Preventative Maintenance (Part 1)

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Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth.

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Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures verse by verse with No Compromise.

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Well, I always like to know what people have in the front of their

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Bible. Maybe just a bulletin, maybe some notes, maybe a favorite quote from one of your favorite preachers or teachers.

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I wonder if you keep anything in the front of your Bible or back of your Bible. I have in the front of my

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Bible the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards, and I also have this piece of paper here that I'll read a portion of right now.

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Soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force, you are about to embark upon the great crusade towards which we have striven these many months.

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The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty -loving people everywhere march with you.

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In company with our brave allies and brothers in arms on the other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the

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German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

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Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well -trained, well -equipped, and battle -hardened.

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He will fight savagely. And then Dwight David Eisenhower concludes with,

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I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory.

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Good luck. And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

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Why would a pastor have that in the front of his Bible? Answer, we are in a spiritual battle.

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We are in a fight. And there are things going on in the invisible realm that we can't see, but they are present.

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And let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians 16, as Paul, almost like Eisenhower, except not wishing the troops good luck, gives a divinely inspired charge to the troops at Corinth, designed to clean up the mess that the

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Corinthians have themselves started. In other words, Paul is going to give charges to the church of Corinth so the mess is cleaned up, and for us at BBC.

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This is going to be really good, because if you do these preventative maintenance charges by the grace of God, in light of the cross, you'll never find yourself in the mess like the

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Corinthians found themselves. I don't know about you, but with a car, I'm always hesitant to say to myself, well, even though I'll do the oil change every 3 ,000 to 5 ,000 miles,

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I'm not so sure about the transmission cleaning and the flushing of the this and that. You know those technical terms,

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I have no idea what I'm talking about. You get this preventative maintenance list, and you think at 40 ,000 miles, you do this 50 ,000, 80 ,000, and then you're not going to have the car just break down.

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These charges are just like that. Preventative maintenance, because if you just drift, you'll always drift to ungodliness.

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You'll never drift towards godliness and holiness and right living. Look at 1

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Corinthians chapter 16, verses 13 and 14, and hear these crisp, clear, staccato -like charges from Paul, who in a sense is like a general.

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The first four are military charges, and then the fifth one is certainly a Christian charge.

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Be watchful. Stand firm in the faith. Act like men.

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Be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

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Turn with me, if you would, to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, and I want to remind you of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and what he's done for you. Before we look at these five commands, I'd like you to know who you are in Christ so that in fact you can obey, so that you want to obey, so that you have a good reason to obey because you realize, this is what

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God has done for me. The least I can do is to fall in line. I can hear the heels clicking as the troops of the

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Lord, the soldiers of Christ, arise and then decide, yes, I want to obey. But to remind you of your homeland and what you're defending and what you're guarding and who gave you this great trust, 1

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Corinthians chapter 1 powerfully demonstrates God's gracious redemption and love for sinful people.

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It's one thing to tell your kids, clean the room. It's another thing to tell them, I love you, I provided for you, everything in the room is yours, and in light of my love for you, mommy's love for you, clean the room.

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So to remind ourselves that chapter 16 is connected to chapter 1, I know hard to believe after these three years,

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I think it's taken us three years to get through this book, they are connected. And so who you are in Christ motivates your obedience.

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1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 26, it says, consider your calling brothers.

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Not many of you are wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful.

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Not many were of noble birth. And then look at this barrage of God chose, God chose, God chose.

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But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

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God chose what is low. By the way, he's talking about us, he's talking about Christians.

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God chooses the lowly because then when something happens to them and they do something for him, he gets the credit.

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He chose what is low and the despised in the world. Even things that are not.

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That's like calling your servants the help. You don't even give them a personal pronoun. You don't say him or her or they or them.

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You say the help, the nobodies. We're not the somebodies, we're the nobodies.

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The nothings literally. Even things that are not. To bring nothing, to bring to nothing things that are.

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Now why would God choose people who aren't at the top of the caste system?

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Why would he save them? Verse 29, here's why. So that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

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Can you imagine the epitome of sin rushing to the throne of God and saying,

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I'm gonna boast in me. God, you're pretty lucky to have me by the way. And look at what

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I've done. I'm here God, you didn't help me get here by 1%. I'm here because I'm smart,

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I'm religious, I'm spiritual, and I earned my way to heaven. I mean, even an unbeliever would probably figure out that's pretty bad to do.

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God is the one who does all the work so that we might be thankful, we might be grateful, we might realize we're saved by grace alone.

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And look at what he goes on to say. If you'd like to know why you're going to heaven, if you're a

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Christian today, why are you a Christian? Here's the answer. And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus.

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It's because of God. God planned it, God executed it, God did it, God sent his son,

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God had the eternal promise in eternity past to send the son. The son gladly went, the father gladly sent him, the spirit gladly energized the son.

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It's of him, because of him. It's not because of our power, our merit, our might, our standing, our money, our parents, our philosophy, our baptism, our religious deeds.

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It's not of ourselves. You know that from Ephesians chapter 2, for by grace you have been saved through faith and this not of yourself.

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Lloyd -Jones said, have you become a Christian? Then what is the reason? What's the reason?

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Because God alone, the Savior, saved us. He caused us to be born again.

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We were in Adam, now we're in Christ, all by his doing. Take a look at verse 30 again.

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These Corinthians loved wisdom and then it says here, by his doing you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God.

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That is, in particular, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Can you believe by God's grace alone, he looks at you and he counts you as righteous.

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He credits you as righteous. The gavel comes down, not guilty, no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

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No wonder John Bunyan said, 300 years ago almost, my righteousness has been in heaven for 1 ,800 years.

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Jesus is in heaven for those eons, he's my righteous one.

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He's the one who saved me, not by my philosophy, it's by his righteous life.

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And then the text says, and sanctification set apart for God's work and redemption.

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Just how were you delivered from sin? By God's redemption.

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So if God has saved you, you deserve hell, you get to go to heaven, and God has done all the work, then what's the response?

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Verse 31, I'm glad you asked. To stand in God's presence and say, me?

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Look at me. To stand in God's presence like a football player does in the end zone after an interception's returned back for a touchdown and look in and me and all that?

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No, I don't think so, look at verse 31. So that, as it is written, as it stands written, let the one who boasts, boast in the

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Lord. It's all of grace, it's all of Christ's work, so then he gets all the credit.

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And we are born little boasters. I see little boasters, they're not quite born yet, but they're newborns sitting right there, born to boast.

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You are wound up to boast. Show me a grandma that goes into labor and delivery and sees the baby born and she's now a grandma, she's boasting.

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That's exactly what she was born to do. Boasting in the birth and then ultimately boasting in God.

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You're going to boast in someone. Because God has saved us and because then we want to have a clean church, a holy church, a righteous church, now we can go to 1

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Corinthians chapter 16 and see these commands in light of who we are for the reason, the reason is you've been saved by grace, so live a life of Holy Spirit driven obedience.

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Hard part for us here at this church and other churches, if you're going verse by verse through 1 Corinthians and it takes you one years, two years, three years, you get to these commands at the end but you forget they're connected to the engine that drives everything at the beginning,

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Christ's advocacy on our behalf, the risen Savior. Now you know what, last time

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I forgot verse 12, I didn't forget it but we just didn't run into it, didn't go over it so just let me go over verse 12 so those of you who think that maybe

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I'll skip over hard verses, I won't skip over this verse. But it's not hard. Verse 12, now concerning our brother

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Apollos, remember Apollos? He makes cameo appearances in the New Testament and the

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Corinthians remember in chapters 1 through 4 were all following different people,

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I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Christ, I'm of Cephas, Apollos is a good guy but they were propping him up in an improper way and Paul says our brother

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Apollos, he's not mad at Apollos, he's not at odds with Apollos, I strongly urged him to visit you with the other brothers but it was not at all his will to come now.

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He didn't want to feed the flame of, hey I follow Apollos, that's right,

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I'm glad people listen, that's right. I'll never forget the time by the way, Don Kistler, some of you will know who

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Don Kistler is, he said if you'd like to damn your children, dismiss them from the worship service, let's close in prayer, that's about how

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Don Kistler works. Here's what he meant, train your kids to sit still in the worship service so that they'll sit underneath the word because people get saved by hearing the word of God, right?

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We have a time, a place where we send people, young children over to learn about the gospel message again but that's only training until you, the parent can figure out how to get your kid to sit there to listen, right?

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So I'm glad for those listening comments, I'm glad for the little ones we have seated here, for the big ones too

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I'm glad. A good way to boast in the Lord is to live a life of obedience in light of the cross so let me give you these five exhortations from 1

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Corinthians chapter 16 verses 13 and 14 that are marching orders from headquarters but not from the allied expeditionary forces but from God himself, the spirit of God through Paul.

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It's like a gatling gun, these are five imperatives, commands and they're present tense, remember present tense?

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Just lock it in your mind from here on out. Present tense, when you hear me say it or MacArthur or anybody else it means ongoing, the command is always present, it's continuing, it's durative, it means you just don't do this once and you're done, it's an ongoing thing.

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Present tense commands and the first four are the church, that means it's the body, that means it's to everybody so when the one command is act like men,

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I'm going to, that's for the ladies too, today I get to tell the ladies of Bethlehem Bible Church to act like men, we'll see what it means.

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To think that the church of Corinth was chastened by pagans and pagans saying yeah, you know what, let's even coin a term, what the church does at Corinth, it's like to Corinthianize, it's that bad when the pagan unbelievers say there's sin in the church, there's a problem and so Paul says let me tell you how to right the ship, in light of who the

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God of this universe is and what he's done at Calvary, these commands will right a ship, show me a sinful church who will be determined to do these, the ship will right itself by the grace of God and here's the good news,

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I don't think we're Corinthian so let's just not be Corinthian, who would want to be that kind of church?

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Five commands that are preventative maintenance oriented in light of the cross, by the way these are 12

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Greek words, 21 words in the ESV and the first four are military, their language of soldiers arise, battle that's going on, number one, first charge for preventative maintenance in light of the cross, be watchful, our

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NAS says be on the alert, every one of these is going to come right from the text, your outline will be my outline as Paul is outlined when

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I go overseas and even here teaching preaching classes, we always start off with this passage because you want to outline the text in the way that the text is outlined and so this is easy, five present tense imperatives and they just flow one to the next to the next to the next, be watchful, now by the way this is where we get the

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English name Gregory, we have any Gregory's here? Gregory means to be watchful, it means to pay attention, now

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Paul doesn't just mean now when Pastor Mike preaches you keep your eyes peeled, it's spiritual, pay attention spiritually, walk around and be aware of what's going on and there's a spiritual battle, things are happening, this is the opposite of stick your head in the proverbial sand and act like an ostrich, this is military language of a sentry at a post who is supposed to guard that watch and by the way

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I did some research this week and you could either be killed if you were on watch and you were found sleeping or a much more effective one because it would keep you in the military is they would find you sleeping, the commanding officer would come over and would light your garment on fire, be alert, sleep walking through your

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Christian life isn't going to do it, I'll never forget my father coming downstairs and saying

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Mike your room won't be cleaned by osmosis,

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I didn't know he knew such a word, this drowsy come see come saw kind of indifferent attitude, 22 times in the

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New Testament, watch out, be aware, now think about the Corinthians, if they would have been doing that they would have been seen, we've got a fractured church, we've got sexual sin in the church, we've got people misusing their spiritual gifts, we should be watching out, now it's really interesting the word watch out is used regularly for Christ's return, there's an eschatological flavor to this word, watch out, now laced through 1

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Corinthians Paul has talked about the day of the Lord Jesus Christ, chapter 1, chapter 3, chapter 5, the day is going to come, the day is going to come, the day will disclose, and I think

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Paul gets this right from Jesus' terminology, talking about end time, stay awake, Matthew 24, therefore

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Jesus said be on the alert, watch out, why? Because if you know that the

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Lord is coming back soon, you're going to live a holy life, when dad back in Nebraska would leave on a

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Sunday night to go work out of town for Northwestern Bell and he said I'd be back on Friday afternoon,

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Sunday night, no problem, we did whatever we want, Monday night, no problem, Tuesday night, no problem,

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Wednesday night, no problem, and on Thursday night when mother would say by the way your dad's coming home tomorrow night, how did that make us act?

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We got everything all ready, tip top shape, the same kind of mentality, think about it, pop quizzes, why do professors and teachers give pop quizzes?

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Well I give pop quizzes maybe because I want to make the students suffer, no just kidding, I want them to be ready because if they just wait until the exam at the end they might not study throughout the time, so when you think the

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Lord could come back at any moment, it helps you live a holy life,

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Jesus said be sure of this that if the head of the house had known of what time of the night the thief was coming he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into, for this reason you be ready too for the son of man is coming at an hour when you do not think he will, not sure if he's going to come tonight, no wonder

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Robert Murray McShane said to all his friends, the young preacher who died at 29 years old, do you think

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Christ will come tonight? No, no, no, then he would always repeat that text, the son of man comes at an hour when you think not,

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G. Campbell Morgan the predecessor of Martin Lloyd Jones said I never lay my head on my pillow without thinking that maybe before the morning breaks the final morning may have dawned, if the

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Lord is coming back soon, holy living, Matthew 25 Jesus said be on the alert for you do not know the day or the hour,

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Mark 13 be on the alert because you do not know when the master of the house is coming, I say to you and I say to you all be on the alert, don't be taken off guard, the

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Lord is coming back, no wonder John said amen come Lord Jesus, no wonder

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Paul goes on to say in chapter 16 oh Lord come, no wonder Jesus taught us to pray thy kingdom come,

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Luther said I preach as though Christ died yesterday he rose from the dead today and is coming back tomorrow,

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I think we have to watch out for the return of Christ but also we should watch out for corrosive behavior and corrosive doctrines in the church, the same word is used in 1

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Peter 5 be on the alert your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, spiritual warfare is real and if you turn on Christian TV, by the way there's no really such thing that I know of, it's usually all crazy stuff on supposed

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Christian TV, there's a battle, there's corrosive influences that you better watch out for them, ever take a flashlight and you say well

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I don't really, can't figure out why this flashlight won't work and so you open it up, you try to slide the 2 or 3

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D cells out and they don't slide out, why? Because there's been a leak and you look in there and you have to pound it down on the workbench and out comes the 3 gross

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D batteries with all this corrosive nasty stuff in there, never be a

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Duracell battery only Energizer but sometimes the Energizer just leak all over, used to work for Duracell, one quick story, the first service didn't get this, you know they have these big display things for retail stores and so I was unregenerate,

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I was about 22, got a job for Duracell and they've got these big displays from Energizer and so you just pick those displays up when no one's looking and you take them down into the compactor that they have in the corner and you push this green button and it's funny what the thing does, okay back to the point, listen this isn't just for elders, oh the elders stand sentinel for the church and hold sound doctrine, yes

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Titus chapter 1, the elders guard against false doctrine, yes but this is to the church, you are responsible, you can't just say well you know what it's unloving to stand up for truth and to watch out for these kind of things and spiritual warfare, the elders do it,

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I don't even like it when the elders do it but that's their job, no, well it's unloving if you ever watch out for these spiritual influences that corrupt and say something about it, sorry it's unloving if you don't, this is the charge from God, no wonder

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Mark 14 Jesus said to the disciples keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, watch temptations come, corrosive worldly demonic influences come, watch out, the

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Corinthians should have known that, they were judging each other, influence of bad theology, chapter 5, chapter 15, can't be lulled into some lethargic apathy, it's time to wake up, to be alert, positively

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I could say be alert for opportunities to evangelize, be alert to opportunities to serve, I'll just push that snooze button for one more year, number two, in light of your calling and who

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Christ is and what he's done for you, your love for the church, be watchful number one, number two, stand firm in the faith, see that in verse 13, stand firm in the faith,

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NAS and ESV translated the same way, this is for the group, lock your shield with the person next to you and you stand ready.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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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 8 30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m.

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We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org

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or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.