Death And Repentance (Part 2)

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

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. 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 King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, Michael Lee Abendroth. That's Michael without an A. That's why I should probably go to ML Abendroth, like the good theologians, right?

B .B. Warfield, that kind of thing. But if you wanna write me, you can. What's my address? Mike at nocompromiseradio .com. Okay, what do I do? I hit share, share, posting. Okay, there we go. We still are hoping to go to Israel, and that will be next year.

Who knows what will happen within the next year, but we will make some plans. Of course, we can cancel them easily. I heard that flights are pretty cheap these days. My son Luke's in Los Angeles, and he said, I could fly home this weekend for $58 and infect you all.

You know, in the old days when I would travel on planes, I would take the hand sanitizer and the Purell type of stuff, except I think I got it at the dollar store. Now it's $100 store. And I would get into my seat as soon as I could, and then I would rub everything down and the tray and all that.

And I didn't want anybody really to see me because I was self-conscious, and I didn't want to act kind of weird about it. And then now when you fly, everybody's doing it. It's like the airlines don't even have to clean because everybody's got the bleach things and all that stuff and wiping everything down.

I have seen interesting maps too about which seat in the planes are the best in terms of where not to get sick and everything else. And then for years too, I would just take some of that hand sanitizer and I would wipe it on my face as well.

So I try to stay healthy. So far, so good. I turned 60 in a couple months and want to make sure I'm on that curve. We are talking today about tragedies and the Lord Jesus. And when Jesus in Luke 13 was approached, he had some good responses when it comes to tragedies.

As I said, just last show, our last Facebook live show, we ask why a lot of times, why are these things happening? And who let these things happen? And why are these things so out of control? And why, why, why, why, why?

I mean, we sound like Job's friends, his counselors, right? Why, why, why? And even Job asking the Lord why so often when the Lord responds in the book of Job with not a why answer, but a who answer. This is who I am.

And I think that's really good. Here in Luke 13, it's not even necessarily a who answer. The Lord Jesus gives another answer, which is really good. And that's a what. What can I learn from them? Right, I don't wanna lose this trial that I'm going through.

So if you think about James 1, for instance, James 1, two, if memory serves, count it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces what? Endurance.

And therefore we can say, and I don't know if you've said this or not, in light of all the stuff that's going on, but because of this pandemic, I don't know if you've said, Lord, I'm counting this all joy.

Because I know while it's not joyful to go through all these things, what is joyful is knowing that you, Father, are working in me to make me have more endurance so that I'll be able to help other people in trials and so I'll learn and grow and become mature.

It is hard to grow as a Christian. It is difficult to mature as a Christian. Sanctification is the work of God, the Holy Spirit. And of course, our response of good works and being holy and saying no to sin and yes to righteousness, growth in that is very, very slow and painful, but it is aided by things like trials.

And so you say to yourself, I'm gonna count this all joy because God is working in me. And then I believe verse five, again, I don't have the Bible turned to James, it's turned to Luke, give me wisdom.

Ask of this generous God to have wisdom. And what's the context? Count it all joy, give me wisdom. Well, the context is easy. Lord, I need wisdom so I don't blow this trial and what I learn in it from you and how I mature.

Give me wisdom so these things really set in. And therefore, when it comes to these tragedies and other things in life and 9 -11 and this and a death of a loved one or sickness of a loved one or financial hardship or whatever it might be, we say we're gonna count it joy.

And there's a what going on, what is happening here and who is doing it. So we're in Luke chapter 13. Luke 12 has been a great discussion. Jesus is talking about fearing, not the one who could kill you, but the one who could cast you into hell.

He's talking about the cost of following Christ in terms of mother and son and in-laws separated. And then he says in verse one of Luke 13, there were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

And he answered them, do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? They were telling Jesus something and they were looking for a response and Jesus' response was a question.

Now I have to remember what's going on. And I think Job, the book of Job is enlightening when it comes to this. Lots of people think, you know what? Kind of an evangelical karma, or as we say here where I live, karma, karma chameleon.

You know what? People do bad things, they're gonna get it at the end. What comes around goes around. Now, hey, we're all sinners, but these people, you notice the text, they were greater sinners. And therefore God uses Pilate like he would Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus or any other ruler, Pharaoh, and he uses them to execute his purposes of judgment even on his own people, national people.

And so Jesus says, do you think, I want you to really think about it, I want you to kind of mentally go through this, that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered in this way.

There are sinners and there are sinners. And Jesus is gonna correct that faulty theology. Of course, we are all sinful, right? And we think about Adam's sin. How many sins does it take to damn you forever?

How many sins against a thrice holy God does it take for him to punish you forever? An infinite being is sinned against even in a finite time, it will cost you infinite punishment, right? Because it's the one that you're sinning against for whoever who keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at one point has become guilty of all the law, James 2 .10.

How many times do you have to spit in the face of a king before he throws you in the dungeon and has you beheaded? The Bible teaches in Deuteronomy and in the book of Galatians, cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them.

This is something we would call the covenant of works. And that is, if you'd like to please God based on your obedience and law keeping, it better be perfect. It better be entire. It better be exact. It better be perpetual.

And I heard the Peeps manufacturers for the Easter marshmallowy chicken looking things, I heard they're not making a lot because of the virus deal. And it's a sad thing because I love Peeps. I hate to eat the Peeps.

I don't wanna eat Peeps. But I remember when it comes to the covenant of works and legal standing based on my own obedience and law keeping. I remember Peeps and you ought to as well. Personal, entire, exact, perpetual obedience.

Okay, switch up a P and put it in for perfect. But if you're gonna try to approach God based on your own works, it better be perfect. Well, that's the legal method of approaching God. And there's a gospel method.

And that is the Lord God in his tender mercy and loving kindness sent his son who perfectly, entirely, exactly, perpetually and perfectly, personally, did I get all those down? Obeyed the law. Not for himself, he already was righteous, but to earn righteousness and give to all those who would believe.

So you can approach God based on your own righteousness. It better be perfect. Are you approach God? And we know hypothetically you could do it, but now we no longer could you because of Adam's fall and consequently we're all born of the sin nature.

But hypothetically, if you could obey, why would God throw you into hell? But now we have the Lord Jesus and he perfectly obeys. And then even our disobedience and our law-breaking has been paid for by Jesus on the cross because he died in our place.

And this is a great transaction upheld by the father who raised him, the son raised himself, and the spirit of God raised the Lord Jesus as vindication for his perfect law-keeping and substitutionary death.

So you approach God one of two ways. Perfect obedience by you, which we know we can't do, or perfect obedience and divine satisfaction for our sins at the cross of the Lord Jesus. And so that's what we call a covenant of works.

And of course, if you think about a covenant of works and if you don't like the terminology, it's fine by me. Why do I call it a covenant? Because it looks like a covenant. It acts like a covenant. It sounds like a covenant.

And in Hosea 6, it's called covenant. I don't know why I call it a covenant. Those are the reasons. So happy I got these new little headphone things because the other ones here, you can see Steve's two are still, look at that, and that black stuff just falls off.

And then it looks like I have, what do you call those, those big things in people's ears? I don't know what they're called. They're called how not to get a job things. I told my kids they have it so good because if you these days show up on time, I always had the kids go five minutes early for work or any of those interviews, and you look decent and you smile and you shake people's hands firmly and you don't sit in the chair until they ask you and you push the chair in after you leave and you ask for the job and other things, man, you're a superstar.

That's basic. Everybody did that in the old days. You actually had to do something in the old days to excel. Now you only have to just have a few small manners and you can get by. Jesus, he also was under a covenant of works.

He had to perfectly, entirely, exactly, personally, perpetually obey. And so he did that in our place. And so now we approach the Lord simply out of grace based on the work of another. So back to the point in Luke chapter 13.

Hey, there were sinners. They did a lot more sin. And therefore God used Pilate to go to the temple probably during Passover and sacrificed the sacrificers. And to make matters worse, all the blood that came out of the Jewish sacrificers on Passover got mingled and blended with the blood of the lambs and the goats and other animals.

And hey, Jesus, what do you think about that? And so the Lord Jesus says, I'm gonna correct that aberrant theology. And that aberrant theology is rebuked when Jesus says in verse three, no, I tell you, he didn't even say Moses said, here Jesus who has authority, right?

He's the eternal son who's added humanity and will forever have humanity. You could ask yourself the question, are there man-made things in heaven? And the answer is, it's kind of a trick question. Yes, five man-made things.

And that is scars on each of his hands, scars on his feet and a scar in his side, the Lord Jesus. And he says, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Hey, Jesus, these Galileans got killed by Pilate.

What's going on with all that? Hey, you're the teacher. You can help us understand this theological conundrum. And do bad things happen to bad people? And Jesus said, well, basically everybody's sinful.

And I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about you, right? This is exactly what I do if I'm officiating a funeral. I want to be kind about it. And I have a voice like this and I'm gonna be sweet and I'm not gonna raise my voice and I'm not gonna go off into fundamentalism world, screaming at people.

I'm not gonna preach people into heaven or preach people into hell, but I'm gonna say you're the living ones. And while we miss our friend and our relative and our neighbor and our coworker, I wanna make sure you understand that Jesus has victory over death and sin and hell.

And there's hope for you, right? And so the Lord Jesus here says, unless you repent. Now, probably what's going on here is he knows their attitude. Well, he does know their attitude. He can understand their mind, right?

And you think about even with Nicodemus, says some stuff, it doesn't really ask the real question, but Jesus knows the question because he knows what's in the heart of man, John chapter two, at the end of the chapter.

And he says, unless you repent, you'll all likewise perish. Could it be that they're trying to get him on some kind of rabbit trail and he brings it back directly to them. Now, there are times when people sin that they're judged.

I think of Herod and he appointed himself the great king of the universe and put on royal robes and sat on a throne and received all the adulation and the oration was given by him. And the people responded with the voice of a God and not of a man.

And the Lord struck him down because he didn't give God glory. That's true. Those things happen that God judges immediately, instantly for sin. But that's not the point here with the Lord. He says, I tell you, and I'm thinking they're getting pretty shocked as he says, no.

And I've thought for many years, there are a lot of yes men out there, but we're the no men. And certainly Jesus was a no man. That is to say, he would make sure he told people, this is not true. And I'm going to reject that.

And of course he did it in a kind way, but he did it in a forceful way. One thing for sure, he did it in a way that was without sin and without blame. You too are going to perish. It might not be a tragic death, but you're going to perish.

One day you'll stand before God. So every day I have to read how many COVID people died. And I'm thinking, well, you know what? I guess I could get it too and die. But one day I'm going to die from something, right?

From the S-I-N virus, as one man called it. This is a warning for all, red alert. Nobody wants to talk about death these days. People don't even bury their animals. They just called the vet lots of times.

And the vet comes and gets them, Humane Society, whatever it is. You ought to repent. It's kind of a missing word these days, repentance. Jesus said, I've not come to call the righteous, but what? Sinners to repentance.

Luke 15, Jesus said, just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. Jesus said in Luke chapter 24, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning in Jerusalem.

There's a risk for people. And that risk is they die and they're not forgiven. That's the risk. Disaster will strike, even though it might not be a tsunami or dying from some, you know, I don't have a ventilator, but even from what we call old age to accidents, there's going to be a reckoning.

And Jesus uses an emphatic way to say it. No, I tell you, you can try to read divide and providence all you want. Well, let's look at providence and see what happens and why did God do that? But you need revelation really to understand exactly what God is doing.

And God, the son gives us that very revelation. One writer said, Jesus is simply telling people that unless they experience a complete and radical change, they will also perish. Yeah, but you know what?

That was kind of manmade. That was, you know, pilot was mean and wicked and cruel. And we don't really have those kinds of guys around anymore. So we're probably safe, aren't we? Verse four of Luke 13.

On those, or excuse me, or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think, there's this language of thinking again, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?

What do you think? Here's Jesus with the question. Now this is an accident. This isn't a violent massacre, first degree murder by pilots henchmen in a holy place. This is an accident. This is the tower in Siloam.

Have you ever been to the leaning tower of Pisa, Pisa? I remember one time I, it was a year, I had a URL pass. It was 19, I don't know, 92 or something like that. And so I had a URL pass, a couple of buddies and around Europe we went.

And so we had a layover in Pisa on the train, second class train, of course, cause we were just out of school. And I said to a taxi driver, no Uber back in those days, how long will it take you to get us to the leaning tower of Pisa and let us get out, take a picture, see it, and then drive back?

Well, I don't know if we have time. And so I said, well, how much does it cost? He told me, I said, what if we gave you a little bit more money? Would you get us there earlier, et cetera? Yes, and so I can't remember the exact details.

It was like a 45 minute layover before the next train. And he said, it's 18 minutes there, 18 minutes back. And so I remember we zoomed to the tower of Pisa and then I almost called it the tower of Babel.

You've got tower of Pisa, tower of Babel, tower of Salon. And then took quick pictures, didn't really have time to go up it or anything like that. I don't think you could go up it at the time, I'm not sure.

And then back. So I've got to see, and made the connection and gave the guy the tip, the leaning tower of Pisa. Ryan, good to see your name and I wish I could see your face. It was about a year ago. I was in New Zealand, New Zealand there and sitting next to you and it was very encouraged.

I wish I could have spent more time with you. If you were in New Zealand and you want some good Bible teaching, Ryan is your man. Oh, there are other men there too, I have friends, but since Ryan's on the screen now, that's why I want to say it.

And he's handsome too. You know what? It's like, you remember with Paul, Paul got dogged for two reasons. They said he was ugly and they said he couldn't talk. And it'd be one thing if you were good looking and you couldn't talk, I could at least look at you.

And if you were ugly, but you could speak well, I could at least listen to you. But if you're ugly and you can't talk, then you're out. But for Ryan, he's a handsome man and he can speak well. So there you go.

What does Jesus say with this tower? We've gone from massacre and murder to an accident. There's an accident. Jesus, could you give us a theological grid for accidents? Maybe that also shows divine displeasure because they got killed and maybe there were sinners.

Do you see it here again? Do you think that they were worse offenders, right? Earlier, Jesus said, do you think they were worse sinners? Do you think they're worse offenders? I mean, everybody's an offender, everybody's a sinner, but the worst ones, the bad ones, the worst ones, they get whacked.

And so what does Jesus say? I think you can imagine what he's gonna say based on his first answer when it comes to Pilate mingling the blood of the sacrificers with the sacrifices. No, I tell you. And again, this is emphatic.

And here we have God, the eternal son, who's added humanity. He's going to talk and he doesn't talk like anybody else that I know. He's the gold standard of preaching, talking, and everything else. And Jesus says, no.

I want you to think about this, Jesus said, cogitate, go through all your machinations of what you think about providence, but you need revelation to understand the workings of God. I can't read providence based on my own intuition and could this happen, could that happen?

There are too many variables, too many things going on, too many moving parts, but I can understand providence when Jesus is telling me and or the word of God is telling me. And what does he say? No, I tell you.

That's the wrong way to think. No long explanations, not a bunch of, oh, you know, let me kind of work through all this stuff and Job's bad friends and you were wrong this first time and I'm gonna play softball the second time.

No, he doesn't ease up at all. But unless you repent, you will also likewise perish. He did it the second time, exactly the way the first time happened. You're gonna repent. Don't think that way, whether it's a murder, massacre, torture, violent barbarianism, or if it's going to be an accident.

That's not the point. What's the point? Remember back in chapter 12, fear him who has the power not just to kill you, but to throw you into the eternal hell, eternal fire. That's who you ought to fear.

And everybody listening might not like it, but everybody listening, everybody you know, every newborn that you know, every grandpa you know, every Republican you know, every Democrat you know, every policeman you know, every prostitute you know, everyone is gonna have to stand before God.

And then what? God, because he's holy, is going to require a holy life. He is going to expect you, the created one, to have perfectly, entirely, exactly, personally, perpetually obeyed the law, not just externally, but internally.

Summarized by the love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Perpetually, entirely, exactly, 100-ly. I mean, this is impossible standard.

And if it was possible, why send Jesus? But since it was impossible, and God loves sinners, that he sent the Lord Jesus to rescue those under such a burden. He came to seek and save those that were, what?

Lost and sinful. And you can just trace through Jesus, whether it's Nicodemus, or the man born blind, or the woman at the well, Jesus, the savior of sinners. That's why you ought to be trusting in him, and hoping in him, and resting in his complete work.

Because you only have one other option, and it's a bad option. So you have to repent. Now, the next show, we're gonna talk about, really, what repentance is, and does it precede faith, or does it follow faith, simultaneous with faith.

I thought I could get it to this show, but I can't, and I'm trying to finish this up as fast as I can right now, and I'm on, like, double speed. I dare you to listen to this at 2 .5 speed. So you ought to think differently about your sin.

Repentance has to do with how we think about sin, and faith has how we do to think about the triune God. Think rightly about your sin. You've been thinking wrongly about sin, and you've been thinking about, well, you sin more, you get whacked by Pilate, you sin a little bit more, here's an accident.

You ought to think rightly about sin, and the way you ought to think rightly about sin is your own sin.

That's what our Lord Jesus said. That's a loving thing to say. By the way, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text. Please come and join us.

Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.