Yes and No

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, a ministry.

My name is Mike Abendroth. I haven't really talked much today. It's Thursday, real time. I don't know what day of the week this is,

NOCO time, but you know how you're busy in the day, and you're doing a bunch of stuff, and then you haven't really talked, but it's already 10 o 'clock a .m.?

That's me today. You can write me, info at nocompromiseradio .com. You can go to the website, nocompromiseradio .com,

and pull up one of the last 2 ,000 shows and listen, or I guess you can listen to them all. I think there's a few people who've listened to them all, and if you email me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com,

and tell me you listen to every show, I might have a gift for you. Mike Abendroth is my name, and we have a

YouTube channel. I haven't done many new YouTubes. What else do we have? NOCOPXP, that is if you want your sermon critiqued, 99 bucks.

I'll watch it a couple times. We'll Skype for an hour. I'll give you my input on how to improve your homiletics if you're a man.

If you're a lady, I think they have a

NOCOXPX, polished excellence and precision, or something like that.

I have no idea. Anyway, today, I want to talk to you a little bit about awe.

How many times have you actually been in awe? Maybe you're easily awe -able, but most likely, there are few occasions in your life that you've been in total awe.

I'm trying to think of a few maybe that you might have been in awe over, of, from, through, down, upon.

Reminds me of Greek class where they had this circle and then a line on top of it, into it, through it, out of it, and those were helps for Greek prepositions or any other language.

I'm sure if you've experienced childbirth, whether you're the mom or the dad, watching a baby being born is certainly awe -inspiring.

If you have been anticipating something like Niagara Falls or the

Grand Canyon and you finally get there, for me, I remember standing on top of Mars Hill, the

Areopagus, and then looking down into Athens, it was just incredible. Maybe you've been skydiving before or whitewater rafting or scuba diving or something like that and you think, man, that is awesome.

It could be you finally go to Israel and you realize all the more that Jesus was a historical figure and you're standing there at the

Sea of Galilee, and for me, I like to just take a rock and throw it into the Sea of Galilee. I think history, right?

Real water, real rocks, real anointing. A time

I went to the Elam Valley and when David killed

Goliath, how many stones did he pick up? He didn't have much faith, so he picked up more than one. I think he picked up five, right?

For all the solas. I think he picked up five.

It might have been three for the Trinity, but I think it was five for the Torah, the five points of Calvinism.

Anyway, everybody takes rocks from the place if you're a tourist, and while we were there, the truck full of more rocks for more tourists was backing up into the riverbed, and you hear the beep, beep, beep, beep, and then the back of the truck goes up, dumps down all the rocks for more people to lie about when they go through customs.

It's always wrong to lie, no co -children, no co -listeners, especially in security at Tel Aviv Airport.

What's the Tel Aviv Airport actually called? We've got the Ben -Gurion Bridge, and we've got, it's probably named after somebody,

Netanyahu, Moshe Gayan, Diane.

I was in awe when my wife said yes, and we got married. I was in awe, obviously, when

I realized my sins were forgiven. Just harken back to your Christian friend. Remember when

God saved you? Remember when you came to recognize the work of God in your life? Remember when you let

God in your heart? I don't know why I'm being so sassy today. When you realize what

God had done, and you saw the effects of the wind, the spirit, the pneuma,

John chapter 3, you couldn't control the third person of the

Trinity, but you could see his fruit, his evidence, and you recognize that in your own life even, with faith and with new desires and hopes, and you're a new creation,

God regenerated you. And the one I want to talk about today, although that one is incredible, and that one probably should be at the top of the list, right?

Not just birth, but new birth. At the top of the list is forgiveness, reconciliation with God, God redeeming you, the price of his

Son, his Son's death. Second to that, I hope you're thinking to yourself that God would choose me, that God would decide to love me.

Remember what we have to do now, friends. Whenever you're thinking about election or predestination and everything else, you have to train your mind to submit to the scriptures, and you have to get away from some type of God should be choosing everybody because that's fair.

God looks down the quarters of time, learns who will choose, therefore chooses in response to.

A lot of these things we have in our mind, they don't flesh out properly. We have to get away from thinking foreknowledge means to know beforehand in the

Greek language when it means to love beforehand, to intimately know. Adam knows his wife, and so God loves ahead of time.

It's not just to know ahead of time. Foreknowledge is used in the New Testament epistles for knowing a person, not knowing what they do.

Oh, he repented, she believed, therefore I'll choose him or her. When you come to the scriptures and realize that in eternity past, or I guess another way to just put it is in eternity, and already there your mind starts to be thinking,

I'm in awe, right? This is awe and wonder that you say to yourself that God would in eternity choose me and then have the son go rescue me.

These things that happen in eternity really do blow your mind. They're mind -blowing to think that before anything on earth existed, before matter existed, before the earth existed, before space existed, time existed, space -time continuum, before any of that existed, there was

God. That's why I am who I am, to quote God at the burning bush with Moses.

He just exists. He is. He exists. The existing one. And we know from scripture, because God has revealed it, that he,

God, one God, subsists in three persons. Right?

He doesn't manifest himself in three persons. He shows up as a father, then later the son, now the spirit.

That's wrong. That's modalism. That's T .D. Jake stuff. But one

God subsisting in three persons, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, one name,

Matthew 28, remember the Great Commission, baptism, baptizing in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Therefore we have the triune God in eternity existing, fellowshipping, loving, and that's hard to get your mind wrapped around.

And then to think that the Bible teaches the three persons of the Godhead, and most of the

Reformed theologians would focus in on two of them, but we know the Holy Spirit, he was there as well as a witness or as an applier.

God the Father chooses some, not all, not none, but he chooses some to go rescue because he knows

Adam's going to sin, of course. And he rescues, he makes a decision to rescue the son by sending, excuse me, he makes a decision to rescue the some by sending the son.

That would have been bad. Some people thought the son on earth needed rescuing, but he came to die.

He did not come to rescue, he came to rescue himself, he came to rescue others. Okay, I think

I'm starting to mess up almost. I'm trying to rescue myself from blasphemous statements that I might possibly make.

Today's Pete's Coffee Day. Today John Tucker gets into town, and since he's not the speaker, he has to Uber here to the church.

But the speaker, Scott Clark, he gets here tonight at 11 p .m. He gets to get picked up by a car.

Mind -blowing truths should make you say,

God, you're great, God, you're awesome. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways.

I mean, how many times do you ever see it in the Bible? Oh, oh, wow. That's amazing.

The mind -blowing eternal counsel, eternal decree of the triune God. To study

God. That's why we're here today, to study him, to know him, to appreciate him more. He has glory, intrinsic glory, and the more we recognize that intrinsic glory, we give him glory.

That's what it means to give glory. We're not adding things, we're recognizing, giving glory to God.

And I think, regularly, sermons should be about God. Is that fair to say? Four steps, three keys, two ways, one alternative.

Can there be one alternative? That's a very good question. One alternative. You've got one alternative.

Well, if there's an alternative, shouldn't there be two? Maybe it would be a good punk rock band. One alternative. That's why

I'm not an artist. I never was in a punk rock band because I couldn't sing and can't play any instruments.

Well, I could play the guitar. I did Leavin' on a Jet Plane for my guitar solo, probably in fifth grade.

But I, beyond that, I don't really do much. I can play Smoke on the Water Bass. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da.

Spurgeon said, the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy which can ever engage the attention of a child of God is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great

God whom he calls Father. That's what we want to do today. We're in the book of Hebrews.

If you have your Bible, you can look there. This book of Hebrews that talks about Jesus as superior,

Jesus as majestic, Jesus as incomparable, Jesus par excellence,

Jesus not a way, Jesus not something that is a possibility or an option, but Jesus is the

King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is prophet, priest, and king. This book shows him as firstborn, as God, as heir, as Lord, as mediator, as shepherd, and especially, too, as son.

This great son is better than prophets, angels, Moses, Aaron, and anyone else you can put up against him.

And Hebrews chapter 10 talks about why Christmas was important. We looked at that, I think, a while ago on NOCO radio.

Why did Jesus have to be born? That was the question.

And remember, in chapter 10, verses 1 to 4, he had to be born because all the other sacrifices didn't work.

Do this in remembrance of sins is essentially what happened every time

Yom Kippur came up. The Jews, of course, just celebrated Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

Jesus also had to be born because only Christ's sacrifice could fulfill God's will. And if you remember

Psalm 40, the writer of Hebrews pulls from that. His life and his death had to happen.

And of course, if you have God as a spirit, how can a spirit die?

How can a spirit represent humans? To represent a human, you're going to have to be a human. So the eternal

Son adds human nature and becomes the God -man. And he remains the

God -man. And instead of using language of quantity, let's use words of quality.

Instead of saying 100 % God and 100 % man, let's use things like he's perfectly

God and perfectly man. Instead of using quantitative things like he's fully

God, 100 % God, fully man, 100 % man, let's use things like truly

God, truly man, perfectly God, perfectly man. And therefore, he can now be our representative.

He can now be our substitute. And when we think about obedience, lots of times you'll hear theologians talk about the active and passive obedience of Jesus.

And maybe you don't like those terms. Maybe it's kind of like limited atonement you don't like or even total depravity.

It strikes as you're utterly depraved versus every aspect of your person.

The whole of your person is depraved, conscience, mind, will, soul, et cetera.

You know, I learned how to say et cetera because of No Compromise listeners. And I think my

English is better than when I started. I think I try to articulate words like O -R and say it as or instead of R.

I try to say words like M -I -L -K. I try to say them as milk and not milk.

I try to say et cetera instead of et cetera. I used to say that. I don't think

I hardly ever said expresso, espresso, espresso. I think for a long time

I said J -Gresham -machin instead of J -Gresham -machin,

J -G -machin. I still am vying for kind of a name change mentally.

My name is Michael O 'Leary Abendroth and I answer to Mike, I answer to Michael, I answer to Reverend Doctor, Reverend Doctor, Mr.

Abendroth, I'll recognize. But you know, good theologians, they went kind of by their initials on many of them,

J -G -machin, B. B. Warfield, A. A. Hodge, can you think of any others,

H. L. Mencken? No, he wasn't a Christian. He commended

Machin though. How about M. L.

Abendroth? Partly I don't want to do it because it sounds like M. L. Carr, the basketball player for the

Celtics. But M. L., right? M. L. Abendroth. I think that's my new...

When I write books of a scholastic nature, that's what I'm going to put on there.

Speaking of book writing, I'm hoping to get this Colossian Sync done for S. Lewis Johnson.

I'm trying. I'm trying not to write books. I'm trying to just enjoy life and relax some. And the internal motor maybe isn't going as fast.

I'm also thinking, why write a bunch of books? And I'm not trying to be eliciting responses here in any way, shape, or form, negatively or positively.

But who's really going to read them? I mean, what can I contribute? If I'm trying to make a name for myself and have a platform and speaking opportunities and book sales, making money,

I guess I could do it. But it's hard for me to see good motives in my heart for writing books.

I have about five other books planned. It probably would benefit if I write the one on hell.

That would probably affect some people. And maybe we could use it as evangelism, because I really wanted to focus on what happened at Calvary.

And it wouldn't just be about hell, it'd be the rescuer from hell and what Jesus had to go through on the cross when the sun went down, when the sun was darkened.

Anyway, I'm just rambling, rambling, rambling, rambling. I think

I saw Steve Martin in 1976, he was a rambling guy, was he not? To be someone's representative, you have to walk in their shoes.

And Jesus had to be born, right? To be a representative and substitute.

Oh, I know what I wanted to say. When it comes to active and passive obedience, active obedience is simply, since the law has both positive and penal sanctions, positive requirements keep the law, and penalties associated for disobeying the law, that's the way to think of active and passive obedience.

Jesus keeps the law in our place positively. And when we have not done that, and we have penalties for not keeping the law, he pays for those.

And that's why you've got to think about law keeping, and why was Jesus born under the law?

And you've got to think about meriting righteousness, doing the right thing. You have to think about Jesus not needing to merit anything since he was inherently, intrinsically holy and righteous.

But why was he doing it? He's doing it for another, and therefore Hebrews 10 .5 says, consequently, when

Christ came into the world, right, that should be telling you ahead of time, pre -existence, eternity.

He said, now he's quoting here Psalm 40, there's a couple of changes here and there, but essentially

Psalm 40, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.

And of course, we know this can't be King David, David failed enough times. In burnt offerings and sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure.

In other words, God wants obedience. And by the way, if we would have obeyed, there would have not been a need for a sacrifice.

Sacrifice means disobedience. No animal killed to cover Adam, if Adam had not sinned, he just would have obeyed.

Why are you going to sacrifice for no reason? You sacrifice one instead of you, you're supposed to die if you sin, there's a sacrifice in your place.

But what's at the top of the list is obedience, it's not sacrifice. Yes, God has ordained sacrificial system, that is true.

But that sacrificial system is as Hebrews 10, one talks about as a shadow, it's a pointer, it's a sermon illustration, it's an outline, it's a silhouette, that's what that is.

Then I said, verse seven, behold, I've come to do your will, oh God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.

God wants obedience in a body. Adam failed, now let's have the last

Adam, the Lord Jesus, as representative and substitute, not fail. That's why he had to become a man, right?

And you're going to have to die, of course, and you think about, he tastes death for everyone,

Hebrews 2, and he had to partake of share in flesh and blood,

Hebrews 2 .14, you've got to obey. And this language of, he's dug an ear for me in the original

Hebrew text in Psalm 40, it could be, you know, you got a scratch all and you got your ear punctured to show that you wanted to show loyalty to your master, you were free, but now you want to work for him just because he was so good.

But probably it just means it's figurative language, it's poetry for creating a body, a human digging out an ear, and that ear is, of course, where you hear the master say obey and hear the son, hears the father say obey, and therefore he does.

This Jesus is sent by the father, and this Jesus is born of a woman.

This Jesus is born under law, Galatians 4, to redeem those who are under law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

That's what we're after. And so when you're thinking about Jesus being our representative and substitute, what

I want you to go back to is in eternity and when this was all planned.

Back to eternity. When you think about eternity, you ought to be thinking about a God who decrees.

God is a decreeing God. The father decrees, the son decrees, the

Holy Spirit decrees. He has a purpose, he has a determination. He wants things to happen and they will, therefore ordained the decree of God.

And you can imagine that God's decree can't get better, it can't get worse because it comes from a perfect God who has a perfect mind.

I can't even plan a vacation without, you know, things happening. But God predestines according to the purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will.

That's Ephesians 1. Ephesians 3, in accordance with the eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus our

Lord. And God decrees as he wills, freely, as often as he wills, wishes to.

It could have been, you know, probably one decree of God and if you think about the thought of God, but there's like a lot of components to that.

And God could decree, he could decide not to decree. He could decree the creation of angels, the creation of people, the salvation of people, the damnation of angels, and he can decree whatever he wants.

There's no external forces for God because he, when he was doing this eternal decree, was himself alone in the universe.

One God, the father, the son, the spirit. He is independent and sovereign in what he would do.

And he didn't have to consult anyone, nobody gave him input or anything like that.

God is a decreeing God and he freely decrees the creation and salvation of whomever he pleases.

And he does it because he is a God who decrees from his eternal love, from his goodness, from his kindness, that he might receive the glory.

And therefore the triune God decrees. And that's why we think often about what

God decreed in eternity past when he sent the son. And it's good to think about, well, time is going fast so I'm going to have to stop here.

We'll pick it up next show and talk more about what we call in theology the covenant of redemption, this pact, this pactum salutis.

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 6. 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.