Quiz on Justification

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the
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Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�
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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.
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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the
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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.
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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and this is show number three for me today,
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March 10th, but I don�t know when this will play. Who knows when this will play? The Ides of March, maybe?
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or I think you get that on Mondays here on No Compromise Radio. I think the plan, folks, is going to be
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So how does that work? I need to start doing the R. Scott Clark, you know, in the coffer, you know, clings, bandwidth springs, whatever he says.
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I�m talking about practice. I finally saw that Alan Iverson clip the other day that he uses.
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So that�s kind of the scoop between the sabbatical, between the health issues and everything else.
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I�m just not going to be here and having the microphone. I could probably record some shows from the computer.
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I could probably do that or in Europe or in California. But I think we�ll be just fine and then sometime later.
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And again, what�s the worst that can happen? The listenership goes down. The giving goes down.
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But I think the shows will stand the test of time because we�re talking about biblical things in a provocative manner. So here we go.
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Justification by faith. Terry sent me this a while ago and he keeps bugging me about it.
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Saw him at the Shepherd�s Conference as well, Mr. Flood himself. Justification by faith, the merits of Christ or the merits of me by Don Kistler.
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Now, I usually see Don Kistler at the Shepherd�s Conference and did in fact see him this year. I usually go talk to him, but I didn�t talk to him this year.
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There were too many people surrounding me for autographs and pictures and so it was very difficult for me to like �
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I wanted one of those like bodyguards, you know, that Mark Dever got or something that Steve Lawson got. Out of the speakers at the
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Shepherd�s Conference, I think I only talked � I talked to Steve Nichols and I talked to Mark Dever just for a minute.
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I think that�s about it. Oh, Phil Johnson. Phil. Phil, are you listening? All right.
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So, there�s seven questions. No, no, sorry, flipped it over.
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Thirteen, and it says Mark A or B, whichever you think is correct, justification by faith, merits of Christ or the merits of me.
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Now, it�s 500 -year anniversary of the Fittenberg 95 thesis on the door,
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Luther nailing, Sola Fide. But there�s a lot of talk about faithfulness, second, you know, final justification, love, works.
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Of course, you�re saved by faith alone, right? You�re trusting in the finished work of Christ alone and that faith doesn�t stay alone.
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I mean, we can talk about sanctification. If you want to talk about Belgic 23 runs into 24, then of course, we�re not antinomian.
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But I�m trying to tell you that we have to believe in Sola Fide and all these modern
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Richard Baxter, Norman Shepard type attacks aren�t helpful.
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Federal vision stuff isn�t helpful. So this is going to work out well for the show. Number one, you have two options.
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Here�s A and then I�ll give you B. Option A, God gives a man right standing with himself by mercifully accounting him innocent and virtuous.
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That�s the first option. What do you think? Do we even need to read the second part? Second option,
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God gives a man right standing with himself by actually making him into an innocent and virtuous person.
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What we have to do is we have to think justification, courtroom, reckoning, imputing, counting, crediting, legal, opposite of condemnation, gavel.
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Did I say courtroom? Did I say legal? Did I say alien righteousness?
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You�re Roman Catholic if you pick number two or you�re like a modern -day evangelical. The correct is the first one,
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A, God gives a man right standing with himself by mercifully accounting him innocent and virtuous, of course, based on the work of Christ Jesus.
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If you remember our last show, Christ our Substitute by Robert Dabney.
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Number two, which one�s right? Here�s the first one, A, God gives a man right standing with himself by placing
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Christ�s goodness and virtue to his credit. B, God gives a man right standing with himself by putting
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Christ�s goodness and virtue into his heart. Since Jesus came into my heart, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
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Since Jesus came into my heart. I don�t think that�s the right tune, though. It�s hard to sing with the glasses in your mouth.
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Obviously, A, God gives a man right standing with himself by placing
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Christ�s goodness and virtue to his credit. That�s Romans 4, right? That�s Genesis 15.
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That is the Joshua by faith. Faith has an object in Christ Jesus, and we get this credit to our account.
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Number three, so far so good. Justification by faith. God accepts, this is
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A, God accepts the believer because of the moral excellence found in Jesus Christ. B, God makes the believer acceptable by infusing
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Christ�s moral excellence into his life. Obviously, A, because we�re not
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Roman Catholic. But you see what happens when it comes to modern -day evangelicalism.
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I think we fall into the same category errors of the Roman Catholics when it comes to mysticism, right?
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Catholics believe in primus scriptura, scripture at front, but then there are other things, same thing with mystics, charismatics, where they have scripture up front, but then they also believe in these additional revelations.
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The same thing happens here when we have the blurring between sanctification and justification, and it just goes back to Rome.
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It doesn�t take you very long to figure that out. That�s why it�s important to read some of the creeds that were dealing with these issues for many, many years.
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Justification by faith, the merits of Christ are the merits of me, Don Kistler. Number four, we have an
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A and B here again. Which one�s the best? A, if the sinner accepts right -standing with God by faith, he then will experience transformation in character.
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B, if a sinner becomes born again, i .e., regenerate, transform in character, he has right -standing with God.
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Now, I don�t know if, in fact, Don�s after which comes first, regeneration or faith.
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Of course, we know regeneration comes first because dead men don�t believe, can�t believe.
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In and of themselves. If the sinner accepts right -standing with God by faith, he will then experience transformation in character versus transformation with the right standing.
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So, number five, we receive right -standing with God by faith alone.
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We receive right -standing with God by faith which has become active by love.
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See where this is going with the Baxter -Shepard stuff, final justification stuff?
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See where that�s going? Obviously, it�s by faith alone. Number six, we achieve right -standing with God by accepting the fact that he has obeyed the law perfectly for us.
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B, we achieve right -standing with God by Christ living out his life of obedience in us.
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Yeah, see how that works? You see how that works? Obviously, A.
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So far, aren�t these all As? Now, on my phone, I have a variety of apps, and one of my favorite apps is the app that has the confessions.
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So, I�ve got here on this little app, Scott�s Confession of Faith, Second Helvetic Confession, 39
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Articles, Savoy Declaration, London Baptist 1689, Philadelphia Confession of Faith, Athanasian Creed, Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dort, Westminster Confession of Faith, Larger Catechism, Shorter Catechism, Nicene Creed, Apostles� Creed.
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So, when I click on Belgic Confession, and I go to Contents, and I want to get down to number 23.
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Let me read this for you. We believe that our blessedness lies in the forgiveness of our sins because of Jesus Christ and that in it our righteousness before God is contained.
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As Paul and David teach us when they declare that man blessed to whom
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God grants righteousness apart from works. And the same
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Apostle says that we are justified freely or by grace through redemption in Christ Jesus. Therefore, we cling to this foundation, which is firm forever, giving all glory to God, humbling ourselves and recognizing ourselves as we are, not claiming a thing for ourselves on our merits, and leaning and resting on the sole obedience of Christ crucified, which is ours when we believe in Him.
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That is enough to cover all our sins and to make us confident, freeing the conscience from the fear, dread, and terror of God�s approach, without doing what our first father,
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Adam, did, who trembled as he tried to cover himself with fig leaves. In fact, if we had to appear before God, relying no matter how little on ourselves or some other creature, then alas, we would be swallowed up.
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Therefore, everyone must say with David, Lord, do not enter into judgment with your servants, for before you no living person shall be justified.
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Then 24 talks about sanctification. See, they�re different, but they�re maybe, can
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I say, related? We�ve got to keep them separate. You don�t want to have any sanctification stuff with us slipping into justification.
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That�s the problem. We believe, Belgic Confession 24, that this true faith, produced in man by the hearing of God�s word and by the work of the
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Holy Spirit, regenerates him and makes him a new man, causing him to live the new life and freeing him from the slavery of sin.
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Therefore, far from making people cold toward living in a pious and holy way, this justifying faith, quite to the contrary, so works within them that apart from it they will never do a thing out of love for God, but only out of love for themselves in fear of being condemned.
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So then, it is impossible for this holy faith to be unfruitful in a human being, seeing that we do not speak of empty faith, but of what
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Scripture calls faith working through love. You see, this isn�t the justification side.
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We�re talking about sanctification. That�s the key, which leads a man to do by himself the works that God has commanded in His word.
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These works proceeding from the good root of faith, mixed with, confused with, are good and acceptable to God since they are all sanctified by His grace, yet they do not count toward our justification.
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Listen, listen, listen, listen. That�s not in the statement of faith, but that�s just me.
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For by faith in Christ we are justified, even before we do good works. Otherwise, they could not be good any more than the fruit of a tree could be good if the tree is not good in the first place.
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So then, we do good works, but nor for merit, for what would we merit?
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Rather, we are indebted to God for the good works we do, and not He to us, since it is He who works in us, both to work and to do according to His good pleasure.
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Thus, keeping in mind what is written, when you have done all that is commanded you, then you shall say, �We are unworthy servants.
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We have done what was our duty to do.� 24 continues, �Yet we do not wish to deny that God rewards good works, but it is by His grace that He crowns
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His gifts. Moreover, although we do good works, we do not base our salvation on them, for we cannot do any work that is not defiled by our flesh and also worthy of punishment.
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And even if we could point to one, memory of a single sin is enough for God to reject that work.
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So we would always be in doubt, tossed back and forth without any certainty, and our poor consciences would be tormented constantly if they did not rest on the merit of the suffering and death of our
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Savior.� Belgian Confession 24. My name is
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Mike Abendroth with No Compromise Radio Ministry. We're here to try to get you to think biblically.
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A production coming to you from NoCo Media. It's a massive media empire. Justification by faith, merits of Christ or merits of me,
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Don Kistler. We're trying to keep sanctification and justification in their right categories and not equate or conflate or inflate.
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Seven, we follow Christ's example because his life has given us right standing with God. B, we achieve right standing with God by following Christ's example by the help of his enabling grace.
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Obviously, all these are A, and this one's A as well. It's fascinating. I remember the story of S.
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Lewis Johnson talking to someone or quoting someone. There's a man that said, you know, Jesus is the perfect example.
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I don't want him as a substitute. I just take him as an example of love, an example of how to treat people.
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Well, do you treat people exactly as the example does? Your example, Jesus, do you act like he does?
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Well, no, I fall short. Well, then you need him as more than an example. You need him as substitute. See how that works?
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For your liberal friends, keep pushing. Number eight, God first pronounces that we are good in his sight, then gives us his spirit to make us good.
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B, God sends his spirit to make us good, and then he will pronounce that we are good. Obviously, A.
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Obviously, A. Number nine, I was thinking to myself, do
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I say more? Because here's the thing. If you're a radio host like I am, you have 13 questions, and I'm at 18 and a half minutes or so, 18 .08
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exactly right now. I've got 24 .30 to do the show. I've got to piecemeal this stuff out.
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Number nine, Christ's intercession at God's right hand gives us favor in the sight of God. B, it is the indwelling
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Christ that gives us favor in God's sight. So here's what's happening. Can you kind of see the flow of all this, the emphasis?
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When you go to the inside and seek things on the inside, as a pietist would do, we've got a lot of trouble on our hands,
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Pilgrim, but we have to go outside of ourselves. That's the issue.
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We go outside of ourself. Was it not John Bunyan, the man who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, in the 1700s, he said, my righteousness is at the right hand of God for 1700 years.
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That's pretty good. That's pretty good. That reminds me, I think Lawson was talking about at the
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Shepherd's Conference at Whitfield, discussing Jesus's view of Zacchaeus in the tree.
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He was going to see Zacchaeus because he's seen him before eternity passed. How would he not know him now?
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That was pretty good. Number 10, only by faith in doing and dying of Christ can we fully satisfy the claims of the
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Ten Commandments. By the power of the Holy Spirit living in us, we can fully satisfy the claims of the
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Ten Commandments. Again, you see the internal versus external component and where Don is trying to make sure you don't dwell internally, pietistically, but you think more biblically.
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Number 11, we are justified because of what Christ did on the cross. B, we are justified because of what Christ has done in our hearts.
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See, he just keeps going over and over and over and over the same thing so we make sure we understand this is why, this is the hinge, this is the standing or falling of the
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Church of justification. But when you see the Roman Catholics try to morph the two together, justification and sanctification, holy standing before God and holy living, you're going to see the problem.
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Because really, I mean, if we're the judge of our holy living, we might think we did a pretty good job. But standing before God, well, we're going to need an intercessor.
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We're going to need a mediator. We're going to need the Lord Jesus. 12, once you are saved,
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God alters his standards since Jesus paid it all, true or false. Where did this one come from?
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Don, why do they have 13 questions? We just had to add that extra one there. 13,
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God accepts us just the way we are because of what Christ did, true or false.
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I love you just the way you are. Such a bad song.
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How do you make a bad song worse? By having Abendroth sing it. Those 70 to 80 songs were just awful.
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Awful can awful. Um, what was I just going to say? I had something salient to say about this, relevant.
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He accepts us. Oh, I think it was R .C. Sproul that said it at the Ligonier Conference.
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I saw it on Twitter. Maybe Jill tweeted it. Why does, if God, I think it was
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R .C. Sproul, yeah. If God loves everybody unconditionally, why does he call anybody to repentance?
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It's just, it's just the sticky wicket of consistency in our theology.
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So that was Don Kistler. I should have talked to Don. I like Don.
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And I think the story that I love the most of Don Kistler was how he was preaching and somebody thought it was too long a sermon for him.
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And Don said, well, that's exactly right. I don't preach for you. I preach for the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm quite sure after 45 minutes, he's not bored hearing his word.
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That's my favorite story. But I also, this is more personal story, but at the
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Shepherd's Conference, you get some gift certificates. It used to be $50. I think it's $40 now.
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And you spend it at the bookstore and you can buy jackets, books, fountain pens, whatever you want.
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And I saw Don, and you don't get anything like, it's not a card. So you don't have a balance.
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You either spend it all or you lose it. You buy a dollar book. Here's your $40 worth of stuff.
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I think they're $2 .20. So you'd lose the $19. So Don was in line at the bookshack checking out and so was
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I. And I just finished my transaction. Oh, hey, Don, all that. What do you got there? And so he had $40 of gift certificates and it came to like $33.
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And I said, oh, you know, there's another book that you should read that'll probably fill in the blank. And I picked up one of my books and gave it to him.
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And he goes, oh, you know, I don't know this. I said, oh, yeah, I really like it. And I said, it's my book. And then they added it to his $33.
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And his gift certificates were for $40. And I pushed him up to like $44. So he had to get $4 out to buy the book.
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I'm quite certain he hasn't read that book yet, but that's okay. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio.
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You can write us, NoCompromiseRadio, info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. We'd love to have you go to Europe with us.
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No Compromise does have a video channel there, YouTube, the No Compromise Channel, 150 videos or so Ben is helping me put together.
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We've also got the TV show with Brandon House. If you go to Worldview Weekend and pull up No Compromise TV, you can watch the
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TV shows playing, I think, on a Milwaukee channel, matter of fact, for the Book of Romans.
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And of course, you can order books too at Amazon or No Compromise Radio. And we're trying to talk about the
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Lord Jesus and talk about His Word. And that's about it. 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.