Doubt vs Rejection
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Pastor Mike Abendroth continues the discussion on doubt and assurance, expanding on Jesus’ words in Luke 7. He contrasts the struggles of believers with the hardened rejection of the Pharisees, illustrating how self-righteousness blinds people to their need for salvation. Through an engaging mix of biblical teaching, personal reflections, and humor, Mike unpacks how Jesus responded to John the Baptist’s doubt with kindness and affirmation while condemning the obstinate unbelief of those who rejected both John and Jesus. He explores the parable of the "spoiled brats" who refuse to engage, whether in the somber call to repentance or the joyous call to grace, drawing parallels to modern-day skeptics. This episode serves as both an encouragement for Christians wrestling with assurance and a sobering reminder of the consequences of rejecting God's truth. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Va8WiOI8OVM [https://youtu.be/Va8WiOI8OVM] Produced/Edited By: Marrio Escobar (Owner of D2L Productions)
- 00:12
- Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. It's Mike Ebendroth. And I've done quite a few shows over the years.
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- I think we're up to something like 4 ,200 or something, but I don't think I've ever done a show here until last episode.
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- And then now we're in the church building, Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.
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- And of course, around here in New England, you don't really have church buildings. You have meeting houses because the believers back in the day knew that churches were the people.
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- And so we call it Bethlehem Bible Church, but it's Bethlehem Bible Church meets here. So I'm in the sanctuary.
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- For those of you that don't want me to say that word, you can just cut that out, but it's my show and I say whatever
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- I want. You can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com. Mario is behind the camera. We're gonna do a few different shows with video and audio and surprises.
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- And look at, there are books to be advertised and there's hidden things in the camera to be seen and everything else.
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- So today we're going to talk a little bit more about doubt and assurance. I've received lots of good feedback, not only from the congregation here at the church, but also from you, the listeners, doubt and assurance.
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- And just to summarize one more time, doubts are normal. They're common.
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- They are frequent in the lives of Christians and there's intellectual doubt.
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- Sometimes you are wondering how all these things can be about God and they can be true. And there are doubts that come from hard circumstances, trials, test results, something's going on in a marriage.
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- Does God still answer prayer? Is God still good? Why are these things happening? And so there are doubts that assail
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- Christians and people over the years have doubted, but we don't want you to doubt.
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- If you're a Christian, God doesn't want you to doubt. God has granted to us, 1 John 5, verse 13, great promises, great truths about God so that you can have confidence, that you can know, that you can have a realization that you're forgiven.
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- And so God wants you to have assurance. And we saw with the backdrop of John the Baptist, while he was struggling, the
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- Lord Jesus helped him, encouraged him, and even publicly vindicated him.
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- Remember he said to everybody who was listening, there's not one person born of a woman. There's not one human being in the world that was greater than John the
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- Baptist. I mean, himself, you know, excluded, the God -man of course is greater, but no one else has been greater.
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- And there's a lot of people from Elijah and Elisha and Hosea and Malachi and Joel and Amos and Jonah.
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- There are a lot of people, Zechariah and Zephaniah. When I was a kid, we had to memorize the
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- Old Testament and New Testament. And the New Testament was easy for me because I would just dry my children's hair when they were little,
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- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Acts and the Letter, Romans, 1 Corinthians, you know, 1 and 2 Corinthians. But the
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- Old Testament was harder because once you get to those 12 minor prophets, I mean, I get the Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, but once you get to the
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- Hoseas, it's harder. But John the Baptist was greater than everyone. And so Jesus publicly vindicates him.
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- One scholar said, John the Baptist never heard those words because he was in prison. And can you imagine when
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- John the Baptist gets beheaded and it's like the angels are in heaven saying, you'd never believe what
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- Jesus said about you when you were back on earth. Just talking about how wonderful you are, how great you are, a public vindication, the
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- Lord Jesus. So doubt's one thing, run from doubt, think about who Jesus is, promises, study the attributes of God.
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- We're not commending doubt, we're just, we're realists, Christians doubt. And we want to say that it's a lot different than unbelief, an unbelief that says,
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- I'm not going to believe. Remember the Pharisees in Luke 7? They said, we reject the purposes of God for our lives.
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- I reject, it is an obstinate, resolute, stiff arm rejection.
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- So that's what we talked about last time. So today on No Compromise Radio, I want to talk about one more element of this rejection, one more element of rejection so that when you meet people who reject, you know what to say.
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- So you're thankful that you're no longer rejecting and so that you can distinguish between doubt and rejection.
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- So that's the purpose of the show today so that you can understand the text better in Luke 7 and understand the difference between doubt and rejection.
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- Because when you see rejection and obstinate unbelief, you're gonna say, I'm not doing that. I mean, maybe one out of a thousand people are doing that.
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- Sometimes doubt in an unbeliever masquerading as a believer can turn into something worse,
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- I understand all that. But for the Christian, they're Christian, and I assume most people listen are Christians. There's a great scenario in Luke 7 that is going to help us.
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- Jesus said in Luke 7 31, to what then shall I compare the people of this generation and what are they like?
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- So this is gonna be an expansion of, do you know what? Those who received John the
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- Baptist baptism, it's not that they were saved by his baptism. They just knew that they were sinners and they needed to repent of their sins and the
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- Pharisees and the lawyer, we don't have any sins to repent of. We're not going to do that. We have our own righteousness.
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- And as you know, on this show, we've talked about many times what's worse, unrighteousness or self -righteousness?
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- Now, of course, sin is sin, but I think even in Romans 1, there's levels of sin, there's degrees of sin.
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- What's worse, unrighteousness or self -righteousness? Which one does Jesus condemn more often, unrighteousness or self -righteousness?
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- Now, to be clear, if we have right in the word righteous or unrighteous, doing the right thing, obeying
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- God's law, it's wrong to disobey God's law, to be unrighteous, not doing righteous things.
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- Of course, prostitution and terrorism and murder and lying, unrighteous things, are they sinful?
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- Well, yes and amen, of course they are. We're not arguing that, but what about self -righteousness?
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- How often does Jesus just, as my mom used to say, blister? She usually said it in these words.
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- Mike, do you need a blistering? Actually, my mom spanked more than my dad did. My dad just pulled our hair, my mom spanked.
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- And sometimes I would get the slap on the hand, slap of the hand on my thigh, and you could just see the imprint of the red hand on the thigh.
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- That's why I am what I am now, because I have psych problems because pulling hair and slapping.
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- And so back to the point of the message, when people are saying, you know what?
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- We've got problems, unrighteousness, self -righteousness, the blistering that happened.
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- You thought I forgot, didn't you? The blistering was on the self -righteous people. Self -righteous people don't think they need any righteousness.
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- Unrighteous people, they will see their sin, they think they're wrong. You don't have to go to a jail and say, you think you're a bad guy.
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- I guess there's exceptions to this, but you get my point. Unrighteous and self -righteous. So Jesus is really after the self -righteous people and they don't wanna hear any message and they don't wanna hear an aesthetic message or a jovial message.
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- And here's what I mean by that. What are these people like? They're like children, Jesus said, sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another.
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- We played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sang a dirge and you did not weep. They're childish, they're peevish, they are not satisfied.
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- And here's the backdrop of what Jesus is saying. Now, when I grew up, we played games out in the yard.
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- We played dodgeball, we called it war ball. We can't call it that anymore.
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- We played Red Rover, Red Rover sends Cindy right over. Whenever I had to go over, send
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- Mike right over, you'd look for the two weakest people and try to break through their arms, right? We played ring around the
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- Rosie. I'm not sure people realize what that's about. It's about the plague, ashes, asses all fall down dead.
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- We played jump rope, we played line tag. But the thing that we played most often was
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- Tarzan. Problem is unlike Batman and Robin, when if there's two of you, one had to be
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- Batman and one had to be Robin. But Tarzan, I mean, what are you gonna be, cheetah? Everybody wanted to be
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- Tarzan. So here's why we played Tarzan all the time in Omaha, Nebraska in the 60s. A, he was cool.
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- B, you only needed your swimsuit and some knife. That was all you needed.
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- If you're gonna be Batman, you had to have a cape, you had to have a cowl, you had to have a utility belt, you had to have boots, you had to have all kinds of stuff.
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- Did I mention a utility belt? How did he carry some of those things in that utility belt? But that's another story. Those are the games we played,
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- Tarzan, Cowboys and Indians, World War II stuff, Nazis, Americans.
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- That's what we played. What did they play back in the day? Well, children mimic, children imitate.
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- And so the two big things that happened back in the Middle East in those days, where there was a big show, weddings and funerals.
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- So weddings, huge parade. Funerals, huge parade.
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- Weddings, the parade was joyous. Funerals, a parade, somber. Much more than somber like we
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- Germans or Westerners tend to mourn. Paid mourners, wailing, weeping, loud.
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- And so the kids would watch weddings and funerals. And now when they're in the public square and there's not much business going on and the kids are gathered, they'd play games.
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- I'm sure they didn't play Tarzan. I'm sure they didn't play Batman. Maybe they reenacted
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- Goliath getting killed by David or something like that. But they regularly played wedding and funeral.
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- And Jesus says, they're like children sitting in the marketplace, calling to one another. We played the flute for you.
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- They play the flute at weddings and dance. They played the flute and they would dance at weddings.
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- And we sang a dirge, a mournful song. And you didn't weep. You know what? These children can't be satisfied.
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- You wanna have a happy game, wedding, they don't wanna play. You wanna have a sad game, funeral, they don't wanna play.
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- So what's the point? Is Jesus talking just about games here? What's he talking about? He just got done saying, what do
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- I compare this generation like? What are they like? They're like these children. And so these children played these games and now
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- Jesus explains what he means. For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine.
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- And you say he has a demon. John comes and he is austere.
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- He is out in the desert, honey, locust, wearing crazy clothes out in the middle of the desert.
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- You think that's the wedding game or the funeral game? What do you think John the Baptist game would be playing if we had to use those terms?
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- And the answer is of course, mourning, weeping, sins, repentance,
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- John the Baptist funeral, you don't wanna play. I mean, you
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- Pharisees and lawyers, verse 29 of Luke 7, you do reject the purpose of God.
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- If you reject God's purpose and message, you'll reject the messenger. You've rejected John the
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- Baptist because he's come to you and he said, you need to repent. You Pharisees and you lawyers think that the
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- Gentiles should be repenting for being Gentiles. You need to repent.
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- And so when it comes to dirge, weep, wail, somber, austere,
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- John the Baptist, you've rejected John the Baptist. You've rejected the message, therefore you reject the messenger.
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- You won't play that game. Well, now we kind of know what's gonna happen the next verse.
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- The son of man has come, son of man is Jesus' designation for himself. Son of man has come eating and drinking.
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- And you say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Jesus comes, he doesn't play the funeral game as it were.
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- He plays the wedding game. Can you imagine? Back to John 2,
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- Jesus attends a wedding. The first sign that he ever does.
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- If you wanted to show someone you were Messiah, what sign would you do? I'd probably start off with raising people from the dead, lepers being cleansed, blind people seen.
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- But the first sign that Jesus does in all of his public ministry is he turns water into wine.
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- And that water that was in that ritualistic cleansing container over there with a suffocation of the
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- Pharisees and all their self -righteous rules and extra biblical things that they put on there. Jesus comes and basically says, when the
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- Messiah comes, me, and I show up, there's gonna be joy.
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- Psalm 104, wine, joy, happiness, celebration.
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- Think about Jesus. He comes and there's joy and he's in boats, he's on the sea, he's in the synagogue, he's in the temple, he's at weddings, he's at banquets, he just does all these things.
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- And you know what, there's joy because when Jesus is around, great joy. He's healing people, the deaf hear, the mute can say things, the blind can see, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are being raised.
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- We just got done talking about that. And when Jesus is there, it's like the wedding game. Happy, joyous, you go to a wedding and everybody's happy, celebration for the bride, celebration for the groom, the groomsmen, the bridesmaid, father of the bride, father of the groom.
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- It's just one big happy family, tears of joy. It's nothing like dirge, it's nothing like weeping.
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- It's like flute, it's like dancing. Sometimes even today I like to watch some Jewish dancing at their weddings and the guys all dance over here, the ladies dance over there.
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- And so if you reject, here's the purpose of all this. If you reject the message that there is free grace and salvation for those who recognize their sin and they see they have a need and they're condemned by the law and they say something like,
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- God, could you have mercy? Your justice will damn me, but I've heard you're merciful and good and kind.
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- There's freedom for them, forgiveness for them, salvation for them. But if you'll say, you know what?
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- I reject that because I'm good enough. I'm a Pharisee, I'm a lawyer. I don't need to say that I need
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- John's baptism for repentance of sins. I don't need Jesus and his free grace that he offers.
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- If you reject the message, you'll reject the messenger. And you'll reject John the Baptist who's out in the wilderness.
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- You'll reject Jesus who's in the synagogues and the Pharisees' homes eating.
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- If you reject the message, you'll reject the messenger. And so today when it comes to something very practical,
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- I watch unbelievers and it doesn't matter if someone's kind in their evangelism or they're a new
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- Christian and they're kind of harsh. They reject it because they think they've got enough righteousness of their own or they just don't even think they need any righteousness because there's no judgment day.
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- You die and then it's over. But Jesus says, this generation is fickle.
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- This generation rejects. This generation is childish. They're peevish, they're just spoiled brats.
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- Some people call this the parable of the spoiled brats. And you just watch what unbelief does.
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- So back to big picture again. You're a Christian, you doubt. I'm a Christian, I doubt. But I don't do these things.
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- Praise the Lord. You should be happy. You should have assurance that you're not saying to yourself, when it comes to Jesus, John the
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- Baptist, Malachi, Moses, Paul, Peter, John, Luke, I don't want what they have to offer.
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- I don't care what they say. I don't believe any of that trash. It's tripe. I don't want it. You're gonna say to me that I'm a sinner in need of grace.
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- I don't need that. I don't need repentance. I don't need to be healed. I don't need to have salvation.
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- I'm sure a Christian, if you're listening today, that's not you. You're not like that generation.
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- While you have some doubts that go through your mind and you question and you wonder, and you're like, this is hard.
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- Why are you cast down on my soul? And Job regularly said, why? Your answer that you see in scripture, you agree with and you say,
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- I don't have anywhere else to go. And I know God's still King. You begin to do what
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- I do. I look around and I go, who made the sun and the moon and gravity and the earth and the hydrological system?
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- How do you get water from the Pacific Ocean on the fields in Nebraska? But you've got to take out the salt and everything else and blood too thick, too thin, won't circulate, clogs up, bleeds out.
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- These laws of irreducible minimum stuff. Evolution can't be true. I was at the doctor the other day, the eye doctor.
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- And by the way, at my age, you just go to the doctor every week. In the old days, I'd say to myself, I'm waking up today.
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- I'm going to teach the people the Bible. I don't know what I'm teaching and who am I teaching, but I'm gonna teach the
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- Bible. Now I wake up and I say, I'm going to the doctor. I don't know which doctor I'm going.
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- And I'm sitting there at the eye doctor. And it's kind of crazy too, because they push that thing up to your face and then they've got magnifying glasses and other things.
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- And then the doctor's face is like right up next to yours. There's just a thin thing in between you. It's just like lady doctor.
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- Her face and my face. What is going on? I don't know what to talk about.
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- It's just so uncomfortable. You're in my personal space. And so I said, you must be a person who says regularly, evolution's a farce.
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- And she's like, what? And I said, to see the eyeball every day and to look into a human eye and to see the complexity, see how it's made.
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- How can evolution that doesn't have a brain figure something out when it doesn't figure? And you just can't have billions of years for the eye to come to be.
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- Actually, and I'm not telling you anything you don't know, doctor. We see things upside down. The eye sees everything upside down, but the brain flips it back over so we see things right side up.
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- And so we start preaching like that to ourselves. And we realize while we have doubts, we're still trusting in the
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- Lord. I believe, help my unbelief. And we're nothing like these people that say, John the
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- Baptist has a demon. That's a good test for you listeners and you viewers today. You're struggling with the assurance of your salvation.
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- Would you say that John the Baptist had a demon? I'm just saying,
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- I've never thought to myself, John the Baptist had a demon. I've said to myself, I wish
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- I was strong like John the Baptist. I wish they'd say of me, he doesn't bow down like a reed shaken in the wind.
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- You've got these huge 12 foot reeds and the wind comes and they just like bow all the way down to the ground. Do you think
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- John the Baptist was like that? Not that way at all. He was a man's man, godly man, courageous man.
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- And I think to myself, I'd never say he has a demon because while it's a hard message,
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- I know I need that because I'm a hardened sinner and I need grace. So would you ever say that?
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- Would you ever say, if you thought that was bad, if you think saying John the
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- Baptist has a demon is as bad as it gets, here's one more. Doubting Christian, in your worst trial, would you ever say,
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- Jesus is a glutton and a drunkard? Jesus is a glutton and a drunkard.
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- That's what these Pharisees said. He's a drunkard and a glutton. Now, why would they say that?
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- Well, they're trying to discredit him. They don't like the message. And so whether it's wedding, whether it's funeral, we got to get rid of these people.
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- And of course they did, they killed him. The Lord of glory, they killed him. All part of God's plan, that's true.
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- And we get salvation out of it, that's true. But they say he's a glutton and a what?
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- Drunkard. And he says, he's a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Actually, that part is right.
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- That part, I will agree with the Pharisees. Jesus is a friend of sinners. What a friend we have in Jesus, that part's true.
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- So even on your worst days, my guess is you don't say, Jesus is a glutton and a drunkard.
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- I don't think you say that. Aren't you glad that God has helped you, protected you, and that that's not as far as you go?
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- Doubt is a lot different than unbelief. And then the Lord Jesus says, yet wisdom is justified by all her children.
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- Wisdom's vindicated. All you have to do is look at the followers, the believers of the Lord Jesus, the believers that believe
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- John's message pointing to the Messiah. And you'll go, you know what? Vindicated. We see the end result.
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- We see their life. We see their character. We see those who follow the Lord Jesus, who follow the
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- Pharisees. The fruit in their life is completely different. It's justified or vindicated.
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- It's proved. You want proof? Look at Paul's life. You want proof? Look at Pilate's life.
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- I mean, you can see the differences in people. It's interesting, Romans chapter 10, verse three, for being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.
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- For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Pharisees didn't think they were unrighteous, so they didn't need
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- God's righteousness. And look where that ended. Look how they ended.
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- You want to see the fruit of unbelief? Wisdom's justified by our children. Look at the unbelievers' lives.
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- Look at the fruit of their lives, bad fruit. And you'll say, you know what? God's right. God's right.
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- That's an awful way. It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. The way of the transgressor's heart.
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- That's a horrible end. And now you look at believers' lives and you look at believers' lives and you think, you know what?
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- Whether they were John the Baptist's lives or others, you think, you know what? Vindicated, proved, true, genuine.
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- While they suffered, while they doubted, God had them be faithful to the very end.
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- And so the Lord Jesus is trying to show in this section of scripture. And by the way, when I first started studying this section,
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- I thought to myself in a dumb way, in an idiotic way now in retrospect, okay,
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- I've got to teach about John the Baptist. I'm kind of wanting to get to Jesus calming the storm, walking on water, casting the demons out, getting after the
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- Pharisees or something. I mean, I love preaching those things, but I came to this passage and I thought, okay,
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- I wasn't really, I don't think that's sinful, but I just, and I wasn't saying impress me, God.
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- Here's my point. I started studying, I go, this is awesome. This is crazy good because I see
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- John the Baptist. His doubt makes me think, well, I'm not the only one who doubts, but then how does
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- Jesus respond to the doubters? He's kind, he's gracious, he's merciful, he's patient.
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- The old church father used to say, you can't think of a God greater than who
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- God really is. Come up with a God who's greater than the triune
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- God of the Bible. You can't do it. That's amazing to think. And then all of a sudden you say, and you know what?
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- Thank you, Lord, for also showing me in Luke 7, what real unbelief is. And while I struggle, while I doubt, while I have my questions, while I'm not always walking perfectly by faith and not by sight,
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- I'm not like that. By the grace of God, I am who I am, and I'll give him all the praise and honor and glory, but I'm not going to be concerned that if I die in the middle of the night,
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- I'm gonna go to hell. And that's really what it comes to. If you think somehow that when you are doubting that you're in a state of, what if I do die now?
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- And for me, I mean, these days I have this aortic aneurysm. You know, if it's not one thing, it's another.
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- They always say prostate cancer dealt with, COVID thing dealt with, leukemia dealt with. And now it's like, okay, if this aneurysm gets any bigger, it's open -heart surgery.
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- I've seen that enough. And then I'm thinking, okay, what's going on here? Trial after trial. All I'm trying to do is go to West Boylston and preach the
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- Bible every week. And this is what I get. Thankfully, I've never thought that. Not for very long, at least.
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- I can just rest in knowing who the Lord is. I can just say, you know what? Yes, I have questions.
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- And yes, I'm far from perfect in my faith, but the object of my faith, he's perfect. And I don't have unbelief.
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- John the Baptist does not have a demon. Matter of fact, that should be some new slogan on assurance.
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- How does no compromise radio help you with assurance? Just say to yourself over and over and over,
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- John the Baptist does not have a demon and Jesus is not a glutton and Jesus is not a sinner and Jesus is not anything except a friend of sinners.
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- So my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Mario, what do we have for time? Oh, three, okay.
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- We can easily stall for three more minutes. So here's what we do for three more minutes. We take our
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- Bible and we just kind of randomly do this on here. And I'm just gonna scroll and I'm gonna push and I'm gonna push.
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- And then here we are. Therefore, when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone.
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- That's 1 Thessalonians chapter three. So if you ever stalled in your car, somebody forgets you at the mountain when you're out, when you're going line dancing and you don't wanna be with those people anymore, just quote this verse, we were willing to be left behind.
- 27:24
- You know, it's interesting, Mario. Some people study the Bible like that. And to be fair, on the times that I've said to myself, you know what,
- 27:33
- I don't really know what to read today. Last year, I did the read through the Bible McShane thing. I loved it. This year,
- 27:38
- I'm doing something a little different. And if you get up in the morning, you go, I don't really know what to read today. This morning,
- 27:44
- I read Luke seven. But if you don't know what to read and you just randomly open it up, sometimes it's perfectly apropos, is it not?
- 27:52
- That's not the best way. But I have to say once in a while, I've done things like that.
- 27:57
- But afterwards, Mario, I never said to myself, that's proving the point. This is the way to do it.
- 28:03
- See, results matter. Pragmatism works. I usually say, in spite of my stupidity, randomly opening up the
- 28:11
- Bible, God was even merciful. And think about how many times God is merciful.
- 28:18
- And if we're merciful to our children, if you have a child and they're in need, one of the things that I think about was when my daughter first got a sliver in her hand, and she must've been,
- 28:29
- I don't know, two years old or something. And my wife had to kind of hold her still while I was taking the needle to dig the wood sliver out.
- 28:38
- And she looked at me like, dad, you're hurting me. But I couldn't tell her. I mean, I told her, but she didn't understand
- 28:43
- I'm doing it for her own good. And if I just really hurt and was sympathetic and was trying to be merciful and tears coming down my eyes.
- 28:54
- And if I wanted to do that for my daughter who had just a sliver, a tiny piece of wood, I wonder how much more merciful and gracious the
- 29:02
- Lord is when his children, when you and when I hurt because of cancer, loss of a loved one, trial, issues in life.
- 29:14
- And I think we know the answer. So Luke 7 has been a great balm for my soul to think how does
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- God deal with doubt? And why is it different than unbelief?
- 29:25
- You can write me, mike at nocompromisedradio .com. Thanks to Mario. Besides hidden objects in the camera, we have books.
- 29:33
- We have, my wife doesn't like these shoes, but I like them because they're all comfortable. You know what happens as I go, he's showing the shoes.
- 29:40
- I went to Nordstrom Rack and they had these shoes, these all birds. And I said, they look kind of funny. They look almost like Green Bay Packer shoes or something.
- 29:47
- And I looked online and they said $150. And then the price was 39 or 49 or something.
- 29:53
- So I thought, well, to get a good deal, even though my wife doesn't like them. I typically only buy what my wife likes.
- 29:58
- So she likes a shirt. So that part's good. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching.