The Trinity (Part 1)

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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, a ministry. My name's

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Mike Abendroth, and this is, for you, take one, but for me, I think like take five or something.

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I don't know if I've ever done that before. I start talking for about a minute, don't really like it, and then I have to hit record again.

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But anyway, you can write me, Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com. You can email me and say,

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I'd like to be on the interested list for the February 21st, first 2023

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Israel trip from Boston, and Pat Abendroth will take

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Omaha Bible Church and and meet us probably in Newark, and then we fly over together on El Al, and then

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I fly back with my 25 people direct from Tel Aviv to Boston, and Pat's got to do a couple other things because it's harder to get to Omaha.

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And anyway, you can write me. I think it's going to be around $3 ,500. I don't know the exacts yet, but once we open it up, it will be first come, first serve in terms of getting your,

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I don't know, $200, $400 deposit in. We had to cancel this year's trip for obvious reasons.

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I don't think there's really anything needed now in Israel except maybe you have to take a COVID test to get back in the

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US, but probably by next year. Who knows what'll happen. Anyway, so you can write me, get on the list.

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If you live someplace besides Boston, it'll just be an additional fee to get you to Boston so we all fly together.

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I think once in a while people live overseas and they want to just meet us in Tel Aviv. I think we could probably work that out, but I think the bus seats 50, 48 people, so that means

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I get 24 slots, and so it will be first come, first serve. When I think about mind blowing experiences, those, it's almost like a transcendent experience, out of body experience where you think to yourself, this is one of the greatest things that's ever happened to me.

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And I hope you have a lot of those experiences, but truth be told, they're probably not as common as we think they are.

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So I just had a little list here of things that kind of rocked my world in no particular order.

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One was when Kim said yes to my marriage proposal, that was very important.

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When each of my children were born, I've seen my four children born, and I've seen

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C -sections before when I used to work in the operating room. But for my own four, each one of those, unbelievable, amazing, right?

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You've been there most likely. I would like to usually shout out, at least the last couple or the last few, isn't evolution grand?

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Ain't evolution grand? What else thrilled my soul or had kind of that, ooh, moment?

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I went skydiving a couple times, I received thrills then. I thought it was thrilling to be a pastor, that I, knowing my past, knowing the

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Lord knew my past, would allow me to get up and preach the unadulterated word. That was amazing.

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Standing by the Sea of Galilee for the first time, maybe that would be a motivation for you to go with us to Israel. I've been several times, just pick up a rock and skip it on the

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Sea of Galilee, or take the boat out when we take the little tour boat out, amazing.

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Standing on Omaha Beach, Normandy, looking up where the 50 cows were, triangulated and other things, thinking about the men from the allied forces trying to take that beach.

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But with you, probably at the top of your list and the top of my list, certainly without question is, and maybe you don't know the exact day, but to realize that you were born again, to realize that you're forgiven all your sins paid for because of the

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Lord Jesus conquered death, you have the hope of eternal life. That's thrilling, isn't it?

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Just the joy of your salvation, and you hear that echoed in adult baptisms, and you just are excited when you hear people's testimony.

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I know that's a wonderful thing, it's certainly at the top of the list, or is it?

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Is there something more mind blowing, not even exaggerating, but is there something more brain expanding,

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I was going to say brand, brain expanding, as great as salvation is that we receive, it's my earnest conviction that there is something more wonderful than your salvation, and that is not a what, or where, or why, but who does the saving.

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That is to say, is not the study of the Godhead, the triune God, God is triune, the

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Trinity, isn't that something more mind blowing? And if you say, ah, you know, I don't even really know,

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I don't understand it, I want to talk a little bit today about this amazing eternal

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God, the eternal triune God, one God, three persons, the Father, the Son, the

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Holy Spirit. And I think with Paul, you should respond with Romans 11 .33

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language, oh, the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways.

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Not many interjections in the Bible, but there's one right there, oh, translated into English, O -H.

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This is a very good topic, it's a debated topic, it's an important topic, influences pastoral care, pastoral ministry, how you think about God, and if you said to yourself,

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I'm going to go to a conference on the Trinity, I don't know how many people would show up, but if truth be told, probably more people would show up to a parenting conference or a marriage conference.

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Marriages are important, parenting is important, but here we have, I think, the most important conference topic, the most important topic of all time, and that is the triune

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God, God himself. Certainly, if you hear somebody talk about the

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Trinity, the topic shouldn't bore you, the topic shouldn't disappoint you, while the speaker might, the topic shouldn't.

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It reminds me of Spurgeon. He said, the proper study of a Christian is the

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Godhead, he's talking about the Trinity. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy which can ever engage the attention of a child of God is the nature, the name, the person, the work, the doings, and existence of the great

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God. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the divinity.

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It is a subject so vast that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity, so deep that our pride is drowned in its infinity.

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And it is my firm belief and conviction that the triune

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God, God himself, quenches our thirst, quenches our soul in every particular, in every way.

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One famous American theologian said, and God has appeared glorious to me on account of the

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Trinity. It has made me have exalting thoughts of God, that he subsists in three persons, the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And so today, I want to make sure we understand what the

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Trinity is, who the Trinity is, and especially in light of a lot of errors that are floating around on social media, that we just get a good grasp of the

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Trinity. Nothing too deep, but we'll see where we go. To put us all on the same page, the

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London Baptist Confession, chapter two, there is but one and only one living and true

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God. He is self -existent and infinite in his being and his perfections. Three divine persons constitute the

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Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are one in substance, in power, and in eternity.

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And so that shouldn't surprise any listener of No Compromise Radio Ministry. The Father, the

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Son, and the Holy Spirit. These names reveal who the Trinity is.

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And if you think about the word Father, well, he's called the Father because he wants to be called the

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Father, and he's the Father of the Son. As Matthew Barrett says, as fathers do, he begets his son.

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That is what it means to be a father. But since this is God we are talking about, not a mere mortal, he does so from all eternity.

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He eternally begets his son, though he himself is begotten by no one. Well, we have this

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Father who is eternal, Son eternal, and Holy Spirit who's eternal.

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It reminds me of the Athanasius Creed, right? But there are not three eternals or something like that, there's just one

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God. This Father designation should make us think, yes, he begets a son, but he isn't like other fathers, right?

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Gregory would say, while other fathers must first be born, grow into maturity, then father children, this

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Father has always been a father. It is his nature to be a father, to generate the Son, and to emit, spirate, or breathe the

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Holy Spirit. There are some things when we think about fathers that are equatable or equate to, oh, right kind of thinking about the

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Heavenly Father. But we have to remember that the Heavenly Father, he is unique, and he must be thought about properly.

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The Son, why is the Son called the Son? Well, because he's from the Father, and he's from the

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Father from all eternity. That's why we use words like begotten by the Father before all ages.

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And he is begotten, as the Creed would say, not made. He's the eternal Son. When we are begotten, we come into existence, and we're born.

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That's what it means to be a son here on earth. Barrett said, but since this is the eternal, infinite, immutable, and impassable

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God we are talking about, the Son's generation is eternal, infinite, immutable, and impassable, meaning he can have no beginning as creation does.

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So, fathers beget sons. The Heavenly Father begets his son, but it's not having to do with human ways and in time.

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The Son is begotten, but he is always begotten, right?

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And so pretty soon you start thinking to yourself, all right, Father and Son, what's the bottom line?

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Well, the bottom line is we use words like Father and Son because they're revealed by the

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Spirit of God in his Word. But they tell us about a relationship. They tell us about a relation between the

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Godhead, an eternally existing Godhead. And what we do is we say to ourselves, all right, we realize they relate to one another.

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They have the same essence, yet they are eternally distinct, right?

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The relationship of the Father and Son, the Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten.

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Gregory said there never was a time when he was without the Word or when he was not the Father or when he was not true, not wise, not powerful, or devoid of life or of splendor.

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And then you have from the Holy Spirit, or excuse me, from the Father and the Son, you have the

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Holy Spirit proceeding. Again, no time designations from all eternity.

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We don't think to ourselves, Father, Son, Grandson, no, no. From the

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Father and the Son, the Spirit, and we have a word that's like a spirit, spirate, or proceeds from the

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Father and the Son. We use words like Father, Son, and Spirit to talk about how these three persons relate to one another.

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We call that mutual relations. And that's why we have different names.

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I know what you're thinking. Your mind is getting stretched. This is going beyond any type of human reason, logic, intuition, or something like that.

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It's very, very difficult. How can we understand this great

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God with our finite, sin -tainted minds? Each person is truly

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God, and yet the Godhead is one and indivisible. There's never a time when the

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Son wasn't, or the Spirit wasn't, or the Father wasn't. The Father is always unbegotten, the Son is always begotten, and the

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Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. That's the language we have to use.

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No member is greater. We think about them as same in substance, equal in power and glory, right?

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One God, three persons. For many, when they talk like this, or they hear talks like this, it's consternation, frustration.

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Here's my main point today. I'm going to try to get you, in this little mini -series, to praise God for being such a triune

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God, and that we, like Luther would say, like little children, would stammer out what the

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Scriptures teach, that Father is truly God, that Christ is truly God, and the Holy Spirit is truly

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God, and yet there are not three gods. Because we have to come to think about this topic like the

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Bible does. And it's not a far away, unimportant, abstract, ethereal kind of truth.

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No, no, it's very, very important, because if you just try to read the Bible, and you read the word God, right, let's just use

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English words, God, Lord, if you want to use a Hebrew word, Yahweh, El, Elyon, Elohim, right, the list goes on and on,

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El Shaddai. Every time you read the word God, you're going to have to come to terms with, how does

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He reveal Himself? And you're going to read some passages that talk about all three persons of the

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Trinity, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, that is the Father, and the community of the Holy Spirit be with you all, 2

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Corinthians 13, 14. And therefore, it's easier to think, or with the baptism in Matthew 28, 18 to 20, about baptizing in the singular name of the

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Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is an easier way for us to think about the

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Trinity, because it's so plain, and it's so obvious. But we are thinking about God as revealed in the

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Scripture, and therefore, every time we look at the word God in the Bible, you should be thinking, triune God, you should be thinking

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Father, Son, and Spirit. And this kind of thinking, God wants you to think about Him this way.

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But with Warfield, the idea of the Trinity illuminates, enriches, and elevates all our thoughts of God.

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We want to think about God the right way. And most people, it's full stop right here.

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They don't want to go any farther, because some think, oh, you know what, it's boring. It has nothing to do with anything except, you know, theologians argue about this, you know,

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I've got kids to raise. Other people, and it is true that this is difficult, but that doesn't mean because it's a revealed mystery.

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We're not completely revealed, right? We don't understand all the details. And people start saying, well,

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I don't really want to study as much, and I've got to really work hard at this, and so why even bother?

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And I think really the main reason people don't want to study the Trinity is they think it's irrelevant.

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They think the triune God is irrelevant. They'd like to be entertained. Okay, He's one person,

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He's three persons. You know, can He help me? That's all I care about. And most people, many people rather, sorry, function like they're tritheists, they're three gods, or God the

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Father then shows up as God the Son and then shows up as God the Spirit, this modalistic thing.

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We come to the Bible and say, this is challenging, but it shouldn't leave us cold.

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I mean, Immanuel Kant, the doctrine of the Trinity provides nothing, absolutely nothing of the practical value if one claims to understand it even.

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Still less when one is convinced that it far surpasses our understanding. It costs a student nothing to accept that we adore three or ten persons in the divinity.

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Trinity talks, yawn. But I don't think in this kind of listener group of No Compromise Radio, I don't think that's what you do.

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I think you want to praise Him for being triune. And that's really what I want to talk about. I don't know why my voice...

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Okay, that is a dark roast Starbucks. No creamer. I tell you, I can't do creamer anymore, or dairy,

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I have to do some soy thing, some soy latte thing. What are we doing here in No Compromise Radio?

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Should a God who is infinite, transcendent, above us, holy, cause us consternation and boredom, or should it cause praise?

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I think it should cause praise and awe. And that's something that derives from theology, right?

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A theology derives a doxology. And if you go to Titus chapter 1, and that's our passage for this particular show to start us off, we could ask the question and answer, what was

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God doing before Genesis 1 and 1, before He created anything? Augustine was asked that question, you know, what was

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God doing before He created the world? Remember what Augustine said? Creating hell for curious souls.

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Okay, was it tongue in cheek or not? It was a skeptic who was mocking him.

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That skeptic should have been more winsome. Don't you love it on social media where you have

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Big Eva, Big Evangelicalism? They can say whatever they want, but if you get after them, what's the typical response?

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A regular response, at least. Okay, watch out for your tone. You need to be more winsome.

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You know, brothers can agree and still be kind to one another and all that. And of course, in what they're saying, some of it's true.

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But I think if you, in this particular case, I'll use myself, if I stick my chin out of No Compromise Radio and run my mouth and do videos, and do videos for American Gospel and YouTube and other things, and speak and write, does that mean

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I should expect some pushback? Or does that mean

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I should expect all praise? Obviously, I don't believe everything perfectly, and so people are going to critique it.

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Great, it's fine by me. I learn from those critiques. I might not like them while they're happening, but I learn from them.

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But these folks that want to just shut everything down, it's this gospel coalition. You know, we determine what your churches should think and believe and say about woke stuff, about CRT, about Sam Albury, about Greg Johnson, about how to vote

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Democrat with a clear conscience. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. If you get after them, then they're like, well, let no corrupt, you know, let no corrupt word proceed from your mouth, and it's this tone police thing.

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I don't like it. I think we're getting some of that, too, with the Trinity debates, but we will talk about that maybe next show.

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Titus 1, Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness, in the hope of eternal life, which

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God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, but at the proper time revealed his word in the proclamation with which

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I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior. Well, this passage here, as Paul writes to Titus, who's at Crete, is just full of rich,

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I wanted to say juicy truths. This is, I mean, can you imagine?

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What's Paul say? What's my ministry about? I'm in ministry. God has called me into ministry for the sake of the faith of God's elect.

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To preach the gospel, to proclaim the gospel, and when the elect hear the gospel and the spirit of God freely, by his own free will, regenerates and applies the work of Christ, they are saved.

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And not only that, God, the triune God, sanctifies, and their knowledge of the truth, verse 1, which accords to godliness.

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Paul said, I want to be a preacher of the good news, not only for sanctification, salvation, but sanctification.

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And then ultimately, as I preach and as God's word does its work, I want to be in gospel ministry in the hope of eternal life, pointing them to glorification, the promise of God, the counsels of God.

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That's what Paul wants to do. And sometimes we just skip this too quickly, which

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God who never lies promised before the ages began. And what we're going to do next week is we're going to talk about to whom did he promise.

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Angels, they didn't exist. People, didn't exist. Adam, didn't exist.

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Satan, didn't exist. To whom did he make the promise? And this is a never lying

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God. This is on an island where everybody's just a liar.

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Remember Survivor, they had exile island. This is liar island, Crete. They're on liar island.

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Timothy is at Ephesus. Titus is on liar island, and he gets a letter from Paul, and he's going to talk about a

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God who does not lie. I mean, Zeus, Cretans love Zeus. He lied.

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He lied to have sexual relations with some woman taking the form of her husband.

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He's a liar. They said on Crete that Zeus's tomb was there.

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But then other people said, no, that was a lie. God never lies.

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The never lying God made a promise. To whom did he make the promise? And therefore, we're going to talk about this great intra -Trinitarian promise on our next show on No Compromise Radio.

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Once again, you want to go to Israel with us? Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

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I'll put you on the list of interest, and once I get the finalized stuff, you can then send in your deposit to secure your spot,

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Lord willing. And we'll go if the Lord wants us to, and we won't if he doesn't want us to, just like in the last year.

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We've got a YouTube channel, other things, Patreon. We're thankful for what you do and how you support us.

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We'll see you next time with more about God is trying. 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.