Sovereignty and Responsibility (Part 3)

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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. Mike Abendroth here,

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NoCoRadio. You can follow us at nocompromiseradio .com. You can get to us through bbcchurch .org,

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No Compromise Radio Facebook, No Compromise YouTube channel. It's kind of fun.

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There's probably about 80, 90 videos up there. If you, my friend

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Anthony, he says he sends the little three -minute clips to friends, and he knows the friends will disagree.

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But then he said, well, what do you think of this? Critique this. And so then, see, he doesn't get blamed for what he believes. I get blamed for what he believes.

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And he still gets to proselytize at the same time. So you can go there, Twitter, et cetera.

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I'm going to keep pushing the Israel trip because we have more room in the bus. Unlike some other ministries, we don't throw you out of the bus.

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You don't get run over by the bus, get kicked out of the bus. We'd like to have you in the bus.

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Actually, it is a, I kind of like to be in control, you know, to some degree in my life.

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I'd rather drive than have somebody else drive. I usually am kind of in charge of my own day for years as a sales rep, and now as a pastor, and you just try to get things done.

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Not the captain of your own ship, but I'm just kind of, you know, I'm more of a lead at church. I'm a leader, and at home.

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And I don't always like to lead, necessarily. It's kind of fun to go someplace else and have other people in charge, you know, so you have other people to blame when things don't pan out.

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But I love, and I underscore that word, I love to be in Israel, and to consider who

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God is, and have my Bible open, and understand things about going up to Jerusalem, except in the map, it's south.

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So then you realize, oh, it is an elevation issue. I love to see Mount Hermon, Mount Tabor, figure that out,

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Caesarea Philippi. Where did Jesus go? Who do you say that I am? Mount of Transfiguration.

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I love to be up in Dan. I love the Sea of Galilee, skipping rocks on the

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Sea of Galilee, swimming in Galilee, swimming in the Jordan, swimming in the

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Mediterranean. It's a lot of fun. And so I love to just get on the bus. In the morning,

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I talk to the tour guide and say, we'd like to do these things, and we wouldn't like to do these others. You know, we don't wanna go kiss the star, the natal star, the nativity star in the church at St.

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Bethlehem. So let's just avoid that. Let's go down to Bethlehem and see Herod's place that's uncovered, but we don't need to see anything else.

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So I love to just hop on the bus and then say to the bus driver, oh yeah, we probably should stop for espresso this next round.

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Okay, and get on the bus and go see Israel. Well, you can go with us if you'd like. You can fly from Omaha, you can fly from Boston, or you can fly from wherever you are to get to one of those cities.

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Or you can meet us in New York, because both churches will leave from New York City to fly over to Tel Aviv.

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You can listen to Amman to see how I'm Tel Aviv -ing. Or you can meet us in Tel Aviv if you'd like. So go to nocompromisedradio .com

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and there's a little Israel link and you're gonna need to get your deposit in soon. If you're afraid to go, there's no better place to die than in Israel.

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See, you're right there, close. There's usually stuff going on and we stay away from it. Israel is vested in keeping tourists safe.

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And you believe in the sovereignty of God, don't you? Of course you do. And so don't worry.

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Get Fed Online is a new ministry by my friends, Josh and Mario and Gil and others.

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And they have teachers. They're gonna have some world -class teachers.

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And it'll be interactive through Skype. I don't know, 20, 25 students can go to Get Fed Online or the Facebook page,

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Get Fed. And I'm going to be teaching the Christology class the four Tuesdays in October.

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I think it's from 8 .30 p .m. to 10 .30 p .m. And I will wear my wretched t -shirt and my

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San Francisco Giants t -shirt or something like that. And teach Christology, excuse me, eight one -hour lessons.

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And we will just focus on the person and the work of Christ. Jesus, Get Fed Online. If you wanna sign up and register, that would be great.

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All right, we're talking about sovereignty of God and human responsibility, part three. And as I said, a couple of weeks ago,

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I found some old notes about this topic that I put together for someone, another leader, who's no longer here.

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He got thrown under the bus, et cetera. And we were talking about basically the effectual call, basically irresistible grace.

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That was the rub. I don't know how many of you homeschoolers teach your children

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TULIP, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the

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Saints, TULIP. But my daughter, who's 15, secular, public school, high school, sophomore, in her history class, they learned

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TULIP. They were learning about Puritans and the Mencken quote was given about Puritans.

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They were bugged that somebody in the world is having fun at the moment. That quote, I think a

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Nathaniel Hawthorne quote, and then TULIP, what did they believe? And so I said, Maddie, did you remember that?

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And so she pretty much had it down. I said, here's the easy way to remember TULIP. I mean, you've got the acrostic already, the

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T, Total Depravity, all that. But I said, just start off with the fall of man.

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So you go all the way back to Genesis three, and it's Total Depravity. That just means not utter depravity, not man is as bad as he could be because of the fall, but he is wholly,

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W -H, which helps us figure out the will as well. And is the will affected?

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He is wholly depraved. That is in every nook and cranny, in every crevice, mind, soul, body, will, emotions, conscience, disposition, whatever we are made up of, it is wholly depraved.

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All, total. It doesn't mean we're all Hitlers. I mean, we all don't have armies.

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Our hearts are as bad, but we just don't have armies. And, you know, the

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Verma, Vermacht, Vermacht. I don't know how to say these words, but I could read them if I see them, call them like I see them.

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Yeah, hello. So anyway, I said, just start off there.

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So start off with man, and then God's gonna have to do something to get to heaven. God's got to do something.

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And then I said, think of the Trinity. Think of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So the Father elects, that's unconditional election.

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That's the you. And then the Son goes and dies for the same that the Father has elected. So that's the

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L. Everyone limits the atonement. Do you limit the effect? Jesus dies for people.

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They don't go to heaven. Or do you limit the scope? Jesus dies for the elect and not the non -elect.

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So you think of the Trinity. That's the Father of the elects. And the Son dies for, atones.

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And then the Spirit, what does He do? Well, He effectually calls is the best way to put it.

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But for the acronym, it's irresistible grace. You can resist the Holy Spirit often and regularly.

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You see that in scripture. You've seen it in your own life until you got saved. But when the Holy Spirit sovereignly decides to regenerate you and to quicken you, you will respond.

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You have to because you're given a new nature. And now that new nature wants to love Jesus as that old nature wanted to hate

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Jesus. So you start off with man back in the fall. He's depraved. Can he get to heaven? No. So it has to be a sovereign work of God initiated by Him.

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Unconditional election from the Father. That's Ephesians 1, 4 -6. The Son redeems.

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He atones. That's a limited atonement. That is Ephesians 1, 7 -12.

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And then the Spirit of God calls. He graces you.

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Ephesians language in verses 13 and 14 of chapter one talks about sealing. But it's the Holy Spirit's work.

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So we start off with man. Then we talk about the triune God. And then once God does that work, then humans do persevere.

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Now I would rather call total depravity, whole depravity or radical corruption.

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I think R .C. Sproul calls it. Unconditional election. I like a lot because that's exactly what it was.

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It's not conditioned on pre -seen faith, foreknown faith. It's not conditioned on bloodline genealogy,

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Jew, Gentile. It's God's sovereign pleasure. Picks Abraham, doesn't pick any of the other moon worshipers.

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He picks the 12 apostles. He doesn't pick the others. A man and woman go to an orphanage and they pick two babies out to adopt and not the others.

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It's just the good pleasure of that person's adoption. Lavished grace, Ephesians 1. And then the

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Holy Spirit, of course, would regenerate and quicken those that the father chose and the son died for, right?

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In this prearranged marriage, you have the father choosing the bride for the son, the son going to redeem that bride.

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And then the bride responds by the work of the Holy Spirit. And then they do, in fact, persevere.

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So preservation of the saints is better because God perseveres, but God preserves.

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But man does persevere. And you could also probably call it, let's see, preservation of the saints, preservation by God, perseverance of the saints.

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I don't prefer to call it eternal security. Although we have security, that's eternal. That's Ephesians 4 .30.

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The seal of the spirit, or Ephesians 1 .13 and 14. You can't jump out of the father's hand if you're a created being, no created thing can do that.

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And nothing can separate you from the love of God and Christ Jesus of God, Savior. You can't unsave yourself.

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There are people that believe, they say they believe. It's a false belief. It's a John 6 .66

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belief. It's a faker belief. It's a non -saving belief. It's a intellectual and or emotional belief only, but without volition.

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So anyway, my daughter learned about tulip in school. So how about that? Tulip in school at the public school.

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So there's my little tulip for you. All right. So we're talking about responsibility and sovereignty and how they go together.

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And we need not be afraid, ashamed, embarrassed. It's not really an antinomy.

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I think J .A. Packer calls it that. I think they're complimentary truths. That would be more

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D .A. Carson's way to explain it. These are both undeniable truths.

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They are both truths that, how do they, they are reconcilable in the mind of God, the creator, all wise one.

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But in our minds, that's hard to get there. It's hard to figure out how two parallel lines meet in heaven.

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You know, it's that kind of thing. So what do we end up doing? Well, we just affirm both.

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Now, as people begin to deal with this, how can both be true? We looked at Genesis chapter 20 last week and Acts chapter two, sovereignty, human responsibility, both true and just, you know, within two verses of each other.

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We looked at how God can change the will of the most powerful man on the earth.

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In those days, a king. But eventually you've got to say to yourself, okay,

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God's sovereign. What about sin? How did sin enter?

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I mean, it's easier if you just say man's got free will so that's how it entered. But since man's will is in bondage, that is the unbelieving person's will's in bondage, then how?

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Now it seems like we're in a sticky wicket because if we can just blame free will, poor old free will just takes a beating all the time.

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Let's just blame free will. As I've said before, you're supposed to read the book of Mormon and see if you have a burning in your bosom to see if it's true or not when they take

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James one five out of context. Whenever I read it, I get freeze brain. That's what

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I get. Hey, if you want funny, listen to free will. Okay, that's all

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I have to say. It was fun hosting Reggie Radio a while back. I looked at their Facebook page and I host several times a year and I always wonder if I'm going to be able to host again.

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So I was supposed to host a couple times this summer, three or four days maybe even, but I did not have access to a radio studio and I was on a vacay.

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I was on holiday. I don't want a holiday in the sun, right?

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I want a holiday in the redwoods. That's what I want with the carbon fiber.

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So I looked at the website. Last time I hosted, they had about 31 ,000 likes,

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Facebook likes. I know you can have no more than 100 friends in your real life, but they had a 31 ,000.

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I remember earlier in the year last year when it was at 29 ,995 and I said, come on everybody, let's get your like machines going.

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I know someone who buys likes just for self -esteem. You can do that, you know?

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I didn't know that. I didn't know you can buy likes and stuff like that. I think it's a dollar a like.

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Now, maybe that's what Freo did because when I got on the website to prepare for my show several weeks ago, truth be told, tomorrow

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I actually record it. 41 ,000 likes. I can only explain that one particular way.

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You know, lots of excuses people have, lots of rationale, lots of apologetical methodologies to figure things out.

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Taxonomical charts, classifications, Latin words. I think we got those extra 11 ,000 likes because I was on last time.

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I was the host. I'm pretty sure.

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So here's what's going to happen. I think according to that email that it was kind of illegible, stolen from my iCloud, that if I don't increase ratings to 51 ,000 because of the show that I do tomorrow, which played a few weeks ago, how does that work?

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I'm probably not going to get asked again. So what do we do with the problem of sin?

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Can't blame it on free will. Where'd it come from? Now, we're realists, so it exists, right?

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Have to admit it. Don't want to. We want to be Christian scientists, just like Grape -Nuts, not

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Grape -Nut -Nuts, just like Christian science, not Christian, not science, and say that it's ephemeral.

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It is a figment of the imagination.

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It is not really true. They have all kinds of weird ways. I forgot the latest nomenclature. See, there's that word again.

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Nomenclature. Why does sin exist?

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And then, of course, you start asking questions like this now, don't you? Is God the author of sin?

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I mean, if he's sovereign over everything, he decrees everything, he caused everything, he ordained everything, he doesn't merely permit things, he's in charge, he's a king, he's a ruler, he's sovereign.

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Now, wait a second. Then our minds started going crazy because I thought sin was against what

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God wanted. How can he author something that is against what he wants?

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I don't think he tempted us with sin. I thought that was true according to James 1. It doesn't tempt people.

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Does God actually create things? Does he create things like a sin? Does God ordain ungodliness?

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Does he decree unholiness? Now, right away, you better start saying to yourself, you got a problem no matter what philosophical theodicy drives you.

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And you're going to have problems. And remember last time we're sinful, still tainted by sin in our minds, and we're finite.

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There's no way we can explain it all. How can you use pure reason, pure logic, utter rationale, and deal with it?

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I mean, at the core, I think sin is illogical. Sin is unrational. Sin is unreasonable.

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Sin is ungodly. Sin is evil. The sinfulness of sin. So you can start doing things like this.

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Here's what I suggest. Let's grab what we do know and hold onto those truths tightly.

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So anytime you have a problem in life, today, it's a theological problem. Let's go with what we know first.

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We're trying to find out things we don't know. How do we get there? Let's go with what we know first. And so you do that with other issues that aren't theological as well.

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But for this problem of sin, what are we going to do about the problem of Maria?

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Right? What are we going to do about sin? God's holy, true or false. He's the Holy One of Israel, right?

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You don't have to read Isaiah very far to figure out that He's the Holy One of Israel.

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Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. We know is, we know secondly, that God is omnipotent.

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He is all powerful. He is strong. He's an autocrat. He has powers.

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He is the Lord. And sin still exists. So those three truths, put them all together in a pan and stir them around, try to figure out how to harmonize those three, you're going to have a problem.

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So if you take two of those three, remember, holiness of God, omnipotence of God, sin is around, it exists.

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Take two, and it seems like we've got to negate the third.

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It seems like it takes away the third. So if you take away, if you say God's holy and omnipotent, how does sin come about?

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If you take God's omnipotent and sin exists, then maybe He's not holy. If you take God's holy and sin exists, then

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He's holy, He's undefiled, but sins around, He doesn't really have the power to do anything about it.

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Sins around, God's holy, God is omnipotent. So what do we do?

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We go with what we know. Job 34 .10, therefore, listen to me, you men of understanding, far be it from God to do wickedness and from the

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Almighty to do wrong. Genesis 18 .25, far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike.

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Far be it from you, shall not the judge of all the earth do justly? Deuteronomy 32 .4,

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the rock, his work is perfect for all his ways are just, a God of faithfulness and without injustice. Righteous and upright is

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He. Job 34 .12, surely God will not act wickedly and the Almighty will not pervert justice.

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1 John 2 .16, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the

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Father, but is from the world. James 1 .13, let no one say when he is tempted,

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I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil and He Himself, emphatically,

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He Himself, forget just say, and He does not tempt anyone. And this is the message we have heard from Him, 1

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John 1 .5, and announce to you that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.

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God is holy. God is just. God is righteous.

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Calvin, and whence, I ask you, comes the stench of a corpse, which is both putrefied and laid open by the heat of the sun?

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All men see that it is stirred up by the sun's rays, yet no one, for this reason, says that the rays stink.

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What reason is there to think that God contracts any defilement if He uses

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His service for His own purpose? So Calvin's preempting our thinking.

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So God can use sin. God does use sin. Now, I'm going to run out of time, so you just have to always think ahead of time.

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Go with what you know and then think of the cross. God's holy. God's omnipotent. Sin exists.

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But go to the cross because the worst sin of all time has been ordained by God. That's what it says in Acts chapter 2.

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That's what it says in Acts chapter 4. And yet these men are responsible, and yet God turns the worst sin ever into something that's the most magnificent.

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That's the central point of worship in heaven, the risen lamb that was slain, right?

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The lamb standing as of slain, Revelation chapter 5. What you can't do as we try to talk about reconciling responsibility and sovereignty, at least to some degree, you can't say

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God made sin. God made man upright, Ecclesiastes says.

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God didn't make man a sinner. God didn't make Satan a sinner. They were made true or false. Holy. They were made holy,

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H -O -L -Y. I think there'd be a lot of blame to go around if they were created broken, created sinful, created unholy, right?

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Now let's think about ordination. How does God ordain a sin and stay clean from it?

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Why does he decree sin to exist? Well, dualism says something like this.

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I think this is a quote from an author. When people blame all the good on God and all the bad on the devil, they're guilty of the ancient heresy called dualism.

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Dualism basically sees God and the devil as two independent and sovereign powers struggling for ultimate control of the world.

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Why do sincere Christians believe this? It is probably because they were trying to protect

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God. Young nurse who worded in the, who is, well,

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I'm going to do that one later. Mike Cavendroth, No Compromise Radio. It's too long of a thing. God is the first cause of all things.

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From him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory forever.

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Nothing exists without God's decree and for ordination, friends, and that includes sin.

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God decreed sin for his own glory. Just look to the cross. I dare you to read Acts 2.

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I dare you to read Acts 4. It is just the truth. And once you start getting your mind wrapped around that, those verses, it'll be helpful.

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You can write me at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Mike at nocompromiseradio .com. Get fed online.

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You can check it out there coming up in October. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.