Sovereignty and Responsibility (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 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 king.

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Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and the steroids,

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All right, we're talking about human responsibility and divine sovereignty, and several weeks on Friday we're gonna go through this.

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Oh, by the way, on the Get Fed, it's every Tuesday in October, so getfedonline, register, and I'll see you via Skype.

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Skype, I'll wear my wretched radio t -shirt or something. How's that? I've actually got two now.

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Talked to Todd the other day, and I said, send me your free book. Send me the book for free. So we're talking about human responsibility and divine sovereignty, and last

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Friday it was kind of just an introduction. So you've got these two concepts, sovereignty of God, which you must believe in if you believe the

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Bible, and man's responsible. He has an oughtness about him, an accountability. He has obligation to believe, and so some people think there are just two options when it comes to man's will.

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He's either totally free or he's a robot, but the Bible teaches that man's will is depraved.

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After the fall, and yet they're still responsible. And, excuse me, a fallen man or woman is always gonna choose, but they're always gonna choose wrongly.

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Why? Because their nature determines it. They don't have the option to turn toward a spiritual truth or to God.

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They will act in accordance with their nature, and they are inclined because of the fall and the curse and death, sin, spiritual deadness, to choose death, sin, spiritual deadness.

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Edwards said, a man always makes the choice according to which power exerts greater force upon his will.

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And so man is free from influences, free from indwelling sin, free from original sin, free from the fall, free from Satan.

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Of course not. So here's what happens. Here's what regularly happens.

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All right, let's see. So God's sovereign, check. Got that. Number two, man's responsible.

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Yeah, but like 1A, 2A, how can

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I respond if the fall is really true, if moral depravity, spiritual depravity, total depravity, whole

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H, no, WH depravity. That's true, then I can't be responsible because I don't have any ability.

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I don't have any ability at all. Well, does inability negate responsibility?

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Remember before the fall, think about it. Man was responsible, yes, yes.

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Man was able to obey God's commands, yes, yes. Of course, but after the fall, was man able to respond?

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No, that's why God had to intervene, yet he was still responsible. So you have to go back to the fall.

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Hey, in Adam's fall, we send all, the New England Primer. So when you think about all this, you have to say to yourself, what effect did the fall have?

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That is why the bondage of the will by Martin Luther was such a deal breaker back in those days as he refutes

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Erasmus' free will. And sin is like, it's like some kind of ratchet.

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You know, it ratchets. And once you go forward, and maybe, you know, you think of like a cable tie.

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And once the cable tie starts ratcheting in, it doesn't come back out, you have to cut it.

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And so it dooms man, that is sin, as it ratchets itself, as it's like a cable tie, unless God steps in, unless God intervenes.

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And so just because someone's not able, it doesn't mean they're not responsible. They are a created being and they are responsible.

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God creates men upright. They fall because of Adam. And so what about, what about life?

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Let's think about life with inability and responsibility. You have a responsibility to pay back the money you borrowed from the bank, but you're not able because you wasted all your money.

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You spent it all, you flew around the world and you took out that homeowner's loan and you were gonna first fix up the house and then you took all kinds of trips and gambled and you got drunk.

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And so I guess since you have no money, you no longer have a responsibility to pay. You're unable to pay, you have no money.

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Well, one man said, God has no chapter 11 bankruptcy. He does not excuse us because we cannot pay him back.

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Man is more than a borrower who has reneged on his obligations. He is an embezzler and a thief.

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So you would say, if you're listening, that just because someone's not able, they're still responsible.

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So why do we follow this logic in our world of theology that's like that?

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Heidelberg Catechism, question nine. Is not God unjust in requiring of man in his law what he cannot do?

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See, it's a question people ask. So Heidelberg puts it right up there, question nine. Number nine, number nine.

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Answer, no. That'd be good enough right there. But they give an explanation. No, for God has so created man that he could do it.

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But man upon the instigation of the devil by deliberate disobedience. So the devil's temptation, but man's deliberate disobedience has cheated himself and all his descendants out of these gifts.

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Friends, man's will because of the fall is enslaved to sin and bondage to evil.

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No ability, no motivation, no incentive to obey

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God, honor God, love him. The man said the best thing you could call this is not free will of the fallen unbeliever, it's self -will.

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I'll do what I want, thank you. Who are you to tell me what to do?

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Now, Luther says whatever man does, he does necessarily, though not with any sensible compulsion.

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And he can only do what God from eternity willed and foreknew he should, which will of God must be effectual and his foresight must be certain.

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Neither the divine nor human will does anything by constraint. And whatever man does, be it good or bad, he does with as much willingness as if his will were really free.

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In other words, when man does it, he's not getting pulled, kicking and screaming.

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He's not a tomatomic robot robot. He really, it's like his will is free.

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He's got that much desire, that much energy, that much gumption to do it.

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God commands people to do what they can't do.

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In their own strength. Okay, think about it. Jesus said to the man, stretch out your hand.

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Remember he had the withered hand in Matthew 12, the dried hand that's used of a plant that is withered, droopy.

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Stretch out your hand. Lazarus, in another account, John 11.

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Rise, commanding people to do things that they can't do. Pick up your bed and walk. Lazarus, come forth.

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Stretch out your hand. So we shouldn't freak out that God calls people to do things that they can't do.

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Right? And we're gonna learn later that it is through that proclamation of biblical truth, the gospel of what

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God in Christ has done, that God marvelously, at his own will, makes people alive.

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And they respond with said belief, repentance, following, obedience.

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Now here's what I'm really after. Okay, Mike Ebendroth, No Compromise Radio. Here's what

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I'm after. When everyone talks about this idol of free will, free from the world system,

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Ephesians 2 says no. Free from sin, enslaving sin, Romans 6 says no. Free from Satan's will, 2

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Timothy 2 says no. But here is the drum roll of drum rolls.

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Ready? Is man's will, is a human will, we're talking about unbelievers here in this part of the program, free from the intervention of God?

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Okay, that, everything else is just introduction.

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Everything else is just a preliminary. Everybody's talking about free will. The rub, the essential component, the fulcrum, the apex, the apogee, the,

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I don't know what other word. Is God free to intervene in the will of a human?

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Or does he kind of like the Arminian view of God? He wants to convert.

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He wishes to convert. He desires to convert. But you know, he's not gonna do everything.

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So it's persuasive. It's provenient.

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It's, what's another word that starts with T? Persian? Does that work?

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That doesn't work. Okay, it's almost like we got two views, you know, yang and yang and good and evil.

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And you know, what's gonna win out kind of thing. No, free will, true free will that people hanker for, desire, long for, lust for, yearn for, basically means they are sovereign and God is a responder.

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God is a, I'll do something after you do the first thing. You can veto me and I'll just do what you say, says

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God, the Arminian view of God. The control of the sovereign

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King of Kings and Lord of Lords gets vetoed.

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The eternal King's will, the sovereign Lord's purpose can be vetoed by the human will.

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Really? All right, let's think about it another way. And again, the big picture, we're talking about sovereignty and responsibility and working through some of these issues.

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I'm not embarrassed by this topic at all. And I don't want you to be either. Is the human will off limits to God's will?

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Is it like one guy described it as the holy of holies where God can't go. So it's the holy of human holies, the human holy of human holies.

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And God doesn't go there, you know, but you know, maybe once a year or something for a checkup.

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Does God intervene in the human will? And the answer is, of course.

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And the comment is, aren't you glad? Because left up to yourself, you would never say,

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I love God and I hate sin. Because by nature, we say we love sin, we love ourselves, we love self -will, and we don't like anybody who's imposing on us to do something else.

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So let me read you a few verses that help you understand that the human heart, the human will, the human nature is not off limits to God.

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He doesn't have to ask for permission. He doesn't have to say, is it okay if I do this?

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Because God would be waiting a very long time. Jeremiah 10 .23, I know,

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O Lord, that a man's way is not in himself, nor is it any man who walks to direct his steps.

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Ezra 6 .22, and they observe the feast of unleavened bread, seven days with joy, for the

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Lord had caused them to rejoice and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them to encourage them in the work of the house of God, the

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God of Israel. Turning hearts. I thought that was, you know, it's ixnay.

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I thought that was, you know, he can't do anything with the heart of a person. Thought it was free. Putting something in the heart of someone.

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Revelation 17 .17, for God has put it in their hearts to execute his purpose by having a common purpose and by giving their kingdom to the beast until the words of God should be fulfilled.

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Everywhere you go in scripture, you see the sovereignty of God over even the hearts and wills of people.

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Proverbs 16 .1, the plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Verse nine of the same chapter, the mind of man, mind of mind, plans his way, but the

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Lord directs his steps. Is man responsible?

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Of course, but God overrules responsibility. He overrules the purposes.

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As one man said, man proposes, God, what? Disposes. How about Proverbs 19 .21?

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Many are the plans in a man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord, it will stand.

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Ever planned something and you didn't do it? You ever organized something and it didn't come to fruition? You ever orchestrated something and it turned out badly and didn't get done?

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Does everything you plan to do get done? Every plan of yours has always come to pass.

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Every notion, every thought, every desire, every plan, it comes to pass, right?

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No, because we're bad planners, because the world's fallen, because we don't have enough money, because there are external forces and control, and because God's counsel overrules our plans.

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Both are true, sovereignty, responsibility. I had to give you a clincher.

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I would give you this first Proverbs 21 .1. The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the

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Lord. He, the Lord, turns it, the king's heart, wherever he wishes.

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Like channels of water. Think about a stream. Think about a ravine.

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Think about a river. Are there factors that influence the way the water goes?

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Or does the river just go wherever it wants? And you said, well, you know, if it's big enough, it does whatever it wants.

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But there's gravity, isn't there? Climate and path of least resistance and all kinds of other things that influence.

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The answer is yes. And the most powerful person in all the world in those days was a king.

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And the king's heart's like channels of water in the hands of the Lord, and he turns it wherever he wishes. I like those

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Hoover Dam biographies, you know, history channel kind of things.

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I've only been in a helicopter once, and it was over the Hoover Dam. And Hoover Dam is quite the spectacle.

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And to think, all right, how do you reroute the water while you're working on the dam? You can't have all that water there and put the dam up.

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So I think on both sides, they had to blast through the rock to create a couple of different diverting streams so that the water would go around the area to build the dam.

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And so humans just did that. And so God can do that to the human heart, to the king's heart, anytime he wants.

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Anytime he wants. So my name's Mike Abenroth. There's no compromise radio. We're talking a little bit about human will.

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We're talking about sovereignty of God. We're talking about, what do we have here?

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All right. All kinds of things that are here, and I'm just thinking, where do

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I go? All right. Genesis 20, verse one. I find it fascinating that in the

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Bible, sovereignty of God and human responsibility are often, I mean, both are taught, but sometimes they're taught right in the same passage.

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That's kind of cool. So we can grab both. Genesis 20. Now Abraham journeyed from there towards the land of Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur.

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Then he sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said to Sarah's wife, she's my sister, said of rather.

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So Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream of the night.

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That's what it says, in a dream of the night. And said to him, behold, you are a dead man because the woman whom you have taken it for she is married.

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Now Abimelech had not come near her and said, Lord, will thou slay a nation even though blameless?

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Did he not himself say to me, she is my sister? And she herself said, he's my brother.

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In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands, I have done this, or not done it.

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Then God said to him in the dream, yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart, you have done this.

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And I also kept you from sinning against me. Therefore, I did not let you touch her. Sovereignty of God, I didn't let you touch her.

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Human responsibility, I'm innocent, I didn't do this. Isn't that amazing? And no embarrassment by the writer,

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Moses, no issues, both just accepted as true.

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Acts 2, 22 and 23, men of Israel, listen to these words, Peter said. Jesus, the

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Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs, which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know.

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This man delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, God's sovereignty.

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You nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. God is sovereign over everything.

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You nailed him to a cross. There's not even a stop, a pause, a footnote.

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Both are just true. You've got to believe both. Matthew 27, now when the morning had come, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.

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And they bound him and led him away and delivered him up to Pilate, the governor.

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The governor who doesn't govern. Then when Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that he had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priest and elder saying,

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I've sinned by betraying innocent blood. But they said, what is that to us? See to that yourself.

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And he threw the pieces of silver into the sanctuary and departed and he went away and hanged himself. He was responsible and he was trying to deny that.

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Verse 11, Jesus stood before the governor. Well, I want to make more comments about Judas.

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And remember, it was Judas who did it, but Jesus says it'd be better for him if he'd never been born.

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Both true, sovereignty of God and human responsibility. All right, true or false?

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God's democratic. No, he's not democratic. Where'd that come from?

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I don't know, I'm just stalling for time. If you have not read the book,

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Sovereignty of God by A .W. Pink, you ought to. Now remember, in no compromise land, in the world of no compromise radio, on a no compromise boulevard.

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I grew up on Tomahawk Boulevard. People are like, how do you spell Tomahawk? How do you not know how to spell

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Tomahawk? You can figure out how to spell Abendroth, but not Tomahawk, Tomahawk. How do you spell

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Boulevard? Well, that's easy because we have an abbreviation for that. In no compromise world, we don't like abridged things.

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Okay, Matthew, Henry, abridged stuff, chuck it. Well, it's better than nothing, but you need the full, right?

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So Pilgrim's Progress, don't get the abridged. You want the good stuff. You want all of it.

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We don't need the abridged, you know, hundred minute Bible kind of. And so Sovereignty of God, you don't want the abridged one.

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I think, I could be wrong on this one, but I think Banner of Truth condensed it.

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And they took out some of the appendices and you should get the Baker one, not the

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Banner of Truth one. I love Banner of Truth, but I don't know why they hacked the thing up. A .W.

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Pink, Sovereignty of God. And one of the things he says at the very back are the practical significance of the

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Sovereignty of God chapter rather. You should stand in awe of such a great God. I mean, can you imagine that God is so sovereign over everything and he can intervene in the lives of a king or Judas?

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Judas was the one responsible, not God. And yet God was sovereign over all that. Who can do that?

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Abraham and Sarah, who can do that? How can God so be such a king and a

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Lord and we'd be responsible? I mean, it is really a humbling thing. You just stand in awe of God.

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Many, oh Lord my God, are the wonders which thou hast done in thy thoughts towards us.

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Mike Abendroth, God Bless You. 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.