Unconditional Election Quiz (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 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 we have a theme here at No Compromise Radio ministry. Always biblical.

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Always provocative. Always in that order. So that's or after, and I am glad that you're listening.

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We're going to be on the air for another year here. WVNE, thanks to Manny and the owners of WVNE.

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I think that's fairly commendable, quite commendable, laudable, praiseworthy that they'd have the show on because I'm sure there are many shows that this, many stations, this show would not be allowed on.

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Why? I don't know why. Anyway, these are just biblical topics and we just call them like we see them, strikes and balls, over the plate, to the left of the plate, etc.

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And I don't really think it's that controversial, but it seems in our culture today and evangelicalism today and in the culture at large, the secular culture, that truth is not looked upon properly.

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That is to say, propositionally. So for us today, No Compromise Radio ministry,

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I do want to remind you that Rick Phillips will be at Bethlehem Bible Church. Rick Phillips is going to be talking about masculinity, something that we desperately need.

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Not Braveheart masculinity, not Wild at Heart masculinity, but real biblical masculinity.

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That'll be Friday night, November 5th at Bethlehem Bible Church. And he's going to talk from his book,

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Masculine Mandate, that will be for men. And then Saturday morning on November 6th at Bethlehem Bible Church, he'll be talking about evangelical attacks on the cross, so we can understand the atonement properly.

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Attacks on six -day creation and attacks on how men and women complement one another in ministry in the local church versus our equal in everything, including function.

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So that'll be great. Rick Phillips was trained under James Boyce, written a lot of books. I've interviewed him here on No Compromise Radio ministry.

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And he is a godly man, faithful preacher, and I think you'll want to be here for that conference.

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That's Bethlehem Bible Church's fall conference, www .bbcchurch .org, and that would be good for you to be there.

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Well, today is part two of the Unconditional Election Quiz. I'm teaching a class at Bethlehem Bible Church called

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The History and Theology of Calvinism, and it's at our New England Institute for Biblical Studies.

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I want to say there's 20 or 25 students, if you'd like to know the number. If there were one or there were 5 ,000, it wouldn't really make much of a difference, except that's a good amount of people to kind of manage and shepherd and correct their papers.

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College -level class, seven to nine on Thursday nights, have all kinds of classes. And the archives are full,

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Charismatics, what else do we have, Eschatology. We have hermeneutics, and there are free syllabus, syllabi online, downloads.

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We're also working on video things, and the last two Sundays the sermons have been videotaped, and you can get those on www .bbcchurch

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.org if you want to see what I look like. Actually no, it's true, you look five pounds heavier on video.

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Probably in the last 10 years I've lost about 30 pounds, but I probably should have lost about 35 based on that video.

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Maybe it's the baggy David Byrne jacket, I don't know what it is. Quiz number four, according to the

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IBS class, but it is part two on unconditional election. The doctrine that Paul, Peter, Jesus, New Testament writers and old would understand to be that God chooses people to go to heaven.

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We don't know why he chooses people to go to heaven, but we know where the answer does not lie.

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The answer does not lie in why he chooses people to heaven, in people themselves.

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Because they're corrupt, they're depraved, they're polluted, they can't do anything good, they cannot save themselves or make them in a savable state or respond to prevenient grace, they can't do anything.

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God is the actor, God is the initiator, and that really is Calvinism. Calvinism is just shorthand for God is the initiator in salvation, and we are passive.

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Salvation is outside of the human being, God is the one who has to rescue. And so that's just what we're talking about.

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We talked about last time that you don't understand God unless you understand unconditional election. You don't understand redemption, sin, or anything else.

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Now you might somewhat understand it, but you don't understand it completely, and that's why it's an important doctrine.

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And you believe in election in one way or the other, because what are you going to do with the verses in the Bible that says, He chose us in Him, in love

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He predestined us, He predestined us to adoption, Ephesians chapter 1 verses 4 and 5.

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What do you do with those verses? Well, you have to either say they're conditioned upon man's foreseen faith or something in him, a foreseen repentance, or you have to say, we don't know why

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God chooses, we're just really, really happy He does. I'm really happy He chose me.

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And if you're listening today and you're not a Christian and you don't know if God is going to choose you or not, here's how you know if God's chosen you.

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Repent and believe in the gospel today. Recognize your sin before God and your state before God as unrighteous and in you is no good thing.

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Ignore all the psychologists and other psychobabble people that talk about self -worth, self -esteem, and realize that you're a selfish person and left to self, you're damned, and you don't do anything that God wants you to do because without faith in Christ Jesus, it's impossible to please

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God. And you need to recognize that Jesus is the one who could have left us in that sinful, sorry condition, yet out of His great love that He demonstrated toward us that while we were yet sinners,

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Christ came and died a sinner's death on Calvary, even though He never sinned. And you are required to look to that Savior that was raised from the dead, which means looking away from self and looking with the eyes of faith to take

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God as His word and say, you know, if God says you get forgiveness of sins by believing on Christ Jesus, Lord, help me to believe.

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I must believe. I must repent and respond to the gospel with the eyes of faith.

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And if you are one of those people that have believed, now you know that God has chosen you.

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He didn't choose you because first you believed, but now you get to see God's handiwork and understand that before time began, imagine that,

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God would choose some. He could have chosen all, could have chosen none, but He decided to choose the some.

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So the question is, number six, what chapter in the Bible is the best to use as you defend unconditional election?

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If you have to defend unconditional election and you're kind of getting, you know, attacked by other people and what about this verse and what about that verse and what about these issues and, you know, smart people can believe different things.

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But it's the real issue, boiled down, comes to who is sovereign.

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And if you look at Romans chapter 9, he does start off talking about nations, but then he moves to singular language.

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And by the way, if he chooses nations, there are people in those nations and so therefore he chooses the people too. You just have a lot of people.

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That doesn't solve the problem. And so if you ask the question, what chapter is the chapter that is the coup de grace for any kind of Arminian theology, any kind of man -centered

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Pelagian, semi -Pelagian theology, Wesleyan theology, you just go to Romans chapter 9.

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Now remember with Jacob I loved and Esau I have hated, if God's choice of Jacob and his non -choice of Esau was based on who they were, we would just say, well, that's fair, that's just.

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But the reaction is, how can that be just because if God just randomly, seemingly randomly, it's not random in God's eyes, but if he just chooses, then what happens?

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And so there in verse 14 of Romans chapter 9, what shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there?

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May it never be. If he chose Jacob because Jacob was going to be a good guy and he was going to believe in Yahweh, but he didn't choose

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Esau because he was going to sell his birthright and all these other kind of things, then we'd say, yep, justice is done, he got what he deserved.

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But here that's not the case. There's no injustice with God, is there? That presupposes that God is choosing people.

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For he says to Moses, verse 15, Romans 9, No Compromise Radio, we're talking about Calvinism today, unconditional election.

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Why am I talking about that subject again? Because I love to talk about the sheer grace of God, sovereign, distinguishing grace of God is my favorite topic maybe of all time, that he would choose me, that he would choose other people and then send his son to die for those people.

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That is mind -boggling. That is amazing. I don't want to ever get over it. I never want to say, well,

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I'm beyond that now, I've gone to deeper things. That's as deep as it gets right there.

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That we deserved hell and God chose us and then punished his son in our place?

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That is an amazing truth. And so he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom

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I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. That's Romans 9, 15 right there.

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You want to know the nature of God? Remember the story back in Exodus 32 -34 where God said, you want to see who

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I am, Moses? Because Moses said, show me your glory? Okay, I'll show you what it means. I'll show you my goodness.

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I'll show you the essence of my character. And it's not love there, although love is important.

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It's not holiness there, although holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. He said, you want to see who

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I am? I am a God who gives distinguishing grace, sovereign grace.

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I give grace to some, I don't give grace to others. And that's just for me to give and for you to receive if you're on that receiving end and you'll be glad.

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The way he says it, it doesn't even talk about a person, it just talks about his sovereign freedom. I will have mercy on whom

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I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then Romans 9, 16 says, so then it does not depend on the man, we're not talking about nations here, on the man who wills, nobody gets to heaven based on their free will.

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Or the man who runs, no one gets to heaven based on their exertion, their religious, civil, moral work and sweat and toil.

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But it does depend on God who has mercy. Who is in heaven?

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It depends on God who has mercy. He could only give justice, but he in a sovereign plan has decided to give mercy to some.

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For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.

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So then verse 18, he has mercy on whom he desires and only whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires.

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You can just hear people, does not compute, well this is the only

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God. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? Who resists his will?

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If God chooses, who can be held accountable? Who can be human, what kind of human responsibility can there be?

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That question is out of order actually. Verse 20, on the contrary, who are you oh man?

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The connotation is who are you pipsqueak? Who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, why did you make me like this?

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Will it? It's time to be quiet. There's a response to say, a response to give for that kind of question and here's a response.

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Put your finger up to your lips and make this sound. Now if you're just inquisitive theologically and you'd like to know based on just theology and you're willing to accept those truths, well that's fine.

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But if it's how can that be God? How could you? You didn't choose my father, you didn't choose my sister, you didn't choose my kids, you didn't do this, you didn't do that, how could you?

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You know the answer for you and this is going to be no compromise style and I say this in Christian love.

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You know what the answer is for you if you're the one who says, then you know what God didn't choose them, I don't care what he does or what he thinks because how could anybody respond back to God?

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He doesn't choose them and how can he hold them accountable? How could they? Friends, the response to that kind of insanity,

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Paul says, just shut up. Yeah, you heard me right. Just shut your trap.

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Shut your mouth because that's not the way we talk about God. People who are molded, people who are created, people who are nothing but sinful rebels at the core, don't talk about God that way.

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I have a question for those who talk about God that way. Does not the potter have a right over the clay?

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What's the answer? What's the answer? Well the answer is, of course, it's just a piece of clay.

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Of course the potter has a right over the clay. To make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?

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Of course. One for common use. This is nice china, nice plates where we serve our food.

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It's the best stuff when we have visitors and you've got clay and you think, I think, let's see, what should I make today? I'll make some really good saucers for tea and some really good tea cups.

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That's what I'll make today. Do you blame the person for wanting to do that? No, they can do whatever they want.

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They're the potter. Well, today, let's see, what do we need? I think we need some little containers to spit in, some spittoons.

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We need a garbage disposal, an ashtray, and actually this is before the time there were any kind of outhouses or anything like that and you'd have to go to the bathroom in a bucket, in a ceramic toilet is basically what it was, a pot for the unmentionable uses.

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That's a dishonor. That's a common use. Does the potter have a right to do that?

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Today, I think I'd like to make a pot to go to the bathroom in. The answer is yes, because the potter is sovereign.

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It's the freedom of the potter. You need to read James White's book, Potter's Freedom. And so he uses that illustration to then talk about God, verse 22.

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What if God, who is the ultimate potter, the free -willed potter, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, he is a

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God who receives glory as he wrathfully punishes unholiness and injustice?

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By the way, you'd want to judge like that too, wouldn't you? Can you imagine a king in a realm and all the rapists and murderers and pedophiles who have been rightly convicted are brought up to the king and the king just says, ah, whatever, our jails are full, free to go.

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No, you, if you are a family member, you want justice. You want the punishment that fits the crime, don't you?

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What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

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And he did so to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy.

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You want to know how merciful God is? Then you can look at the unbeliever and you can see this

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God who should have punished you and is punishing others, yet he didn't punish you, although he's punishing others.

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And you're no better. You're probably worse than those other people. He did so to make known the riches of his glory upon the vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory.

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That is an amazing truth. That is an absolutely stupefying truth. That's a rewind truth.

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That's a truth. I better re -listen to that again on NoCompromiseRadio .com or get out your own

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Bibles in Romans chapter 9. If you've got a problem back and forth looking at all these issues with conditional election, unconditional election, which one's right, you just read through Romans 9.

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And just do what James Boyce said when he trained the people at Bible Study Fellowship. Kind of an intramural, interdenominational

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Bible study for ladies. Now, to the trainers, he said, now when people who are

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Methodist or Catholic or other people who are attending say, well, what about this and what about that? You say, let's turn to Romans 9, they were teaching through Romans that year, and you put your finger under these verses and say, and read this.

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But the Bible says, but the Bible says, but the Bible says. You can have all your own wacky ideas about things.

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My pastor said, my church says, John Wesley said, but I want to go back to what does the

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Bible say? So it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. He has mercy on whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires.

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Those are the answers. The answers on who goes to heaven are not found in the people. The answers are found in God.

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And the answers for your questions about Arminianism and Calvinism are found in Romans 9.

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Question number seven. Election is something that God owes everyone. God could have elected everyone, but he didn't.

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Why? Well, Romans 9 gives us an inkling maybe of why. But the question that I posed on the quiz,

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God owes election to everyone. Well, if he owes something, it's an obligation. It's no longer a gift.

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What God owes everyone is justice, damnation, eternal torment, torture.

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That's what God owes everyone as they've sinned against the thrice holy God. You can tell how bad a sin it is based on the person that you sin against.

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You kill me or you kill somebody in authority, a policeman or a president.

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Even though I'm an image bearer and so is a policeman or a president, it's worse. It's a worse crime because of who they are, position.

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And so in an infinitely greater degree, when you sin against a thrice holy God, it requires infinite punishment.

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And so what happens is people say, well, you owe people salvation. Then you don't understand salvation.

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You don't understand grace. You don't understand mercy. And what does God owe? People say, well, that's not fair.

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I don't think you want fair. Fair is justice. What you want is grace. What you want is mercy.

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Isn't that what you want? Number eight. Why doesn't

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God choose everyone? Well, I think the better question is why does God choose anyone?

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You know, if you're always walking around saying, why doesn't God choose everyone? I'd say, why does God choose anyone? Why would

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God choose a rebel? Why would he grant clemency to someone who would murder his son, who did murder his son?

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Why would he grant clemency to the thief on the cross just before the thief dies? Here's this probably murderer, certainly a thief, somebody worthy probably of crucifixion.

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Why would he save them? Why would he save you? Why would he save me? That's the real question.

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Maybe we'll know in heaven why he didn't choose to save everyone. Maybe we can say to ourselves on earth, so at least we realize how bad it would be if we did deserve those things and we didn't get those things and we see the difference between glory and hell, heaven and perdition.

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But one thing's for sure, the right question to ask is why did God choose anyone?

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That will help you with thanksgiving. That will help you with honor. That will help you with praise. This other one is just going to pretty much drive you crazy.

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You're not needed. You don't need to know that. Calvin actually did say where scriptures are silent, I'm silent.

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I mean, we can only go so far and then we're in too deep. We're in over our heads. You can tread water for a little bit and then you're done.

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So don't concern yourself with those things. Concern yourself with if you're chosen and you're a believer that God would choose you when he shouldn't have for all intents and purposes based on who you were.

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That's the amazing thing. Next question, describe the difference between the English word foreknowledge and the

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Greek word foreknowledge. One of the things that'll happen, Romans chapter 8 verse 29 and 1

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Peter chapter 1, people say see foreknowledge, foreknowledge. He foreknew. He foreknew these things will happen.

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And we're going to get into this a little bit later in the class and even here on No Compromise Radio. But read Arthur Pink's book called

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The Attributes of God and he has a nice chapter there on the foreknowledge of God. Now certainly in English, the word to foreknow means to look ahead, to know ahead of time, prognosticator, prophecy, those kind of things.

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They know ahead of time and we would concede that God knows everything ahead of time. That's an easy one.

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I don't doubt that. But in the context of 1 Peter chapter 1 and Romans chapter 8,

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I think it's one other passage, maybe more than one of the one, but foreknowledge, foreknowledge is not used that God foreknows people's actions, although he does.

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The word means he foreknows the people. God foreknows people. He predetermines people.

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He knows people ahead of time. And to know somebody in the Old Testament context was to set his love on them, to know them.

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From a human perspective, when Adam knew his wife or Abraham knew his wife, he knew her intimately.

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He already knew who she was, but now he knows her sexually, intimately, closely.

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And so here God is saying in the foreknowledge passages, you have to make sure you don't just say by default, we're going to look at the

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Greek word, the English word rather, God ahead of time sets his love on people.

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That's the context. That's brilliant. That's beautiful. That's Hebrew yada where he he loves people ahead of time.

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That is wonderful. He loves people ahead of time. And so when you look at the

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English word foreknowledge, you better ask yourself the question, what does this mean?

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Romans 8, for instance, says we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love

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God, to those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew, oh see, he looked ahead of time and he foreknew them.

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He also predestined to become conformed to the image of a son. No, what's happening here is God said in eternity past,

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I'm going to set my love on these people. I'm going to love them ahead of time. Therefore, I'll cordon them out in predestination and select them.

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I'll set my love on them. Then I'll predestinate them. That's the idea. If you want to say that he foreknew their faith, and that's what it means here.

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First of all, for those whom he foreknew, this has nothing to do with actions.

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He foreknew their actions of faith. No, he foreknew them. And he knew ahead of time that if he didn't set his love on them, there's going to be no choosing because they were reprobates.

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They are blasphemers. They are enemies. They are scallywags. They are the dregs of society, the scum.

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They think their morality is virtue before God and righteousness before God. That's the worst.

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It's not the heroin addict, but it's the grandma who thinks their virtue is laudable. No, foreknowledge in English means to look ahead of time.

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Foreknowledge in the Greek is to know, to set your love on ahead of time. Aren't you glad God did that for you?

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This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. We didn't even get through the quiz today. We're going to have to do quiz part three, but that's OK. We've signed up for a year.

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That's what we've signed up for. So you've got to put up with me for another year of being biblical, provocative in that order. 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 bbcchurch .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.