Truth Liberates (Part 1)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle

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Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Mike Abendroth here, your host.

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Glad to be back on this beautiful sunny day in downtown Burbank. I guess we're not in Burbank.

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I guess we're in Worcester. Welcome to Worcester. Yeah. Well, we are talking today about truth.

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What is truth? Anybody ever say that historically? Is that a famous saying? What is truth?

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And in today's post -modern day, we need to ask that question, I think, and then answer it.

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But before we do on No Compromise Radio, we have about, oh, 10 or 12 books left.

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My new book, The Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus. And you can get that through our website, nocompromiseradio .com

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for $10, which includes shipping. If you go to Amazon, you'll have to pay more than that.

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And if you go to CBD, you'll have to pay more than that, unless you buy it used. I think it's already out there used.

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So far, we've gotten good reviews. Gary Gilley gave me a review that wasn't all positive, but some positive.

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So hey, at least he read the book. I'm happy for that. So anyway, why don't you go to Amazon and review the book?

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How about that? How about if you're listening to No Compromise Radio here in Worcester, and you don't like the radio show, but you're compelled to listen,

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I say you buy the book and then review it. Oh, so you can get that book for $10.

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You get about 10 more as supplies last, and then you just have to buy the book full price.

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And when you buy the book full price, I actually get a royalty. So these are just ministry related, but let's get to those royalties.

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I think I told you maybe my first book, I got a check from overseas.

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And for six months in England, my royalties were, I think, two pounds, 30 pence.

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So see, I write books for money. That's what I do. That's my goal is to make a lot of money. And that's why

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I'm on the radio too, because this is all a ploy. This is all a foil to extract money from your pocket.

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That isn't true. I was involved in one of my pet peeves again the other day, going to one of the 7 -Eleven,

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Quick Stop, Cumberland Farm, Honey Farm, stop and go, whatever you call these places.

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And when people stand in line in front of me, looking for a carton of cigarettes and $90 worth of scratchers,

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I don't know where they get the money. Maybe it's food stamps or something, but I think they then buy something else with their food stamps so they can have the money to buy the cigarettes and the scratchers.

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How do you get money from people? Well, it's very simple. You play to their fear, Y2K, that's easy, or you play to their greed.

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That's right. That's how the false teachers on TBN and other stations get your money, seed money, because you give to get with that program and their thinking.

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And it's the same thing here. Take a chance on winning some money and you can buy this lottery ticket.

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And then you can take the scratcher and then scratch it off and then throw it away and litter.

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Well, today on No Compromise Radio, one other announcement, March 18th, we begin going to two services.

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Now, I don't know when the show's going to be played. It's actually December 30th right now in the studio as it's bleak, raw, freezing cold outside.

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I haven't ridden my bike for a week. I need to get out there on that bike. Machen loved to ride bikes, so I think

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I can too. March 18th, 2012, we're going to two services at Bethlehem Bible Church.

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Maybe because of No Compromise Radio. I'm not sure, but God is adding the growth. We haven't changed our philosophy of ministry.

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We haven't changed our theology. Maybe I'm nicer than I used to be. Maybe that's why more people are coming.

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We have to go to two services. I don't like to go. I don't want to go. I don't like this. Well, the church is 80 % full, so say the gurus, the church growth gurus, that then you must go to two services.

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It's pretty much packed here. I think it's 95 % full and it's difficult to find a parking place.

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You have to park on the street, down the street, or at least our folks do and the deacons, to give you, the visitor, the special parking spots.

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So it's at 8 .30, service one. Then we have a Sunday school at 10 o 'clock and then we have second service at 11 .15.

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So if you've swung by the church before and thought it was a hassle because you couldn't get in, because there were no seats, there's no room for you left at the inn, then

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March 18th is your day. If you're a BBC person and you don't like the growth, well, build a bridge and get over it.

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We're gonna talk about truth today on No Compromise Radio. It's that time of year again, where we like to talk about truth.

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I just made that up. It's not really that time of year. It's just, I was studying something and I came across these notes and I thought, you know, this will be good for No Compromise.

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This is good for the No Compromise crowd. Pilate, remember Pilate? John 1838.

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Matter of fact, I have my Pete's coffee here and I'm gonna take a swig of that. Pete's. Doesn't taste like Pete Moss, that's for sure.

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P -E -E -T -S. And actually for Christmas, someone put some Pete's house blend,

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Christmas blend, on my study door, on the No Compromise door without their name.

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So thank you for that anonymous gift or that a gift was not anonymous, but it was from an anonymous donor.

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And that worked out pretty well. I guess they're a No Compromise radio listener. What do you say? There we go.

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I also have my glasses on here. Pilate said to him, John 1838, what is truth?

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And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, I find no guilt in him. Basically, Pilate is asking the question, what is truth?

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How do we know real truth? What's wrong? What's right? What's an error?

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What is valid? What is erroneous? What is a verity? That's pretty good.

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Those aren't for my notes. Those are just three things that just popped in my head.

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Pilate is basically saying this, all kidding aside. I've been searching my whole life and there's no truth to be found.

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There's no truth. There's no real truth. Maybe if it's true for you, it's true, but there's no real truth.

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This is a great question to ask today. I just wish more unbelievers would ask the question, more agnostics, more atheists, at least people who call themselves atheists.

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I don't think there's any such thing. What is truth? The commentator, William Hendrickson said, when

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Pilate hears this remark about the truth, he shrugs his shoulders. Skeptic that he is, the subject no longer holds any interest for him.

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It is in that spirit of extreme skepticism and cynicism that Pilate burst out, blurts out, not realizing that the answer was standing in front of him.

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John Calvin commented, I rather think it is an expression of disdain. For Pilate thought himself highly insulted that Christ should make out that he lacked all knowledge of the truth.

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What is truth? That's what you're going to ask me? You're asking me what is truth? I take offense to that, according to Calvin's view of John 8 .38.

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Let me turn to John 8 .38 here in my notes. Normally I have that done ahead of time, but after all it's,

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I haven't made any of my new year's resolutions. I think you should be careful before you make any vow. Don't make any rash vows.

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By the time this plays, you've probably broken all those vows. 18 .38, remember

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Jesus had just had a dialogue with him. My kingdom is not of this world.

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If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the

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Jews. But my kingdom is not from this world. Then Pilate said to him, so you are a king?

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Jesus said, you say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I've come into the world to bear witness to the truth.

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Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. And Pilate said to him, what is truth?

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T -Bone Burnett, the country music singer once had a song about not tooth decay, but society suffering truth decay.

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And I would say that's exactly the way Satan likes it. Satan loves this distortion, this blurring.

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It's as if you're trying to focus a camera and you can't focus it. It's just all blurred and hazy and distorted and dislocated.

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John 8 .44, you were of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.

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He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

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Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature for he is a liar and the father of lies.

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And his lies are truth, but they're wrapped up in a bundle of lies.

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In other words, like snake venom, 80 % protein and 20 % poison, Satan regularly and often packages his error in truth.

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That's why the Broadway is promoted in Matthew 7 as the way to heaven.

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Although it's the Broadway which leads to destruction. When I was a kid,

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I loved to watch Johnny Carson with my parents. And when I was older, I got to go actually, speaking of Burbank, to the

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Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. Well, when

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I watched Johnny Carson as a kid, I love the impersonators. And the impersonator I liked the best was

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Rich Little. Do you remember Rich Little? Some of you older people do. I don't know what my demographic is.

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How old are you? Oh, okay. I don't think the Arbitron ratings show us anything. The only ratings we know of are how many

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Facebook likes we have and how many downloads we have. How's that? And how much money people send in.

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Oh, brother. Satan is the master impersonator and he impersonates

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God's truth with subtlety, covert ops, and he is a master at guerrilla warfare.

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And he puts lies right alongside of the truth.

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What was the Churchill slogan? A bodyguard of lies wrapped in the truth.

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Well, so there we have it. I can't remember the Churchill quote. Satan uses the

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Bible wrongly. Satan has all kinds of trickery. And therefore we should not be amazed when we read in 2

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Corinthians 11, for such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

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And no wonder, no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

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Therefore, it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their deeds.

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Satan is foolish morally, but he is not stupid.

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So today on No Compromise Radio, my prayer will be from Psalm 25, 5.

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Lead me in thy truth and teach me, for thou art the God of my salvation. For thee

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I wait all the day. Truth is important. Truth is essential.

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So let's just go through a little list here of why truth is so important. How truth is like a liberator, liberating us from error, like a

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B, what was the liberator? Speaking of Churchill quotes, if I'm thinking about World War II, what was the liberator?

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The B -24, if my history served me correct, B -24 liberators.

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And so we have B -24 truth liberators. Spiritual B -24s that are going to fly overhead and do some serious damage.

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I think the liberators weren't made very well, by the way. And when you served on a liberator, you prayed,

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I think, is what you did. All right, number one. No Compromise Radio, what is truth?

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Well, truth is essential, number one, because it liberates people from sin and drives them to the

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Savior. Truth shows what grace is by showing people their need.

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Michael Horton said, the gospel starting place is not God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

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As though the unbeliever's problem is a lack of education in God's love and a lack of spiritual and moral direction.

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Rather, the gospel begins with a deeper problem and hence a deeper solution. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only son,

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John 3, 18. We hear in the word of God, truth, and we realize sin is sin.

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And therefore we no longer minimize sin. That's what unbelievers do until they're confronted with the truth of the word of God.

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And then they are shown their need of a Savior and then the gospel is clearly articulated about Christ dying for our sins.

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Nothing new according to the scriptures and Christ was buried and then he was raised.

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Nothing new according to the scriptures. James Boyce said, apart from receiving the voice of God in scripture, we always minimize our sin, exalt our natural abilities and invent endless plans for our own moral and political salvation.

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The Bible exposes our sin for what it is, reveals our utter incapacity for self -help and throws us on the mercy of God who has revealed the sole way of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

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So in no particular order, truth liberates people from sin, drives them to the

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Savior because they see their need. And that is why when you look at Romans, for instance, about all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, when you look in chapter three and no one's righteous, no not one, no one seeks after God, when you see

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Jesus applying the great commandments to the rich young ruler, these are all done to show people their need of a

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Savior and how works righteousness and less perfectly lived out fails.

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And so today on No Compromise Radio, I wanna give you the second reason, the second

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B24 bomber. Truth is essential because it liberates people from slow sanctification, from slow sanctification.

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What do you mean by that, Mike? Oh, I have no idea, these are old notes. Well, Satan's lie certainly is not just, you're not so bad,

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I'm okay, you're okay. But now here in number two, here's Satan's lie. Get saved, okay,

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I couldn't stop that. You got saved, I couldn't prevent that. Well, so why don't you just coast along?

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Once saved, always saved, don't strive through the grace of God and the Spirit's ministry to be more holy.

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You don't need to study theology, you don't need to study doctrine, Jesus is my creed, down with doctrine, let's be known for what we're for and not what we're against.

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There's a direct correlation between your study of the scriptures and your growth.

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Show me someone who is a mature Christian, a young man in the Lord, if you wanna use 1

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John categories, chapter two, a father in the faith. Then I will show you someone who has, through the means that God has ordained, which is the scriptures, studied the scriptures.

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Think about the famous Christians, the heroic ones. Off to my left, I have a section of my library devoted to biographies.

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Biographies of men and women who were sinful, depraved, spiritually unable to do anything, slaves to sin, by nature, children of wrath, even as the rest.

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And God saved them, God miraculously saved them. And that encourages me because God is a savior by nature.

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Pastoral epistles, God our savior, God our savior, God our savior. And so when you look at these, I'm just looking at some now,

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Margaret Payton, David Brainerd. Notice how I throw some women in there so you don't think

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I'm misogynist. John Payton, Thomas Cramner, William Tyndale, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

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Trying to read that far away. I don't wanna, I need glasses. George Mueller, Adoniram Judson, Mary Slessor.

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Every one of those studied the scriptures and they did not buy into the lie that you just are saved and then coast.

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Show me one of the reasons why there's a diminishing spiritual maturity in our churches today.

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And it's directly correlated to the intake or lack thereof of the word of God.

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Pastors need to preach doctrine and you need to study doctrine. Preachers need to proclaim teaching truths, didactically, expository, and therefore you must receive those.

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J .C. Ryle said, the victories of Christianity, wherever they have been won, have been won by distinct theology.

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By telling men roundly of Christ's vicarious death and sacrifice. By showing them

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Christ's substitution on the cross and his precious blood. By teaching them justification by faith and bidding them believe on a crucified savior.

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By preaching ruin by sin, redemption by Christ, regeneration by the spirit.

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By lifting up the brazen serpent. By telling men to look and live, to believe, repent, and be converted.

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Christianity without distinct doctrine is a powerless thing. It may be beautiful to some minds, but it is childless and barren.

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There is no getting over facts. So I ask you the question today. Mike Abendroth here,

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No Compromise Radio. Do you study the Bible? Do you read the

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Bible? By the way, I think I've said this regularly, Bible .iis app,

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Bible .iis. It reads it for you, and then you follow along. So I love to sit in the morning, drinking my cup of Pete's coffee, and I read, listen to the scriptures.

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And what I usually do with that app, sometimes I listen in the car, I was listening to First Kings, maybe 10 to chapter 14 the other day with the kids.

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It's fascinating to see Jeroboam, Rehoboam, what was going on, Israel, false temples,

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Beth Avin, et cetera. Because I just had brought one of my kids there.

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Speaking of there, we're going to try to have a No Compromise trip to follow Paul's missionary journeys.

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How about that? 2013, spring of 2013, No Compromise Radio Ministry, we're going on a cruise.

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How about that? Cruise. We're gonna probably fly over to Athens. We'll visit Corinth. We'll take a cruise ship over to Patmos, see

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Ephesus, some of those things. Makes you want to go, doesn't it? Actually, it'll be a Bethlehem Bible Church slash

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No Compromise Radio Ministry slash probably Omaha Bible Church trip. We just got back from Israel last year, and so about every other year.

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So you ought to start saving your, you can't save shekels to go to Greece. You can't save euros to go to Greece.

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I looked the other day, December 29th, and the euro cost you a buck 29 to get a euro.

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That's pretty good. That's pretty good. That's a lot better than I think when I was there last, a buck 70. So Athens, Greece, Rome, et cetera.

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We don't have much time left, so let's go to Truth Liberator B24, number three.

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Truth is important because it liberates people from the snares of worldliness. It delivers people from the snares of worldliness.

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These days, sadly, worldliness, and you can go to James 4 if you want to study worldliness, and many other chapters, 1

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John 2. Worldliness these days in Christianity is basically defined by don't.

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The world is bad. The world is enslaved to the snares of Satan, and therefore, some things like drinking, that's bad.

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Sometimes it is bad. It's bad with the wrong motives. It's bad if it makes other Christians stumble, and it's bad if you get drunk.

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But by nature, alcohol is neutral, and so that's not the real issue.

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Movies aren't the real issue. Skirts and how high they are aren't the real issue.

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And so when you say, and I've got some friends who are fundamentalists, and I put my kids in a

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King James -only fundamentalist school for some time. If you don't drink, and by the way, there was a little preaching contest for the young men there, the young boys, and I was a judge.

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I was a judge, jury, and executioner, and I was happy to be a judge and to help out with the school.

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My son was part of the unregenerate preachers at the time. Almost everyone, except my son

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Luke's, just because I helped him, he probably would have done it like everyone else, but I interjected.

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Everyone was, you know you're going to hell if you drink, and if you smoke, and if you're a woman and your skirt's too short, and it's this whole thing when kids see somebody smoking a cigarette.

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Dad, we better pray for their salvation. Whirliness isn't that, and I think you ought to study things like pluralism and hedonism and a variety of other isms that will help you understand what whirliness really is.

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The bad news is whirliness isn't necessarily drinking and all those things.

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What is it? Ah, good question. I think we're going to have to answer that next time. Today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, we've talked about truth.

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You need truth. What is truth? What is absolute truth? You read history, there's an agenda, and if you read anything else, there's an agenda, and the agenda in the

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Bible is the exaltation of the Son, Christ Jesus the Lord. Why don't you read your

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Bible today? Bible .ia's app. You can even listen to your Bible. Truth is essential because it liberates people from many things that you need to be liberated from.

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Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. 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.