The Last Judgment

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. Mike Ebendroth here, missed last week, was trying to work through reactions to the new leukemia medicine I'm on, but I think I've got it figured out. I still feel weird, but I don't feel so badly I can't talk on the radio or work or preach or anything like that.

I already have my bones don't hurt as much and the rashes I have in my arms, lymphoma rashes, they're healing up. It's a wonder drug, eight days already. But anyway, I just didn't feel well. I think the only way I can describe my reaction now to the drug is I have a headache and they said, drink coffee.

I thought, okay, the doctor told me to drink coffee. It doesn't help though at night. And then they said, you might feel some fatigue and that's true, but here's how I feel. It's the only way I could describe it.

If you've ever smoked cigarettes or a cigar or a pipe or anything like that, and the first time you inhale or the first time in a long time when you inhale, you kind of get kind of like a weird buzz and kind of cloudy thinking.

And then you cough. I've got the first two, but just not the cough. So that's what it feels like. And then in I think six to seven weeks, I have another drug and those two drugs hopefully will take care of the chronic leukemia and it'll take one to two years to eradicate it.

The Hope of Christ's Return in the Midst of Suffering

And then off we go, I'll die of something else than leukemia is my guess, but one never knows. These days with wars and rumors of wars and everything else, it would be a good time for the Lord to come back, which makes me think as I was pondering the second coming today, I was reading Acts chapter one.

I was reading Belgic confession 37, the last judgment should be, we'd be afraid as Christians, et cetera. No, we should not. And I was contemplating the Lord's return. And I thought, well, Lord, I, I wish I'd want you to return because I'd like to meet you and be in your presence more than I'm having a hard time in life and the world seems chaotic.

And this would be kind of nice just to have the Lord come back. And I, and once since I kind of felt guilty and maybe you feel guilty as well, you know, you'd like to be in heaven, but you have family members and other things here, grandchildren, et cetera.

But I want you to know that if you think of Jesus and his threefold office, prophet, priest, and King, there's nothing wrong with thinking Jesus, my King, I would like him to come back. What do Kings do?

Kings protect, Kings provide, Kings rescue, Kings do kingly things for other people. And so for the Lord Jesus to come back to rescue us and to protect us and to bring us all the way into home, our heavenly home.

I don't think there's wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. I want it to be a little extra. I want to think in a godly way completely, but nothing wrong with thinking, Lord, I, I'm going through trials and I wish you would come back as King to sort everything out.

I think that's a good thing. Don't you? That reminds me of Titus chapter two. Does it remind you of Titus chapter two? What do we do as Christians? As you can hear my Bible pages flipping over to Titus chapter two, verse 11, for the grace of God has appeared, think Jesus incarnate, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in the present age.

What does grace do for those that think grace motivates disobedience? That is to say, if you always talk about grace, people are going to be licentious. Here, what does grace do? Grace motivates us to say no to ungodliness and yes to righteousness, mortification of sin and vivification, living unto righteousness.

Waiting verse 13 of Titus two for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself, a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you, Paul writes to Titus. I have a little ESV study Bible right here. It's not so little. The Greek for waiting often carries a connotation of eagerness.

Eagerly expecting the return of Christ is the way grace trains Christians to renounce sin and live in a godly way. Setting one's mind on the truth of Christ's return impels a person to holiness. Our blessed hope means Christ's second coming, which Paul calls the appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

What about that? That makes you wake up in the morning and say, good morning, Lord, versus good Lord, it's morning. I've got to get some new sounds here in this thing. I have the same old sounds all the time, and I never know which sounds I haven't used in quite some time.

So we'll see what comes up next. But this is no compromise radio ministry. Discovering Colossians is out. Yes, it was Johnson Commentary. If you're a layperson, I think you'd like that as well. My next project, I think, is updating sexual fidelity for a little more law gospel, and hopefully that works out well, and that'll be on Amazon.

And I still hope to make it to the Deeply Rooted Conference on Assurance, Kingsport, Tennessee, November 10th and 11th. Register now at deeplyrootedpodcast .com. Eight speakers. Boy, they're fairly handsome men.

Some have ties on in this picture, some don't, so we'll see how that all works out. Okay. Today I would like to talk a little bit about the Lord Jesus. Does that surprise you? It shouldn't surprise you at all.

Why Churches Need More Than Moralism

I mean, typical evangelical churches, they're starving for the greatness of the triune God, which includes the Lord Jesus, obviously, one God, three persons. And, you know, it's just all to do stuff. It's moralism.

And I don't need to go to church on Sunday to hear more law. I have law written on my heart. I see how the law curbs sin in society. And I certainly can be reminded about how the law can guide me. That's certainly true.

And how I should obey God's law out of thankfulness and gratitude. But I need something more than that. And I think it was T. David Gordon who said, a two-minute discussion about Jesus in a sermon can't rescue a bunch of moralistic platitudes.

I mean, if I go to church and I'm told, husbands, love your wives, there's certainly nothing wrong with that so long as I hear, as Christ loved the church. And when you read that section in Ephesians 5, verses 25 and following, it's about Jesus in the church, not just with the amount of Bible verses attached, but also the whole theological push and thrust of Paul in that section.

I already know I'm supposed to love my wife. I don't love my wife like I should. I want to, I have a desire to. Now, can anybody help me? You don't need to go to church and just hear four spiritual laws and three things God wants you to know and two ways of living.

You need to go there to hear about the one high priest. And of course, if that high priest tells you, and he does, here are some of my laws to obey out of gratitude, I have no problem with the law as long as one uses it lawfully.

It's the whole issue of pragmatics and pietism and moralism. It just makes the church, I think, anemic. I've had so many blood draws lately. It's unbelievable. I went to the cancer hospital a while ago and they said, okay, we're going to put you in this clinical study if you'd like.

And then, you know, if you're going to be in the clinical study, okay, the drugs are free. I get $50 every time I go for gas and parking and all that. And I have to have a diary, fill in the blanks of, you know, when I took the pills, etc.

And then I have to give blood for the test to make sure my body's reacting to the medicine fine. But also, I signed up for giving a few extra vials for research since it's a research hospital, Dana-Farber, Harvard.

So I did that. They take a lot out. I think I lose a lot of weight whenever I go. Oh, and by the way, the doctor told me not to lose a lot of weight. So I've been a friendo from the church, a dear lady.

Rachel brought over some sourdough bread the other day because she makes this homemade sourdough that I think she sells or she could sell. And I just slathered on the butter. I mean, don't those words go together?

Slather and butter. They should go together if they don't. Slathering on the butter. I've eaten more bread lately than I don't know when. It's like past the quesadillas. The only thing I'm not supposed to have, this is interesting to me, I'm not to have marmalade, I'm not to have grapefruit, and I'm not to have grapefruit juice.

And other than that, I think I can eat most everything. Certain drugs interact, but in terms of food, that's the only thing I have to avoid. And Seville oranges. And I want to say Seville oranges are used in marmalade.

I've had some of that sourdough bread this morning, toasted it, slathered on the butter, and half of it I just wanted without anything sweet. When I was eating with some eggs and bacon, I've been doing oatmeal more often, but my wife has loaded me up today.

She's headed to Nantucket for a little conference. And so then I thought I'd like something sweet put on this toast, the other half of the toast. And so I'd like some nice jam. No jam found in the house.

I think there was a maple, something weird jelly. And then there was some marmalade. Out of all the things that... I mean, I don't even like marmalade, but out of all the things I can't have, that's the only kind of jam in the refrigerator.

You've got to be kidding. But back to the blood tests, see how this ADD works, ADD radio, no compromise radio, duplex radio, ADD radio. It's like you take a blood test at the church in the pulpit and they're anemic, right?

The blood's messed up. And without being too hokey, the blood of the lamb that cleanses, are you washed in the blood, redeemed by the blood of the lamb? No wonder the church is anemic because we're not talking about the person and work of the Lord Jesus.

It's just this gruel of man-centered how-to self-help therapy, becoming a better you and getting through life and how to get through the week. It's been such a hard week. Oh, it's been such a hard week.

Can I get through another one? Hard week. I know we have hard weeks and you lose a loved one or someone that you love is sick, or there's some kind of financial catastrophe. I'm not saying there aren't hard weeks for people that are listening.

I'm not saying that. I'll say it one more time. I'm not saying that. When you think about really hard and you think about persecution and martyrdom, lots of things in our life, I didn't say everything, but lots of things in our life we think are hard, but they're relatively not hard.

Right? Yeah, I think so. I want to proclaim, and when I go to a church service, I want proclaimed to me, Jesus, prophet, priest, and king. Jesus, who isn't the new enabler Jesus to let me get by through the week, a watered-down version of who knows what, or an amped-up version of a person.

I know he's a person, but you take a human and you have a hero and you make him better, and then somehow that's Jesus. I don't need Jesus proclaimed to me as an encouraging boyfriend who always listens and encouraging gentleman kind of wooing and knocking on hearts and waiting for man's vaunted free will to let Jesus save them, a Kenny Loggins effeminate, I only react, I don't initiate Jesus.

That'd be a good bumper sticker. And how long had you been on that medication? Quite a while. I think I've been on that medication for about eight days. It makes me feel like I'm taking puffs of a cigarette.

I used to sneak my friend's dad's cool cigarettes. We thought we were cool, but we weren't. I, with you, need to be reminded of who Jesus is. We're forgetful people, and therefore on this radio show and from the pulpit that the Lord has allowed me to preach from the last 27-ish years, I want to make sure I'm proclaiming Jesus.

Man of sorrows, what a name for the son of God who came. Ruined sinners to reclaim, hallelujah, what a savior. Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned he stood. Sealed my pardon with his blood, hallelujah, what a savior.

Guilty, helpless, lost were we, or vile were we, blameless lamb of God was he. Sacrificed to set us free, hallelujah, what a savior. He was lifted up to die. It is finished was his cry. Now in heaven exalted high, hallelujah, what a savior.

When he comes, our glorious king, all his ransom home to bring, then anew this song we'll sing, hallelujah, what a savior. Isn't that good news? That is great news. My name is Mike Habenroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry.

I am No Compromise Radio Ministry. You're listening to No Compromise Radio Ministry. We have a Twitter account, and that's at nocoradio. Facebook, yeah, once in a while. And I think we have Instagram that my daughter sometimes posts on, but we don't post a whole lot.

I should probably figure out what to do with that. We're playing some of the Pactam Conference episodes. Pat Abendroth, my brother, did a great job hosting. D .G. Hart was there, Michael Beck, Pat, and myself.

And then we had all kinds of other folks. It was kind of like our little mini Shepherds Conference, and John Tucker was there, Steve Meister was there, Luke Abendroth was there, J .T. Stead, who else?

A bunch of people showed up. John Stead, John Rourke, Dave, his associate was there. Anyway, we had a great time. It was fun to hang out. Vineet and Aaron, they were both there, both Indians, but one's at West Cal, one's in India.

I think Pune, Vineet's in Pune. We had a great time. And Pat's already planning the next Pactam Conference next fall in Omaha, Nebraska. And you ought to think about planning on that. Instead of these big, huge conferences of 8 ,000 people, I think there was about 300, 400 folks there.

Probably gonna be more next time, but Pat really knows how to do it up. He's got the Pactam couch there, the Pactam snow globe, all the Pactam gear, and that should be fun. I have been invited back to speak, and that's the brother pass.

I get the brother pass. Everybody else has to line up, but the brother, he gets first dibs. I rode the bicycle with Pat and his group, and they were going too fast for me, but they were kind, and they slowed down.

But that part was fun. And I'd never met DG Hart before, Darrell Hart, and we sat in the front row where the speakers sat in the green room, and it was fun just chatting it up with Darrell. He has a little summer home, I think, in Massachusetts, so that will work out fun in the summer, hanging around with Darrell Hart.

Michael Beck, I really appreciated him. I got to know him better than Darrell because Darrell had to fly out, and so I didn't really go to any of the speaker's things. But Michael Beck from South Africa, who lives now in New Zealand, two-age sojourner fame.

I really liked him. He's just personable, fun, goofing around, and then when you get up in the pulpit, it's about the Lord Jesus, so that was good. More on the Pactam conference later. I was going to have a conference here at Bethlehem Bible Church in the spring.

I've asked two different people to be the speakers. One said it was not a good time, so I said, is there another time that would be a good time in 2024? No response. That's how much clout I have. I asked another speaker, would you please come and speak?

And I never heard back from him, and I said, did you get the message? They said, oh, sorry, wouldn't blame you if you didn't have me. I just didn't look at the text or whatever. I forgot. I was busy. I was out of town.

So then I re-sent the text and then have never heard back. So at No Compromise Radio, we have closed doors and open doors stuff, and it's like, okay, I think maybe that's a closed door for the conference in 2024.

I've asked two people to come. Both said nothing. Both said a whole lot. They didn't say that either. I have the cricket sound, but I didn't play the cricket sound. This morning, I was rereading the Belgic Confession, Article 37.

The Comfort of the Last Judgment for Believers

Now, there's a new app that I found that has a bunch of creeds and confessions. I have several of those, but I have new one here. And the last article of the Belgic Confession is called Article 37, The Last Judgment.

And it's an amazing confession when you think about the writer, persecution. I don't think he lived much longer after he wrote it. And it helps me think if I'm a believer, I should not be frightened of the day when the Lord comes back or the day we have to meet him and stand before him on that great day.

So I regularly read the Belgic Confession, Article 37. It also helps me because in the world of, well, you know what? Parsing, eschatological, end times, is it pre-meal, a-meal, post-meal, pan-meal, pro-meal, de-meal, re-meal, anti-meal.

Some people probably think I'm anti-meal. I'm anti-meal. Anyway, The Last Judgment is encouraging. And so today on No Compromise Radio, I hope you don't say to yourselves, creeds and confessions and catechisms are for Roman Catholics.

We don't have anything to do with them. It's me and my Bible. I hope you don't think that way. I hope you don't think that the confessions and the creeds and the catechisms are over the Bible and somehow superior to the Bible.

But there's not one person I know that thinks that. You say, well, maybe functionally they act like it. All right. Maybe functionally they do, but I don't know anybody that thinks that. Similarly, I personally don't know anyone in ministry.

I know people out of ministry, but I don't know people in ministry that say, you know what? You don't have to keep God's law. You're free from keeping the law as a guide, as a way to honor the Lord out of gratitude.

I don't know anyone that says that. It's implied that somehow if we're not, quote unquote, lordship salvation, or we're talking to people who, because people sin a lot, they want to give kind of extra law, a new law, neonomian, and kind of blend law and gospel together.

And adding law to gospel doesn't do anything except wipe out both. I don't know anyone that thinks that way. So today on No Compromise Radio, Belgic Confession, The Last Judgment. I hope you pick up the Belgic Confession and read it.

You can also go to Scott Clark's Heidel blog, and he's got a section there on confessions and creeds. You can just click. Easy way to find that. I think even rscottclark .org, maybe you can find it. But anyway, Belgic Confession, The Last Judgment.

Finally, we believe according to God's word that when the time appointed by the Lord has come, which is unknown to all creatures, and the number of the elect is complete, our Lord Jesus will come from heaven bodily and visibly as he ascended with great glory and majesty to declare himself the judge of the living and the dead.

He will burn this old world in fire and flame in order to cleanse it. Then all human creatures will appear in person before the great judge, men, women, and children who have lived from the beginning until the end of the world.

They will be summoned there by the voice of the archangel and by the sound of the divine trumpet. For all those who died before that time will be raised from the earth, their spirits being joined and united with their bodies in which they lived.

And as for those who are still alive, they will not die like the others, but will be changed in the twinkly of an eye from corruptible to incorruptible. Then the books, that is, the consciences will be opened and the dead will be judged according to the things they did in the world, whether good or evil.

Indeed, all people will give account of all the idle words they have spoken, which the world regards as only playing games. And then the secrets and hypocrisies of men will be publicly uncovered in the sight of all.

Therefore, with good reason, the thought of this judgment is horrible and dreadful to wicked and evil people, but it is very pleasant and a great comfort to the righteous and elect since their total redemption will then be accomplished.

They will then receive the fruits of their labor and of the trouble they have suffered. Their innocence will be openly recognized by all, and they will see the terrible vengeance that God will bring on the evil ones who tyrannized, oppressed, and tormented them in this world.

The evil ones will be convicted by the witness of their own consciences and shall be made immortal, but only to be tormented in the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. In contrast, the faithful and elect will be crowned with glory and honor.

The Son of God will confess their names before God, his Father, and the holy and elect angels. All tears will be wiped from their eyes, and their cause at present condemned as heretical and evil by many judges and civil officers will be acknowledged as the cause of the Son of God.

And as a gracious reward, the Lord will make them possess a glory such as the heart of man could never imagine. So we look forward to that great day with longing in order to enjoy fully the promises of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

The Belgic Confession on Judgment, Comfort, and Final Vindication

What wonderful words. Guido de Brice, a Reformed preacher in Netherlands, dies as a martyr in 1567. Six years earlier, he prepares this confession. Wonderful truths. My name is Mike Apendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry, and you can always write us, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

If you ask me a question, I'll give you a quick answer. And if you want to email me back and forth about things like your own assurance and your own salvation or a particular predicament you're in, a particular predicament you're in, I'm probably going to say, have you talked to your pastor, because he's the one that knows you, and he's the one that knows more than I do.

So I'll try to help from afar, but part of that help is have you talk to your pastor if you've got a problem. Mike Apendroth, No Compromise Radio.