Climbing Jacobs Ladder

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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

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. It is a warm summer day without any animals running around outside.

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Oh, there�s a leopard. Pastor Steve, how are you doing today? I�m doing great. Can the leopard change his spots?

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I know. It�s a blazer here in England. My pastor, when

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I first got saved, was Raul Ruiz, and I think his background was German and Hispanic, and put those two together, he had an interesting accent, and he would call leopards, lepers, leopards, lepers, leopards.

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And you know, leopards can�t change their spots, but neither can leopards. No, they cannot. See, that�s why you need the healing balm of the

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Lord Jesus for both leopards and leopards. I�m glad you didn�t say Gilead. The balm of Gilead.

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Gilead makes me think of, I don�t know, maybe Monty Python or something. Maybe. Yeah.

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Steve, why is it that every time I turn around, I walk past your office or something like that, and you�re always on some green blog,

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Gospel Coalition blog and stuff. What is your fascination with the Gospel Coalition blog? Are you like, you know, writing for them now, or how�s that working?

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Well, because the Salvation Army doesn�t have a blog, so I go to the Gospel Coalition blog. I just was reading,

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I don�t know who it was, he was like, books on my desk type of thing. And, you know, sometimes we have books on our desk that aren�t necessarily all number one with a bullet, theologically speaking.

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Oh, I have some, I keep those hidden. They�re really sketchy books. But I wouldn�t be saying I�ve got the new pre -release

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Foskamp book on my desk unless it was like the critique stack. I�d keep that shrouded in cardboard.

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I�ll never forget, it was probably 25 years ago, Steve, when my brother, as a new

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Christian, he would always say, you know, if he had the Book of Mormon or something, New World Translation, a finny book, he would write on there, you know, basically inside the front cover.

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I do not believe this. This is heretical. If I die, don�t think that I was into this book.

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I�m not endorsing. Uh -huh. Disclaimer after disclaimer. I think some I flipped upside down or back and around, but I don�t know what

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I do with them now. I just stash them. Well, except for, I think I have like the purpose -driven something or other on one of the lower shelves.

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I need to probably flip that around, but I just keep it there so I can get access to it. Yes, but if you had a purposeless life, what would that mean?

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That would be sad. Well, everybody has a purpose, right? And mentally, they have a purpose.

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They have something they�re striving for. And even if they�re striving for nothingness, they�re still striving for something.

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Well, how about this segue, Steve? Why don�t you strive, No Compromise Radio listeners, to go to Europe with us

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May 20th through 30th with Mike Jinder and No Compromise Radio? Start saving your

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Euros. I know. You always say, �Save your shekels for Israel ,� so now save your

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Euros. Will England be gone from the EU by then? I don�t think they have the guts.

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You think they�re going to say no? Yeah. So by the time the show airs though, I think the show is actually going to air in August. Now don�t stone me if I�m wrong.

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Can you imagine back in the old days if you did not get the prediction right, if your prophecy failed in any way, shape or form, death?

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I�d have been dead so many times just this year. I mean, I was like, �There�s no way Trump�s getting the nomination.

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He gets the nomination. There�s no way England�s going to leave the � yeah, they�re going to leave the

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Eurozone even though if I were there, I�d vote in favor of leaving. But that�s why

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I don�t think it�s going to pass by the way because whatever I want is not what happens. Oh, whatever you want. Uh -huh. Tell me then why as I leave in two days to go to California for the summertime, why are you preaching to the book of Revelation when

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I�m gone if this is your track record with prophecy? Steve, in front of me,

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I found an old song sheet for Bethlehem Bible Church. When I got here, there�s a variety of song sheets that they have with hymns and other songs, spiritual hymns, songs.

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Then we got the Grace Church hymnal. I think it was called the hymnal.

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It kind of makes sense, doesn�t it? Yeah, it does. And then we�ve since moved to the Grace hymnal.

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What�s it called? Hymns of Grace. Hymns of Grace, right. We sang last week, �And Can It Be ?� and I did not �

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I liked it that it said, �He emptied himself in matchless love� or something like that because I didn�t like the original �He emptied himself of all but love.

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That would not be good. Right. But then it said � So great is love. So great is love, yeah. And then maybe that�s

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Trinity hymnal, but I did not like the Grace Church hymnal when it said, with the Wesley song, �And

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Can It Be ?� �He bled for all of Adam�s helpless race. That�s true, but I like it to be a little more particular, �his chosen race.�

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Yeah, I think it has � I think it is better, though, the new one.

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I don�t remember exactly what it says, but it�s a little more specific. �And Can It Be ?� is a little bit better, but �

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It�s not as good as it could be. That�s right. But I�m glad they took out the spurious fifth verse, though.

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Sorry. What was that one? The one about �in vain the seraph� Cry? Yeah, whatever it was, because it did not flow.

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I mean, it was an additional verse, and it just didn�t match the � it didn�t have the viscosity.

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How about that of the � No, no, no, no, no. Viscosity, the kind of thickness. Yes, that�s what

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I mean. The theological density? Yes, it didn�t have that. You know what?

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But I don�t like that. Well, it didn�t have the musical viscosity. It was at a different pressure.

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Steve, while you had one great idea today � just hold your horses � the new book �Evangelical

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White Lies.� By this time, you can get it on Amazon, if you�d like. We were working on the cover today, and Stephen was sending some cover stuff in.

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And this particular Stephen, who�s sitting next to me � Tuesday guy � said, �Why don�t you have lies on Evangelical White Lies ?�

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Steve, describe it. I just said, �Why not have a lie detector needle moving up and down and spelling out lies

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I saw it. It says �booyah.�

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Yeah, �booyah.� �Kumbaya.� Oh, sorry. �Booyah.� I can�t believe they actually have it in here.

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Someone�s singing, �There�s no G, Lord, kumbaya.� But the one that I thought was fascinating here, and I�m sure you�d agree with me � we are climbing

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Jacob�s ladder. We are climbing Jacob�s ladder. We are climbing Jacob�s ladder. Soldiers of the cross.

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Climbing up from earth to heaven. Climbing up from earth to heaven. Climbing up from earth to heaven. Now, if it said something about John chapter 3, there�s no one ascended except Jesus, I would get it.

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But here it says, �Soldiers of the cross.� Tell me, what kind of theology could we have that would make us sing some kind of VBS song like this, a

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Methodist VBS song gone wrong? Sounds pretty Pelagian. I mean, that�s pretty bad.

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It sounds like we�re earning our way to heaven. Hey, we�re climbing the stairway to heaven, right?

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No, that�s an old stylistic song or something, isn�t it? Jimmy Page is in court. Stylists.

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Stylistics. No, not the stylistics. Stylistics are a black vocal group whom

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I happen to like quite a bit, by the way. But no, it was some group

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I�d never even heard of. But I listened to the two songs side by side. There are some similarities, quite a few, actually.

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It�s funny. While most people will say heaven is for real stuff is bogus, not to quote

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Phil Johnson. He likes to say bogus. Bogus. They don�t think something�s wrong with this song.

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I mean, they say heaven for real is wrong and then they sing this song. Yet when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus, he said in chapter 3, verse 13, �No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the

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Son of Man.� Doesn�t that kind of destroy this Jacob�s ladder thing? Talk to me a little bit about salvation versus we have us climbing up to heaven on the ladder versus God coming down, that is the ladder, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. I don�t even know what you could say about us climbing the ladder up into heaven other than to say we are attaining heaven by our own works.

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I mean, what is that? I mean, if that�s not what it means, then what does it mean?

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And what else could it possibly mean? But the whole idea that that�s how we�re going to get to heaven,

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I don�t know about you listeners, but with my background and everything, that�s horrifying to me and biblically

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I think it�s horrifying because we cannot ascend to heaven. We cannot climb the ladder.

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We cannot ascend the stairs. If it�s up to me and my efforts, I�m done.

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I�m just hellbound and that�s the reality of it. My faith is not on my own works and not even my own works helped by the works of Jesus.

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It�s entirely in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Now, so why would Grace Church put this song in their new hymnal?

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They didn�t. Asterisk. Objection. Objection, Your Honor.

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We�ve been talking about trials. Objection, Your Honor. Steve, was it not Whitfield who said something akin to you�re trying to climb a ladder to heaven yet when you get to the top, you know, it�s basically a noose.

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You�re going to hang yourself trying to work your way to heaven. I think that would be a right thing to say.

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I would also say that, you know, the problem with trying to climb that ladder up to heaven is all the steps have been removed.

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You know, there are no steps. You just keep on putting your feet up and there�s nothing for which, you know, for you to ascend on.

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You know, you�re just trying to shimmy up the poles. Forget about it. I mean, it is impossible. Steve, you said shimmy.

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It reminded me of gymnastics class or something and we had a take in junior high or high school and, you know, you got these, you know, 110 -pound guys that could do the iron crosses on the rings and everything and then it was time to shimmy up the pole and touch the top of the gymnasium.

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That had to be kind of dangerous but that was awful. Some guys just couldn�t get it done. I�m pretty sure

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I wouldn�t have been able to get it done either. I mean, you know, back in my high school days when I weighed 165 pounds and I think it was all below my waist.

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So, I mean, I had no upper body strength whatsoever. We could make some Saturday Night Live skit with that, couldn�t we? I don�t know if it would be funny but we could.

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Yeah, we could. John 3, earlier Jesus said to Nicodemus, �You must be born again.�

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He later said in the plural, �Ye, you must be born again.� But Steve, let�s talk a little bit about the necessity of regeneration because every aspect of man�s nature, character, will, conscience, mind, body, soul, spirit, et al.

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It�s all affected by sin. That�s why you need a new you. If you just got, you know, a little component, you know, it�s just you got a bad will.

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Now let�s get a new will. But everything needs to be made alive. Well, I mean, just imagine, you know, if I was climbing the ladder into heaven at every step along the way, you know,

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I might pause and take a little round of applause and, you know. Hey, and I�m actually climbing higher than you.

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Not only applause but pride. Exactly. I mean, because it is in our nature to be self -absorbed, to be proud, to be arrogant, to think that we�re better than we are.

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I mean, it would be utterly ridiculous. We would get up to the, if we could, get up to the top of the ladder and say, look at me,

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Lord. You know, do you have heaven ready for me? You know, is it good enough? I mean, we�re just, we would be totally looking at things the wrong way because that�s how we do it.

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See, let�s mix some metaphors a little bit. Mangle some metaphors? Yeah, mangling metaphors 101. Okay.

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Let�s turn this to a Jack and the Beanstalk song. Maybe that would work out well because didn�t he have to climb up that beanstalk and he planted it and he did all that stuff?

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It�s Jack and the Beanstalk theology. How about John Chapter 1?

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I keep going back to John. Maybe that�s because you�re here in the studio and you�re preaching through the book of John, right?

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Yeah. Who wrote John, by the way? Well, you know, scholars differ. It�s really tough.

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John. Jesus�s wife, maybe? John, the beloved apostle. It says in John Chapter 1, you know, talking about the whole

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Nathaniel said to him, �Come and see,

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Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit or guile.

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Nathaniel said to him, How do you know me? Jesus answered him, Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree,

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I saw you. Nathaniel answered him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God.

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You are the King of Israel. Jesus answered him, Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, and he said to him,

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Verse 51, Truly, truly, I say to you, I didn�t say unless.

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Truly, truly, I say to you, You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the

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Son of Man.� I think he�s the latter, don�t you? Well, I would say so.

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And, you know, there�s the well, I mean, there�s the whole nature of John�s Gospel that he is the

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Son of God. And this is the central fact. And, you know, the whole idea that we would have the responsibility, the job, as it were, of earning our way to heaven or participating in that, you know, in some action on our part is contra the

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Gospel. It�s absolutely antithetical to the Gospel. Why kill Jesus? Why punish your son if people can get to heaven on their own?

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Just climb that ladder. Why doesn�t God just get the megaphone saying, �You know what? Just climb higher, higher.�

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Even the lyrics of the song �Jacob�s Ladder� stands a three. Well, it�s got that, but it says, �Every round goes higher, higher.

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Every round goes higher, higher. Every round goes higher, higher, soldiers of the cross.�

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I mean, would somebody give me a chance to sing this song?

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I�m sure are, you know, talking about grace, preaching grace, but I mean, what are the images that that song brings up?

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It�s personal effort. It�s, you know, securing your own salvation by your own labors.

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And again, if that were possible, then what kind of fiend is

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God, who has no access to God�s holy heaven and communion with Him forever, was the

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Lord Jesus? He�s the one, and isn�t it fascinating in John 1, He�s called both the Son of God and the

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Son of Man. They�re both. Both in one little pericope. That�s nice.

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When I first studied the Bible and was reading commentaries I don't know when

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I would do, but if I were ever to do that, maybe S. Lewis Johnson books. It changes it to Periscope.

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Pete Oh, I was going to say, I think when I first read it, I thought, oh, what a lousy typo, you know? It's supposed to be

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Periscope, but what does that mean? Paul Speaking of typos, you wrote the foreword to Evangelical White Lies.

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That was pretty nice of you, without a typo, although I know you're an excellent writer, but I did send it to the editor to make sure what you said was going to be copacetic.

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Pete Oh, and what did they say? Paul They said if they had to print something with all the red ink under the squiggly lines under the word thing, they would have to get a reusable cartridge.

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Pete Oh, man, that's bad. Paul That's bad. So the ladder, the access that we have to God, His name is

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Jesus, and if we had to try to climb the ladder for our own salvation,

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I don't know how much, is there any good news to that at all? Oh, we have some good news for you. These are the people that knock at the door, they ride bicycles, they call themselves elders when they're 16 years old or whatever.

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We've got some good news for you. Climb the ladder. Pete Now, wait a minute. They're 19. Let's get it straight here, pal.

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Pete Yeah, I'll never forget, you know, yard sale in Valencia, and we're out there, and here come a couple of female missionaries.

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And our good friend Edwin Seidman walks up to them and says, you know, what are you ladies doing? Oh, we're going around giving people the good news, and he says, well, what's your good news?

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And they, like, gave him the encapsulated form, and he goes, well, that's bad news.

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That's not good news at all. You know, you people have no good news. And then he gave them the gospel and really, you know, set them straight.

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But yeah, the idea that we can save ourselves, that we can buy our own works, you know, scale the ladder up into heaven, that's not good news.

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That's not the gospel. You are not the gospel. Jesus Christ is the gospel. Peter To me, it's wonderful news,

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Steve, because every person, therefore, now has access to Jesus.

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In other words, if you had to climb through works of righteousness or good deeds or whatever, if you were a real rascal of a guy or a scoundrel or a scallywag, if you were really on the lower tiers, you could never do it.

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You know, you have to be kind of a good person, a moral person, the right kind of climbing person. But the great news about the gospel, since Jesus is the one who is the mediator between God and man, every single sinner, as bad as they get, has the same access to the same

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Savior. When you were using those words, you know, scoundrel, scallywag, rascal, especially rascal, all

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I could think about was Jim Roskopf, you know? I was like, that's exactly like him.

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I thought you were going to say, when I said scallywag, you were thinking of Mrs. Doubtfire. I think she maybe said that.

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No, no. But, you know, Dr. Roskopf had such a sweet way of presenting the gospel and, you know, the truth is, we'd like to think that we're capable of climbing that ladder, of ascending to the heights.

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You know, I mean, this is the history of man, right? Let's build a tower, we will be, we'll get up to heaven on our own.

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We will be like God, you know, we will do this. And this is how we view ourselves.

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This is part of the, you know, the aspects of the fall where we think we are a lot better than we are.

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We think we're more capable than we are. And the truth is, the Bible says that we're dead in our sins and trespasses.

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You know, apart from God making us alive, we can do nothing. We're useless.

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Steve, and then what happens? Religion comes along. So self -righteousness is bad, we think we can climb the ladder.

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Then religion comes along and says, by the way, even though you might be bad,

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Jesus is really good. And the way you have access to Jesus is through Jesus, faith in him, plus have some water sprinkled on your head or get dunked once or twice or three times, hear the different sacraments.

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And then religion then distorts it to make it like me and God climbing the ladder,

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Jesus and us. So then it even gets, it's worse. I think religion is more damning than some kind of ungodliness.

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Petey It's true. And every religion is ultimately, it's trying to answer the question, you know, how do

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I get to heaven? How do I go from earth to heaven? And if you look at it, like even this recent terror activity in Florida, what was that man trying to accomplish?

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He was trying to please his God, really a demon, but he was trying to please his

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God. And in his mind, he was climbing the ladder. He was making himself righteous.

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He was exterminating sinful vermin and climbing the ladder. Of course, again, that's antithetical to the gospel.

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The gospel of grace would say, once you're saved, then your responsibility is to preach the gospel to others, not to kill them.

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So big difference between Christianity and Islam there. Jared I said to my neighbor the other day, he believes in reincarnation and we were talking and I said,

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I always tell the story behind your back that you told me, Mike, that when you want to get your soul saved, you'll talk to me.

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And we laughed and he talked about reincarnation. And I said, here's the thing, you don't want to meet

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Muslims that believe the Quran like I believe the Bible. Pete No, you don't. Jared Since I believe the

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Bible literally, the worst I'm going to do to you is pray for you kind of thing and try to be kind to you and love you.

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And you don't want to have fundamentalist Islamic folks. Pete Yeah, but those prayers are hate speech. Because you're saying that I'm not good enough the way

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I am. You think God needs to change me. Jared Well, hate speech is coming our way. I can feel it.

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Genesis chapter 28 talks about the ladder and it's fascinating to me. We've got to wrap up the show here soon.

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But it says, and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. This was here.

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This was Jacob. He's dreaming and there was a ladder set on the earth and the top of it reached heaven.

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And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the

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God of Isaac. And so the good news is this morning, as we talk about the Lord Jesus, he is the one you can have access to, who gives you access to the

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Father. Pete When Moses wrote that, he didn't know who Jesus was. Well, he didn't have a name for him anyway, right?

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Jared Well, that's true. But when I read the Lord, even now, as the writer of Hebrews would do in chapter one, he thinks

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Trinitarianly. Yahweh, the Father, Yahweh, the Son, Yahweh, the Holy Spirit. Pete I was just referring, I just mean the ladder, you know.

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So he wouldn't have understood fully what that was, you know. And then, you know,

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Jesus himself reveals it later in John one. So that's true. He's probably Moses is probably thinking, though, there's going to be a ladder provided on Genesis.

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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 6. 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.