Shall We Sin That Grace May Abound?

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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 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.

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My name is Mike Abendroth and I'm your host. And no, it's not a Monday with a taped sermon of mine. No, it's not a

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Tuesday with Pastor Steve. It's either a Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. Actually, today for me, it's a

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Friday. Let's see, what time is it? It would be about 5 .30 p .m. on a

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Friday. Dark outside, five inches of snow coming tomorrow. I've got the massive bronchial problem with all the steroids

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I'm taking. So it's a good day today. Hoorah. What should we do today?

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On my desk here on No Compromise Radio, we should probably get a little sky cam here, some kind of camera where you can see radio.

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I think people do that now, MSNBC or something like that. Don't they do that? I have all kinds of stacks of potential shows.

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And just depending on how my hankering goes, the divining rod of my heart can take me to this side of the table or to that side, depending on whichever way my whim is blowing.

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And so I have quite a few options here today. But before that, I will like to say, and I know this is going to be dated, but tonight, actually the day

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I'm taping the show, not tonight when you're hearing this, is when T .D. Jakes is going to be on Stephen Furtick's Code Orange revival.

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And we know, of course, T .D. Jakes believes in manifestations and not persons of the Godhead. And so he denies the triune

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God, therefore denies God. And Stephen Furtick's going to have him on anyway. I think

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Stephen Furtick went to the same school I did, which makes this whole thing very fascinating. I've just been watching some of these messages, and short of Matt Chandler's message,

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I don't like to say this, but this is just the way things go when you want to be jealous for the

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Lord with God's jealousy, like Phineas was in Numbers. It's just crazy.

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We have exegesis, and what does the pirate radio talk about it?

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Narcegesis. It is open up the Bible, take a verse out. By the way, I'm very, very, if you come and teach the

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Bible, and you say open up to Joshua 5, Deuteronomy 2, I'm scared. I'm already scared.

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Now, of course, many people can teach the Old Testament well, but most people can't. Most people have a hard time trying to figure out the context, how it fits into the flow of redemptive history.

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They have a hard time understanding the difference between Israel and the church.

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It becomes very, very difficult. And so we have 70 % of the Bible as the Old Testament, yet we have a minefield.

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We have a variety of ways to teach the wrong thing. Now, here's the thing. They teach many times something true, but the passage from which they teach it doesn't teach that thing, so it's not real

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Bible teaching. In other words, if you want to say Jesus can still the storm in your heart and then go to Jesus stilling the storm in Mark, well, the first part was right, the second part was wrong.

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And so when I watch Code Orange Revival, he is, he's the next big thing.

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This, I'm sure, will propel him into international stardom and fame and all the orange leather couches, and this is, you know, we're not going to be dividing with every kind of other doctrine.

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We're just going to teach the good stuff. I'm still waiting to hear the real gospel. I'm still waiting to hear the gospel that saves, the gospel that was delivered once that we are to contend for.

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I'm waiting for that gospel. And these words are thrown around by people and teaching and wherever that one lady was, and I listened to a variety of these different teachers.

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It's really, it's scary. And then James MacDonald's going to end it up at the very end.

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My guess is it will be a biblical message, but it won't be as biblical as Matt Chandler's. So we're going to get maybe two biblical messages.

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I don't think James MacDonald should even be there, but that's another subject. This is very, very disconcerting.

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But the kingdom of God goes on, and we will teach the truth as we can. Code Orange Revival, you can pull it up at Elevation Network.

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You know what we should do maybe? Maybe we should have a no -compromise network. But then that's going to be a lot of money.

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And so you're going to have to fork over the dough, and I don't think I'm as cool as Stephen Furtick, although you never know.

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So today, what I'd like to do is I'd like to talk the rest of the show, not about Code Orange Revival.

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How do you plan a revival, by the way? Revive my heart again. I've been studying 1

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Corinthians, and so the Corinthians know they have liberty, and they know they have liberty in Christ, and the bad news is they're pushing their liberty.

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And so you've probably met people like that. Maybe you're like that. Maybe you used to be like that. How far can

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I go before it's sin? Since I'm forgiven for all my sins, past, present, and future, based on justification,

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I can be justified no more than I am now, no less than I am now.

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If I sin in the future, my justification is not changed. Did you know that? If God has declared you just in his counsel and his court, if you have been the recipient of the eternal

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Son of God's work on Calvary, planned by God the Father, applied by the

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Spirit of God, you cannot be less justified. Furthermore, you cannot be less regenerate.

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You cannot be more regenerate. You cannot be loved more by God. You cannot be loved less by God.

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So if salvation does that and more, then what's a little sin here there?

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Hey, God likes to forgive. I like to sin. Sounds like it's a good deal, right?

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Well, looking at Romans 6 today and 5 and 4 and 3, we're going to answer that question on No Compromise Radio.

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We're going to get down to the bottom of this question.

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Just how great is grace? How gracious is grace? And we will see that thinking wrongly, you could twist this idea of grace.

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And instead of saying it's grace greater than all our sin, you could use it as leverage in your mind to say, well, grace is going to be greater than the sin

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I'm going to, with premeditation, commit right now because of my circumstances. MacArthur talked about Rasputin, and he was a religious advisor to the

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Romanov family in Russia, late 19th century, early 20th century. And he had this view that the more you sin, the more grace

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God gives you. So you might as well sin with 100 -mile -an -hour speed so God can glorify

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Himself more. And MacArthur says Rasputin declared that if you are simply an ordinary sinner, you're not giving

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God an opportunity to show His glory. So you need to be an extraordinary sinner.

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Well, what would you say to that? I think some have mental gymnastics that they play in their mind to do the same thing in effect.

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Oh, with more sophistication. Oh, with more noble words. But we don't want to do that.

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Since God justifies the ungodly, we need to respond to His great work in a way that would be commensurate with His word.

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In other words, if God saved you from great sin, don't go back rubbing your nose in it. There's no sense.

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I think I've told the story before. We have a dog, and I know dogs don't have souls, but our particular dog does.

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God has told me that in particular. And He's also told me no cats have souls at all. And so when our dog gets a stomachache, you know she has a stomachache because she has a desire to go out to the yard and eat grass.

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And she has this one little spot. She eats the same kind of grass. It's kind of a tall grass over by the little fountain in the back.

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And so she eats the grass, and then I know, leave her outside because she's going to soon throw up. Well, sometimes those little rascals, those little kids, let the dog in.

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And then right there, wherever she might be, she throws up.

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And she throws up some of her old food. And so in the old days,

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I would say, oh, you know, Jetty, get away from that. And I wouldn't be too mad at her because if you go to the bathroom in the house, then you get in trouble.

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You get a doggie Prozac. You get a doggie timeout. But if you throw up, then you can't help yourself if you throw up.

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So it's different. And so I used to just quit cleaning up and throw it away. And I would hate that feeling because it's this hot throw up that you're cleaning up.

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It's not even your kid's throw up. That's one thing. It's one thing to clean up your own. It's another thing to clean up your kid's. It's another thing to clean the dog's throw up.

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So back to the story. We need to get back to the text. Don't we on No Compromise Radio? My dials are lighting up.

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All kinds of people are calling in. They know what I'm going to say. Well, the end of the story is, I don't let the kids clean up the dog throw up anymore.

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And I usually let the dog throw up, walk away. And then there's just something in a dog.

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You know what they have to do. This is a venial sin for a dog, I know. But they've just got to go back.

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They take a couple sniffs, and there's some hot food right there just waiting for them. Like a dog returning to its own what?

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Vomit. Both found in the New Testament and in the Old Testament. We don't want to go back to the vomit, to the puke, to the wretched, ralphing days of our past.

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We don't want to go to the upchuck of our old life of sin because God has saved us from that.

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And God has rescued us. And we know what sin did to Jesus on the cross.

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That is how God the Father, with holy, righteous indignation, poured out

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His wrath because of our sin on His Son, the Son who was sinless. So we don't want to run back and flaunt our liberty because our justification can't be changed.

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So let's not act crass and say God loves to forgive, we love to sin.

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It seems like it's a good deal. Let me read you some verses in Romans, and then we'll talk about this true gospel and how we're to respond to it.

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Romans chapter 3, we're going to learn about justification as this judicial act of God declaring sinners righteous based on the work of Christ Jesus.

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For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, verse 23 of chapter 3, and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

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God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show

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God's righteousness because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show

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His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

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Romans 4, 48. Now to the one who works His wages are not counted as a gift, but as His due.

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And to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, His faith is counted as righteousness.

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Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.

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Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the

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Lord will not count his sin. So when it comes to justification, we use this language of accounting, cost accounting language.

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Romans 5, verse 17 to 19. For if because of one man's trespass death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in the life through the one man,

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Jesus Christ. Federal head Adam, now federal head Jesus. Therefore, as one trespass led to the condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men.

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For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous.

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So God's justifying grace pronounces sinners, declares them as righteous, and no one can steal your justification.

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That cannot be undone. The world cannot undo your salvation and justification. You can't undo it.

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Satan can't undo it. And can I push the envelope a little bit? Although it's a true envelope.

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God can't undo it. God can't change your justification. So if that is true, free grace, not any sin in the future, when you are declared righteous, not one sin in the future that you commit can make you unrighteous.

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Does this then lead the doctrine of justification by faith, by God's grace alone?

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Doesn't this doctrine lead to a morally loose lifestyle? Well, they asked

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Paul, Romans 5, 20 and 21, Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Hey, live it up. I like to sin. It's fun.

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It lets God forgive. Deffenbaugh said, If salvation is all of God, all of grace, and appropriate on the basis of faith alone without any human effort, if all of our sins necessitate and promote the grace of God, then why not continue to live as we always have in sin so that God's grace may continue to abound?

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Hey, if grace abounds, much more when sin abounds, why not?

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So what does Paul say? Romans chapter 6, What shall we say then? Are we to continue in grace, in sin that grace may abound?

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And here is the doctor's comment, the Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones.

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What does Lloyd -Jones say? This might be my favorite couple paragraphs from Lloyd -Jones, coming from his commentary in Romans 6, multi -volume, rich stuff.

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If you haven't read Martin Lloyd -Jones' preaching book, Preachers and Preaching, you ought to read that if you're a pastor or a

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Sunday school teacher. And if you aren't a pastor, or can't be a pastor, you ought to buy one for your pastor.

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He's probably already read it, though, if he's any good. And it's just, he just nails the proverbial nail.

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He nails the nail on the head. How do you do that? Lloyd -Jones, first of all, let me make the comment to a very important and vital comment.

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To me, a very important and vital comment. The true preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it.

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There's no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation than this.

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That some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this.

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That because you are saved by grace alone, it does not matter at all what you do. You can go on sinning as much as you like, because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace.

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If my preaching and presentation of the gospel of salvation does not expose it to that understanding, then it is not the gospel.

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So you are not preaching the gospel of grace. Unless people say, well, does that mean that I could just keep on sinning afterwards?

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You know you're doing the right thing when people begin to ask that question. Not that it's the right question, but they're starting to perceive and to know just how great this gospel is.

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Lloyd -Jones, if a man preaches justification by works, no one would ever raise the question.

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Now listen, no -compromise radio listeners, tune in. If a man preaches justification by works, no one would ever raise the question.

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Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? If a man's preaching is, if you want to be Christians and if you want to go to heaven, you must stop committing sins, you must take up good works, and if you do so regularly and constantly and do not fail to keep on at it, you'll make yourself

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Christians. You'll reconcile yourselves to God and you'll go to heaven. Obviously, a man who preaches in that strain would never be liable to this misunderstanding.

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Nobody would say to such a man, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Because the man's whole emphasis is just this, that if you go on sinning, you're certain to be damned, and only if you stop sinning can you save yourself.

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So that misunderstanding could never arise. So when you preach free, sovereign grace, then that's the response, could be the response, because it's free and sovereign, are we to continue?

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But if you preach works, no one's ever going to say, well, shall I stop doing works?

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Shall I stop doing sins? Lloyd -Jones, nobody has ever brought this charge against the

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Church of Rome, but it was brought frequently against Martin Luther. Indeed, that was precisely what the

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Church of Rome said about the preaching of Martin Luther. They said, this man who was a priest has changed the doctrine in order to justify his own marriage and his own lust.

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This man, they said, is an antinomian, and that is heresy. That is the very charge they brought against him.

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It was also brought, it also brought George Whitefield to, brought against him 200 years ago.

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It is the charge that formal dead Christianity, if there is such a thing, has always brought against this startling, staggering message that God justifies the ungodly.

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Lloyd -Jones concludes, pages 8 and 9, Romans chapter 6 commentary. This is my comment, and it is a very important comment for preachers.

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I would say to all preachers, if your preaching of salvation has not been misunderstood in that way, then you had better examine your sermons again, and you had better make sure that you are really preaching the salvation that is offered in the

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New Testament to the ungodly, the sinner, to those who are dead in trespasses and sins, to those who are the enemies of God.

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There is this kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation.

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That is true. That is excellent. Of course, we don't want to continue in sin, that grace might increase.

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That's what Romans chapter 6, verse 1 says. Justification by faith alone should not lead to sin.

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Verse 2 of Romans 6, may it never be. That's the rest of the chapter of Romans 6, describes this.

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How shall we who died to sin still live in it? It is inconceivable. It is incongruous.

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It is inexcusable. It is inadmissible. May it never be. Don't ever let it cross your mind.

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It's impossible. Certainly not. Fourteen times in Paul's epistles. May it never be.

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Sometimes I don't really like the J .B. Phillips translation, but he's got a good one here. What a ghastly thought.

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By no means. Remember the King James Version? God forbid. This is a repelling with horror.

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This is an impossibility. We have died to sin. Past. How shall we live in it in the future?

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It's not that it's impossible, but it's just inconceivable. That's the issue.

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Died to sin's claim. Died to sin's connection. Sin's power is crushed.

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Dwight Pentecost said, when Christ died by a divine reckoning, we died with Him. Viewed by God as if they died the death of Christ and suffered the full penalty of sin's guilt.

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No legal claim on you anymore if you're a Christian. So why would you go back to the floor and gobble up something horrible?

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May it never be. Don't live that way any longer. Lloyd -Jones says, what is the business of grace?

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It is to allow us to continue in sin? No. It is to deliver us from the bondage and reign of sin and to put us under the reign of grace.

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May it never be. Romans 6 -11, we have the first imperative in all the book of Romans.

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Chapter 1, no imperative. 2, no imperative. 3, no imperative. 4, no imperative. 5, no imperative. 6 -1 -10, no imperative.

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Even so, consider. There's your first imperative. 148

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English verses. Now on the 149th verse, the first thing to do. Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

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Dead to sin. Think about it. Put it before your mind and keep thinking about it.

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Mull it over. John Stott said, can a married woman live as though she were still single?

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Well, yes, I suppose she could. It is not impossible. But let her remember who she is. Let her feel her wedding ring, the symbol of her new life of union with her husband, and she will want to live accordingly.

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So because of Christ's great work, because of the eternal Son of God's masterful plan of redemption, you are redeemed.

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The risen Christ has saved you. And you ought to live accordingly.

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That's what you should do. This is the first step of thinking properly about sanctification.

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You'd like to grow in holiness? This is what you have to remember. This is why

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Luther said that he lived as he pleased. And then he said, yes, that's true.

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Now what pleases you? This is why Augustine said, love God and do as you please.

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Not that you run around doing your own thing, but because if you remember what Jesus has done for you, you'll want to please

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Him with your lifestyle. Not because it earns you favor, but because the favor has been earned.

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Don't you want to respond that way? Isn't that a lot different than responding like Rasputin did? God likes to forgive,

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I like to sin, let's live it up. No, God wonderfully forgives because He is gracious and because Jesus Christ was our sin bearer.

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And because of that, we wouldn't want to sin. We wouldn't want to run back to that kind of life. Jesus Christ's death was great, sufficient, and complete, full, and in light of that, we don't take advantage of Christ's death by sinning.

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We take advantage of Christ's death and show Him how much He has done for us by living in obedience.

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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.