you're some new guy, I know what you're doing, because I've done all these things. Oh, I preach 55 minutes, and I preach 65 minutes.

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When I pull up websites and I see people and pastors who are preaching, now, there are one -offs, there are

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Sunday nights, there's some kind of emergency, you get caught up in what you're teaching, carried away, you're going on sabbatical, and you've got to finish that book, so you need 10 extra minutes.

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There are times where I would probably understand a little bit more, but after 45, that plane needs to land.

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You need to preach under 50 minutes. When I pull up websites and I see pastors going 63, 65, 68, 58, 59, man, you're killing the people.

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And I know what you're saying, you're saying, well, our church, we stand behind the word, and we rightly divide the word, and that's why hardly anybody comes, and we're a pure church.

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That all may be true, but what also could be true, fella, I don't think

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I've ever said fella over 2 ,500 shows, is that you just preach too long. Man, the sermons are too long.

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Too much data, they're too long. So take out some of the data. I know sermons are not

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Hollywood movies, but there's a reason why movies have 15 hours worth of filming, and they've got to cut it and edit it down to 90, down to 120 minutes.

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So there's a lot that you've learned, praise the Lord for that, thank Him for that, the things about participles and heiress and everything else, but then you've got to take larger swaths maybe, maybe you need to,

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I don't know how you need to do it. I'm trying to speed up a little bit in the book of Hebrews, I know I've probably gone too slowly, but if you're a dad teaching

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Bible time, you finally are convicted. You know what? You say to your wife, honey, would you help me just clean up the table and give the kids their little booklets about the

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Bible or little hymnals or little songbooks, and would you keep the two little ones from going crazy while I talk to the entire family, all four kids and you, and we're going to do a little

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Bible time, and we're going to start in the book of Exodus. And then the dad goes for like an hour and just kills the kid.

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And nobody wants to do it again, he wants to know why. How about if you start off for five minutes, five minutes that you teach, maybe have a couple of prayer requests, sing a kid's song, done, 10 minute deal.

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You do that for five or six nights a week when you've got the kids that are all little, because pretty soon what they're going to do is they're going to do what my kids did.

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When they're all teenagers up in that area, that age range, somebody's got to go to this thing and that school thing and this follow up and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, and the kids have this life and they're going to be outside of the house.

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And we were not the family that would say, you're going to be in all these sports and you're going to do all sudden such.

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We were not the sports family. Our sports are snowboarding and surfing and stuff like that.

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You know, not these, you know, the soccer people and the baseball people. You've got to football, you got to be there, you know, five nights a week or whatever.

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And we had a tough time with the schedule. Maybe we had a harder time than normal because I'm a pastor, but just don't go so long.

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Right? Just go faster. Who is trying to text me now? You have to check on these things on No Compromise Radio.

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What else is happening? I think I'm just going to pause this for just a second. The good news is you're teaching the

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Bible. The bad news is just think long term. Well, on No Compromise Radio today, we're going to look back at Hebrews chapter 10 and essentially what's happened as we've turned the corner from who

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Jesus is, i .e. the high priest, he offers prayers and is himself the sacrifice. Those are the two main things that the writer wants you to understand.

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High priest pray, high priest offer sacrifices. Jesus makes intercession, Hebrews 7 .25,

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and he himself is the sacrifice. And you could look at that in chapter two, for instance, or in many other places.

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In light of who this Jesus is, he says to the Jewish people, and all who would read this book, Hebrews, and all who are listening to me today, believe.

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And he uses language like draw near or enter. And then he says, for those of you who do believe, keep believing, hold fast.

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And that is found in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 23.

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Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. And then it says, he who promised is faithful.

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No matter what's happening, no matter what your circumstances are, you need to keep believing.

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We say the same thing, the confession. We agree. What's going on in Hebrews chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and half of 10.

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Gerhardus Voss said, the Christian is a man. All right, hold on.

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What do we have here? The Christian is a man who lives with his heavenly destiny ever in full view.

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His outlook is not bounded by the present life and the present world. He sees that which is and that which is to come in their true proportions and in their proper perspective.

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The center of gravity, Voss goes on to say, of his consciousness lies not in the present, but in the future.

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Hope not possession is that which gives tone and color to his life. He is the frame of mind.

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His is the frame of mind of the heir who knows himself entitled to large treasures upon which he will enter at a definite point in time.

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Hope, the confession of our hope. People who have no hope, it's pretty sad, isn't it?

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What do people in the world hope for today? Can you imagine the unbeliever? What does his hope lie in?

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Bertrand Russell wrote that book, Why I'm Not a Christian. He also had a book called A Free Man's Worship.

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The labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system.

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And that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.

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Only within the scaffolding of the truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.

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Wow. Professor William Marsden of New York University asked 3 ,000 people some time ago, what have you to live for?

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Answer, 39 ,000 people is the wrong number.

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I was looking at something else down here. I was looking at the footnote. This was in some illustration book that somebody else quoted, and so there, that's why

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I have it. I think it's in that Reformed Expository Preaching deal. What have you to live for?

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Interviewed 3 ,000 people, 94 % were simply enduring the present while they waited for the future. They wanted something to happen.

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Something next year, something better, something tomorrow, something else. That's not what this writer's talking about.

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He knows this exalted Jesus has promised to come back, has promised to put an end to sin on the earth.

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Of course, for the Christian, penalty of sin, paid for, justified, no condemnation.

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The power of sin, Romans 6, dealt with. Presence of sin will be dealt with one day.

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And so you hold onto this confession, not with doubt, but what's the text say?

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Without wavering. Should I go back?

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Sacrifices, tithes, shadows, no, no, no. Don't go back. Don't, don't lean.

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The metaphor here is, stay on target. He who promised is faithful.

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How do you base this? This hope, what's this hope based upon? The faithfulness of God.

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Faithful is he that calls you and also will do it. First Thessalonians 5, 24, therefore, hold fast.

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This God is faithful. He won't fail you. There'd be no faltering in him.

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Later, Hebrews chapter 13, never I will leave you. Never I will forsake you. Can God be relied upon?

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Yes. Is it impossible for God to lie? It's impossible for God to lie.

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We have hope, the hope for the future. Therefore, your hope isn't in this world.

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Hope isn't in this world. Is not in this world.

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I said it for emphasis and I said it while I was writing down in my notes. Troubles, trials, persecutions, don't go back.

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And the question is today, not necessarily, a question today is not necessarily, have you ever believed in your life?

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Did you sign a card? Did you walk an aisle? No, but are you believing right now? Are you holding fast right now?

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That's the idea. Keep holding fast. Don't stop holding fast. This is language of 1

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John, where we have believe in the present tense, that we believe in the name of the son,

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Jesus Christ. So we have come to know and believe that the love that God has for us.

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1 John 5, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Who is that?

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Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus Christ is the son of God? Whoever believes in the son of God has testimony in himself.

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I write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God, that you may have eternal life.

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Therefore for the unbeliever, the call is to repent and believe. The writer of Hebrew says, enter, draw near.

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For the believer, since you have done that, the call is to keep believing, keep resting, keep relying, keep trusting.

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And then there's one more thing here in this section, Hebrews 10, verses 24 and 25.

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And I wanna talk about that the rest of the show and maybe tomorrow's show as well. Manana. Believe, keep believing, and then serve believers.

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Believe, keep believing, serve believers. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

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And one of the things we don't wanna do is come to these verses that are very popular verses. And I know why they're popular in the context of ecclesiology and church life.

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Of course, they're important verses, but remember where they are.

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They're after almost 10 full chapters of who

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Jesus is. What Jesus has done for you, now do this. It's not, well, you've gotta do these things so Jesus will do the work for you.

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Of course, we know that. This isn't something you do by yourself. This is a series of exhortations that is in light of, right?

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As long as you get that, we're fine. And what these things say, how I could frame it is since Jesus loved and wanted what was best for the objects of his love, and he went to great lengths to secure that, to secure them by love, we wanna make sure that we don't say to ourselves, church people bug us, and therefore, we don't wanna do anything.

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We want just things done for us. What we've got here is not what people can do for you.

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I go to church, nobody greets me, nobody's nice, nobody invites me over, nobody does this, that, or the other.

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No, you go to church to worship the triune God, give praises to the

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Father for sending the Son, whose work was applied by the Holy Spirit, and then you say to yourself, you know what?

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I'm gonna serve other people. That's the issue, guilt, grace, gratitude. So if I wanted to have a little outline for this section here,

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I'm gonna give you the three A's. Mr. A, they call me sometimes Pastor A.

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That's better than Pastor C -plus. Pastor C -plus,

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D -minus. I'm not very smart, honestly.

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I just plod, to use William Carey's language. In high school, though,

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I think I just tried. And maybe before I blew my brains out on drugs, I was smart,

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I don't know. And I could get straight A's in most everything. Because I think high school is pretty easy in Nebraska.

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I think the only time I didn't get A's, maybe typing class, art. Can't believe they made us take art class.

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You should have no classes in junior high, high school that cannot be objectively measured.

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I guess even in gym, they can objectively measure, did you do the 10 laps for the A? How many pull -ups can you do or something?

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But art, I mean, it's the same thing with Olympics. Did they hit the bullseye or didn't they? We can measure that with a biathlon, whatever that thing is where they shoot two and then ski.

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But other things, I mean, did they clean, did they squat and bench and clean jerk and all these other things, you know, the 350 kilos?

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Well, if they did, they did. If they didn't, they didn't. But we're gonna just base it on style.

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I don't think that those should be sports. I don't think that's sports. Did you beat the person on the bicycle by three seconds or did you lose by three seconds?

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Anyway, then I went to college then I realized I wasn't so smart. So pastor A, pastor C plus. Why am

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I talking about these things? Cause I don't think I should get into this quite yet. These three A's, do you know they had the three

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A's? Some have said four, the best theologians in time,

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Anselm, Augustine and Aquinas, the three A's. Those are the big A's. Anselm, Augustine, Aquinas.

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I would probably pick people like John Owen, Martin Luther, maybe

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Calvin. That's who I would probably pick. C -L -O, CLO. My name's

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Mike Ebenroth. This is No Compromise Radio. What we're doing here is we are talking about Jesus and how he's worthy of all praise and honor.

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And you can either pay for your own sins or you can trust in the one who said he would not cast out those who come to him.

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And that's a pretty good promise. And so therefore your prayer, if you're not a Christian should be, Lord have mercy upon me a sinner.

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And your prayer, if you are a Christian should be, thank you, praise the Lord. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebenroth 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.