The Two Greatest Commandments

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

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

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

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. The question of the hour, Pastor Steve, is what day is today? Thursday. It�s Thursday the 10th.

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In real time. That�s right. You know how I know that? Because in the year 2525, if man were still alive?

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No, because Colt was born on the 6th, my wife�s birthday was on the 8th, and here we are two days later, so it�s the 10th.

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So tell me about Colt a little bit. Colt Winters James Fish.

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That�s his name. Okay, and that is your, is that your sixth grand? Seventh. Seventh grand baby grand child.

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Grandchild. That was the word I was looking for. Yep. Yes, he is. And, you know, I thought

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Winters, that�s interesting. Well, he was named after the colonel, basketball player in Milwaukee.

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No, not Brian Winters. What�s the guy from Band of Brothers? Oh, yes. Colonel Winters.

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Yeah. Yeah. So they, you know, they thought, well, that�s, in fact, they actually Googled him to make sure there were no, like, you know, scandals associated with him before they used the name.

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I cannot believe since I, well, let me rephrase that. I read the

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Band of Brothers book, and then I, oh, Dick Winters, Richard Winters. Yes. Yes. Yes. That�s right. And I was thinking, why can�t I remember his name?

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Because I also read the bio about him as well. Yeah. Fascinating to think about how you don�t really know if you�re combat ready until the bullets start flying, and then some people probably look like they aren�t brave at all, and then they are, and then the opposite is true.

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Trust me. You really don�t know how you�re going to respond until the bullets fly. How about maybe in ministry?

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There would be a good little metaphor for ministry as well. You know, you can sit in the seminary classes, and you�re like, oh,

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I don�t know. I think I�m going to react like Richard Cameron, the great, you know,

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Covenanter. I�m going to react like all these kind of great people, John Payton, you know, with the cannibals and Hudson Taylor, but then when the bullets start flying, then we tell.

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When you get stabbed in the back, that�s when you find out. And I think we�ve said often in New England, they don�t stab you in the back, they stab you in the front.

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They just come right at you. I don�t know. We�ve had a few, you know, to be charitable, side stabs.

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That�s being pretty charitable. And by the way, if you�re good at side stabbing, that�s not a virtue, right?

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No, it�s not. No. What�s all this virtue signaling with side stabbing? Now, Steve, anything that�s in your mind theologically?

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What are you teaching on your London Baptist Confession Sunday School, which is online, by the way?

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Yeah, we�re talking about Sabbaths, and then if we finish that, we�ll be talking about oaths, but I haven�t really read the whole oath thing, so I�ve got a couple days to do that.

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Oh, well, that�s why you were asking me about oaths, because I was talking about Hebrews chapter 7 and how the

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Levitical priests, they didn�t have to take an oath of office. You know, you have different oaths of office.

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They didn�t have to take one. They just became one because their dad was a Levitical priest, and so they were born into it.

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If your last name�s Cohen, you�re in pretty much, right? Well, we didn�t have to take an oath of office. Ooh.

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Right? Did we? Did you take an oath? No, but I think that was your ordination, maybe. You promised to do stuff.

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Hmm. Yeah. On my honor? Yeah, but I mean I� Yeah, we didn�t even put our hands on the

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Bible or anything. Well, that�s because the King James Bible was down the street, chained to the pulpit.

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I think they used to do that in the old days, right? There weren�t many Bibles, so you�d have to chain the pulpit, Bible to the pulpit.

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Well, the original reason I think Bibles were chained to the pulpit, the original reason was so that nobody could read them.

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That was the Roman Catholic reason. Really? Yeah. Okay. Well, keep, you know, how do you, remember the whole thing was don�t translate it into the common vernacular.

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You�re right. I got that part. Don�t let people have, you know, if you let the Bible loose out there, if people had their own copies, then all manner of�

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You�re going to lose all your authority. Yeah, all manner of confusion and chaos is going to burst forth.

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So I don�t know if they actually chained it, but they certainly didn�t allow people to have their own Bibles. Okay. Well, I might have to research that because, you know, we�re going to have no compromise.

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Radio listeners tell us the answer, but that�s not going to be until the show airs, you know, in three weeks.

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And then they�re going to give me� Tell me the answer. You may be� I don�t know that. Are you going to go see any bands these days?

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That�s from the White Album. Am I going to go see any bands? You know what? No. I�ve been,

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I�ve just been avoiding all that. Last time we went and saw somebody, it was just so loud and I didn�t really, didn�t enjoy it.

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Okay. You go to see more bands than I do. I did go see. I doubt that. Okay.

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Well, I see bands in the summertime because they�re free on Friday nights, but the only concert I think that I�ve paid for and I�ve seen in the last five years has been

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Echo and the Bunnymen. Really? In five years? Five years. Yeah. I don�t go see bands. Oh. The kids do.

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The girls do. Mrs. Abendroth does. But I just can�t control people�s wild, crazy sinning, you know, night clubbing, you know, acting like that kind of stuff.

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And sometimes I just have to leave a long rope there. You know, I saw Echo and the

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Bunnymen and I brought earplugs and I didn�t need them. And everybody looked like me, like 60 years old, including the singer, but his hair was dyed.

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I�m not really surprised because, you know, Echo and the Bunnymen, most of our audience is like, �Who in the world is that ?�

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Right? I mean, you had to be like a nerd like me and read Rolling Stone magazine or, you know, the different rock magazines of the time, you know, to know who

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Echo� because they never had a hit, by the way. Not one. They didn�t? No.

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I looked them up. They had zero hits in the U .S. Well, U .S., what does that matter? We�re all about the billboard top ten in the�

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Yugoslavia. Casey Kasem. Echo and the Bunnymen charted in Ukraine, you know?

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I mean, come on. A while ago, I was listening to a podcast, and it was at 1 .5

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speed, like normal. Like I hope our listeners listen to our podcast. No. No?

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My son -in -law says every other podcast, he listens too fast. He goes, �He can�t listen to you fast because you talk too fast.�

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Okay. Well� See? Remember those commercials where they would have the guy, since commercial time was so expensive, and they�d have him speak so fast, and that was his job, just to speak fast.

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A lot of information. Fast. Well, I listened to a podcast, and I heard a man say that he has read the book by Jerry Bridges entitled

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The Gospel for Real Life, NAV Press. He said he�d read it 20 to 30 times.

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Maybe he sped -reads. Maybe he did. I mean, that�s something�if anybody�now, here you go.

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Evelyn Woodhead sped -reads. Yeah. If somebody can tell me how to speed -read, that�d be awesome, you know? You know, I should look it up on YouTube because, honestly, that would, like, change my life because no matter what

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I do, when I read something, I hear it in my head, and that�s supposed to, like, really slow you down, and I don�t know how to turn that off.

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Now, I think it helps me read for comprehension because I tend to remember things, but, boy, is it slow.

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Steve, I don�t�I mean, it�d be nice to speed -read, but I need to be able to speed -read with retention, and I can�t process these thoughts that fast, and I need to place them in the right category, so it�ll never happen for me.

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It would just be a waste of time to look at YouTube speed -reading. I think I�d like it sped -readin�

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Was that the Saturday Night Live old Evelyn Woodhead sped -reading or something?

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Yeah, that was probably Dan Aykroyd or something, right? Okay. Yeah. I�m sure. Anyway, so I pulled out the book by Jerry Bridges, The Gospel for Real Life, and maybe out of all the books that I�ve read by Jerry Bridges, I recommend most often, and I just did two days ago or yesterday to a fellow in need, �Trusting

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God Even When Life Hurts.� And I told this man, I said, �I�m not going to solve your problem with a book, but I can recommend this book that points to the

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Lord Jesus Christ and His sovereign rule over everything, including your circumstance, and this will help you walk by faith in the object of Christ and not by sight in your troubles.�

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So in that regard, that was a good book. So here, The Gospel for Real Life, I pulled it out and I read it back in �08,

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Steve. Remember back in �08? I do remember back in �08. It was a good year for me.

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Okay. And I like to write in the front of the book little things. Sometimes I give it a grade. This one

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I didn�t give a grade, but I did write this. Incomplete. Incomplete. Governor of Works, fail.

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The Gospel for Real Life, and I wrote, �Basic, Simple Truths, Perfect for New Believer or Unbeliever.�

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That�s what I wrote back then. Wow. Okay? But then I started rereading it because I thought if anybody�s read a book 20 to 30 times and is an evangelical,

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I mean� Now you�re going to add on there, �Perfect for an Old Believer.� I know. I know. Go see

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Echo and the Bunnymen with earplugs. Yeah. How do you know you�ve written a really good book when somebody can write, �It�s good for an unbeliever, a new believer, or a really old believer ?�

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Anyway, he had a section that you and I talked about earlier before the show started about sin, and when you understand sin properly, then of course the work of the

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Lord Jesus Christ can be appreciated more. right? A good view of sin can lead to the right view.

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I mean, a right view of sin leads to the right view of the Savior. Well, let's put it this way. I think where a lot of the people that I talked to, and I'm sure you talked to, where they really fall short is understanding how bad their sin is, right?

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I mean, no matter what they think, well, most people really feel like other people's sins are worse than theirs.

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That's what I find, right? That's exactly right. And I even said it on Sunday morning, the two great problems of evangelicalism, we have a low view of God's holiness and a high view of our own goodness, or a wrong view of our own sin.

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And regularly, you and I will say, and it doesn't just come off our lips like it's some kind of, you know, just a catchphrase.

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We don't want it to be that. But it's easy to say, you know, we talk maybe the life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus.

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And we just regularly say that because it's a truth worth repeating. Well, we talk about sin, and it's not just what you don't do, but do you follow along these two great commandments, to love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself? And why is that right to talk about, at least?

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Let's start there. Well, because Jesus, you know, cites those as the two great commandments, right?

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And one time I heard somebody say, if those are the two greatest commandments, then the two greatest sins would be transgressing or committing something that was against those two great commandments.

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I think it's hard to argue with that. And of course, every sin is against the great God who made us, and therefore it makes that sin great.

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Somebody asked me the other day, well, how can it be a sin requiring death for the

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Israelites to break the Sabbath requirements? And how can that cost you your life?

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And I said to them, you know, that's a fair question, and I'm glad you ask it, but it's the one that you're sinning against determines how grave or how bad your sin is.

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In other words, I said to them, if I shoot my dog, or I shoot you, or I shoot the President of the

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United States, what's the difference? It's killing in every regard.

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But one, it's against a dog, which is not an image bearer, but I think it's still a crime to kill your dog in your house with a gun.

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Another, if I shoot you, that's murder. But against the President, he's valued more because of his position and stuff like that.

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So when you sin against the Lord, it's bad. Yeah, well, you know, it's funny you mentioned the Sabbath because the

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Puritans actually had a law, I think it was in Rhode Island, where you actually could be put to death under some circumstances.

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I don't know if anybody was actually executed, but to even think that that was, you know, on the books, and certainly like public beating and that kind of thing was acceptable punishment for violating the

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Sabbath, you know, in Rhode Island, and those Puritans were pretty serious about the

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Sabbath. Is that Rogue Island or Rhode Island? Well, you take your pick. I've heard it both ways.

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So Bridges in his book has this quote, Have you ever thought about what it means to love

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God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? I don't think any of us can fully plumb the depths of that commandment, but here are some obvious aspects.

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And then he goes through a list of some things that are included in Scripture that would show if you're loving

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God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And what really does that entail? You know, first of all,

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Steve, I think we have a low view of our sin because we just say, well, I don't commit adultery, and I don't look at pornography, and I don't cheat on my taxes, therefore

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I'm not committing those big sins. Right. And we have categories that we set up for ourselves.

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It's so easy to do, right? I mean, it's kind of like American Phariseeism.

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You know, we decide what God really values and what he doesn't value so much.

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So some sins are, dare I say, acceptable. Here's what he says regarding the first great commandment.

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Your love for God transcends all other desires, Exodus 20, verse 3. How are you doing on that one?

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Like David, you long to gaze upon his beauty and seek fellowship with him, Psalm 27, 4.

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I mean, there are flashes of this, right, where you think, oh, that's so wonderful.

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But then you think, okay, this is required of me all the time. Well, if you really want to know,

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I mean, this is what he's driving at. If you really want to know what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, you have to look at the life of Jesus, right?

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I mean, that's how you know what it means to have the

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Father at the foremost of your mind, you know, all the time to honor God in everything that you do and say and think.

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You just look at the life of Christ and then you just think, okay, I do fall short.

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I really fall short. I fall spectacularly short. Steve, I was rereading this yesterday, and I wrote two things on this page, and we'll read a few more comments by Bridges in a second.

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But I wrote, Jesus died for all of these when

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I didn't commit them. I'm sorry, when I didn't measure up to these. Yeah, perform them. And then Jesus did all these things.

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Now, you know, there's some controversy about the act of obedience of Christ and just how important is it and everything else.

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I'm thinking it's pretty important. Steve It's super important. I mean, somebody had to do those things, right?

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And on what basis do we get, if those are the commandments and we have to obey the commandments,

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I think it's fair to say, to enter into heaven, then how do we do that?

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And the answer is we don't. Mark Steve, let's just have a little rabbit trail for a second. The other day

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I was thinking to myself, you know what, why do I just kind of blast, at least in my own mind, the idea when someone says, well, you know, you've got to be good to get to heaven, you've got to do more good than bad and everything else.

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And it's almost the rich young ruler deal. What good must I do? What good thing must I do? What must I do to inherit eternal life?

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And my default, Steve, is, see, he's a works righteousness mode.

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That's how he thinks you get to heaven. Well, then I thought to myself, wait a second, that's actually right.

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The Lord commends him in that, but just generally, Adam, before the fall, he knew.

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How do I please God and how do I eventually get to a state of glorification? Answer, work, obey, keep the law.

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Whatever God tells me to do, I do. For how long that probation period was, I have no idea.

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But then the fall torques it so that we are happy with our works.

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But the way to get to heaven has to be through law -keeping. That's God's standard to keep the law.

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We just couldn't figure out on our own that there's another law -keeper that we trust in and we're justified through faith alone.

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But I mean, if you look at every religion, and this is exactly what you're saying, every religion in the world has some form of law -keeping that you're expected to do in order to be right with whatever deity or whatever force of, you know, the cosmos it is that they worship.

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You have to have more good than bad or whatever, you know. It's written into us that we understand that there is a standard that we must attain to.

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Well, you know, maybe our new evangelistic strategy could possibly contain this idea, knowing that when people say,

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I just try to be a good person. Well, it's the rich young ruler. Okay, I'm actually glad you're trying to be a good person, but how's that working out for you?

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How good are you? So Bridges gives a few more to show you the ramifications of what does it mean to love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. A regard for His glory governs and motivates everything you do.

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And then he says, eating, drinking, working, playing, buying, selling, reading, speaking, and dare I mention it, even your driving.

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He ought not mention that. That is rude. You are never discouraged or frustrated by adverse circumstances because you are confident

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God is working all things together for your good, Romans 8. He just put Facebook out of business right there.

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The first petition in the Lord's Prayer, Hallowed be your name, is the most important prayer you pray. I mean...

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Hallowed be your name. Who even thinks like this? You know, I mean, we think about it maybe when we're studying, right, or when we're reading a book like this by Jerry Bridges.

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But in daily life, if you think, I mean, what would it be like to think, okay,

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I have to do this all the time? And you know,

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I think it would remind me of this guy I was talking to, you know, who can't even get out of bed because he's so depressed and oppressed by his own sinfulness.

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And I think that would be the end result if you thought, I have to do this all the time by myself, solo bootstraps, you know, on my own strength.

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Couldn't do it. Bridges said, do you begin to grasp some of the implications for what it means to obey these two commandments?

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Most of us don't even think about them in the course of a day, okay? So that's what really struck me.

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You know, did I wake up thinking? I mean, I got up today, and yeah, I had my Bible time and quiet time, and I read some from Hebrews and some

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Psalms, and I look at my day timer, when do I meet? You know, meet Steve at 10, and I have a one o 'clock appointment, and I'm going to take the family up to Costco tonight after work.

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You know, I did that, but I didn't think, let's see, the two greatest things that God requires of me today.

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I never thought that. I mean, for me, you know, I always try to think positively, you know, not in some kind of new age way, but just kind of start, you know, the day with the gospel and kind of walking through it and just thinking about all the things that I'm thankful for and praising the

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Lord for, you know, and all these kinds of things. But I don't think, you know, and I do pray, you know, and in the morning,

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I just, help me to glorify you. I do think these things, right, you know, today, but I don't think, no.

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Here's what some of the outgrowths of the second great commandment might be, loving your neighbor as yourself.

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In your dealings with your neighbors, you never show selfishness, irritability, peevishness, or indifference. I mean, you know, for just a minute,

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I'm just like, I'm thinking of Bill Murray from that movie where he just goes, me, me, me, me.

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I mean, there's probably somebody listening out there going, I do all those things, and I've done them since my youth.

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He's probably rich too, and he's probably young. You never resent any wrongs they do to you, but instead are always ready to forgive.

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You treat them as you would have them treat you. Now, some of this, some of this

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I'm going to say, and, you know, which is a tinge of arrogance. I mean, some of this,

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I think that it does become like the forgiveness part and other things and not jumping to conclusions maybe so much.

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Kind of, I noticed that with age, I don't want to say I'm getting wiser, but I might be getting a little bit more patient, right?

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So I think in some ways, I think the Lord just kind of grows you in some of these areas, but I'm not even pretending to have attained any of this.

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To me, for me, it's not my patience. It's just my bad memory. And I'm just tired.

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Yeah, I don't remember, and it's just not worth keeping track of. But back to your point about these two great commandments, we are very thankful, and that's why we try to promote it here regularly on the show, that the

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Lord Jesus was born of a woman, born under law, that He might redeem those that are under the law. So He did these things, and He had in His mind a regard for God's glory, and it governed and motivated everything

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He did. He recognized God's sovereignty in every area. He had

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His first petition as hallowed be Your name in terms of the Father. He dealt with people and showed genuine interest and treated them in such a way that we could say

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He perfectly obeyed the law. I'm thankful for that. I'm just thinking about while you're talking about that,

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I just thought about John the Baptist, and I'm like, we don't have a full account of his life, but as I just think about his ministry and everything else,

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I'm like, we really wouldn't see a point where he failed. He must have, right?

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He must have sinned in some way, but when we just look at what we read in Scripture, we go, he was pretty good, right?

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But the standard, the standard of perfection, that would just be...

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If we actually lived through the prism, not of the gospel, but of just those two commandments, we would be those that would come to Christ as weary, as tired, because we just realized the burden of that and our inability to do it.

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Amen. And therefore, on the very next page, Bridges writes, Our need is not to be measured by our own sense of need, but by what

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God had to do to meet that need. Our situation was so desperate that only the death of His Son on a cruel and shameful cross was sufficient to resolve the problem.

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So I'm thankful that I get to go to heaven based on the work of another. And I'm thankful that I don't even have to go to heaven with full understanding of all the ramifications of all this, because I wouldn't even get that either.

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Even on our best day, Jesus would have had to come live a perfect life, die a substitutionary death, and then be raised on the third day for our best day.

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So just imagine what the rest of the days are like. Amen. Mike Avendroth, Steve Cooley. We are No Compromise Radio Ministry.

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Write us info at nocompromiseradio .com. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Avendroth 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.