Law & Gospel

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and it is YouTube Mario video recording number three.

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So we're just trying to change it up a little bit. Modern technology. This man here in front of me has got skills, and so we're back on No Compromise Radio.

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It'll be obviously a video, and it'll also be on our channel, or just our regular channel on iTunes.

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You can write me mike at nocompromiseradio .com. Don't forget, we are on American Gospel Television.

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Great content over there from lots of different speakers and theologians and authors.

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Brandon Kimber has done a great job. Our series, No Compromise series, five parts on assurance, law gospel, cancer, and sanctification.

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So you can just go there. I think you can sign up for a week of free watching. After that, it's a paid subscription channel.

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And if you like video, I mean, that's kind of the way of the future, right? YouTube's videos, everything else. I don't know what happened to our

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YouTube channel. We're still trying to figure that out, the old NoCo channel. Maybe we can resurrect some of the things there. And of course, in the last 15 years, my theology hopefully has gotten better.

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So if we lost some of the bad shows, we lose some of the bad shows. So today

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I want to talk a little bit about law and gospel. And we've got our props up here.

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And so I'm just gonna pick this prop up right here. This is the new book, Law, Gospel, A Primer.

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And Stephen, my friend, has done the cover. And it's a picture of, that's not me when I was about six, but it reminds me when

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I was about six years old, growing up in Omaha, Nebraska. And just chalkboards.

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I mean, do kids even know what chalk is anymore? They've got all kinds of things in their iPad and stuff like that.

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But the genesis of the book was me thinking, how can

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I explain law and gospel in a simple, easy fashion? To be quite honest,

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I'm not the kind of Harrison Perkins writer or John Fesko writer or Michael Horton writer.

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These men are excellent. They're technical, they're intellectual, they're scholastically minded, deep theologians and thinkers.

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And I praise God for them. I read them. I'm very thankful. But that's not really my skillset.

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I'm a pastor. I'm a front lines guy. And so I'm just thinking kind of simple.

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And so how would I describe things as simple? Someone watched my Law Gospel series on American Gospel, and they said, do you have any notes for it?

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My notes are just jumbled up. They took some of those notes and they condensed them. And they said, could we use these notes for our home study watching?

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And I said, sure. And then I took those notes and I thought, you know what, I could probably make a primer.

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So when you see the word primer like this, primer would be used for priming a water pump, a primer for an old musket or something like that, some starter primer.

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But this is called a primer. And a primer is something that's basically educational, easy to understand, introductory

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Law Gospel, a primer. And so what I've done with this book is

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I've asked about 40 questions. Then I've given a one -sentence answer.

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Then I expand the one -sentence answer with a few paragraphs. And on the opposite side of the page,

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I have some quotes by some theologians of great respect over the

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Reformation period especially. And then they echo or confirm what I say. So if you ever ask yourself the question, why do people ever quote someone?

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Well, they quote someone because they can say it better. And number two, it lends credibility.

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Matter of fact, I can't believe I just did this with my hand. If you wanna know the difference between European men and American men, there's lots of different ways.

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And maybe it's my watch is on, it's not 1300, it's one o 'clock.

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But I think most Europeans that I know count like this, one, two, three, and Americans count one, two, three.

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So I don't know if that's true. Maybe you're a European that says it's 1 p .m.

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And maybe you're an American that counts like this. I have no idea. But I've got 40 questions.

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And those questions, short, simple answers so that you could hand this book to anyone and they could say, oh,

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I understand that better. If you do a conference and people are like, do you have any recommended resources on Law Gospel?

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Of course, the reintroduced book, the republished book by John Cahoon, it looks like Culk Cahoon, but pronounced

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Cahoon. That would be great, Law Gospel. I think Michael Horton and Whitehorse Inn have just put something out recently on Law Gospel.

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There's lots of resources. Ernest Reisinger, I think, has a book on Law Gospel. Several people do, but I thought, we'll put the

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Abendroth spin on it, Law Gospel. And so I wrote this book that was just released.

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If you wanna order 10 or more, by the way, you can get 40 % off and you can email me.

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The first primer that you probably remember is back in the 1600s, right here in New England.

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And it was called, get this, a New England primer. And a New England primer back in the 1600s wasn't secular.

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It wasn't, let's get God out of the classroom. Trying to teach young people things back in the 1600s and in New England were very distinctly

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Christian. And so here's something from the 1737 edition of the

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New England primer that you might recognize. Introductory, simple, basic teaching.

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Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake,

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I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take. And so something simple to pray, something easy, something memorable, that was in the

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New England primer. So if you think primer, think easy. If you think primer, think

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Abendroth's, not Harrison Perkins or Fesco or Horton. We have to be introductory. We have to be basic.

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Section one is on general questions. I get to practical questions. I get to errors like antinomianism and neonomism.

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At the beginning, I wanted to do general questions. And I put two quotes there to help us generally think about it.

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The law shows the disease, the gospel, the cure. Philip Melanchthon.

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Of course, he was an associate of Luther. And then I put Luther there. For unless the gospel be plainly discerned from the law, the true

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Christian doctrine cannot be kept sound and uncorrupt. And so I have these general questions to start with.

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You might be thinking that I have this book in front of me and I'm turning the pages that I'm gonna read the entire book. Maybe someday we'll do that and we could have an audio book on this.

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I don't know if I have enough time to do that, but AI can help with my voice. I'll research it.

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Mario will research it. When some of this AI stuff first came out, ChatGPT, someone wrote in, explained the similarities between long distance bicycling and the covenant of works.

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And it was a brilliant answer. I mean, I refuse to use it ever for a sermon because I just think it can lead to a bunch of bad roads.

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But covenant of works and long distance bicycling, both require endurance, both require sweat and toil, both require hard work.

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They're exhausting and all kinds of other things. And so it was actually pretty good. It was,

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I think yesterday, I was goofing around. And so I sent a text to my wife. And so I said to ChatGPT, I said, write a romantic letter to my wife,

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Kimberly, who's got beautiful eyes and is godly and such and such.

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And then it said, well, we have to write this in a respectful way.

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And so then it printed out all this stuff with all these rhymes and divines and goodness and sexy and all these other things that came up with it.

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I sent it to Kim and I said, I've been working on this all day. And you know what?

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She didn't even respond back. It wasn't a thumbs down, exclamation, ha ha.

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It was just like, she totally just ignored me. Ha ha ha ha, oh.

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First question I gave here, a general question, is law gospel new or novel?

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And I wrote that because many people are coming to the realization of law gospel in the last 10 years, to the extent that some people think this must be new.

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This must be something brand new, novel. And of course, we've all been taught rightly that new things are bad.

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You don't want a pastor who's discovered some new perspective on Paul and some new insight on Peter.

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New is bad, novel's bad. We're not trying to re -introduce some new thing, if that were possible, with our own spin on it.

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So is it new or novel? And so I said, one sentence answer, no, it is biblical and especially emphasized during the

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Reformation. So there's a one sentence answer to the question. And then I give a longer explanation of a paragraph or two.

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Then on the flip side of the page, it just says, Zacharias or Sinus, the question contains the statement and division of the whole catechism, and at the same time accords with the divisions of the scriptures into the law and gospel.

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And so if the 1500s talk about law gospel, 1600s talk about law gospel, 1700s, 1800s, this is not new, this is not novel.

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You might ask the question, maybe I should have put this in the book. Why is it seemingly new?

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Why haven't we heard this from the very get -go? And I think it's because of many reasons, but there's a resurgence to law gospel because, and I said this on Pat Abendroth's The Pactum the other day,

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I think lots of people have lost their assurance because they sit underneath Paul Washer type preachers, and I'm sure

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Paul doesn't do it all the time, it's seemingly he does, he's famous for these kind of sermons, where you walk out thinking, how can

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I be a Christian? I thought I was a Christian, but he's really laying down the wood and I just getting no relief, no balm, and how can

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I be a Christian? And so when Christians start struggling with assurance, they look for answers.

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You look for answers, I mean, is there something more important in life than assurance, than knowing that you're gonna go to heaven?

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No, so you start looking for answers. And when you read the greatest writers on assurance, they tie assurance back to law gospel.

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So that's the domino that I think has caused all this. We have heavy -handed, heavy lordship preaching, how can you live that way and call yourself a

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Christian? I can't even take communion practically because it's like a funeral thing, I'm just like, I can't handle it.

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Instead of a communion service that's designed this way, I know you've sinned this week and that's bad, you should repent, you should flee, you should run, you should kill sin.

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But I want you to know that all your sins have been paid for by Jesus. Remember when you believed, past, present and future sins paid in full, grace alone, received by faith and faith alone.

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You're a child of God, your status before God is irrevocable. You need to hear that again, your status before God is irrevocable.

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Once He loves you, He'll always love you and He loved you in eternity past. You're gonna undo something about God's love?

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No, God's love is immutable, it's unchangeable, it's forever and it's not based on what you'll do, it's based on who

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He is, the triune God. And so dear Christian here at Communion, repent of your sins and I want you to remember, you're still welcome at the table of God.

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If Jesus were on earth right now, you could have dinner with Him and recline at table with Him.

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We're not talking about just sitting down to have a coffee, these great banquets, these great special events where you would recline on the guests and you would say, you know what?

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I'm still welcome, God's still welcoming me. So when you start dealing with assurance, you look for answers and you look for answers and they're found in the law gospel paradigm.

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And if law is do and it is, gospel is done and it is, where do

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I get my assurance? Do or done? I'm not saying either should be excluded, we need to have both, but here's what

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Luther said and this is the Genesis of the book. When I look to myself, I don't know how

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I could be saved. When I look at the Lord Jesus, see I'm European again, when I look to the

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Lord Jesus, I don't know how I can be lost. First one, law or gospel.

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When I look to myself, I don't know how I could be saved because I do certain things.

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I don't do other things. I don't have perfect attitudes. Have you ever done anything as a

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Christian with perfect attitude? The answer is no, but your first category is law.

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I'm not doing these things that I should be doing or I'm doing things that I shouldn't be doing. Second category, gospel.

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But when I look to the Lord Jesus, done, on the cross, te telestai, getting baptized by John the

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Baptist, permitted to fulfill all righteousness. So Jesus fulfilling all righteousness on this earth, not for himself, he already was righteous, but for us and then dying on the cross for our unrighteousness, vindicated by the resurrection, ascended, seated at the right hand, at the session of God, that means he's praying.

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When I look to myself, I don't know how I can be saved, law. When I look to the Lord Jesus, I don't know how

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I can be lost, gospel. So once that starts happening and you think that way, you're like,

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I'm on my way to study law gospel. What other treasures can I find in the law gospel paradigm?

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What else am I missing that I could be learning and enjoying and teaching others?

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And so is this an important doctrine? It's very important because pretty soon, if I start blending the two, lots of bad things happen.

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It's easy to confuse the two. And most people say when you confuse law and gospel, it's called glossable.

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I didn't come up with it. Maybe Michael Horton did, I'm not exactly sure. Glossable, confusing the two is basically, if I do this,

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God will do that. That somehow if I do the law, I can be saved. And so lots of bad things happen.

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Spurgeon said, there's no place on which men make greater mistakes than on the relation which exists between the law and the gospel.

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A certain class maintain that the law and gospel are mixed. These men understand not the truth and are false teachers.

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Wow. Most everybody respects Spurgeon and you've got to keep the law category, the law and the gospel category, the gospel.

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Mike Hibbenroth here. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. I'm talking about my new book, Law and Gospel, A Primer.

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If you want to call it Primer, but you still order it, fine. What do

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I care? The next section, there's some other questions in general, but then the next section,

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I went to law questions. Simple. General questions, law questions, gospel questions, practical questions, error questions.

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And here on law questions, I did want to go through the law and is it good?

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Sometimes when we say law gospel, gospel's so good, by definition, it's good news. And then we think somehow the law's bad.

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Gospel's good, law bad. No, gospel good, law good. Keep the categories.

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But law says do, gospel says done. What do you know about God's law? Here's something that's very important.

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I want you to always think about God's law. When you think about law, I want you to say

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God's law. Because if you think of God's law, then you're not going to think about some abstract law floating around out there in the ether world.

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You're going to say, God is good and righteous and holy. And therefore, if he gives a law, it must be, hello, good, righteous, and holy.

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And so God's law reflects his essence, his nature, his perfection. It's good, it's holy, it's righteous.

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And 1 Timothy 1 talks about that, and Romans 7 talks about that. And so God's law is very good.

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I ask another question, is God's law flexible? Does God's law change?

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Does God say, you know what, you didn't obey the law, but you were sincere in your desire to obey?

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That's a different religion that's very popular here in New England, but we'll talk about that another day. I ask questions like this, what are the three kinds of law?

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Well, there's civil, there's ceremonial, there's moral. For Israel, here's how we act as a nation.

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Here's what we have as ceremonies for types and shadows of the Messiah to come. And here's the moral law, the 10 commandments, so we can understand, don't commit adultery and honor our parents and others.

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No graven images, et cetera. But then we get into the three uses of the law. And in the book,

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I talk about three uses of the law. If I ask you the question, what are the three uses of the law? You say, well, I know God's law is good,

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I know it's holy, I know it's righteous, I know there's civil, ceremonial, and mosaic. What are the uses of the law?

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Come on, I'm a pragmatist, just tell me what to do. Christianity is about what I do.

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And that's another sermon too. There are uses of God's law. And maybe this is what

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I really wanna talk about today on No Compromise Radio, because I think it's so helpful. And once I learned it,

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I thought, oh, duh, what have I been doing my whole life? What have I been studying?

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So the uses of the law. First, let's talk about the law and the unbeliever.

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And the reformers would call that first use. So first, first use, let's do that. The law shows the unbeliever their sin.

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That's what the law does. God's law is holy, good, and righteous. And so therefore, it exposes an unbeliever.

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Unbelievers have been affected by Adam's sin that was credited to their account. And by nature, then there are sinners and then they sin.

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So how do you evangelize? Here we go, this is part of it. All works together. You show people the law.

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You show people that they need a savior. If you start saying to yourself, you know what? I'm gonna just talk about the love of God.

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Well, I'm always for the love of God. You can talk about that anytime you want. But I want you to use the law to unbelievers to show them that they're in need of a savior, that God requires perfection, that God is holy, that God judges sin.

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And when you look at the law, you see your own sin. And the law summarized is, love

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God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And so when you look at the law as an unbeliever, you see yourself for who you are.

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And the word that we use here is mirror, M -I -R -R -O -R, mirror.

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You look at God's law and you see your face and you're like, oh, I'm at the stage now in life.

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I kid you not. I wake up in the morning, get a cup of coffee. When it's time to shave, I shave.

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I use an electric these days. You can tell how old I am, but I would shave. And then I know to do something.

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And I go to my little mirror on the counter over there. It's like a 10X magnifying mirror.

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It doesn't have the light around it, although I should probably get that now. And I look at myself and I go, there's a spot right there

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I missed. Or there's this big pockmark or here's this big blemish. And I can't see that far away in the regular mirror, but on this mirror,

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I can. And so I need to do something about it. And I don't put makeup on, but I don't know what

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I do about it, but I should do something about it. I have a friend that did these shows and he would put a suntan cream, the stuff that makes you bronze without sitting out the sun.

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It's on your collar. We don't wanna do that. We're camo here. It's no compromised camo day. So back to the mirror.

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The mirror is the law and it shows you, I need a savior. So that's the first use of the law.

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Second use of the law is in general for believers and unbelievers. You see it at courthouses and it's basically don't steal.

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There are consequences if you steal. And so it restrains or restricts or curbs sin.

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It helps people not sin. There are laws and consequences. And then the third use of the law is for believers.

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First use unbelievers, third use believers. So get this, does

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God change? No. Does God's law change? No, but our relationship to the law giver changes.

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I'm European again. I have to start changing that. Our relationship to the law giver changes.

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As a Christian now, you are a son, you are a daughter and the law doesn't condemn you anymore, first use, because Jesus was condemned for you, gospel, done.

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So the law doesn't condemn you anymore. So what does the law do? It's still good, it's still holy, it's still right.

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The law, instead of condemning, guides you. You wanna know what's good for you? You wanna know what honors your father?

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You wanna know what's good for your neighbor? Obey the law. So now let's think of it this way.

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Don't look at a woman with lust. Because if you do, you commit adultery. First use, young man, have you ever looked at a woman with adulterous eyes and thought about more than just she's pretty?

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Yes. Do you know you stand condemned before a thrice holy God? Do you know you need salvation? How many times do you have to spit in God's face before he damns you?

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I mean, this is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God. Lust is wrong. You should be a one woman man for your wife and your wife only.

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Your eyes and your heart and your lust all show you that you need a savior because you're a sinner.

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That's first use. Now, when you get saved and Jesus has paid for all your adultery and your adulterous looks, can you just go,

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I don't need that anymore? Of course not, because God doesn't change, his law doesn't change, but your relationship to the law changes.

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So now you say this. I don't wanna look at a woman with lust because it doesn't honor my father in heaven.

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It's not good for me. It's not good for my neighbor and it guides me. It norms my behavior.

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It protects me. It helps me do the right thing. It doesn't condemn me.

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Could I get chastened for my sin of adulterous looks? Yes, but I will never be condemned because Jesus paid it all.

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So the first use condemns. The third use, the law is still good, but it guides me only.

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So that way you don't have to say to yourself, I'm sinning and now I'm questioning my salvation.

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I'm sinning, maybe I'm not a son or a daughter anymore. I'm sinning and I don't have any relief.

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So do we think the 10 commandments are for today? Well, of course, God's law guides the believer and you read

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New Testament imperatives and commands to guide. Here's what I want. How about read the

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Proverbs? And it starts off in chapter two, three, four, five, six, and seven.

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And it starts off either my son or my sons, right? Proverbs chapter five, son, avoid sexual immorality, run.

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Isn't that a good thing to tell your sons? Now, if your son on earth, my son, Luke, I said, avoid sexual immorality and he goes visits a prostitute.

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Would I discipline him? Would I be kicking him out of the family?

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Those are good questions. I wouldn't kick him out of the family, but there are consequences, son. These are to help you, to guide you.

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You're my son, you'll always be a son. And therefore, then Solomon says in Proverbs chapter five, here's a good guide, enjoy your wife.

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Enjoy her physically, enjoy her intimately and she's the one for you. It's a guide.

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So dear Christian, you think about law gospel. You say to yourself, I'm already helped because now

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I know when I sin, I might get disciplined, but I'm never kicked out of the family. Sometimes I think we have fathers on earth and we make them better and we show them to be more wonderful and more merciful than our heavenly father.

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If I won't kick my son out for sin, will the Lord kick you out for sin? Will the heavenly father kick you out for sin?

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Sin that the Lord Jesus has already paid for? Now, the only time keeping the law is gospel is when the

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Lord Jesus kept the law for you. Keeping the law is good gospel truth when it's for you.

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But trying to keep the law yourself isn't good news. It's the law. It's good, but it's not good news.

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It's only good news if you could keep it. So the law has three uses, mirror, curb, and a guide.

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So that's what I'm talking about in this book is different ways to deal with it. And then I have at the end, what about parenting?

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And is the law gospel important for parenting? I've got a chapter here.

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Can marriages be helped by the law gospel distinction? The one on parenting's the easiest one to probably talk about.

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Think about how do you parent? Do you parent like a heavenly father parents with gospel and law?

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Because remember the way God parents is, here's who I am, here's what I'm done for you.

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And in light of that, I want you to obey me. I'm gracious to you, kind to you, merciful to you. Would you be thankful to me enough to obey?

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That's how God motivates. How do you think you should motivate if you're a dad? How do you motivate your kids?

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If it's law only, then you say things like, look me in the eye when you shake my hand.

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Please say, excuse me when you're gonna get up from the dinner table. No elbows on the table, clean your room, be on time, do your homework.

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The list could go on and on. You can make up whatever rules you want because you're the dad, you're the mom. Are those laws bad?

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No, but they're laws. How do you motivate a kid? Law only?

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No. How does God motivate his children? Law only? No, look at Titus. You see, grace motivates.

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God's wonderful character motivates. And so how do we do law gospel for parenting?

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How about what I try to do with my kids when they're little and even now? Daddy loves you.

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Daddy, you see everything in your room? I bought it all for you because I wanted to. I take you on the best vacations.

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Remember we went to Rome that time. I take you on the most fun. We go to watch you sit and ski.

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We go to the ocean and surf. Remember we paid for those surf lessons for you? Don't we make good meals every

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Friday night? We have the family movie night and we go to the best doctors, don't we? Dr.

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Lucy, she's the best doctor. You see? Yes, dad. They're little and they're like, yes, dad. And we go to the best church in all the world because the pastor's the best pastor.

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I love you. You mean everything to me, that the Lord would give you me. I'm just so blessed.

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So in light of that, I want you to obey. I want you to obey out of a thankful heart, guilt, grace, gratitude.

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And so gospel parenting, law parenting, law gospel parenting,

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I'm telling you, your default, you Mario, my default, you listeners, you watchers, you're drill sergeants because law is written on our hearts.

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And if we're not careful, we don't give the gospel truths. It's just like with marriage. We have to -do lists.

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Nothing wrong with the to -do list. I like honey -do list. Because you're my honey, that's gospel truth.

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Would you please do that? That's the law. Please do that for me in light of who you are. So it's just good to think through law gospel issues.

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If it's as simple as even a relationship from a father and a mother to a child.

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Law gospel matters, blending the two. If you obey me, I will love you. That's an illustration of gospel.

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We don't want that. And not from God. He does not say that. And we don't say that to our children. And we shouldn't say that to our spouses.

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I will love you if you do such and such. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry.

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This is Law Gospel Radio, law and gospel. And you can order the book, Law Gospel. Somebody order 25 of them, we give you 40 % off.

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You can email me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com. Mario, great job today. Thanks for watching.