Depravity Quiz (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 No Compromise Radio ministry. We are back live in the studio today in beautiful downtown

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Burbank, Boylston. Beautiful, well, we're neither downtown nor in Burbank.

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I know, but I used to be in downtown Burbank. At least, I'd drive through there. Two of my children were born in Burbank.

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Can you imagine that in the family dinner table discussions? Who's better than whom?

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I was born in Burbank. I was born in Worcester. St.

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Vincent's. The old St. Vincent's, even. Yeah. I like the new one. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's deluxe.

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Yeah. We are doing our quizzes here today. New format for, we could probably call it Quiz Tuesday, if you will, discussing the topic of total depravity.

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True. That is true. If you are in the area locally, you ought to be attending the

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New England Institute for Biblical Studies, NEIBS, and those would be college -level classes on biblical doctrines this current semester,

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Calvinism. What is Calvinism, and is it a good thing? In light of that, we have a quiz on total depravity, and we did the first four questions, and now we're up to question five.

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You'll have to get last week's iTunes downloaded if you want to find out what those are, but we are on question number five, and here's the way it works.

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I give the question, and then Steve gives the answer. Pressure.

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I know. Pressure. He almost looks like he's sweating. You ever see that movie, Broadcast News, when the dude starts sweating?

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I've never felt so much pressure in my entire life. Well, you know, if we wanted to increase ratings, we could talk about movies, movies that Christians feel good about going to, and then the redemptive theme that underlies them.

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How about all the movies directed by Sofia Coppola, although I couldn't tell you one? You know, we could be hipsters.

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What is the name of that movie? Somewhere or something like that. I think I know that. I don't know it. Okay. Okay.

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All right. Maybe we could talk about bands and their lyrics that have some kind of death to self and need for a rescuer.

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Hmm. That'd be a short list. Flock of seagulls. When we say that sinners are totally depraved, we mean that every human being left to himself is capable of the most heinous sins imaginable, true or false.

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Hmm. Well, you know, I guess I'm going to have to say, I think that's true.

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Well, maybe depending on how you are phrasing this in your mind, Steve, but we have as a result of the fall and result of the sin that dwells in us, we are capable of doing the most horrible things.

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Sometimes not with our bodies because we would like to be free and not incarcerated, but just think what the mind is able to do and what the heinous things the mind can think of.

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So I think the answer is true. True. Yeah. And you know, I think if we think about some of the things that are done, you know, here's a trite saying that some people will say, you know, but for the grace of God, go

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I. And they'll just say it. They will say it tritely. But the truth of it is that is an actual true statement that all of us are capable of doing some things, you know, whether it be

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Charles Manson -like or something else. And we don't think that we are, but that's only because we haven't been—we've been restrained by God.

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Let's put it that way. And, you know, sometimes you can put people in circumstances like, you know, if someone's in a circumstance where they find themselves in a room with a million dollars and they know they can take it and nobody will ever find out, well, that's a whole different ball of wax than saying, would you plot and plan to steal a million dollars?

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That's true. I think the key here is left to himself. Left to himself without the restraining agents of government, of the church, of the family, of God in general, left to himself the depraved man would be like Cain killing

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Abel. Well, you know, you bring up a great point about government. You know, if you remove government, what happens?

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You've got absolute chaos. Why is that? Well, it's not because man is inherently good. It's because man is inherently totally depraved.

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He will do—he will follow his own desires and he will rule over others. Well, when you and I went through the riots in Los Angeles not that many years ago, we actually weren't down there.

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We responded in full riot gear. Although I used to drive down the street in Florence and Normandy when

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I needed to go to Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital, but I didn't go anymore after those riots. You would have people who, for the most part, were law -abiding citizens.

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For those of you in New England, law -abiding citizens. And when they realized that the police would not respond, the police just was—they were going to back off, contain, and just let this go.

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It was almost like Kurt Russell in the movie Escape from New York. It was just manage.

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Then you saw these people and they would rape and pillage and kill because they knew there was no consequences. Yeah, I actually dealt with one of the guys, one of the suspects who cracked a—I don't know—cinder block over the head, and I get to escort one of the fine people who did that through the jail system.

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So, yeah. I mean, the video on that is just chilling. Number six. God gives to every person the ability to accept or reject

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Jesus Christ as he is offered in the gospel. True or false, God gives every person the ability to accept or reject

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Jesus Christ. Hmm. See, I mean, here's the part I don't like about the question and the reason

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I would probably say—I would probably say false because I don't like the phrasing in the beginning, but I mean, ultimately,

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I know that everyone will make a choice. But God gives to every person the ability, and I'm going—I'm just trying to think of a verse that really talks about that God -given ability.

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Well, we're using Randy Seiber's quiz that we found online, and here's what I think Randy was after.

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I think we have probably the key here someplace. I'm not looking at the answer key at the moment. Men have responsibility, but they have no ability.

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That's why they need Jesus, the Savior, the Alpha and the Omega. God didn't grant them the ability—if we're talking about post -Adam's fall, there's no ability that's granted.

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The fall has enslaved these people, and they don't have the ability. God gave Adam the ability, and even that freedom was constrained by the will of God.

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But overall, men lack the ability to do any good thing, including accept

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Jesus. Now if he says you've got the ability to reject Jesus, well, he does.

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And that's what I'm going to say, because ultimately, everyone does—although I really don't like this wording, accept—everyone either accepts

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Jesus or they reject him. Everyone does that. Okay, see, now

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I understand where you're coming from. So I move your grade from a C to an A. Thank you. All right, let's just get off that question.

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Thank you very little. Thank you very much. Every part of every sinner has been radically affected and continues to be controlled by sin.

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This is Mike Abendroth with Steve Cooley, NoCompromiseRadio .com, and we're talking about total depravity using a

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Randy Seiber quiz. Every part of every sinner has been radically affected and continues to be controlled by sin.

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True. True. True. What would those parts be? What would be some of those parts? Because, you know, parts is parts.

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Yeah, well, you talked about it. You know, our mind, our heart, our will, you know, all the emotional thinking parts of us, you know, and I mean, you could even argue—well,

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I won't argue that. Every decision, our every thought, our every action is impacted by sin.

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That's true. Controlled by Satan as well. Enslaved to Satan, captive by him, enslaved to do his will.

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I like to think about the will, though, Steve. You know, for us to be able to say yes to Jesus and believe him, we've got to have something going for us, and maybe that's the will, and we have our bodies affected by the fall, our minds affected by the fall, but, you know, our will, our emotions affected by the fall, but we have a will.

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It's kind of like an island of righteousness, and it's got some ability to do something good or else how could anybody believe without being a robot, and that's the way people talk, but I like to call that island of righteousness

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Gilligan's Island of Righteousness, and it's a cartoon just like Gilligan. It's just a made -up thing that the

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Hannah brothers have put together with a little buddy as the main feature. Many times.

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Yeah, I'm almost speechless at that. I mean, the whole idea, you know, where is that, you know, the Isle of Righteousness is somewhere in the

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Sea of Confusion, because that is just absolute nonsense. What was that guy who did the ship that sank?

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He sang a song about the ship. The Edmund Fitzgerald? Yes, who did that? Yeah, that was Gordon Lightfoot.

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Yes, that's what we should sing, but we should make one about the Isle of Righteousness, the will.

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Now, we believe the will has been affected by the fall along with everything else. The fall has been complete, i .e.

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the fall has been total. True is the answer to that question. Number eight, every person is free to choose what he pleases.

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Absolutely true, because every person will choose according, like I said,

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I think last time, last week, they will choose according to— It was a week ago already? Well, you know— Time flies.

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Yes, it does, especially when you're in beautiful Burbank. Time flies, but everyone does within the confines of their will, and so, you know,

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Romans 6 talks about you're either a slave of sin or a slave of righteousness.

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You know, everybody wants to talk about free will, but nobody's doing anything about it. No, everybody wants to talk about free will, but I—and I remember once being challenged actually in a class, shocking.

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But being challenged in a class, you know, Steve, you always talk about the sovereignty of God and salvation.

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Why don't you ever talk about our free will? And I just looked at the man and I said, you know what, well, that's a great point.

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Why don't we go to a verse that talks about our free will? Go ahead. Give me a verse.

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Silence. Simon and Garfunkel. The sound of silence was heard throughout the classroom.

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Well, Steve hit the nail on the proverbial head. We do what our nature allows us to do.

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And so, if the nature of the person is corrupt and defiled and blinded and enslaved, then you will only make choices that are commensurate with who you are.

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Listen to Ephesians chapter 4. He doesn't want them to walk any longer as the

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Gentiles walk. How do they walk? Ephesians 4, 17. In the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart, and they having become callous, have given themselves over.

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Isn't that interesting? They themselves are wanting to do these very things to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

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And so people want to sin. They have the freedom to act according to their nature, and as we said last time, what

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God has put together, let no man put asunder, and that is the nature and the will. And if the will is in the nature, the will is fallen because the nature is fallen.

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Well, you know, I mean, there's so many places to talk about this. You know, the light came into the world and what did men love?

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The darkness, their own sin. Again and again, we're confronted with this truth.

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People do not choose differently than what their will is. You can't take a person enslaved to sin and appeal to their desire to please

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God because they don't desire to please God. Yes, and on the other hand, in heaven, people will have a glorified nature, a perfect nature, righteous nature.

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They will have the righteousness of Christ credited to their account, and their practice and their position will be perfectly matched, and they will have all the freedom they would like to make choices according to their nature.

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But their nature doesn't have any sin, so they could not make a decision to sin. And what a great truth about heaven, not even having the capacity to sin.

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You know, sometimes you find yourself just thinking, you know, death won't be so bad because I will never have to confess.

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I'll never have to repent. I'm just done. Sin is gone. Yes, unable to do that. So for those of you that believe that way, and most

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Armenians and Calvinists believe that exact same thing. They believe that about heaven. But why,

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Arminian, do you believe than the person on earth? It doesn't do the exact opposite.

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Just think, as Pastor Steve just said, you will not be able to sin in heaven. Sometimes, Steve, I think to myself, when

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I get to heaven, I want to make sure I don't do something stupid. I want to do the right thing. Well, my nature will be perfectly glorified, and I will always do the right thing according to my nature.

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Well, the flip side is true as well. For the unbeliever, they will always do the wrong thing according to their wrong nature.

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That's right. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I could make another comment about heaven, but we need to keep moving. All right, number nine.

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Number nine. Number nine. Number nine. Number nine. Every sinner is bound by a sinful nature, so far so good, so that he is unable to make choices with which

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God is pleased. Well, that's true. That's true. That's the doctrine of total depravity.

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Back to Hebrews 11 .6, you know, apart from faith, you cannot please God. So yeah, and bound by a sinful nature.

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Yeah. Would that be straitjacket kind of binding, or would that be Harry Houdini kind of thing?

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Well, it would be Harry Houdini without the ability to get out of that, without the ability to get out of the straitjacket.

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I mean, you're just done. Good. Number 10. Sinners have – this is bad.

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I know Randy doesn't believe this. Sinners have saving grace in themselves. There's a spark there.

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There's a divine spark. It's the light. I don't know. It's the light of my – Let me think about it. Grace is a – grace, gift, faith, gift – there's something in Ephesians about it's not of yourselves.

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I don't know. Is it grace or faith, or is it the faith grace? But it's not self -generated.

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There's nowhere in the Bible that says – well, think about it. What is grace? Grace is unmerited or more properly demerited favor from God.

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How could you possibly have unmerited favor, demerited favor from God in you?

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This little light in mine. This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. Number – oh, you know what?

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I got a problem here. Oh, these multiple choice ones – oh,

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I see. All right, we go down to multiple choice. Forget the numbers. It'll be too confusing for our listeners here on WVNE.

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Which of the following – now we've got to multiple – now we've moved to multiple choice. Multiple choice. All right. Which of the following does the doctrine of total depravity –

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I don't like the way this is worded – not include? Yeah, any time you use a negative, it gets questionable. But can

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I just say something? A true or false is kind of a multiple choice, too. You know, I hate to – at the risk of being, you know, doctor obvious here,

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I just thought I'd throw that out there. Thank you. All right. Sinners have no will. We would disagree with that, wouldn't we?

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Yeah. Just read the question again. Which of the following does not – or does the doctrine of total depravity not include?

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A, sinners have no will. And so we believe sinners have will. Doctrine of total depravity says sinners have a will that's just enslaved.

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So that's one. Right. Number – letter B, sinners cannot do good even in the estimation of other sinners.

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Yeah, we kind of already addressed that. Yeah, we already did that one. I mean, that was last week. Yeah. Sinners are unable to receive

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Christ unless God enables them to do so. So C, sinners are unable to receive

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Christ unless God enables them to do so. And we believe that, so – So it's B. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

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Number 17. 17. You see, it's all messed up for numbers. Sinners are spiritually blind. I'm just going to make this true or false.

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True or false? Well, that's true. True. We know that from what verse in the Bible? That's a fine question.

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Oh, I think I – He opens the eyes – I mean, there are plenty of them – I mean, it's even in the Old Testament where he's going to restore the sight and all that kind of thing.

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Physically and spiritually. I would go to 2 Corinthians 4 .4, in whose case the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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You can go there and I'll go there too. 2 Corinthians 4 .4. Are they spiritually dead? We already learned that in Ephesians 2.

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Ephesians 2 .1. Yeah. And are they neutral in spiritual matters? Neutral. I mean, I like that. This is a truth or a claim that a lot of unbelievers like to –

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I'm basically neutral in spiritual matters. Did you just pull a Hank Hanegraaff on me with a truth claim?

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I mean, people are either – you either love God or you hate him.

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You're either his friend or his enemy. You're either his son or you're a son of Satan. I mean, this is the – you might think that sounds harsh, but this is what the

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New Testament says over and over again. One man said, we believe in sin because we're realists.

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It doesn't take too far to look to say to yourself in the culture of today and across the world, people are bad.

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People are sinful. And so that's what we believe as well. And Jesus Christ didn't come to save the righteous, but he came to call sinners.

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So that's what we like. All right. Number – whatever. It doesn't matter the number. It says 18 here, but I don't like the numbering system.

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Sinners come to Christ because they A, make a proper use of the free will that God has given them.

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B, are born in a neutral state of freedom, just like Adam was. Heretic.

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It was a fall. Have been B – C, have been granted pervenient grace.

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False. And have been enabled by efficacious grace. True. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

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That answer is cherubic. Number 19. Which of these statements are true?

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All true human beings are born into sin. What's a false human being? Jesus Christ was a true human being and not born into sin.

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I think that's what he's after. Oh, okay. Because he's truly human. But short of Christ Jesus and short of Adam, now because of the fall, humans are born in sin.

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Yes? Yes. Okay. Good. No human beings are born in sin. That would be false.

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What about Mary? She, yeah, she acknowledged her need of a

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Savior. So that's, yeah. That's correct. All sinners born by ordinary generation are born in sin.

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Oh, I like that one. Ordinary generation because the Lord Jesus not being ordinarily generated.

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That's correct. And I like that word generated too because I believe the virgin birth, there was nothing spectacular about the virgin birth.

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The actual birth of Jesus. Nothing was out of the ordinary. It was a birth like every other birth.

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But I do believe the supernatural, extraordinary part was the virgin conception. Yeah. That is exceptional.

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Number 20, the reason that sinners reject Christ and perish in their sins is that God has not given them grace to believe.

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True. That part is true. They have misused their free wills. That was B. They have misused their free wills, which is false.

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If we did say they have misused their wills, their wills that were originally designed to worship God, that'd be okay.

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Yeah, that'd be okay. But free will just blows it up. Why do I want to keep saying ice ice baby when we're talking about free will?

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I'm not quite certain I know. I'm not sure. Lack of sleep? I think that's right. They are sinful rebels against God.

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So far, so good. So far, so bad. As John Gershner said about sinners, there's always room for deprovement.

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There's always room for deprovement. The sinner in hell would not believe because he doesn't have it in him.

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Give him the gospel, he's no masochist, but he would not repent and believe because he doesn't have the nature to repent and believe.

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Gershner lives. You can do that. Listen to him. I first heard that, how to possibly escape hell, the 1992 sermon from Ligonier in San Diego when ...

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I'd never heard of Ligonier before. That was a world -rocking sermon, I'll tell you that right now.

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How to possibly ... I hate John Calvin. There's a hell that's for people like John Calvin, but if John Calvin taught what was in the

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Bible, I have to believe what John Calvin believed. I hate John Calvin. All right.

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They are sinful rebels against God who, apart from grace, always resist every effort to reclaim them.

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True. I mean, people ... which brings up a really good point because there's this idea out there in Christendom, in the evangelical circles, that somehow people are waiting to be saved.

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If we just kind of coax them along or present things in a nice enough fashion that then they'll want to be saved, that they'll recognize that there is something missing from their lives, there is something lacking, and that Jesus can kind of fill that hole.

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Yes. What I would say about C, we have to ... since we're not the author and we're trying to look for authorial intent and we're trying to figure out what the

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Bible says, I'd say with C, Steve, that irresistible grace is true, though, and once God the

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Spirit decides to reclaim them, that they will be reclaimed. Absolutely. And so we would believe that.

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And I'd also like to make an addendum. God has not given them grace to believe. Why do sinners perish?

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That is true. We do believe in double predestination, but it's not symmetrical. What I mean by that is, most of the time, and according to Westminster in 1689,

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London Baptist Confession, Savoy, and others, most of the time the discussion of why people are in hell, it's not based on God didn't give them grace.

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It's based on their own sin, that they sinned against God. They didn't want to go to heaven. They are responsible for their own sin.

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It is true, Romans 9, Proverbs 16, 4, 1 Peter chapter 2, 8, it is true that these people are destined to that, but most of the time,

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Scripture would say that they get hell because they deserved it and they chose it freely based on their nature.

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Well, in Romans 1, you know, 18 and following, it just talks about how people see the truth in creation and even that truth which is obvious to them.

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They suppress it. Why? Because, you know, basically they don't want to acknowledge the

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Creator, and, you know, step by step, God gives them over to worse and worse sins.

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So it is their own will to reject the truth. That's what they do. If you need to have a good book on this topic, you should read

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Chosen by God by that guy down, Ligon Duncan, just kidding.

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R .C. Yeah, R .C. Sproul's written a good book, and he talks about predestination and is it symmetrical, is it not?

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That's for another topic. Today, if you're listening and you're not a Christian, you are totally depraved and you cannot save yourself, and maybe you go to AA, maybe you have some self -resolutions for self -help, but you need a

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Savior, and you need to get on your knees and cry out and say, I've tried to save myself, I've tried to be pleasing in your sight, I can't do it,

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Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner, and then believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died on a cross for sinners like you, and God raised

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Him from the dead. That's your only hope for those of you who are totally depraved. Preach it, and if you're saved, then you can rejoice.

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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.