Apostasy (Part 2)

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

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

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

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the

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

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Back with part two on apostasy.

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You can write me, Mike, at NoCompromiseRadio .com. This is also a FaceTime live show.

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If you�d like to get in on some of those FaceTime live shows, you have to go to the No Compromise Radio website.

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Ask to be part of the group, the special insider group, and then I just, once in a while, look at my

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Facebook thing. I�m not a big Facebook guy, but I then just click. See, I have to say that self -righteously. I�m not a big

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Facebook guy. Actually, I have something called Hootsuite. You probably know what Hootsuite is, and I can post things, and they both go to Twitter and to Facebook, and this is just something that I have no idea if anybody cares about.

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People don�t need to see me, but people don�t really need to even listen to me as far as that goes. But if it helps, and it just kind of,

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I don�t know, adds something, then great. I mean, I�m a living example of if the

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Lord could use that guy, he could use me. He couldn�t lose me. That�s good to know. Speaking of losing it, before I get into the second part of the show today on apostasy, evangelicalism has lost their minds.

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It�s lost its mind. The people in evangelicalism, their minds have been lost. I mean, it is just like this flood of stuff that come across my desk, and the ones that I just saw today,

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Amy Byrd and her desire to be confessional, yet does she call herself egalitarian?

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I know she says she�s not a complementarian, but I listened to her, what

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I call the Huldah hermeneutic. Remember Huldah, the prophetess? And anyway, so that�s crazy, in my opinion.

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What else has been crazy? The four people that have gotten let go are downsized at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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I�m sure I�ll never get to teach there again, but I�ve taught several classes here in their Boston campus when that was such a thing, and so I got my doctorate of ministry at Southern, and so I have a soft spot in my heart, a warm spot, a tender spot, a,

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I don�t know, some kind of spot. Get spots in your lungs, it�s bad. Spot in your heart. But then

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I just see what�s going on now with Matthew Hall and some of the other professors.

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I think it�s a different place, and I think in the weeks to come, we�re going to hear more and more and more about how it�s not the school that it used to be when

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I was there, nor what I wish it would be even today. So that�s crazy. What else is crazy?

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People defending Doug Wilson�s federal vision. I know Doug Wilson writes well.

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I know Doug Wilson likes to know, I mean, he�s good at trying to side -stepping issues, but when you�re off on justification and you�re teaching federal vision and you�re obscuring that fact,

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I don�t know why anybody would defend him. I don�t recommend him. I don�t recommend the blog that he has, even though sometimes,

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I probably read it twice a year. The world evangelicalism is totally crazy.

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I mean, it is�the list of things that I have here, the Cedarville issue and the president there of Cedarville, I don�t see how he makes it.

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By the time this plays, who knows what will have been done, but I don�t think the Cedarville president will survive this scandal.

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I want Cedarville to excel. We have people from our church sending their kids to Cedarville. I think the last couple of years have been a good turn for Cedarville for conservative theology, and so I want these schools to do well.

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The problem is we are all sinful and frail and fallible. Simon used to set peccator, and therefore bad things happen and we do dumb things and make bad decisions, and I�m at the top of that list, so it�s not throwing stones in glass houses, but I don�t see how

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Cedarville�s president survives this. Whether he should or not, that�s out of my league, but when

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Matt Chandler and the elders at Village have enough sense to fire somebody, and then that guy gets hired up there�I don�t mean the president, but the president hired him.

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So anyway, evangelicalism is crazy. It�s crazy. That�s why we just need to focus on who

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Jesus is, and we�re in Hebrews chapter 12 talking about apostasy, and here�s what�s been happening in chapter 12.

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There�s all these great heroes of what we call the faith who aren�t really the hero Jesus is, but they were looking to Jesus.

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Every one of those from Abraham to Enoch to Sarah in Hebrews 11 was looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of their faith.

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That�s Hebrews 12 too, and he says with some plural language, if you didn�t catch this from the last show, some plural language, �You need to honor the

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Lord when you run. You need to endure to the end. You need to persevere in this marathon trial, but you also need to look out for other people, because apostasy is real.

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People say they�re Christians, and when trouble comes, they bail, and that�s one of the ways the

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Lord shows us, by the way. How do we know who the real Christians are? Well, the ones that bail, 1 John 2, 19, they went out from us, right?

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I think specifically they�re talking about some leaders, and they went out from us because they weren�t ever part of us, so that you could see that, because how do

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I know someone�s heart? That�s even when I do baptisms based on the profession of faith, because I don�t really know what�s going on, and therefore, in the book of Hebrews, people are struggling.

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They�re persecuted. They are not yet martyred for their faith, but pretty close.

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Some in jail. Some lost their houses, and when that kind of stuff happens, when there are trials, just think of COVID for a second.

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If you think this is a trial, and I know some people here at our church have lost loved ones for this, but the trial

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I don�t think is sitting around in our house. People lose jobs. I just got a phone call today.

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I have some numbers, blood numbers, that are less than desirable, and I had the test in December, not so good,

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February, not so good, and they went to retest and do all this stuff. Guess what? I can�t get in.

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I�m more dead than dead. So they just pushed it off another month, probably pushed it off another month, right?

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Because it�s not essential. Just because, you know, you used to have cancer, and I don�t know, who knows where it is now.

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You come back in a little bit. Come back later. Anyway, what if I just say,

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I mean, think about it. What if I just say, �You don�t love me, God. You could have prevented this, and you�re not good, you�re not kind, you might have a lot of power, but you don�t love me.�

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I mean, it�s that Rabbi Kushner deal, right? Where God�s all -powerful, God�s all -loving, how can evil exist?

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Evil does exist. That means God�s either not all -powerful, or He�s not all -loving, or neither.

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And we get ourselves in bad situations. So you�ve probably got friends, and as we say in New England, �So don�t

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I.� That means, �So do I.� New Englanders sometimes say it the opposite, �So don�t

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I.� Oh, that ice cream. You know, I really like this ice cream. So don�t I. That�s my all -time favorite one.

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Not Jimmy�s for sprinkles on ice cream. Not Bubba for the drinking fountain. Not carriages for shopping carts.

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Not buttons for buttons. Not down cellar for down the cellar. Not down Cape for down the

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Cape. Not 495, the 495 for the highway. But so don�t

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I. So I almost kind of made a little song out of it. Remember Amy Grant? I don�t think she wrote it, maybe it�s Michael Smith.

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So don�t I, so don�t I. Air care common, so don�t I. I remember

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Daniel Block, he said to me once, he said, �I know like 12 languages, including four

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Semitic languages, and there�s no such thing as air care common.�

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Adonai, of course, there is, but there�s air care common, whatever that is. I guess she was speaking in tongues or something,

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I have no idea. This is serious.

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We�re losing visitors. We�re losing watchers. We�re down to six. Oh, by the way, one last comment here, and then we�ll talk about apostasy.

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Pastors are always concerned about how many people come to their church, and you go to pastor�s conference, or even if you�re a speaker, they�ll ask you, �How many people attend your church ?�

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What do people say now? Well, 3 ,000 used to attend. You know what people do now? I�m telling you right now.

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Well, our Facebook live feed, combined with our YouTube live feed, 1 ,600 people watched the sermon last week.

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How would I know that number? That number seems right to me. Oh, it�s only curiosity.

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I only looked at the number counts just because I�m curious to see how the Lord would use His word across the nation.

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I just sent a thing out to the church the other day and said, �You know what? If this church is built on my personality or my theology,

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I�ve failed. This is the Lord�s church. He builds it. And you, if you don�t attend this church, ought to be at a church that has a good statement of faith, a confessional statement of faith, a tested and tried statement of faith, a statement of faith that your pastors didn�t write.�

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Why? Because one day the pastor�s going to be gone, and I don�t want the next guy who comes along who�s got a bigger personality than I do, and a pastor who�s got more eclectic theology than I do, or whatever, to just take over, and then it�s just the next guy.

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No, no, no. This is what we believe. There�s a reason why we have the Reformed confessions and how they�ve stood the test of time.

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All right. Hebrews 12, apostasy. Do you notice what it says in verse 15? For those of you that were here last time, it�s got the word �episcopus.�

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�See to it.� It means to oversee. It means to look at. It means to, present tense imperative for the plural congregation, be your brother�s keeper.

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You follow Jesus. Here�s what He�s done for you. Here�s how you respond. You love God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength by following Him because you are set apart, because you are justified, because you are regenerated, because you have been forgiven, because He is your high priest.

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The list goes on. And love your neighbor as yourself. When other people are running the race, you need to be on the lookout.

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That�s what it says. See to it. And then He gives three kind of ways apostasy shows itself.

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How do pastors come up with outlines? Well, three points in a poem are a song of Solomon, a poem in three points.

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But seriously, sometimes the passage lends itself to the outline very easily.

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And here�s the case. I want you to see if you can see in verse 15 and 16 in your ESVs, probably in NAS as well, the word �that.�

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Is that a demonstrative pronoun? That T -H -A -T. �That no one fails to obtain the grace of God.�

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There�s your first �that.� �That no root of bitterness springs up.� Verse 16, �That no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau.�

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That, that, that. If you�d like to be technical, the Episcopalian kind of looking, overseeing, are you your brother�s keeper?

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Yes. It governs, to use O�Brien�s language, three subordinate clauses.

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And each one of those is introduced in our English text �that, that no one, that no one, that no one.�

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You want to see an apostate? Take a look. Here�s what an apostate does. Now, here�s my

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Baptist, you know, kind of little jive -talking outline. People who give up, give in, and who are given over, or give over.

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Give unto. Did I give you five? There�s supposed to be three. Take a look at the first one.

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�That no one fails to obtain the grace of God.� When you�re running and you�re a bishop for the church, it�s not just the pastor�s job, it�s your job too,

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Christian. Look out for people who are giving up. They don�t obtain the grace of God. Think about the running metaphor and the endurance, and it�s like, it�s an 880, and after three times around the 220 track, they just stop.

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They just go to the center of the track and sit down. You�ll see people, when trials come, when difficulties come, they just stop running.

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They first start coasting, and then they stop running. What do they do? They realize times are tough, and they�re just, you know what?

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Their character is exposed, and you need to come alongside of them. You say, �You know what?

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I see somebody who�s struggling, and it�s up to them, God�s sovereign.� No, of course not.

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That�s not what you do. What do you do? You come alongside of those people. I just knocked this thing over here.

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You come alongside of people, and you do what Hebrews does. Keep believing. He�s worth it.

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Jesus is this great object of your faith. Keep believing in Him. There�s no other Savior. Who could love you like Jesus?

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Who could pray for you like Jesus? Who could satisfy the wrath of God for you like Jesus? Who could be a friend that sticks closer than a brother than Jesus?

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Who could be your elder brother? Who could be one who didn�t put on angel nature and obey in their place, but obeyed in your place?

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And the list goes on and on. Keep believing in this Jesus. That�s how you come alongside people that aren�t running well.

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Many of these Jews that received the letter were real believers. That�s true.

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And those real believers, of course, can never go back. Theologically, if you want to think through this, can a real

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Christian apostatize and lose their salvation? Well, the answer is no. But you, me,

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I don�t know when I�m watching somebody and they�re struggling and they�re ready to throw in the proverbial spiritual towel.

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I just have to come alongside of them and say, �It�s worth running.� Eternity�s worth running. We�re going to get through these valleys and there�s going to be wonderful joys.

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And this isn�t heaven. This is full of difficulties and trials and everything, so keep believing.

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And by the way, if the person�s a struggling Christian who�s tempted to sin, this is good advice for them, too.

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So my advice is the same, even though I don�t know the heart of people. And so, mutual oversight is needed.

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You need to keep running. Look out for your brothers and sisters. When I was riding a bicycle in Santa Cruz, there�s a lot of steep hills there in the mountains,

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Santa Cruz mountains. And of all people, I was riding with one day, Steve Green. Remember him, the singer,

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Steve Green? And Steve said his piano player was also a bicyclist, and so he was going to go.

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And I had a friend with me who was probably a buck -thirty wet and a great hill climber, because if you�re like me, 200 pounds or something like that,

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I�m about 90 days out of my surgery here and I�ve got 10 to lose. But if you�re, you know, 200 pounds riding in the hills, it�s more difficult, or if you�re out of shape.

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Well, Steve�s piano player, I think it was his piano player, I don�t remember his name. Anyway, he hadn�t been riding in the hills very much, and so it�s a really steep and incline where we were.

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Like, you�ve got to stand up and gear down all the way. And that 130 -pound guy, who�s a great climber, came up behind Steve Green�s piano player, put his hand on the back of his jersey, and started pushing up the hill.

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And so we all finished and got to the top and then zoomed down and whatever, went and had a piece of coffee. That�s the idea, helping other people.

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If someone�s struggling, what do you want? See, I told you you weren�t saved. See, I�m excelling and you�re not excelling.

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No, no. You want to go help them. And the idea here is, in context to Hebrews, here it comes, don�t miss it or you�ll be a moralist.

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Jesus finished, so you finish. And want and desire other people to finish.

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That�s the idea. That�s Hebrews 1 to 12. Come alongside of other people.

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Well, there�s another that, that no one. Look out for people who are giving up. Look out for people who are giving out.

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They�re dishing out bitterness and trouble. See it in verse 15? That no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled.

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So you�re looking around and you�re like, okay, what�s apostasy look like? They�re quitting. They don�t want to run anymore.

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They don�t want to endure. They don�t want to walk by faith as a lifestyle. They�re starting to quit. What else happens?

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And I don�t know if this is sequential. I don�t know if there�s an order to this. There�s a logic to this, or these are just three things that happen.

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I don�t know if all three happen at the same time. There�s gradations. But I do know this. The text says that no root of bitterness springs up, causes trouble, and defiles other people.

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So the apostate, he or she sees what God has done or not done in his life or her life, and they get mad.

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You know what? They lose a loved one. They lose a mom or dad or somebody that�s super dear to them, and they begin to question the integrity of God.

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That�s what happens. Now for the believer, of course, believers can have sinful thoughts. That�s true.

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But oftentimes, I don�t know, even in my own case, while I struggle with all kinds of sins,

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I didn�t struggle with when my mom was dying and then died, and I�m sitting there in Omaha, Nebraska, the rest of the family leaves, and I�m just holding her hand, and I�m just crying, thinking, �These are the hands that nursed me.

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These are the hands that changed my diaper. These are the hands that did all these things for me.�

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While I was grieving, crying, and the nurses shut the door and put the little screen there, and whenever you come out, stay as long as you like,

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I wasn�t mad at God. I wasn�t saying, �You know what? Jesus isn�t alive.�

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For whatever reason, and I�m saying this is the work of the Holy Spirit in my life, I was more convinced that Jesus was alive.

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I was more convinced, �Oh, death, where is thy victory? Where is the sting of death? Jesus has overcome death.�

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And I knew it was true. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. To live is Christ, to die is gain.

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But I�m not like everybody else. Other people don�t struggle like I struggle with, pride and arrogance and self -righteousness, covetousness.

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When we had a church split 20 years ago, people were saying all these bad things about me. I wish, well,

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I don�t wish it, but they picked all the wrong things. They picked the things that weren�t true. There was a whole list of things they could have picked, and they would have been right.

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What�s happening here is, somehow you think of the providence of God, trials, troubles, temptations, hardships.

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You know what? I�m mad. Bitter. Now, this section, of course, comes from an

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Old Testament passage in Deuteronomy. And of course, if you�re a preacher to Jews, you use the Old Testament. And it comes from Deuteronomy 29 .18.

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Let me read to you Deuteronomy 29 .18, and you�ll understand the root of bitterness better. Moses said this to the

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Israelites, Deuteronomy 29 .18, �Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today, whose heart turns away from the

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Lord our God, to go and worship the gods of those nations. Make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.�

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Isn�t that fascinating? You have this bitterness stemming from turning your back on God and worshiping other gods.

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It�s a warning. You turn away from God, guess what? You�re going to worship someone or something.

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As Bob Dylan said, you�re going to serve somebody. So eternity is set in the hearts of men and women, right?

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Ecclesiastes says that. And we are born worshipers, and we either are idol worshipers or the one true

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God. And if you�re going to turn your back on who God is, well, you�re going to find somebody or something to worship.

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And therefore, Deuteronomy 29 gives us insight into that. And what happens? Those kind of people, if they�re not convinced that there�s the one true

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God and they worship other gods, they�re going to try to get � they�re going to proselytize people, and they�re going to sow doubt, they�re going to sow, as the commentators say, disloyalty and trouble among covenant people.

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And if it�s not in the nation of Israel, it�s now here in these Hebrew believers.

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The root of bitterness. These people are resentful. These people are, �God, how could you ?�

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And they�re starting to have an effect because bitterness affects other people.

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Christians can struggle with bitterness, right? It�s Ephesians chapter 4. If I�m not careful and people are criticizing me,

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I could become bitter. People have done things to me and said things about me. Of course, I�ve done it to them too, but I could become bitter.

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This is a different kind of bitterness. This is not the bitterness of a Christian who�s been wronged by another

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Christian, although that could contribute. The language from Deuteronomy 29 is, �This is a person who says they�re a

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Christian and they think God has wronged them.� They think God has done them wrong.

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And it�s not like Job, where he says, �I�ll kiss the rod, and even though he slay me, yet I�ll trust in you.�

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No. I am going to try to defile people by saying bad things about God because I�m not worshiping

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Him anymore. I�m turning my back. I�m not running the race, and now bitterness creeps in. And it doesn�t take you very long to figure out how complaining and bitterness affected

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Israel to the point of earthquakes, the ground opening up, swallowing people, and having idols pulverized into small pieces and drank so that Israelites could not run around and rummage through their own fecal matter to get the gold out to reconstruct the calf.

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This is a problem. And you, dear Christian, along with me, not just because I�m an elder, but because we all together need to watch out for people, and watch out for people that don�t run, they�re quitting, and for people who say, �You know what?

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This is not the God for me, and I�m going to make sure I tell other people.� That�s a bitter person. And what�s the text say?

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It causes trouble. We�re using an agricultural term now. We�ve talked about war.

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We�ve talked about running in chapter 12. And now he�s talking about agricultural words, and it�s basically saying, �You know what?

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Bitter people are contagious.� And he�s got this body -life language.

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You say, �You know what? Providence has been harsh with me.� Well, then you submit to that, and you say, �God, here�s what

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I deserve. Here�s my inheritance in heaven. I�m not living for this life anyway. And I just have to submit as you chasten me, as you discipline me, as you parentally watch over me, as you allow the fall to affect people and other things.�

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There�s lots of ways you can take care of it, but you have to be careful. Hebrews 12, 14 talks about peace and unity and holiness, and now these people are doing the exact opposite.

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They�re driving bitter sour. The word for bitterness is �pachrya.� It reminds me of, you know, you give a kid an ice cream cone when they�re six months old and just give them a lick of ice cream and see their faces.

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I mean, it is wonderful. And remember when you give a kid, when they�re little, you give them some lemon and they bite into it, and that face that they give, �pachrya.�

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It sounds like what it is. It�s onomatopoetic word. Pachrya wants fellowship. Bitterness wants fellowship.

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It runs around and it wants other people to help nurse that bitterness and who God is.

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And it defiles. Look at the text. And people become defiled. Many. So, you need to look out for that.

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And you�re like, �Well, there�s a bunch of bitter people. Yeah, they probably got wronged by the pastor anyway, so elders deserve it.�

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No, no, no. You need to be thinking about who Jesus is and it�s His church. And do you want Jesus�s church that He bought, washed, and cleansed, and will present to the

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Father in complete, beautiful glory? Do you want that bride to be polluted and tinged with gross, tainted corruption and contamination and to be polluted?

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People don�t like pollution on earth. I don�t blame them. But how about polluting the bride by bitterness?

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You need to watch out for this dye. It�s like a Rit dye. My mom used to say, �Let�s get a white t -shirt and some type of Rit dye and tie it up with rubber bands and all that other stuff and make tie -dyed and other things.�

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That affects people. Well, my name is Mike Gabendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. I just looked down. I�m out of time. And we�ll turn our attention to this topic a little bit more next time.

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God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Gabendroth 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 bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.