Classic: The “Almost” Christian (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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Mike Abendroth here. It is, I think in real time, when?

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In real time, it is March 3rd. Happy birthday, Patrick Abendroth of the

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Bactim. Pat's birthday. He's nine years younger than I am, and I don't know, ten years ago, some people would see

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Pat and I together, and then they would ask, who's younger? And I always liked that, because it meant

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I looked younger. These days, when they see Pat and I together, they never ask who's younger.

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I looked at myself the other day, and I thought, I look like my dad. I'm almost 62 years old now, and I guess we all have to age, right?

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I used to be six foot almost two, and I think I'm just a hair underneath six foot now.

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So the incredible shrinking man. I tried to go to the gym and work out some, but you'd never know it. What are those flappy things under my arms?

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Oh, my triceps. All right. Well, today, I'm also drinking some coffee and some sparkling water, because it's colonoscopy prep day.

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So today so far, for food, I've had, I had some coffee this morning, I had some type of yerba type of drink or something, and then

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I had some broth, some broth, and some broth. Tomorrow's the colonoscopy.

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The fun begins at 5 p .m., and you have to drink the Go Lightly. I think this is my fourth or fifth colonoscopy, and in all seriousness,

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I've had all kinds of GI issues in the last six weeks. They're trying to figure it out, and hopefully this will give me a good diagnosis.

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But anyway, Go Lightly, come on. But I'm going to go to dance class tonight with my wife.

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Tonight is the third week of East Coast Swing. It's a triple step instead of a single step, and I think

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I'll just start the Go Lightly when I get home at eight. What does the doctor know? They won't know the difference. I didn't eat anything all day today except broth.

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I put some pepper flakes on there, some of the red pepper flakes. That's it. Last show,

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I think last week, and I'm recording two weeks in advance because of the Shepherd's Conference, and I think

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I'll be there for that. I was talking about a Puritan book called The Almost Christian Discovered by Matthew Mead, a play on words from the book of Acts.

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And, you almost make me a Christian, I said to Paul. I can't remember if it was Felix or Festus.

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I mixed those two up. I tried to memorize the difference between the two but have since forgotten. Anyway, Almost Christian Discovered is a book by Matthew Mead and republished,

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I don't know, 30 years ago maybe. I had a little tract in front of me from that 1661 book.

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I tried to say last time that Puritans, by definition, aren't good.

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All good. Many good, yes, but not all good. Some may be too wordy, some may be too messed up on law gospel stuff like Richard Baxter, and some, like Matthew Mead, maybe he had good intentions.

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You know, there are people that call themselves Christians that aren't. That's a travesty. There's a faith that doesn't save.

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That's a travesty. There's a spurious faith. There's a demon faith. Those are travesties.

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I understand that. We don't want to be deceived. There are deception passages, a warning of deception in Ephesians 5, in 1

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Corinthians chapter 6, I think, I don't know if the other, they should come to my mind right away.

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I think I did a series in the old days of don't be deceived and just went through those passages, Galatians maybe.

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And I was trying to say that when you need assurance, when you are lacking assurance, when you're talking about assurance, big picture, you hear me say this all the time, it was

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Rome that took away assurance. If you're Mary, maybe you get assurance. If you're

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Paul, direct revelation, I don't know, maybe a Daniel, can you imagine even if Daniel didn't have assurance?

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What does the Bible teach? And I think Joel Beeky's book on assurance is helpful because he talks about objective assurance and that is looking to the

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Lord Jesus, and then subjectively, secondarily, following the pattern of 2

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Peter chapter 1, who you are in Christ, to use Pauline language in 2 Peter, if I can do that, in a

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Petrine epistle, and then add to your faith virtue, right? If these are yours and increasing.

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I'm not against fruit. I'm not against evidence. I'm not against obedience. I'm not against holy living.

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I'm not against any of those things, but I am against a morbid introspection.

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And when you look inside too much, you see bad things and you either default to self -righteousness, pride, or if you're honest with yourself, depression.

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When you realize how far you're not far along in the

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Christian faith, and even as Heidelberg talks about Heidelberg Catechism, even the most holy men, the gains that they make in holy living are smaller than we might imagine.

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Now, that does not give us an excuse to lay back and let God, or coast, or somebody makes a profession and they have no works, or all these kind of things.

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I understand that. I understand that when God justifies you, He begins sanctifying you, and you respond with mortification and vivification.

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But to what degree must you have that in order to have any safety, confidence, surety, and assurance of salvation?

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So I was reading a little track from the Chapel Library. Most of the stuff they have is really good. I don't like this particular one, but they've got a lot of good things.

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This is in no way, shape, or form trying to blast Chapel Library. This has to do with Matthew Mead, almost a

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Christian. It says here, in kind of my part two message, the altogether

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Christian. So if you haven't listened to the show, go back to last week's and listen to part one. The altogether Christian, right?

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So we've got the almost Christian. You say you are, but you don't have enough conscience, clearing, affections, performance, duties, commands.

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You're just an almost Christian. But the altogether Christian, again, just even the sound of it. If you didn't listen to the last show, the sound of that, the altogether

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Christian. The altogether Christian? Now if that's because you're trusting in the altogether one, okay,

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I'm fine. But a lot of these kind of books, they don't do that. It is, as Goldsworthy says, and I keep repeating over and over and over, it's theoretical, oh,

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Jesus is the sin bearer. It's theoretical that Jesus intercedes. It's theoretical that Jesus doesn't leave us as orphans and he gives us the

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Holy Spirit given by the Father and the Son, right? It's theoretical, but it's not operational.

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It's not in the context even of holy living Christ in us, the

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Spirit of God dwelling, union with Christ. It's not there. And that's where my problem comes.

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It comes with broader evangelicalism, with sanctification, somehow thinking it's synergistic or somehow thinking, well, we can't quite explain it, so we better not use monergistic or synergistic when it comes to sanctification.

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Friends, it can be monergistic, and it is, and it can be difficult to understand what

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God does and what I do. And Jerry Bridges would say, the engineer in him finally had to say,

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I have to trust God by faith that he's sanctifying me and I'm going to respond with mortification of sin and doing the right thing in terms of righteousness, mortification of sinification.

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Altogether Christian, let me ask you this. Are you an altogether Christian or are you an almost Christian? That's like a bad bifurcation.

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I don't want either of those categories. I don't want to be an almost Christian that is somebody that's just deceived.

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Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, I don't want to be that, Matthew 7. It's a reality.

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It's an awful reality. It's incredibly scary reality.

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But for the Christian, the weak Christian, the struggling Christian, the sinning

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Christian, did you know that Jesus died for the sins of Christians too? That's a whole sermon in and of itself. Don't take my word for it.

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I'm sure you've tried it, but I think you should study the scriptures to see that the only way you're really going to have assurance, if you're honest with yourself, is by fixing your eyes on Jesus, walking by faith, the right object.

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Because when you look to yourself, it's going to be very, very difficult. Now you're going to see things like, oh,

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I do love God's word. I don't always love it like I should, but I do. And then I ask you the question, a la

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R .C. Sproul, who gave you that love? Satan? Well, I really stumble in my marriage, but I says to the wife,

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I want to submit, and I'm glad when I do, but it bothers me when I don't, and I don't really think

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I submit enough. How could I be a Christian? And I'd say to you, I mean, I probably need to know you better, but I would say to you, if we sat down as couples, since I don't counsel women alone,

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I would say to you, who gave you that desire? Did feminism give you that desire? Did the world give you that desire?

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Did Gloria Allred give you that desire? Who gave that desire? University educational systems?

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Vogue magazine? Who gave that desire? Well, the Spirit gave me that desire. Yes, and even that desire of,

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I want to obey, even though I'm not obeying like I should, needs to be dealt with. We need to figure out what's going on when it comes to Christian assurance.

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I'm working on a series for American Gospel on assurance, and who am

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I, but I need to write a book on assurance because it's not talked about rightly.

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It's talked about like Matthew Mead. The altogether Christian, Mead says, is much in duty and yet much above duty in regard of dependence.

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What? Okay, let's ask you the question. Are you an almost Christian, which means you're not a

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Christian, or an altogether Christian? In Matthew Mead's words, then that means you're a real Christian. I ask you the question,

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Christian, altogether Christian. Are you much in duty and yet much above duty in regard to dependence?

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I mean, it's crushing. I want to? Okay, well, then why doesn't Matthew Mead say the desire, well, when

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I do sin, I don't get convicted right away sometimes, but eventually I get convicted. I ask the

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Lord to forgive me. Mead, he lives in his obedience, not capital

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H, his, but not upon his obedience. He lives upon Christ and his righteousness.

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The almost Christian fails in this. He's much in duty, but not above it, but rests in it.

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He works for rest and he rests in his works. He cannot come to believe and obey too. If he believes, then he thinks there's no need of obedience and so casts off that.

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If he be much in obedience, then he casts off believing and thinks there's no need of that. He cannot say with David, I have hope for my salvation or thy salvation and done thy commandments.

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Psalm 119. The altogether Christian is universal in his obedience.

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Ouch. I guess none of us are saved. Maybe Matthew Mead.

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The altogether Christian is universal in his obedience. Well, I think it's wrong to call

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Jesus a Christian. Okay. That's wrong. Get that out of your mind. We don't want everyone to do that for lots of reasons.

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Go to the Heidel blog and you can figure that out or it's been figured out for you by Clark.

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R. Scott Clark, Dr. Clark. I'm not calling Jesus a

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Christian, but there's only one universal in obedience.

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Universal in obedience. Just think about that. Universal. Not multiverse. Not metaverse.

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Not meta world. Universal in his obedience. He does not obey one command and neglect another, do one duty and cast off another, but has respect to all the commandments.

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Now if that means we have respect for all the commandments as Christians and we think they're good and right and we'd like to do that and they're our guide, that's not what he's saying here.

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He does not obey one command and neglect another. So you think, okay, well,

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I'm going to provide for my family as a dad. I don't want to be worse than an unbeliever, so I'm going to provide for my family, but I complain about the weather,

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God's sovereign hand and the weather, I complain about the weather. You ever do that?

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You ever not pray like you want to pray? Well, I don't think you can be an altogether

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Christian because you don't do one command and neglect another. Plus we're not even talking about motives here.

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What are our motives? The best motives. But God, the Son, accepts our less -than -perfect motives and less -than -perfect works because He accepts us.

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What are we thinking? What is this guy thinking? Meet, he endeavors to leave every sin and love every duty.

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Well, in and of itself, I'm not against that statement because the endeavor that I'd like to, it'd be my desire.

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The almost Christian fails in this. His obedience is partial and piecemeal. Okay, I want to ask you a question, Christian.

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Is your obedience partial? Is your obedience piecemeal? Well, then you're an almost

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Christian. Just why even bother? I mean, why bother read the

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Bible? Why bother listening to sermons? Why bother listening to podcasts? Why bother the

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Lord's Day worship? Why bother? Because obedience, if it's partial and piecemeal, if you obey one command and breaks another, the duties that least cross

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His lust, He is much in. But those that do, He lays aside. The Pharisees fasted, paid tithes, but they did not lay aside their covetousness, their oppression.

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They devoured widows' houses, and they were unnatural to parents. Well, just go through some list of things in your mind, and you think, well,

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I really have a desire to evangelize, and sometimes I do, but other times I'm bitter, I'm unforgiving,

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I have anger. I let the sin go down on my anger, I cut the corners once in a while on my taxes,

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I don't serve God with all my heart, I don't love my neighbor as myself, as much as I love myself.

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I do things not out of agape love, I do things so people can be nice to me, because if I'm nice to my wife, she's nice to me, and I do it because it just makes my life easier.

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It's not because I love my wife like Christ loved the church. Do you see where this all leads?

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I'm telling you where it leads. It leads to pride. It leads to self -righteousness for people like me, and then for people that are more honest than I am, it leads to utter despair.

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Utter despair. Or I guess another option is you just, well, it's in the self -righteous option, you just kind of make the law light, right?

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It's like, well, if I'm sincere about it, then it qualifies, kind of a Roman Catholic thing. If I just, you know, maybe it doesn't really mean motives, it's just if I just kind of externally do it.

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The altogether Christian, Mead says, makes God the chief end of all his performances. How about he wants that?

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How about he desires that? How about she wishes that to be true? She prays for that.

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Okay, fine. But you've got these categories of almost and altogether, the altogether Christian. Now the almost

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Christian fails in this, for he that was never truly cast out of himself can have no higher end than himself.

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It is dangerous to be almost a Christian in that it stills and serves to quiet conscience.

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Now it is very dangerous to quiet conscience with anything but the blood of Christ. That's a true statement, but in the midst of this morass of nastiness, it is bad being at peace till Christ speaks peace.

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Nothing can truly pacify conscience less than that which pacifies God, and that is the blood of Christ, Hebrews 9 .14.

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Now the almost Christian quiets the conscience, but not with the blood of Christ. It is not a peace flowing from Christ's propitiation, but a peace rising from a formal profession.

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That's true. Not a peace of Christ's giving, but a peace of his own making. He silences and bridles conscience with the form of godliness and so makes it give away to an undoing, soul -destroying peace.

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He rocks it asleep in the cradle of duties and probably never wakes more till death or judgment.

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Ah, my brethren, it is better to have conscience, never quiet, than quieted any way but by the blood of sprinkling.

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A good conscience is the greatest affliction to the saints, and an evil conscience, quiet, is the greatest judgment to sinners.

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Thus ends the track reading for today, Matthew Meade, Almost a Christian, 1661.

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He's not off the hook by saying some things at the very end that are true, obviously, and I have to keep saying them over and over and over again so people don't think

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I'm crazy and an antinomian. The issue really is, what kind of obedience do we have to have to stand before God?

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The answer, for the ground, is perfection. Then what kind of fruits and evidences must you have in order to have the right ground?

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So this is what I'm after. If the ground of your salvation is Christ's perfect law -keeping, meriting righteousness for you—he didn't need to because he was already righteous—dying for our unrighteousness, and sealing that with a victory over sin and death and hell and Satan, resurrection.

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How many fruits do you have to have? How many evidence do you have to have? Well, if you make fruits and evidence the ground, you have to have a lot.

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You have to have the most. You have to have perfect. But I'm not making ground and fruits the same. Ground and fruits, they're completely different, and that's what this kind of thinking does not allow.

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I'm going to pull up something that I'm going to read to you, and it's going to be very, very important.

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Heidelberg Catechism, question 114. I alluded to it last show. But can those who are converted to God perfectly keep these commandments?

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I mean, Matthew Mead, altogether Christians, answer

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Heidelberg Catechism, no. Even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience.

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Yet so, that with sincere resolution, they begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God.

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I'm resolved to do that. I want to do that. The Spirit of God sanctifying me causes me to want to do that.

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I'm being renewed. I'm being enabled. And that's what my resolve is. And I want to begin to do that.

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Question 115. Why will God then have the Ten Commandments so strictly preached, since no man in this life can keep them?

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Well, I guess the altogether Christian again, but that was 100 years after Heidelberg.

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First, this is the answer to question 115, Heidelberg Catechism. That all our lifetime we may learn more and more to know our sinful nature, and thus become the more earnest in seeking the remission of sin and righteousness in Christ.

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Likewise, that we constantly endeavor and pray to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we may become more and more conformable to the image of God, till we arrive at the perfection proposed to us in a life to come.

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You're not going to need Almost a Christian, Almost Christian Discovered by Matthew Mead if you think about this properly.

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Is there a time for you to think, you know what, I've sinned, and sin is so insidious and so deceitful.

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What am I doing? I'm not against that. But when you do talk about sin, you should be like Luther in his commentary on Galatians.

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This sin drives you, the law drives you to deal with your sin, and then may it just keep going to drive you to the ultimate law keeper, to be reminded.

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If you're really, really honest with yourself, dear Christian, you can't have

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Matthew Mead's approach, because you're going to have to talk about sincerity instead of perfect obedience.

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You're going to have to talk about a desire instead of perfect obedience, but that's not what

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Mead does. It is black and white for Mead, and do you know what

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I think about this? I think if I sat underneath Mead's preaching, I think he has no gospel tincture.

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I think he needs to read Edward Fisher. Of course, that wasn't written until 100 years in the future, but I—no, no, sorry, it was written,

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I think, 1645, is that right? So it was about the same time. He's not a merrow man.

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He's not Thomas Boston and the Erskine brothers. This is not the right kind of tincture.

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This is keep people on the edge of their seats so they do more tincture. And this is, you know, you show up to this kind of guy's church and the

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Lord's Supper is, how can you dare take it after what you did this week? Is that the

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Lord's Supper? Is that what we're supposed to do? Is that how we're supposed to think about it? Preaching of the

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Word of God and rightly administered sacraments, is that what's happening with all this?

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There's no hope for your assurance unless you're the self -righteous, and I think Matthew Mead—I never met the guy, obviously, but self -righteous preachers preach like this.

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I know, because what I see in others, I know because I've seen it in myself. I'm sure there's still some of that in me, but I don't like it.

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And from 15 years ago, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, add some good

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Reform theology, the book of Hebrews, cancer, some blood problems, die almost from COVID, et cetera, loved ones around you die and get sick, it's driving self -righteousness out.

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And I don't know what Matthew Mead went through or anything else, but you don't need to read books like this. This is not going to help you when it comes to the doctrine of assurance.

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I'd rather have you read the Heidelberg Catechism and Beaky's book on assurance if you have to read something, including

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Horatius Bonar. 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 six. 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.