Eternal Assurance

No Compromise Radio

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Ebendroth. Sometimes we say we're duplex gratia radio, double benefit.

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That is to say Christ for pardon, justification and Christ for power. Either way, we like to talk about the

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Lord Jesus. The show started 16, 17 years ago and it was pretty much a discernment ministry, discernment, discernment ministry.

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And we had a better ratings back in those days. We had more followers, better donations.

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Reminds me always the Creflo Dollar, what's his favorite nation in the world? Donation. Anyway, No Compromise means we're gonna talk about the one that never compromised,

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Lord Jesus. So it is a Christ -centered show. We hope you're encouraged. In the old days,

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I think my style was more afflict the comfortable and hopefully the style these days and the emphasis is to comfort the afflicted.

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Both happen in scripture, of course, but my goal really is to talk about Jesus and for Christians that will encourage you.

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He will encourage you, right? You can get ahold of me, mikeatnocompromiseradio .com.

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We're working on the website. There's a new church website, bbchurch .org. And we're working on the search engine and uploading videos and audio and all that.

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And then we'll work on the website for the radio show, nocompromiseradio .com.

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Obviously you would know about the YouTube channel if you're watching. If you're just listening, we have a YouTube channel,

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No Compromise Radio and our old channel, we lost somehow and now the new one's up.

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So I'm thankful for Mario and his help. Send it to your friends, click like, do whatever. Today, I want to talk about comfort.

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Led into it earlier, but I want to talk about comfort. And when I thought of comfort today, of course, in Christ Jesus and in scripture and in security and having assurance,

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I thought about comfort foods. So I don't know what kind of food you eat when you need comfort.

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These days, especially after vacation, I am restricting what

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I'm eating because I ate whatever I wanted to on vacation. And so now it's keto, carnivore, that kind of thing.

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And so as I read some of these comfort foods, I'm sure my stomach's gonna start growling because this is really tempting.

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On the list that I found online for comfort foods, at the top of the list was mac and cheese.

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Can you imagine cheesy, comforting, creamy? That would be right at the top of the list.

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Some say that their favorite comfort food is fried chicken. I don't know about that, but KFC is always good.

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Chocolate chip cookies. Can you imagine a sweet, gooey, smells good?

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That's a pretty good comfort food. I didn't know this was on the list. Meatloaf, according to this list.

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I don't know how that could be on the list. Chicken pot pie, maybe, you know, creamy, savory.

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That might be a good comfort food. Apple pie, you're thinking about growing up.

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Maybe that's a good comfort food. Who knows? This last one here, lasagna.

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I don't know about that. Mario, what's your favorite comfort food? Chinese. Chinese. Okay.

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Well, today we're going to talk about comforting Bible verses. If you had to encourage someone in the hospital or they're sick or they've gone through a trial and you brought a few comfort verses in to the hospital or to your friend's office or, you know, their home, what would your comfort verse be for them?

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What is it for you? Now, there's all kinds of verses that give great comfort. When I was in the hospital thinking

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I might die from COVID in their 16 days, Luke, my son, gave me a little three -by -five card with a comfort verse from Hebrews 13.

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And I have that little note to this day. And it says, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

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Very comforting. Maybe your comfort verse is, for God so loved the world, He gave

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His only begotten Son. You think, oh, that comforts me. Maybe it's Psalm 23, right?

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The Lord is my shepherd. Out of everything in the world, I don't lack anything. He's my all in all.

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But today, the comfort verse that I wanna talk about is Romans chapter eight, verse one.

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There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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What a comforting verse. No condemnation. Out of all the verses in the Bible, that seems to come up in my mind more often than not when

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I need comfort. And what happens is I sin, even as a Christian, you sin.

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And if we're not careful, we think our holy living, our daily living, lives that we live in light of God's sanctifying work, we think that somehow is our standing before God.

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We confuse justification and sanctification. Justification is declaration of you're not guilty.

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You are righteous in the eyes of God because of Christ's righteousness given to your account.

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You're credited, imputed, reckoned, and then our sin credited to his account.

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That's justification. That's standing before God. That's courtroom language. And then language of sanctification is holy living and obedience and killing sin and living for God righteously.

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Sometimes we confuse the two. So when we sin, we think our standing before God changes.

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And so we need to be reminded that our standing never changes. And of course, that will lead us to repentance and holy living and say no to sin.

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But Romans 8, 1, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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Comforting, but also maybe dangerous because certainly there are people that are going to say, you know what, if you camp there too long, if you settle into Romans 8 too long, maybe that might lead you into sin.

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Maybe you might take advantage of God's grace. Maybe you'll say, well, you know what? Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.

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And I like to sin, God likes to forgive. And it's a good match. You could do that, but you shouldn't do that.

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Romans 8, 1, not just comforting, but sometimes dangerous. So today on the show,

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I'd like to talk about Romans chapter 8, verse 1, and talk about security, talk about assurance, talk about why this is comforting.

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It almost leads me to other verses. Probably in your mind, you're thinking the same thing. The son of God loved me and gave himself for me,

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Galatians chapter 2, verse 20. What I'd like to do is walk through Romans chapter 8 a little bit, and then talk about assurance and comfort.

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That's the plan for today. Don't forget, you can go to Amazon if you want to pick up the new book,

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King, How the Sovereignty of God Changes Everything. There's Law, Gospel, a Primer.

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There's a few other things that I'm working on. And so are we ready? I think we're ready.

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I feel like I should get down in a three -point stance or a four -point stance for football. In the old days,

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I would do that when I would teach kids or whatever, and then. But now

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I can't get up. If I get down in a stance, how can you get up? I don't think

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I'm really that old. I'm 65 and I've had some health problems, but I don't really feel that old.

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I mean, I'll go ride a bike or go to the gym or this, that, and the other. But I feel old, Mario, when I get, like I drop something and I have to get down.

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And I'm like, how can, I can't even get down on my knees. I can't get down on all fours and get back up, grandpa.

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I also feel old if I go to the theme park, the amusement park, a Six Flags type of thing. I was there this summer with my grandchildren and grandpa doesn't do roller coasters.

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When I was a kid, I kept thinking, why does my grandpa not wanna go on a roller coaster with me? I now know the answer.

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Because A, it's gonna throw my neck out. B, it'll throw my back out. C, I'll be dizzy for two days.

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No condemnation. Let me read a version of Romans 8 that's not true.

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And it'll make you glad that it's not true. There's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but there might be condemnation later.

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Aren't you glad that's not true? What about this? There's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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So sin as you please. Doesn't say that either. It says there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

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Right now. Know what he's talking about? It's as if Paul were saying, you know what?

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Think about judgment day. Think about that day when the Lord returns, or you die and you stand before God.

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You meet God face to face. Well, without a mediator, without an advocate, without a savior, without someone to forgive your sins, here's what

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Hebrew says. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of a living

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God. Can you imagine? Can you imagine like the nuclear reaction, holiness of God and sin?

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What a day that would be. People are thinking, you know, on their deathbed, you know, he's, he the unbeliever, she the unbeliever.

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We just want their suffering to stop. And of course we would want the human suffering to stop.

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We don't want human suffering. But without Jesus, without being in Christ Jesus, it says right here, for those who are in Christ Jesus, that is by faith and by faith alone, a faith that has knowledge, assent or agreement and trust, trusting in who

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Jesus is, right? The just shall live by faith, but the people are justified by faith, through faith.

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And everything is taking God at his word, looking to the Lord Jesus saying, you know, I trust your person.

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I trust your promises. And you say that if I look to you by faith, I will live. As Moses sets the serpent up in the wilderness, and if you look to that serpent,

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God says, you are gonna be saved. You are gonna be physically saved. And so too, when Jesus is lifted up off the earth, crucifixion, if you look to him by faith and by faith alone, you'll be forgiven.

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You'll be saved. You don't have to pay for any of your sins. And so when you stand before God as an unbeliever, your sins haven't been paid for.

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They haven't been credited to Christ's account. So you have to pay for them yourselves. What a day that would be.

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To think there's going to be relief, to think you're not going to suffer and then stand in the presence of God and then have condemnation.

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For those who are not in Christ Jesus, there is condemnation. Condemned forever is what the

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Bible teaches. Jesus, our Savior, the loving Savior, talked about hell more than anyone else, more than Paul, more than Ezekiel, more than John the

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Baptist. This is a real thing. And when I think about condemnation, really what he's saying is, it's the opposite of justification.

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You're either justified or you're condemned. And here he says, you are not condemned.

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There is therefore now justification to those in Christ Jesus. That's how theologian

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J .V. Fesco talks about it. There's no condemnation. That is, there's justification. You stand before God, cleansed, washed, righteous.

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That's the idea of the whole book of Romans. I mean, we're looking at Romans 8, 1 right now, but if you just back up and say, what's

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Romans all about? It's about one word, righteousness, doing the right thing.

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And chapters one, two, and the first part of chapter three, Paul is letting everyone know no one's right.

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And then he says in the end of chapter three, and he talks about it in chapter four and five, you get to be right because Jesus perfectly obeyed and he did the right thing.

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And he, as a representative, as a federal head, as a public person, as the last

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Adam, what he does is credited to all those that are in him. And so Paul says there's no condemnation.

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And by the way, this chapter, chapter eight, is all about the security of believers. It starts off with security and ends with security.

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That is in Romans chapter eight. How about this? As it starts in 8, 1, no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

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Here's how it ends. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our

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Lord. No condemnation, no separation. For those 8, 1 in Christ Jesus, for those 8, 39 in Christ Jesus, our

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Lord. And once again, just to be clear, you get in to Christ Jesus.

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You have union with Christ by faith, not by works. I mean, we're tempted to do things, earn things, try to do things on our own.

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I mean, man's religion is essentially, I do things to please God. It's a transactional thing.

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If I do this, then God does that. If I obey, He's letting me in.

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If I disobey, I'm not. But this is not a transactional thing. This is grace.

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This is grace alone. This is God works. God is the initiator. God is the savior.

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Why do we call Jesus the savior? Because He's the one that saves. We don't save ourselves. If we wanna talk about different words, self -salvation, auto -soterism, auto -self, like automobile, you drive yourself, auto -salvation, we save ourselves.

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We don't save ourselves. If we could save ourselves, why send Jesus to be punished? Why would

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Jesus humble Himself and take on flesh and die?

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Why would He do that? Why would He just say, you know what? Do better, be better. Here, no condemnation, no separation.

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And so we have a security. We have assurance. In this verse,

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Romans 8, 1, in the Greek, you know how pastors like, in the Greek, it means this. Sometimes that's valuable.

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And by the way, this is my show. I do what I want. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about the Greek. The word no, there's no condemnation.

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The word no in the Greek is emphasized. And so what happens is for me, if I wanna emphasize things,

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I mean, here are my notes and I've got a red line. I've got a yellow for highlighting.

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They didn't highlight things back in those days when they were writing, whether it was the Bible or anything else. So what you would do instead is you could say things like three times, holy, holy, holy.

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That would emphasize the holiness of God in Isaiah 6. You could emphasize things by rearranging the sentence and putting certain words up front or ending with certain words.

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And you think, oh, that's how emphasis is shown. And that's exactly what is happening here.

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By the way, it's not a simple negative. It's a strong negative. And it's at the beginning of the sentence, front loaded, no condemnation.

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I mean, English doesn't show that, but the Greek does. I even have here, Mario, it's interesting in my notes, that this is an impossible thing to be condemned.

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And then I don't know why I wrote this in here, but it says a vernacular would be no way, Jose. No way,

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Escobar. This is not a possibility. A penalty has been paid.

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There's no double jeopardy with God. Jesus pays for your sins and now you pay for your sins. This makes no sense.

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If Jesus paid it all, if Jesus said it is finished, then what would we have to pay for?

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And you say, well, he paid for my sins in the past. He paid for my sins now, but what about future sins? Well, according to Ephesians two, according to Colossians two, every sin has been paid for past, present, and future.

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When Jesus dies for your sins, he dies for your sins and his mission accomplished.

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And how do we know that? Because the father raises him from the dead. The son raises himself from the dead. The spirit raises him from the dead.

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God is risen from the grave. You say, well, it says no condemnation, but I don't really feel like it.

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Well, when you sin as a Christian, your conscience gets you and you say, well, I don't like that.

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I don't feel good with that. That's actually a present from God, a gift from God that you have a conscience.

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I mean, if you think about it, you have nerves on your fingers and if you touch the hot stove, ow, is that bad to have nerves in your fingers?

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I mean, what would you do if you didn't? You wouldn't recognize pain. And so here the Lord gives us a conscience. And so even if you don't feel forgiven,

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Christian, you're forgiven. Past sins, no condemnation, paid for. Present sins, no condemnation, paid for.

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Future sins, no condemnation, paid for. And if someone would love you like that, don't you think you'd say to yourself,

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I don't wanna sin anymore against them. I don't wanna sin anymore now against God because what kind of love is this?

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What Paul is doing is he's saying, to get back to what I said earlier, what's the end time going to be like for you?

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Whether Jesus returns or you die and you stand before God. Remember the unbeliever? It's a terrifying thing.

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What about for the Christian when they stand before God? Here's what Paul is saying. Let's fast forward to your death.

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Let's fast forward to meeting God face to face. Let's fast forward to when Jesus returns.

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What's it gonna be like when he returns? What's it gonna be like when I stand before God? Give me the end time verdict now so I know.

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And the answer is no condemnation. He's already telling you, you know what judgment day is gonna be for you?

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No condemnation, not guilty. That's pretty good. I've been in situations before where I think, you know what, this could be it.

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I remember I was in the Czech Republic and I had some hazelnuts and I had an allergic reaction.

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And my throat's starting to restrict. I'm not breathing well. I was staying with one of my students and I knocked on his door and said, you gotta take me to the hospital.

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You gotta take me to the ER, I can barely breathe. And my face is puffing up and I'm thinking, okay, this is it.

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And we're in the car driving to the hospital in the Czech Republic. And I thought, this is the last class

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I'll ever teach. What's that class? How to die, how to die well.

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Like, oh, I'm texting my wife. I thought, should I, shouldn't I text her? I love you, I'm dying,

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I'm on the way to the hospital. By the way, when I got to the hospital and I was glad I had

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Rodik with me because I don't speak Czech and there was no signs that I could read or anything like that. I get there and immediately the nurses know what's going on.

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I get one shot in the behind that's steroid and the other a shot and the other in my backside.

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And it's like, whew, made it kind of thing. What's my point?

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Well, my point is this is ADHD radio and we just have to talk about things to keep your attention. That's the point.

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But my point is when I'm thinking about, all right, am I gonna die now, what? These verses in the

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Bible that talk about assurance and comfort. This verse in the Bible, Romans 8, 1 is meant to help us not just die well.

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I can trust the Lord, I'm gonna be forgiven. In spite of my own sins, I'm gonna stand before God.

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But it's also to help us to live well. We don't need this verse just on our deathbed. You need this as a

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Christian. No condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. Can you imagine? You can't be unloved by God, dear

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Christian. That's pretty good. People fall out of love all the time.

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People are like irreconcilable differences in marriage and they split up. Never can be unloved.

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You can never be unreconciled to God. Reconciliationist language is they're enemies and we're more

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God's enemy than he's ours. No, no, he's more of our enemy than the opposite way.

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And now we're reconciled. You can't be unreconciled. You can't be unredeemed. God buys you out of the slave pit of sin with a ransom price of the

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Lord Jesus's life and death. And you go, well, somehow we can lose that.

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You can't be, how about this? Unforgiven. You can't be unjustified.

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You can't be unadopted. You adopt a child and you're like, now they're too much trouble, causing a lot of pain as teenagers and we'll just unadopt them.

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I know. When it comes to the family of God, what God does, he does. And what God means, he means.

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No condemnation. Super strong language in the original.

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Front loaded, no, no, no, no, no condemnation. But what's our conscience do?

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What Satan do? Condemned. How could you live like that and call yourself a Christian? There's no way, you're fooling yourself.

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This is all made up. How can you do that? And we have Satan, the accuser of the brethren, silenced here by these promises that Paul writes via the

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Holy Spirit. No condemnation. Romans four earlier said this, "'Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered.

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Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.'"

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Those old haunting sins, those things that you just don't wanna think about a lot of times, all paid for.

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And when you want assurance, when you want security, do you notice what Paul is doing even in this verse and this verse alone?

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Focuses on Christ Jesus. Focuses on being in Christ Jesus, not our performance.

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Do I want to obey? Yes. Do I want to live holy lives, a holy life? Yes. Do I want to say no to sin?

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Yes. Do I want to say I see progress in my life as a Christian and fruit and evidence? The answer to all those things are yes, that's true.

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But primarily, assurance is found by looking to Christ Jesus, not to our own lives.

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Matter of fact, somebody should probably write a book called Gospel Assurance, focused on Jesus. I think that'd be a good thing to do.

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Somebody should do an American Gospel television series on Gospel Assurance. That would probably help people.

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Don't you think, Mario? What in the world? It doesn't say there could be no possible accusation against you.

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There could be. It doesn't say there are no accusations could stick. Some things we do, we have to own up to.

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But it says no condemnation. It doesn't say Matthew Henry said, there's nothing in them that deserves condemnation because there is.

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Even as Christians, when we sin, that would deserve condemnation, but it's paid for. Charles Wesley got it right.

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No condemnation, now I dread. Jesus and all in Him, in Christ Jesus, is mine.

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Alive in Him, my living head. That's a federal representative that he's talking about, even though I don't know if he even believed in federal representation as an

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Arminian, but that's beside the point. And clothed in righteousness divine, bold I approach the eternal throne and claim the crown through Christ my own.

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Here's this verse that some people think could possibly be dangerous, that some people think is kind of unguarded.

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Maybe Paul, you better back off a little bit. You better reel that back. I mean, you throw out that verse, no condemnation, and now you better back off a little bit.

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Horatious Bonar said in everlasting righteousness, a book that's free online that you should read. It was not for nothing these words were spoken so boldly.

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Timid words would not have served the purpose. The glorious gospel needed statements such as these to distangle the great question of acceptance, to relieve troubled consciences and purge them from dead works, yet at the same time to give works their proper place.

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Horatious, good words. So today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking about no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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Now I said earlier that you wanna know what the end times judgment is going to be? It's no condemnation. And that's because we've got that little word, that little end times word in Romans 8, 1, now.

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There's now no condemnation. Christ's ministry did its work.

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He accomplished salvation. Redemption accomplished and now applied.

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No condemnation. And even the power of sin is broken. I could go on to the next verse in Romans 8, 2.

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For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

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The law of sin gravity is reversed and you have freedom.

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Not just condemnation is gone, but also the bondage of sin is gone.

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How? How could that happen? Verse 3, for God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do.

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By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.

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God sent his son. The law could never deliver you. The law could condemn you. The law is like a mirror and shows every unbeliever their sin, but it doesn't rescue anyone because no one can keep the law perfectly.

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If you could keep the law perfectly, fine, but you can't, especially because of Adam's sin credited to your account.

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But Paul's wording here is very, very important. He sent his own son.

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Who else could do that? Who else could accomplish that mission? Who else could God send as a savior?

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Daniel, Noah, Moses, Adam? Of course not.

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We needed to have Jesus accomplish the mission who committed no sin, 1 Peter 2, who knew no sin, 2

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Corinthians 5. In him, there's no sin, 1 John 3.

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And this will all for a purpose and we'll land the plane right here, verse 4. In order that the righteous requirement of the law, perfection, personal, perfect perfection.

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Might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

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What I can do, obey the law perfectly. What you can't do, obey the law perfectly. Guess who did obey the law perfectly?

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As a true man, as a real man, Jesus did that very thing.

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Fesko says, the act of obedience is Christ's perfect law keeping. Isn't that good?

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So today we talked about comfort. Not just comfort foods.

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Matter of fact, I haven't had any breakfast today. Makes me think about lunch.

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What would be a good comfort food? I think I might just have a steak for my comfort food when

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I get home. But spiritual comfort food, could there be something better than no condemnation?

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Paid in full. You have righteousness earned by another.

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And where is your righteousness? John Bunyan said, the man who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, he said, my righteousness has been in heaven for 1700 years,

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Lord Jesus Christ. There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.