Chosen By God (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.

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Our theme is always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

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I want to provoke you to think biblically, to be like a Berean, to listen to Paul say to the

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Thessalonians, examine everything carefully, and just to engage your mind in honor of my friend,

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Tom Krause, to engage your world. By the way, don't you miss Tom Krause? Have Lars Larson on in the morning, faithful teacher

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Lars, and then you had Tom Krause in the afternoon, and then me.

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Where's Tom? It's just not the same without Tom. I should have Tom on just to kind of have an update of what's going on with Tom's life.

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So if you want to know what's going on with Tom, I think his sermons might be on the station

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Saturdays, I think, midnight. If you'd like to go to Greece with us, well, you can.

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No Compromise Radio ministry is sponsoring a trip to Greece, 11 -day tour and cruise,

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Athens, Corinth. Both those places are wonderful. I've been there before, and it is really neat to stand there on Mars Hill and learn

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Acts 17, look down into the Agora. It is wonderful. It's breathtaking to see the canal in Corinth, to see what's happening with issues in Greece, participate in some of the strikes there and rallies.

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Just kidding. We'll avoid those places. We'll head over into Patmos as well and Ephesus, and we'll be touring and cruise

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April 2013. You can either go to our website, or you can write me for a brochure at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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You'll need to get yourself to Boston, and then we'll fly from Boston over to Athens.

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Not GA, but Athens, Greece. Save your Euros, and we'll see you.

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We're going with Pilgrim Tours. We just got back from Israel with Pilgrim Tours last year, and I like them, so we'll do it again.

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Also, you can get online and order my book, Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, day one book, and I would encourage you, if you'd like to get a copy, you can go to Amazon.

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They're probably used by now. I mean, I'm always torn because I'd like to promote my books because the books promote

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Jesus Christ, the King, and I think it's got an important concept there, an important message, a lot of biblical argumentation, exposition, exegetical stuff, practical.

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So I want to promote it, but just somehow promoting your own books is, you know, it's no one who watches someone, you know, promote themselves.

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Self -promotion never really looks good. And so when I read bloggers that are always trying to promote their books and say, did you read

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Amazon? Amazon just gave me a good review. I mean, when I get a good review,

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I think I've gotten five good reviews between two books and Amazon. So you can go there and check them out.

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I wrote them all, just under pseudonyms. I'm happy. I might send it to my associate pastor,

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Steve, Tuesday guy, maybe my brother. If my mom was alive, I'd probably send it to her. I mean, I like it.

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It's encouraging, but I don't need to blog it. I don't need to tweet it. I don't need to say, well, I've got a new book coming out and I don't really know which cover

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I should use. Which one do you think it should be? Just self, self, self. Matter of fact, I even emailed one of the people who just incessantly, seemingly promotes their own books and how their own book is getting reviewed by so -and -so.

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Check this tweet out. Maybe that's just the nature of tweet. Maybe I just don't know. Like I said, I don't want to be hypocritical because I say sometimes,

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I've got this new book. I just signed a deal with another book publisher and Clint Archer, Byron Yon and myself, things that go bump in the church, it should be out within a year.

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I'm excited about it. A real publisher. You actually get a real advance and real editors compared to my last two.

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But over and over and over, just talking about your own book. I think

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I'll go to the philosophy, let another one praise you and not yourself. So call me old -fashioned. Speaking of books, not my book, not somebody else's book, well,

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I guess it is somebody else's book. R .C. Sproul, Chosen by God. I'm going to finish talking about that today because there are so many things

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I didn't get to talk about last week. I started a series a while ago, the top ten books that influenced my life the most, especially as a new

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Christian. And the thing about it is God was gracious to me and kind to me, and so these books that were given to me early on to read are books now that are still good.

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So if you've been a Christian for ten years, this still applies. If you've been a Christian one year, this applies. Twenty years, it's good to go back and reread these books.

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And so I could say the ten most influential books in my life, but I've got to redo the list then.

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So this is early on influential that could be your top ten most influential.

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See? See how that works? You can write us at info at nocompromisedradio .com, and I honestly,

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I will read every email. Somebody was blasting me the other day about something, and they said, you know, will you read this?

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Well, yeah, I will read it. If you're going to be a total jerk, then I probably won't respond. Maybe I'll respond sternly or rebukingly or something.

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But if you really want to email and say, I disagree with you, I think that is great. If you say, thank you,

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I appreciate your ministry, that's wonderful. If you want to include a love gift, that's even better. It's just kidding.

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You can't include love gifts on email. I liked it. Somebody said, we'd like to give money to you, but we don't know how.

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So there's no little credit card deal. I don't even think there's PayPal online now, is there?

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I think we had them take that off. So it's, you know, if we do ever get money, we know

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God really wanted us to get it. So where am I? I'm just rambling on.

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24 and a half minutes goes by fast. We haven't even talked about the book yet. So here's the scoop. Books that influence me, translation that I want to influence you.

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I want you to go buy this book, Chosen by God, R .C. Sproul. Last time I gave a little introduction, background, table of contents, et cetera.

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This book is really good because it's going to help you understand what the Bible teaches about being chosen.

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Chosen by God, predestined, election, selection, sovereign grace, distinguishing grace, obligation?

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No. Grace. Grace. Justice? Deserved? Yes. Grace given to those who believe on the

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Son, the Lord Jesus, the risen Savior. And so I'm just trying to read little snippets of this book to try to whet your apatrite—apatrite.

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How about whet your apatripe? How about whet your apatite?

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Trite. Apatrite. This is a trite saying. This is tripe. Fish. I don't know what it is, but I'm super tired.

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Tomorrow I will celebrate my 52nd birthday. And I can tell the last two years,

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I'm just breaking down. If I listed all my ailments and maladies, no wonder these old guys get together and just talk about, you know, all their prescriptions and going to the doctor and their world revolves around which doctor they're going to see next.

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I don't really want to become that man, but I think I am that man. So, Chosen by God is a book you ought to get.

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It'd be great for a husband and wife to have the book to read together. Honey, let's each read chapter one and then talk about it.

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It'd be good to read at the dinner table if you're a dad and you've got some teenagers. This is a great book for you to read.

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God's Sovereignty and Human Freedom, page 39. Every Christian gladly affirms,

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R .C. says, that God is sovereign. God's sovereignty is a comfort to us. It assures us that He is able to do what

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He promises to do. But the bare fact of God's sovereignty raises one more big question.

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How is God's sovereignty related to human freedom? When we stand before the question of divine sovereignty and human freedom, the fight -or -flight dilemma may confront us.

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And so, see, that's the issue. Do we fight this? Do we run from this?

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As a college student, I heard two analogies that gave me temporary relief, like a theological package of Rolaids.

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Number one, God's sovereignty and human freedom are like parallel lines that meet in eternity.

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How do we reconcile the two? That's option one, he said. Analogy two, God's sovereignty and human freedom are like ropes in a well.

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On the surface, they seem separate, but in the darkness of the bottom of the well, they come together.

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And he said, well, that was okay. That was temporary relief, but he needed some, if I could put it in today's vernacular, some

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Prilosec. The nagging question refused to go away. How, I wondered, can parallel lines ever meet in eternity or anywhere else?

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See, that's the problem with R .C. Sproul, someone that smart. He talked about contradictions.

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He didn't like to hear the statements, God's bigger than logic, our faith is higher than reason. I certainly agree that God is bigger than logic and that faith is higher than reason.

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I agree with all my heart and with all my head. What I want to avoid is a God who is smaller than logic and a faith that is lower than reason.

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See, you should read this even if you're an Arminian. Be perfect. A faith that is lower than reason is irrational, not irrational, irrational and absurd.

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Irrational is what you have when it is fuzzy thinking on the internet. Since the Bible teaches both poles of the contradiction, we must be willing to affirm them both in spite of the fact that they are contradictory.

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God forbid. For Christians to embrace both poles of a blatant contradiction is to commit intellectual suicide and to slander the

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Holy Spirit. If human freedom and divine sovereignty are real contradictions, then one of them at least has to go.

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Happily there is an alternative. We can keep both sovereignty and freedom if we can show they are both not contradictory.

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And so the issue happens to be with R .C. Sproul and divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

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Our duty is this. As time goes on, you will know that you're maturing in Christ Jesus because you will accept things that maybe appear to be contradictory but are both clearly taught in Scripture.

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And so if you want to talk about compatibilism and tenemies, whatever word you want to use, compatibilism might be the best.

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It does teach that God is sovereign over who goes to heaven. It's clear. And it does teach that men and women are responsible.

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And you can go to Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 4, the list goes on. Both are true.

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Now how we figure that out? Remember friends, we are finite. We are not infinite.

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We are creatures. We're made by God. God is a creator. It's his universe. It's his world.

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Furthermore, number three, we're tainted by sin. Our minds are tainted by sin.

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Our bodies are tainted by sin. Our logic is tainted by sin. Our knowledge is tainted by sin. Our understanding is tainted by sin.

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The way we think is tainted by sin. So it should not be a duh moment for us to say we can't wrap our minds around an infinite

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God and the way he does things. I mean, you can think about Christ Jesus. He is fully

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God, eternal God. There has never been a time that the second person of the

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Trinity has not existed. That's true. But two thousand years ago, conceived by the

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Spirit of God, Jesus Christ took on flesh in the womb of Mary and then was born.

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Virgin conception, the virgin bore the child in a natural, normal way, and then

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Jesus forever is cloaked with humanity. Now that is hard to get your mind wrapped around.

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How about God never changes? Wrap your mind around that. I look in the mirror and I think, I'm changing.

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I'm no longer 6 '2", I'm probably 6 '0". I'm no longer smooth -faced,

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I'm wrinkly. I'm no longer full of hair on my head,

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I'm full of hair on my ears and my nose. I change, but yet God doesn't change over eternity?

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How about just that? Wrap your mind around eternity past. How's that? Wrap your mind around eternity future and heaven and no time and living where there's no time.

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Eternity. That's an amazing thing. And so, for us, we just say we accept both, and that is a sign of maturation.

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That is a sign that you just willingly accept both, and you don't have to dot the i's and cross the t's.

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I'm not saying to think illogically or somehow think with only faith. I'm just saying to say,

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I'm just saying to say, that doesn't make any sense at all. I am just saying, accept

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Bible truth and know that God has figured out how they all go together, and we embrace all of what the

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Bible teaches. All right, let's talk a little bit more about the sovereignty of God, and I'll fast forward in R .C.

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Sproul's book. My name is Mike Abendroth. You're listening to No Compromise Radio, where we talk about the man, the

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God -man who never compromised, Christ Jesus. Aren't you glad you have a representative? Aren't you glad you have the righteousness of Christ imputed to your account as a

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Christian? Because you're not only forgiven for your sins, that would just bring you back to neutral, but you have actual righteousness credited to your account.

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All right, well, what about free will? There's a chapter on free will. If you mean free from external influences like the world, then you don't have free will.

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The world influences people. I can prove it by advertising. Why do I advertise advert?

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Because advertising works. Because when you watch a Big Mac commercial about two all -beef patty, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, sesame seed bun, you memorize that as a kid, and you also want to go get one.

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So we are influenceable people. Satan influences. The world influences. Indwelling sin influences.

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And certainly God can influence. And so if you mean free from all external and internal forces, it can't be free.

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But if you mean free will, meaning the mind choosing, that's how Jonathan Edwards defined it, and it's here in R .C.'s

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book. Then we have a nature, and as unbelievers we would have a fallen nature, and that fallen nature would freely choose all kinds of fallen things.

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We in heaven would have a nature that's perfect, and we would always choose in terms of that perfect nature.

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So in heaven you can't sin. Does that make you less of a person in heaven because you can't sin, because you don't have the freedom to sin?

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Well, of course not. So why are we all bound up, no pun intended, or maybe pun intended, why are we all bound up with this, well, you're going to be a robot?

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Are you going to be a robot in heaven? You couldn't sin if you wanted to. You won't even want to. You won't even think about it.

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You never would want to do it. Revelation 5, the lamb standing as if slain, you're not going to want to sin.

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Does that mean you're a robot? No. Does that mean you're a puppet? No. So if you mean by free will, the mind chooses according to the nature, when

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God saves you and gives you a new nature, you make choices in regard to that. So before you're saved, you pick freely, but only what your nature will allow.

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When you're in heaven, you'll pick freely, but only what your nature will allow. And so I think free will is a term that's best jettisoned today because it conjures up too many bad images.

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If you want to believe Edwards, the mind choosing, you can. But I think for today, I just as soon use a different word besides, or a different term besides free will.

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Sproul says our choices are determined by our desires. They remain our choices because they are motivated by our own desires.

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This is what we call self -determination, which is the essence of freedom. Every decision you make is made for a reason.

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And so what R .C. would teach, and what I would teach as well, is that people who are fallen, they're unbelievers, slaves to sin, slaves doing

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Satan's will, 2 Timothy 2, slaves of the world, Ephesians 2, can never by themselves choose

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Christ Jesus, can never without divine assistance believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

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They love their sin, and they can't extract themselves from their own sin, so they need a

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God who freely chooses to save them. We are passive in salvation.

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God is active, passive in redemption, because Jesus Christ is the

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Savior. Now certainly, the Bible teaches the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of human.

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The sum and substance, R .C. says, of the whole debate on predestination rests squarely at this point.

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Does fallen man, in and of himself, have a natural desire for Christ? That's it.

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The fall is real. Slavery to sin is real. The need for regeneration and new birth is true.

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It's a verity. Edwards answers this question, R .C. said, with an emphatic no. He insists that, in the fall, man lost his original desire for God.

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When he lost that desire, something happened to his freedom. He lost the moral ability to choose

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Christ. In order to choose Christ, the sinner must first have a desire to choose Christ.

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Left to themselves, who would ever freely choose Christ? They will always and everywhere reject the gospel, precisely because they do not desire the gospel.

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They will always and everywhere reject Christ, because they do not desire Christ. But when

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God changes our will, God changes our nature, God changes our mind, then we freely choose

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Christ. God doesn't believe for you. God doesn't repent for you. God doesn't follow for you.

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God doesn't forsake sin for you. He gives you a new nature that gladly says,

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I love Christ, even though I used to hate him. How do you take a person? I don't know, something simple.

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Take some brussels sprouts and some beets. I pretty much eat all foods. I'm ecumenical with my palate, and I love foods from all across the world.

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But I don't like beets. I drink beet juice just for biking purposes, but I hate it. And so, how can

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I make myself begin to like beets? I'm going to have to change on the inside. Now, the analogy falls short, maybe because you get used to them, but I am used to them.

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I don't almost retch now when I smell beet juice, but I'm never going to love them.

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So, I need to be changed from the inside. So, let's talk about this book a little bit more.

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What else can I go to? You're listening to Mike Abendroth on No Compromise Radio. How about the bumper sticker,

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I found it? Remember that bumper sticker? Now, maybe you're too young for this. If you're a wretched crossover, if you're a wretched crossdresser,

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I was going to say a wretched crossover listener, you're probably too young, because I imagine a lot of the wretched folks are younger.

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There was a bumper sticker, I found it, and then you're supposed to say to people, what did you find? And they say, I found Jesus. But at the end of the day, someone with a bound will, hence

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Luther, the bondage of the will. We're not Roman Catholics believing in the freedom of the will. That's Rome.

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But now modern evangelicals are like those who are currently

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Roman Catholic. They teach the freedom of the will, and Luther said, we are bound.

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What happened at the fall? How great was the fall? The unconverted person, Sproul said, working in the flesh achieves nothing of permanent value.

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In the flesh, he may gain the whole world, but he loses the thing of most value to himself, his own soul.

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And so here we have this great, great God who saves us.

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He makes us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved. He does it all. God, rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with him.

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That's right from Ephesians 2. Colossians chapter 2 talks about that thing called making us alive as well.

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Dead men don't make themselves alive. They can't talk to themselves. They can't prod themselves.

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They can't poke themselves. They are dead. Sproul said, Paul says the man is dead.

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He is not merely drowning. He has already sunk to the bottom of the sea. It is futile to throw a life preserver to a man who has already drowned.

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If I understand Paul, I hear him saying that God dives into the water, pulls a dead man from the bottom of the sea, and then performs a divine act of mouth -to -mouth resuscitation.

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He breathes into the dead man new life. Sproul, page 116.

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A couple comments. Comment one, I love R .C. and I could never really teach him anything, but it's not resuscitation.

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It's not that you were dead, alive, now dead. It was you were dead. And so I would say that God gives you a heart transplant.

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That's a better way to put it. You're dead, and now God causes you to be alive by giving you a heart transplant.

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If you struggle with election, it's because you don't understand the fall and you don't understand depravity.

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That's why when it comes to TULIP, total depravity and then unconditional election. And if you don't grasp total depravity, radical corruption, spiritual inability of the unbeliever, then you can't really go to unconditional election because you'll want a conditional election because if man isn't really that bad, if he's kind of bad but not too bad, and he has some prevenient grace that he could choose, then

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God's going to look down the course of time and pick somebody who picked him. It's going to be kind of a post -destination.

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But if you understand that man is wicked to the core, and by nature he'll always do the thing that pleases his nature, then you'll realize

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God must step in. God must be God. God must sovereignly pick and choose. God chose some angels?

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Not all. God chose one nation? Not all. God chose 12 apostles?

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Not all. God chose some people to go to heaven? Not all.

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Why? Because God is a choosing God. And by the way, you act just like God in the sense that you're an image bearer, and you choose who wants to be on your team.

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You choose who you want to marry. You choose what job you like to work for. Short of living in the third world country, you do a lot of choosing.

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Unless you're a slave, then you don't do much choosing. So my name is Mike Abendroth. Top ten book that influenced my life the most to learn about God and his word is

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Chosen by God. You'll look at predestination and reprobation. Is it symmetrical?

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You'll learn all kinds of things like that. Just read the book. You'll be encouraged. Tyndale Publisher, R .C.

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Sproul, Chosen by God. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com and send us your emails regarding election.