Repentance (Part 2)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to NoCompromiseRadio .com.

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Why don't you go check out our website, regularly updated, all kinds of broadcasts that are there.

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I don't know how many shows we've done, a few hundred, a couple hundred. If you go there to NoCompromiseRadio .com

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and pull up iTunes, podcasts, sermons online,

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I don't know what it is, I don't know what the link is, but it's at NoCompromiseRadio .com. You can go there and then you can listen to whatever show you want.

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The Review of the Shack, something about free will, something about money, what about the

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Bible Answer Man, what about Sola Scriptura, tell me about Calvinism.

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There's all kinds of things that you can go to. And now we're starting to get a reservoir of older shows,

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Monday to Friday. A couple months ago I thought, this is easy, I just tape four or five shows in a week and then

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I'm done. But lately being sick and it's summertime, it is hard to sit down and try to be biblical and try to be provocative.

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It's not that hard to be biblical, you can have your Bible open and teach a way. But to teach in a way that is good for radio, it's good for the station, it's good for the listeners, it gets a little more difficult.

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I'm sure there are some people out there that want me to be a little kinder and nicer, and there are others who like it when

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I turn things up and turn up the critique volume. I don't want to be known as a ministry of only discernment, these so -called discernment ministries and discernment blogs where the only thing you do is critique people.

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And I don't want to do that. I want to teach regularly themes that are in the

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Bible, topics that are in the Bible, theological issues that are in the Bible, so I can teach you in a positive way.

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After all, Titus, when it talks about being an elder, Titus says that the elder needs to do two things when it comes to knowledge and instruction, and that is teach sound doctrine and then teach against unsound doctrine, a doctrine that wouldn't be good for you, that would be not hygienic or sound or solid.

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And Christians need warning today. Nobody really likes to do it. I'm sure Jude, when he sat down to write his epistle,

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I'm positive that he did not sit down to write some discernment email. He was going to write to them about their common salvation.

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It was going to be something like Romans, some great treatise on the righteousness of God, the holiness of God, Christ's perfect work on the cross, and yet he was compelled by the

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Spirit of God to then contend earnestly for the once -delivered faith. If faith is given regularly, and it's updated regularly, and it's added to regularly, and we have a bunch of appendices, we have some addendums, then

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I don't know if we have to warn that often. But since we have the canon that's closed, we have the 66 books of the

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Bible, we have from Genesis to Revelation in our English canon, then when anyone comes along to torque that, to tweak that, to twist it, to add to, to subtract from, then we need to stand up for the truth.

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And I try to encourage you, the listener, that you need to test to see if these things are so.

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What I say doesn't go. You have to check it according to the Bible. And so that's my focus here, is

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I want you to open your Bible. It's like the Roman Catholic who gets mad enough to open up their

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Bibles and then see if these things are so. And I know we'll win because truth is on our side.

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It is the truth of God, and I talked to somebody the other day, I talked to Ken, matter of fact, at our church, and he said, you know, being in the

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Roman Catholic Church for so long, I always was taught, you know, you go to heaven by baptism and mass and, you know, different sacraments.

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And he said, I began to read my Bible, and everywhere it's belief. Everywhere it's repentant belief.

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It's never found, well, you know what, you've got to do something humanly to get to heaven.

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And so that's what we want to do today at No Compromise Radio, is to teach you what the Bible teaches about repentance.

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Now, last time when we looked at repentance, I gave just kind of an overview of what repentance was.

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The Westminster Confession says, with a brilliant definition, by the way, on the side, you need to read some of the old confessions.

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If you have not read Westminster Confession, you ought to read it. If you have not read the

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London Baptist 1689, or you can go to the 1646, I believe is a first edition, but you can, you need to read some of those old confessions.

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Why? Because they're more valuable than the Bible? No, but because the Spirit of God, working through men of the church, gifted men, men captured by Christ Jesus, Ephesians chapter 4, have been given to the church to instruct us about the

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Bible. So it's not equal to the Bible, it's way below the Bible, but I think you'll see these godly men put in systematic format gospel truth.

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And it's difficult if you're reading the Bible, I'm reading through Isaiah now, and trying to put all the pieces together.

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So short, succinct, weighty creeds are important to you.

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I even have an iPhone app on my iPhone that has some of the ancient creeds.

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I think it's from Westminster, you can get that. Just type in free apps, creeds, you should be fine. The Westminster Confession says about repentance, a sinner out of the sight and sense not only of the danger, but also the filthiness and odiousness of his sins.

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I mean, most people would just stop reading there. I know God wrote the Bible because when you read it and you realize how filthy mankind is, and how filthy your own heart is, how odious humans are to God, odious to one another many times, that our sinful hearts are odious,

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I know God wrote the Bible. But the Westminster Confession goes on to say regarding repentance. As contrary to the holy nature and righteous law of God, and upon the apprehension of his mercy in Christ, to such as are penitent, so grieves for and hates his sins, as to turn – there is the idea of repentance, if you just think of turning – from them all unto

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God, purposing and endeavoring to walk with him in all ways of his commandments.

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And so, when your mind is changed, repentance, everything else changes as well.

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Your body will follow your mind. Now I don't want to become some neoplatonic dualist, body, mind, you know,

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I know you're one full man, shalom, you are a whole man or a whole woman. And so when your mind changes, then you will do things according to what your mind says.

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Your mind is changed, you will turn from certain sins unto God. And we at this radio show want to talk the rest of the time about what is repentance.

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Luther said, to do so no more is the truest repentance. And there are lots of concepts in the

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Bible that express repentance. Now sometimes the Bible says repent, but other times it expresses a concept that would be repentance, like turn from your wicked way,

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Jonah chapter 3. We learned last time that repentance is both a command and a gift.

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It's a command because people must repent of their sins, but it's also a gift because the Bible understands and God understands and you must understand the total inability of an unbelieving person, total depravity of an unbelieving person.

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There's nothing a person can do in and of themselves because they have no ability to do that.

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They are fallen, they are lost, they are slaves to Satan, they are blinded, and so when we tell people to repent and believe, we know that God must grant them the gift of repentance and grant them the gift of belief.

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And so when we discussed repentance last time, we realized it's more than just being aware of sin, it's more than being sorrowful for your sin, it is more than confessing your sin to God, it is more than shame for sin, it is more than a hatred for sin, it is a turning from sin.

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And that's the basic concept, just like in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, where they turn from God and turn from living...easy

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for me to say, turn from false dead gods, small g, unto the real

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God. That is the idea, positively turning to God because you've negatively, as it were, turned from your sins.

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It is like Ezekiel 14, repent and turn away from your idols and turn your faces away from all your abominations.

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That's the negative side. The positive side, as I was trying to think of 1 Thessalonians 1, 9, here it is, for they themselves report about us.

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What kind of reception we had with you and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and a true

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God. It was not a living God you used to worship, it wasn't a true God, it was manufactured in your mind and energized by demonic forces most likely, but you turned from those things and how could an unbeliever do that without the ministry of the

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Holy Spirit? And we know the answer is he couldn't. So we tell people to repent and believe, and we know at the same time that the

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Lord must give them repentance. Now, lots of people say that repentance should not be preached, that somehow if we preach repentance it's works added, it's some kind of hyper lordship.

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And so it typically comes out, I don't know if it does anymore from Dallas Seminary, but many people in the last 20 years who used to be at Dallas Seminary, who still were at Dallas Seminary, would promote that, trying to guard the grace of God, and I'm glad for people who guard the grace of God, trying to make sure that salvation is all from God and all of God and there's no works involved with salvation except for the works of Christ, the work of the eternal

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God -man. They were trying to guard that, and so they miscalculated,

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I believe, because they forgot that repentance is both a gift and a command. And so we're not telling people to make yourself savable so God can save.

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We're not trying to say when we tell people to repent that if you don't stop your sins you can't be a

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Christian. Here's what we're trying to say. Now we're going to try to parse this very, very carefully. If someone were to come to you and say,

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I'm a sexual sinner and I'm a chronic adulterer,

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I am a homosexual, do you have to tell them this?

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Must you tell them this? Should you tell them this? You have to stop that sexual sin before God can save you.

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You have to stop that sexual sin before God can save you. Now we could use idolatry.

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You have to stop that idolatry before God can save you. If we talk like that, then

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I would side with the Dallas folks because that's not how we're supposed to talk. People can't stop their sins.

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That's why Jesus Christ came. And so we have to be careful when we talk to unbelievers.

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You should tell an unbeliever, repent. Yes, you should. You should say, turn from your sins.

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Ezekiel preached repentance. John the Baptist preached repentance. Jesus preached repentance. The twelve that were sent out by Jesus preached repentance.

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Peter, after Christ's ascension, preached repentance. Paul preached repentance. You are to preach repentance.

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Luke 24, here's the Great Commission. In Luke, thus it is written, that the

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Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem.

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So this is not some kind of weird dispensational thing where it's one message is different to the

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Jews and another message is different to the Gentiles, etc. No, we are to preach repentance.

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And repentance is tails of the coin and belief is heads.

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And so if you talked about biblical belief, this full trusting in, believe unto the

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Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, Acts 16, with this full commitment type of belief, then maybe the stress of repentance would not have to be so heightened.

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But these days people think belief is just intellectual. And so why would we not tell people, especially in light of the

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Great Commission there in Luke 24, why wouldn't we tell them to repent? Now back to the scenario again, if a homosexual sinner says to you, or an adulterous sinner says to you,

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I can't stop my sins, therefore how could God ever save me? What's your approach there?

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Now, should you say repent? The answer is yes. Can they repent on their own?

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No. But through the preaching of the gospel, which includes Christ's work, Christ's person, man's sin, and the response to that,

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God's commanded response to that, follow, believe, repent. We realize that through the preaching of the gospel,

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Romans 10 and 1 Corinthians 15, that when you preach the gospel, at God's good pleasure, at God's will, at God's well -being,

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God's favor, when He decides to save someone, He saves them through that preaching. So if someone were to say to you,

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I'm a sinner and I'm stuck, I can't stop sinning, so I therefore can't be saved, you need to talk to them about the grace of God, sovereign grace, free grace.

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And this grace is not merited. God's grace is not, well, if you do this, then you'll do that. And so when you believe that regeneration in the heart of man has to be before repentance and belief, logically at least, then you say to yourself, all right, well, once they've been regenerated, the

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Spirit of God regenerates them, makes them brand new, makes them alive through the preaching of the gospel, their new nature now will say, oh, that's sinful and I can now stop.

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Remember, sinners are enslaved to their sins. They are enslaved to their sin to the degree that they can't get rid of its presence, they can't get rid of its power, and they will not on their own be able to get rid of its penalty, its ultimate penalty.

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Penalty in life and penalty for eternal damnation as well.

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They don't have the power. You read Romans 6 and 7, and what does the Spirit of God do? Romans 8, we as Christians have the power to say no to sin.

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When we don't, it's our fault, of course, but we now have the power. Unbelievers, they don't have the power, they just always choose sin.

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Without faith, it's impossible to please the Lord, and whatever they do, whether it's giving money to a church or helping an old lady across the street or going to church and receiving a sacrament, that is not righteous.

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Because without faith in Christ Jesus, it doesn't matter what you do, because that's where it starts, is believing

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God's Word about God's Son. So back to the scenario again.

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I'm just trying to hammer this from every possible perspective. You do not have to stop sinning in order to be savable, because you can't stop sinning, because then salvation's not all of the

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Lord. Then you've done your baby step, you've done the first part, and then God does the rest. I mean, that is evangelicalism though today, sadly.

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God votes for your salvation, because of course He wants everybody saved. By the way, if He wants something,

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He's going to get it. Satan votes against. He doesn't like salvation.

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He doesn't like his enemy. So we've got one for, one against, and then you, the person, the creature, the fallen creature, you cast a deciding vote.

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Well, what's wrong with that? Well, what's right with that? That's a better question.

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If God wants you saved, you're going to be saved. Good thing, because your vote as a person, as an unbeliever, is always no.

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It's always a stiff arm in the face of God. It's always, God, how dare you? I have my own idols to worship, and you're not the one that I want to worship.

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So God, in eternity past, has decreed that His Son, Jesus Christ, would go rescue the bride that was given to Him by the

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Father. And with the Spirit's power, Christ goes and rescues the bride of Christ.

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And He is still rescuing. We know that there are more to be rescued, because Jesus has not returned.

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Every elect person that the Father has chosen, every elect person that the

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Son has died for, will eventually come to faith. Some maybe aren't even born yet, some maybe are on their deathbed, but the

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God of the universe will rescue His bride, and we, as part of the bride, will be eternally wed to Christ.

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So tell people to repent and believe, because that's part of the gospel. It's not the only part of the gospel.

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You need to talk about who God is, and in light of who He is, what does He call you to do? You need to talk about His holiness and His righteousness, and if you'd like to talk about His love and grace, you can do that as well.

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But I don't suggest you go to people and say, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, because if you're a pagan unbeliever, that's good news.

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Thank you that while I'm sinning, He still thinks I'm the apple of His eye, and that He's crazy about me, and He's got a crazy love for me.

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That's not how you go about it. You talk to them about God's standards and God's holiness, and what

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God requires perfection, and then you talk about who they are as a sinner, and how they've fallen in Adam, and how they're morally foolish, and how they make idols and don't thank

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God and don't give Him honor, Romans 1 kind of language, and then there's a Savior to be offered when they realize the depths of their sin.

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But you don't offer the loving Savior when they are quite happy with their sins and don't care about any of the consequences because they think it's made up or evolution or whatever.

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You tell unbelievers of all shapes, sizes, and sins, you must repent and believe in the substitutionary atonement made by Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of sins sealed by the resurrection.

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You must repent. You must believe. Now that's a lot different than me saying, you've got to stop in order to be savable, because that's not the gospel.

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That's not what happens. You tell people you must repent and believe. But why don't you, and you could also tell them, throw yourself on the mercy of the court.

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Lord have mercy upon me, Luke 18. The sinner. I'm the sinner, have mercy upon me.

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That is a wonderful thing to do. Now this is especially important for our society today in modern -day evangelicalism.

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When people walk around and they know they're sinful, and they know they're not

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Christians, and they know they've prayed the sinner's prayer hundreds of times, they've gone up to the front, and every time they go to church and there's the mood music and there's

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Just As I Am, stanza 599, and they come up to the front over and over and over and accept

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Jesus in their heart and somehow evidence, maybe some gibberish to confirm their salvation, whatever it might be.

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Then they go home, not saved, and they realize they are a tragic mess in the eyes of God, in the eyes of themselves, in the eyes of their neighbors and their spouses, their spouse.

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They realize that they're a sinner and they're not clean. They don't have right standing with God. They aren't justified in the sight of God based on Christ, and they need help.

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So instead of making them pray some sinner's prayer, tell them to repent and believe, certainly, but encourage them to cast themselves on the only one who saves.

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He saves people who can't save themselves, who can't take a baby step toward salvation. If you add a baby step to your salvation, you're not saved.

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This is something that's done to you, salvation. Do you respond? Yes, and that response is repentance and belief.

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God does not repent for you, God does not believe for you, but you ought to preach repentance to these unbelievers, and through the preaching of repentance, repenting from their sins and turning to this great

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God who's created the world and created the universe and who has created them.

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We preach without reserve, with finality, never to return to those sins.

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You must repent, flee. That would be another way to say it, flee.

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So if you don't preach repentance, I suggest you do. That's a word that people need to hear, not just in some kind of sign at somebody's funeral.

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I think that's wrong and sinful, these kind of so -called signs at ministries.

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Don't do that. But when you're preaching the gospel to your friends, you should use the word repent. I don't know why you wouldn't use the word repent.

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It's just so easy to say, repent and believe, why can't you just say that way? And when you hear

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Jesus preaching in Mark 1, repent and believe in the gospel. John the Baptist, Matthew 3, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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Mark 6, and they went out and preached that men should repent. Peter, Acts chapter 3, repent therefore and return that your sins may be wiped away.

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Acts chapter 17, Paul, therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent.

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And you are to preach repentance. Repentance is for the unbeliever to hear.

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Now, maybe next show we'll talk about how repentance is for the Christian as well. But for now, you, if you're a

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Christian, need to preach repentance to your unbelieving friends and family, simultaneously recognizing in your mind that they could never repent and believe without God and his regeneration.

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So you ask God while you're preaching, before you're preaching, after you're preaching, to open up their hearts so that they might respond.

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These people today that go around thinking they can never get out of their sins are correct, short of the

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Spirit of God. So what you do is you say, I love the Lord enough and I love them enough to tell them they must turn from their sins.

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That this state of unrighteous living shows that they're unrighteous in their standing before God, and that they need to have a righteous standing before the judge of the universe in front of, that they will one day stand in front of, that they will have him judge them.

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And the judgment is perfection. All the totally righteous into the totally righteous heaven, all those who are not totally righteous into the lake of fire.

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And we know that our only hope could then be the perfect righteous one, Christ Jesus.

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Now, if you are listening today and you're not a Christian, you must repent. There is a

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God who created the universe, and he's created you as well. And you have not worshiped him.

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You have not given him thanks for what you have and who you are, and you have not honored him as God, and you have worshiped other things, including yourself instead.

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And so the God that makes the universe with the word versus some creature, versus something that's made, should show you the depth of your sin.

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When you worship a bug, when you worship yourself, when you worship an animal, when you worship a world, instead of the

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God who made it, there's something wrong. And therefore, God has provided a wonderful reconciliation to all those who will repent and believe, and that reconciliation was made by Jesus at Calvary as he died for the sins of all those who would say,

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I repent and I believe. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry, write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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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.