The Power of Touch

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.

Wow, that last show I recorded, I looked down, it was 2440. That was times up. I have to go. Wow. Well, what do I have for announcements today? For those of you that don�t know, Equipping Eve, it�s a radio show for ladies, and I appreciate Erin.

And as, let�s see, Wretched Radio is kind of like Happy Days, and then I�m kind of like Laverne and Shirley, spun out of that. But then what would that make Erin in Equipping Eve? Joni loves Chachi? I think so.

I think so. Anyway, I just was thinking about Erin the other day, and I appreciate her ministry. And what do you know? I saw the UPS pull up, secretary signed for something, I finished a show, and now I�m recording another show, and I received the Christmas gifts for the No Compromise staff from Erin.

Okay. So I got some, I got like a little pocket, a little sandy sack full of, it�s got some Kit Kats in there and some gum. Since I had my tooth extracted yesterday and have this little bridge thing put in, I cannot have those little taffies yet, but I think I could just let them dissolve in my mouth over 40 minutes.

So I�ll have one of those soon, but I did have one of the Kit Kat bars. And then the rest of the staff didn�t get this bigger thing. I thought it was going to be like a CD series or something, DVDs, because it was thick, it looked like that.

But instead, so I�m just letting you all know how well Erin takes care of the No Co staff. Now what I got here instead is I got some story squares. Okay. Now this makes good radio, and Erin knows that.

It takes her all year to try to figure out what kind of cool little shenanigan gifts she can give me. Of course, I can�t get it open. If I rip it, then the problem is it�s not going to be as easily stored, because I always keep her gifts.

Okay. Here it is. All right. So from Erin, live on national radio, I have story squares. Okay. And these story squares tell stories. Hey, but I only got one square. Wait a second. Tell your own story with art.

Build your story with a variety of story squares. Oh, and now I see. They want us to buy a bunch of these story frames and story words, hook it all together with a title and a fun topper. Each piece is pre-drilled, making the assembly a simple twist.

Okay. Now you hang them like there�s a little story square here, and I could hang something underneath it and then something else, and I get it. All story squares pieces come with holes pre-drilled at the top and the bottom, and the eye hardware hook, hook and eye hardware is included to screw in for optional expansion.

I got it. All right. So number one, mine says life, and it�s got a cross there with a path, a sacred journey. Life is a sacred journey. Everything�s a journey. Now, see, when I see that little yellow path, I�m thinking a Wizard of Oz, you know, the yellow path.

What�s that called? Tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree. No, not that. Follow the yellow brick road. Yes, of course. But I also think of the Boston Freedom Trail. Isn�t that yellow? It should be.

So, Aaron, I want you to know that this particular story square is the one I would have chosen for my life, and so I don�t know if I�m going to hang it, but I might hang you. Now, that one�s fine. That one�s dandy.

I appreciate it. We love your ministry, and we�re glad that we�re loved, but this one I got is better. This thing is better. This is more noco style. You know, the journey thing, yes, but this is so much better.

The Incarnation and Christ's Physical Touch

Okay. So, it says here, �Pocket Jesus is strength. So, maybe this is some, you know, from a country that manufactured these that doesn�t know English, �Pocket Jesus is strength. And out comes this one-inch plastic Pocket Jesus that looks like Mary, but with a beard, and it just says, �Strength.

At the bottom, it says, �TM Co., Rocket USA. So, actually, it�s made in the USA, and it�s Jesus with his arms open, kind of like that Brazil deal. And it�s got, on the inside, though, see, this is the part that I�m really after.

It�s got a sticker, PocketJesusForYou .com, �Send Jesus a K-N-E-E mail, a neat mail. And then it�s got a picture on this particular sticker, this bumper sticker, �Send Jesus an e-mail. It says, �Pocket Jesus is strength.

And then this particular Jesus looks more like a superhero. Remember that old, like, Silver Surfer or ROM? Was it ROM1? R-O-M? Now, it says here, �God has promised not to keep us from the valleys, but to walk through them with us.

Jesus, Pocket Jesus, is strength. Aaron, I thank you so much. That was five minutes of the best radio I�ve ever had. Another little icon for my iconoclastic friends. I appreciate that. It is, by the way, strength item number 777.

Now, what if it was like 666? Then what would I be thinking? Crazy. All right. Now, no-compromise radio. We are speechless. Life is a sacred journey. Pocket Jesus is strength. I�ve had enough trials in my life lately that I could use more sacredness, less journeying, and a little more strength and not as much pocket.

That's how I see things. All right. What I was talking about last time is the incarnation and how great it is when you say to yourself, �How could Jesus touch us, like touch the leper, if he didn't have a body?

I know it sounds weird, but just think about it. God, the eternal God, and yet he has compassion. Jesus adds humanity and then he could, you know, let's just think about it in general terms. I'm not saying Jesus did any of this nor the pocket Jesus.

Jesus shook people's hands or whatever the kind of greeting was, embraces, put his hand on his mother's forearm or kissed his mom on the cheek, hugged her or his brothers. I mean, the list goes on. Real human emotions shown through touch, and now Jesus heals the leper by touching him.

So we're in Luke 5. It's pretty amazing to think that the leper comes up to Jesus, Luke 5, Matthew 8, Mark 1, and he says, �I know you can heal me. Would you Right? May I use the restroom? Can I use the restroom?

Yes, you can, but you may not. Jesus could have said, �Yes, I can, but I will not. But he said, �I will. And he stretched out his hand, Jesus did, and touched the leper. I'm just thinking to myself, when's the last time anybody touched that man for anything?

He didn't. He didn't even have some kind of doctor to go to. Jesus touches the man. And then it says in Mark and, excuse me, in both Matthew and in Luke, �And he charged him to tell no one, �But go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing as Moses commanded for a proof to them.

Mark says he sternly warned him and sent him away. So Jesus drives him to go have himself shown to the priest and to have a proof given. Now, let's just think through this a little bit as we're going through the testimony of the passage.

This shows that Jesus isn't violating any law. The Jewish leaders establish this miracle as true. Matthew 11, remember how important this is? Now, when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word to his disciples and said to him, �Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another.

And blessed is the one who is not offended by me. Matthew 11. This shows the deity of Christ. This shows that Jesus is the one who is to come. Now, here's what I'd like to do today on the show, is transition, and I talked about this several years ago, to transition from leprosy being healed to thinking about sin as kind of a spiritual leprosy, right?

Spiritual Leprosy, Human Helplessness, and Cleansing by Blood

Spiritual lepers, outcasts in God's eyes. In God's eyes, unclean. MacArthur, leprosy was the most graphic illustration of the sin that defiles the whole body. Sin is ugly, loathsome, incurable, and contaminating.

It separates men from God and makes them outcasts. Every leper not only lived with a stigma of his own disease, but also with a stigma of being a walking illustration of sin. In fact, one rabbi in the Talmud said that when he saw lepers, he flung stones at them to keep them away.

Another rabbi said he would not even eat an egg bought in a street where a leper had passed. Now, let me give you some truths, some principles, some thoughts, some considerations, whatever you want to call them.

These are just my points. I didn't want to say points. So if you don't know, you don't want to say points, you say thoughts, truths, non-negotiables, something like that. Let's think about spiritual leprosy, and in light of that, we are dead men walking.

We're terminal. What about the lepers? Like lepers, we are terminal, except for us, we're thinking spiritually. Did you know in the Middle Ages, when a person was diagnosed with leprosy, they were brought to the church, and then the priest read the burial service over them, because even though they're technically alive, essentially, or in effect, they're already dead, good as dead.

And of course, when we think of the Bible, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins, but because of his great love in which he loved us, God, the rich in mercy God, made us alive together with Christ.

So we were spiritually dead. There was nothing we could do to save ourselves. When you think of spiritual leprosy, just like a leper was defiled inside and out, same thing for us. Not just external, it was on the inside.

And when you think of how sin invades and corrupts our hands, our hearts, so much so that Isaiah 64 .6 says, but we are all as unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Can you imagine?

What would our unrighteous thoughts be? What would our unrighteous deeds be? I mean, can you imagine? It's crazy. The leper was not only loathsome in his person, but was defiled in all his acts. If he drank out of a vessel, the vessel was defiled.

If he lay on a bed, the bed became unclean, and whosoever sat upon this bed afterward became unclean too. Now all this may seem to be a very humiliating truth, but faithfulness requires us to say it. All the actions of the natural man, unbelievers, are tainted with sin.

Whether he eats or drinks or whatever he does, he continues to sin against God. This spiritual leprosy that sin is, it spreads and defiles, and it's awful. Not only are we dead, not only are we defiled, we're helpless.

We can't cure ourselves. Think about spiritual leprosy, incurable, just like physical leprosy. Think about what it did to a person while we were still helpless at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

It has to be helped from the outside, it has to be the Lord. We left to ourselves are in what people say, a pitiful, or pitiful, pitiable state. Easier for me to say, piti-able, that's kind of a funny word, piti-able, piti-able, piti-able.

What does leprosy do? It isolates. Seriously, when you think about spiritual leprosy, it isolates as well. The lepers dwell alone outside the camp, outside the camp, versus after what Jesus has done. What's the text say?

The grace of the Lord Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Wow, that's good. That's good news. A leper wasn't allowed to come within six feet of another human, including his family.

The disease was considered so revolting that the leper wasn't permitted to come within 150 feet of anyone when the wind was blowing. Think about how God hates sin and how God loathes sin. And when Isaiah, the sinful prophet, approaches God, what's he say?

Woe is me, for I am ruined. Remember Peter, when he realized Jesus was the God of the universe? Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. The leper is confident, though, in Luke, that Jesus could take care of him.

Clean, clean, clean, after Jesus was done with the one who was unclean, unclean, unclean. And we're thankful for that because we know the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Right? We need to be washed and sanctified and justified.

The only hope we have is to have someone come in the incarnation who's not contaminated by the sin, by leprous sin, the incarnate Jesus. And when you think of these lepers, what did they have to go do after they were cleansed?

Blood sacrifice. Then the priest shall command to take for him that is to be cleansed, two birds alive and clean, and cedarwood, and what? And scarlet and hyssop. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water.

As for the living bird, he shall take it and the cedarwood and the scarlet and the hyssop and shall dip them in the living bird and the blood of the bird that was killed over running water. And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from his leprosy seven times and shall pronounce him clean.

The aspect of blood, blood sacrifice. And then when you think that we are redeemed, right? With the precious blood of Christ, not with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by traditions of your fathers, but as a lamb without blemish and without spot, precious blood, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.

Revelation 1 .5, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth, unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood.

You need a sacrifice to be cleansed from your leprosy. You need blood sacrifice, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. Ephesians 1 .7, 1 John 1 .7, but if we walk in the light, he is in the light.

We have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. Alluded to earlier in the show, 1 Corinthians 6 .11, and such were some of you, but you were washed, you're sanctified, and you're justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God.

Spurgeon, but says one, how am I to know that Christ died for me? You will never know it until you are willing to stand in the leper's place full of leprosy. If you know this day that you are full of sin, if you are conscious that in you, that is in your flesh, there dwelleth no good thing, then it is written that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

It is just this, if you are willing to stand today condemned as a sinner, nothing more than a sinner, then Christ died for you. Your business is to trust your soul on the fact that Christ did hang on the tree for sinners.

For Mark, faith is trusting Christ and having done with self. Put your finger on any sound place in your flesh, you are a lost man. Point to any good thing that you can do, and there is no heaven for you.

Rely on anything that you have felt, or thought, or said, or done, and rely on a broken reed, and you will rely on a broken reed, but trust in Christ and Christ alone, and cast your arms around his cross and cling to that, you are saved.

And the response, the petition, the request, is not a demanding, but if you know you're a sinner and then you go to God and you say, if you will, I know you can forgive my sins, I know Christ's death is magnificent enough, will you, will you please forgive me?

That is the cry. And then the response, response to the heart cry of, if you're willing, can you imagine, can you imagine God cleansing, full of leprosy, cleansed by the high priest. Full of sin leprosy, cleansed by the great high priest, the Lord Jesus.

I like Charles Wesley's song. He breaks the power of canceled sin, he sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest clean, his blood availed for me. Jerry Bowie wrote a poem, Be Thou Clean. My sins were our, let's start over.

My sins were as scarlet, they were a burden to me. My eyes were so blinded that I could not see. Then I heard of Christ dying on Calvary and my soul stirred to life deep inside of me. I wondered if Jesus would have compassion on me.

I asked him if he was willing and he said, be thou clean. Oh sinner, come unto me, I am willing, be thou clean. I asked him if he was willing and he said, be thou clean. My sins, oh how many, pierced my soul like a dart.

Foul leprosy within seemed to stain every part. I wondered if it was possible to make a new start. And then God's gracious love came and filled my heart. I was like a black sheep that had wandered astray.

I had rebelled against God and gone my own way. Then I in repentance fell on my knees to pray. And Christ's precious blood washed my stains all the way. If you are weighed down by your sin's constant blame, overwhelmed and grieved by the burden of shame, take a look at the Savior.

There's a reason he came. He died for your sins. Hear him calling your name. Written back in 2000. Friends, Joseph Hart's hymn is true. Come ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore.

Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, power, and love. He is able, he is willing, doubt no more. Well, my name's Mike Abenroth, this is No Compromise Radio. We are thankful for the hope of divine intervention.

We are thankful that we can talk about the one who never compromised. Why is the show called No Compromise Radio? One, Jesus never compromised. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Number two, at the cross, at Calvary, God's justice was never compromised.

And that is where grace and justice met. So God would show his grace and still keep his righteous law. And number three, in light of those first two things, I don't want to compromise. So we hope there's no compromise on this show, but inevitably, of course, I do compromise and have, and I'm sure I will.

I just don't want to. I just don't like it when I do. I'm just trying to not yawn right now because, man, I'm tired. But I got some good emails a while ago for encouragement. We're going to carry on with the show and the beatings will continue until the morale improves.

Upcoming Germany and Switzerland Tour, Books, and Future Writing Plans

We're going to Germany. We're going to Switzerland. We're going to where Zurich had its famous reformer Zwingli. We're going to Geneva, Calvin, and we're going to Wittenberg, Luther, Vortburg, Luther.

And we are going to go there May 20th through 30th, 2017. You can send your deposit into Living Passages. Just tell them you heard it on NOCO Radio. That will be important. It's especially important for me.

I guess if you want to give your two cents in for another, say I'm going on the David Jeremiah thing, you can. If you're going to go on the NOCO tour, you got to say, I heard about it on No Compromise Radio, so I get credit.

You can also pick up some of the books. There are several books on Kindle. Someone asked me the other day. You can get, I think, Prince of Preachers and Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus on Lagos.

Electronically. And then Kindle, you can get Discovering Romans, Things That Go Bump in the Church, Sexual Fidelity, and Evangelical White Lies. You can get those four books on Kindle if you're the Kindle type.

I think there's a CBD reader as well, but I'm not sure how that all works. But Kindle will get you those other books. And we're off to Colossians now with S. Lewis Johnson, and I'm working on a book about hell.

Those are the things in my wheelhouse. One on biblical masculinity, trying to put together just like in advance, you know, maybe write that sometime late next year. Got one on parenting that's halfway done.

Maybe that's early 2018. And things can come up in my life that would completely change all of that. But in the meantime, got a plan. So at least I have a strength, Jesus, because my life is a veritable sacred journey.

How's your journey doing? Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. Info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE its staff or management.