Fixed Canon

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. And I just was talking to Mario, who's behind that camera.

There's been some of you who have asked, can you put new content out on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, like Justin and other people?

So maybe we'll go back to that. The last month of my life was hectic, tired, rundown, listless, thinking of an old

Lucy episode. So the main thing is, Wednesday, YouTube, subscribe, like, forward to your friends, et cetera.

And you can either pick it up on podcast or watch it now on YouTube. That's the main thing. That'll be like the highlight show.

And then maybe we'll do some more Tuesday, Thursday, as I'm able to. Today, I wanna talk about a book in the

Bible that's really revolutionized my life. Many people have asked me the question,

Mike, what happened to you theologically? You're different than you used to be 15 years ago, 25 years ago, 30 years ago.

What's the progress like, or for some, going backward, or going to a direction that we shouldn't go?

And I usually say to them, what's helped me the most in my life to be hopefully a kinder preacher, more empathetic, more dealing with bruised reeds, more

Christ -centered, more hopeful, more helping with assurance, more means of grace is the book of Hebrews and cancer times two.

I could say 16 days in the hospital, almost dying of COVID and them trying to make me have remdesivir to kill me, but I said, no, thankfully.

Hebrews and cancer. And so today I wanna talk a little bit about the book of Hebrews, just because it's one of those books that you need to read and read often.

I preached through it 10 years ago, and I still hearken back to the book of Hebrews because it exalts Jesus, the great high priest.

Now, before I read from the book of Hebrews, the first few verses I wanna talk about today, it starts off in such a wonderful manner that it reminded me, oh, there are other great books, great literature that start off with a bang.

And so I've just got a few books that start off with a bang, great beginnings, then we'll lead into the book of Hebrews.

George Orwell, 1984, it was a bright, cold day in April and all the clocks were striking 13.

Now that's an interesting beginning. Herman Melville and Moby Dick, the opening line, call me, you know this,

Ishmael. J .M. Barrie in the book, Peter Pan, 1911, all children except one grow up.

Just an interesting way to start. It was a pleasure to burn,

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.

Marley was dead, comma, to begin with. Our lastly,

Charlotte Webb, E .B. White, where's Papa going with that ax? Said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

Where's Papa going with that ax? Hebrews has an interesting beginning, an arresting beginning, a getting your attention beginning.

So much so that R .C. Sproul would say that if he were cast into prison and he could only have one book from the

Bible, it would be the book of Hebrews, but not just because of its interesting beginning, but because of everything in those 13 chapters.

Here is Hebrews chapter one, verses one through four, better than Peter Pan's start, better than Dickens' start.

Long ago, at many times and in many places, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

But in these last days, he's spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

He, Jesus, is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

God has spoken. That's how it starts. Now, some letters in the

New Testament, Paul, the apostle, by the will of God, I'm not making light of those things.

Other times it's Peter and it's James to the 12 dispersed tribes. Other books of the

Bible start off different ways like that. I'm not criticizing that at all, but here uniquely, interestingly, and like I said earlier, in an arresting fashion, it grabs your attention.

You know what this is like? This is like Genesis 1 .1, in the beginning, God. And here it's

God speaks, which is fascinating because if you go back in time, many false gods, you would see, right?

They would make the false God, but they would stand there and they wouldn't say anything because false gods are mute. They have eyes, but they can't see, ears that they can't hear, mouths, but they don't talk.

You can see them. There's a visible form, but they can't talk. And of course we know God, the invisible

God. We can't see him, but he speaks. And that's how this starts.

God could have not spoken. He could have remained silent. He could have kept everything we needed to know about him secret.

He was under no obligation to speak, but God reveals himself. God reveals who he is, what he likes, what he desires, what creatures should do.

This section, Hebrews chapter one, verses one through four, while you may not hear it or see it if you read it, this way it contains all kinds of beautiful grammar and a lot of alliteration with a lot of P sounds and just the way it's put together.

This is masterful. This is a masterful book. And by the way, it's a combination between an epistle letter and a sermon.

Hebrews 13, 22 talks about it's like this sermon letter. And so if you were to read this out loud, and by the way, if you're ever at a church and the pastor falls over dead and everybody's looking around, there are no elders, there are no deacons, just grab

Mario and tell him to read Hebrews because it takes about 42 minutes, 44 minutes.

And it's a sermon all about Jesus and it's constructed for the ear, not just for the eye, constructed for the ear.

And so here's this great sermon about Jesus. And how do sermons start off? I listened to a sermon by one guy a while ago and it was some five minute rambling story.

If you're a pastor, especially a new pastor, don't start off with stories. You're not a good storyteller. The art of storytelling is long gone and you're gonna get up and tell some story.

Get to the text quickly. We have something called in preaching TTT, the letter T. Time is first T, two is the second

T, text is the third T. Get to your text quickly, get to who

God is quickly. And here he does that very thing while maybe not quoting chapter and verse,

God speaks. Let me tell you at the very beginning, God speaks. And here is this

Hebrew, who knows, probably Paul, but here's this Hebrew writing to Hebrews to tell them not to be

Hebrew anymore, but to trust in the risen Hebrew, to use

S. Lewis Johnson's words. And everything in this book is going to be pointing to the fact that Jesus is better.

That's one of the themes, Jesus is better. Jesus is better. And this introduction, this magnificent introduction sets the tone for the whole letter as it extols

Jesus. And what does he say at the very beginning to go back? At many times and in many ways long ago,

God spoke to our fathers through different ways, through prophets, for instance.

Here God is speaking, he communicates. And like I said earlier, what if he just didn't talk, but he's using people like prophets to communicate who he is.

And he did it in different ways. The text says in many portions and in many ways, sometimes through Abraham, sometimes through Moses, sometimes through David or through Isaiah or even through dreams, a special revelation.

He spoke in the past in different ways. So the point is God speaks. And in the old days, he spoke certain ways, diverse ways, many different ways, visions, events, direct communications, symbols, pillar of smoke, pillar of fire.

And he spoke in different ways through Psalms, Proverbs, prophecy. None of that was wrong, but it was partial.

Now, how does God speak? In these last days, he speaks to us by his son. That's the point. Fragmented before, incomplete before, partial before, diverse before, random before in different ways.

But now in these last days, how does God speak? He speaks through his son. That should make you think, oh, the son, he's important.

The son, he's magnified. The son is this great high priest and more. It's a book about God, the son being a high priest, but he's also the prophet.

He's spoken, not just in a superior fashion, although that's true, but in a final, final fashion.

Completely, adequately, assuredly. So what we're doing on No Compromise Radio today is we're talking about Jesus in the book of Hebrews and why it's so important and how this first paragraph should kind of startle you and arrest you and grab your attention.

It is the son who speaks and now the son is extolled.

He is the heir of all things. Jesus is superior. He's the one who speaks and he's the heir of all things.

The writer is trying to lift high the person and work of Christ. It also says, through whom also he made the world.

God created the heavens and the earth. Jesus created the heavens and the earth. Jesus is God. I've been studying a lot about the

Trinity and the main issue when it comes to those denying the Trinity, denying

Jesus as the eternal son is they're trying to say that Jesus is a created being.

And Jesus is not a created being. Jesus is the creator.

He made the ages. It's interesting, the text sometimes in English says he made the world, but here it says in the original, he made the ages.

That's pretty amazing. He made the universe. He made time.

He made space. He made the ages. Think about that. Jesus, Mario's shaking his head.

Like, yeah, he made the ages. Yeah, he made the ages. The writer,

I almost said Paul, because who knows, probably is Paul. How do I know Jesus is the superior son who speaks?

Well, he's the heir. He creates everything. Interestingly, in verse three, it says he's the radiance of his glory.

The glory of God in the Old Testament, veiled, sometimes seen a pillar of fire, sometimes the glory in the temple.

And here, he is the exact representation of his nature. He is the glory.

And then it says, and here's what I wanna focus on a little bit today. It says he upholds all things by the word of his power.

Not only does he create the ages, the universe, time, space, everything else, he keeps it going.

He keeps it upheld. He providentially holds the universe from your breath to your heartbeat, to everyone else's.

No sweat, no toil. I went to the gym two nights ago. And these days

I do legs and I don't even really sweat. Back in the old days, I'd lift legs. I'm soaking, that's a hard day, leg day.

Now when you're grandpa and you go there, you just do a few quad extensions and a few hamstring curls and some calf raises like, okay, that's my workout.

But I'm even tired from that. Can you imagine I'm lifting 50 pounds, 100 pounds, maybe 150 pounds on some quad extensions and I get tired and I've gotta be replenished.

I've gotta go home. I've gotta take a nap. I get up the next day going, oh, leg day was yesterday.

God, the son, makes no time to be replenished.

No recovery time. No, I'm stiff and sore. He brings all things by the word of his power.

Just by talking, just by saying, the word of God is powerful. He creates and he takes the universe and he upholds it.

And the way this wording is in the original is he's moving it towards a direction.

Okay, so Jesus creates, he upholds to keep things sustained. And then he brings it to the final conclusion.

He's bringing it to the end. There's a history that's not circular, but it's linear.

There's an end. There's a final day. There's the second coming. There's the consummation of all things.

He is appointing everything, driving everything, moving everything.

And then maybe at the best, the climax of it all, when he made purification of sins, he sat down.

Sometimes people say, Mike, do you believe in purgatory? Of course I believe in purgatory. If purgatory means

God the son purges our sins, purgatory, then I would believe in that purgatory.

But I don't believe in the Roman Catholic purgatory because Jesus purified all our sins. I mean, can you imagine all your sins cleansed?

I mean, I see Mario right here. And so I'm not trying to pick on him. I could pick on myself as well. Between the two of us,

I'm sure we've done some pretty bad things that would make us dirty, that would make us sullied, that would make us dark and black with sin, with our hands, with our body, with our minds, with just, you just need to be cleansed.

And those who trust in the Lord Jesus, can you imagine? Purified, cleansed, gone, forgiven.

Remember Isaiah, he sees the Lord high and exalted. And here comes the angel. He thinks it's a death angel.

Isaiah just got done saying, curse me, damn me, send me to hell. Woe is me, I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips.

And here comes what he thought was a death angel, but it's not the death angel because God is compassionate and gracious.

And he comes and he makes atonement and he burns and cauterizes and cleanses

Isaiah's lips, yes, his whole body. And you just think, oh, it's good to have purity.

It's good to have purification. I don't know about you, but you drink bad water. I've got some of those straws at home.

They're life straws, I think they're called. And life straws are if you're going through the end of the world stuff and you wanna prolong your agony, you need to have liquids and food.

You can take water from the reservoir, from the lake, from the stream, from your swimming pool and drink it through the straw and the straw's got a filter.

You want pure water. I mean, everybody's talking about that, pure water. By the way, what is going on with all these people walking around with water bottles?

There are water bottles galore. And in the old days, they said you didn't drink enough water and now people are saying you drink too much water and you're gonna get rid of too much potassium, too many electrolytes, stop drinking so much water.

So now what do I do? I have no idea what to do. So you want pure water.

You never wanna drink gross water. And so we get the idea of cleansing and purity.

And here it says he makes purification for our sins. Second Peter talks about cleansing from former sins.

Do you wanna know something that's probably better than God can create with the word? Something better than God can uphold the universe?

Something better than he creates and upholds and drives it to the very end? And that is you can be pure, cleansed.

Cleanses us by the washing of the word. That's who Jesus is. The once and for all sacrifice.

Jesus stoops down by making himself a slave and he dies on the cross for our sins.

And then it says what? He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. When you first read that, you're probably like me.

Okay, nice, you sit down. You do some work and you sit down. Is that why Jesus had to sit down? Because it's a lot of work to redeem mankind.

A lot of work to hold up the universe. When you think of priests, you should be thinking to yourself,

Old Testament priest, when they make sacrifices, they had to keep making sacrifices because the next guy would come in for his sacrifice.

And then the guy that came in yesterday for his sins to be sacrificed for, atoned for, he came in the next day.

And the next day he never could sit down because the priest work in the Old Testament was never done. And so while you look at the temple and you look at the different parts of the temple and the holy place and the holy of holies and what's in there, one of the things that's missing was a chair, was a place to sit, was a place to sit down.

Why? Because the work was never done. The priest work was never done. I'm a pastor.

If I was a priest back in the day before Jesus, basically I'd be a butcher, killing animal after animal after animal.

Can you imagine? I mean, today I've got on this bluish shirt and I've got who knows what kind of pants

I have on because it doesn't matter because I'm behind a camera. I don't want you to see my shoes or my pants or anything.

But if I was an Old Testament priest, I wouldn't want you to see them because there'd be blood everywhere. Kim and I were at a lake with our kids in Sterling, Massachusetts, Lake Washakam.

And there was another man there and he was an older gentleman, looked like a grandpa with his son.

But the thing is, Kim's like, hey, our kids were playing with his grandchild and we're like, what's going on?

I'm like, what do you mean what's going on? And she's like, shh, look at his shoes. And his shoes had blood all over them.

Like, great. I just went down to the beach, I skipped some rocks with my kids and I'm gonna have to have an intervention where there's some kind of who knows ax murder and got this kid and I'm gonna have to intervene or something, bloody shoe.

So we're chatting up with a guy and we find out that he's a butcher. And he just came from the butcher shop with blood all over his shoes.

Can you imagine being an Old Testament priest? Blood all over? And you don't really have a lot of garments back in those days, you had what you had and maybe one extra thing.

Anyway, they never sat down. That was just a story to keep you guys awake. It was just a story for me to try to give you a little pause in life and think, okay, fine.

Here, Jesus sits down at the right hand of the majesty on high. What's the symbolism?

It's not now Jesus literally now sits down in a literal wooden fashion.

This is language to get you to say, when Jesus said it is finished on the cross, it's finished.

No more sacrifice, no more beards plucking out, no more spear in the side, no more crucified hands, no more anything else, the work of atonement is done.

Unlike the Old Testament, here comes the guy back again, he sinned again. I've got people that come to my office and they'll say,

I've been watching pornography and I don't wanna do it anymore and it's just gross and ugly, I've confessed it.

And then four months later, they come back in again and again and again. And so if I was an

Old Testament priest, here's another sacrifice slain, but instead I focus them back on here's who

Jesus is. And let's talk about the one who sits down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

Jesus is the one to be listened to. No wonder in the New Testament, when there's the transfiguration of Jesus, where you get to see what he's like on the inside, on the outside, no wonder

Moses goes away, Elijah goes away and the father says, listen to Jesus.

That's what Hebrews is talking about. It's the one who can be raised from the dead, it's the one who purges sins, it's the one who's bringing things to completion, it's the one who upholds the universe, it's the one that creates the universe, he's the one that speaks.

Now we've got all kinds of people, podcasts, by the way, I never call them pods. I'm too old to do that.

Podcasts, talking heads, channel, you got Rumble, you've got YouTube, you've got

Instagram, you've got Facebook, you've got all these other things that are out there and everybody's talking.

Who do I listen to? I mean, do I listen to, I don't know, Jocko? Do I listen to Jordan Peterson?

Do I listen to, I mean, there's all these people to listen to. The book of Hebrews is simple. Here's who you need to listen to, number one,

Jesus, Jesus is the one to listen to. The voice came out of the cloud in Luke 9 saying, this is my son, my chosen one, listen to him.

He is the one you listen to. Now let's make it super simple. There's all kinds of people that want to hear from God now.

God told me, God spoke to me, God gave me a still small voice and said such and such.

You just talked to somebody the other day, God gave me a still small voice to say something and that's why

I believe this, that or the other. Do you know the canon is closed? Do you know we don't need any more books of the

Bible? Do you know it's hard enough just to understand what's in the Bible, let alone God speaking to me outside the Bible?

In these last days, God's not speaking through dreams anymore, through visions anymore, through still small voices in anymore.

What does Hebrews 1 say? In these last days, you're in these last days, this is how God speaks in his son, the one who upholds the universe, drives it to the end, sits down, does purification, et cetera.

And so when people say to me, God spoke to me, I'm expecting chapter and verse. If God is speaking to you outside the

Bible, can I just tell you a little secret between us girls? It's not God, it's probably you.

You know, back in the day when that lady did the whole Jesus calling thing, I don't even remember her name anymore, I think she died.

Like, well, you know, here's this 45 -year -old lady, whatever her age was at the time, writes Jesus calling and says,

God is talking outside of scripture and this is what God is saying. You know what? When I read some of that, it sounded like a 45 -year -old lady from America.

But she said it was God, because it was herself speaking. Listen, you can trust God so that if you need to make a decision, you can just make a decision.

You don't need to have God tell you something. Read the scriptures, maybe there's no way to find out an answer to your solution.

So just do something, just make a decision. You don't need to say, God told me, because He didn't. God didn't tell you anything because in these last days, how does

He speak? In His Son, that's how He talks. And so we have to be very, very careful when it comes to mysticism from hearing from God.

What does the Bible say? Well, I got an impression. Well, as my friend used to say, impressions are impressions, that's all they are.

Don't make an impression as this is God's word. You say, well, you know, I saw somebody on the side of the road and I just felt like I should go there.

You know, God's telling me to go there. Well, you know what that was? Let me just explain it to you so you can understand.

You've been taught by God in the word to love other people, to love your neighbor, to help.

And so you've been taught that, second great commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. You see someone in need, who's your neighbor?

That person's a neighbor. And so you go there and help. It's not God telling you that second.

It could be the spirit of God using what you already know to help you go do that, to guide you, to direct you.

But my point is, it's not God speaking to you. God told me to come and talk to you. No, God told me to love you back in scripture.

And now the spirit is leading me and guiding me and helping me to do those very things. It's not new revelation.

God doesn't privately talk to people. Matter of fact, look at the Bible. It's rare that God ever talked to anybody.

Few and far between. And last time I checked, you're no Moses. I'm no apostle

Paul. God spoke to me directly. That's interesting. You don't even know how to understand how

Jesus can be truly God and truly man. Well, neither can I fully. These days we live in this mystical world, touchy feely, no discernment, charismatic stuff everywhere.

You guys believe the Bible, you're Calvinist, you're Protestant, you're evangelical, you're cessationist.

I wanna have a God that walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way. I get it.

I know where you're coming from. But I just want you to know, in these last days, God has spoken to us in his son.

He has spoken to us in his son. And we have enough scripture.

I think of Psalm 119, 48. My hands also I will lift up to your commandments, which I love.

It's almost like if this iPad was the Bible, we see people in church doing this, doing this, doing this.

What if we would see people do this to the Bible? What is it? I'll lift my hands up to your commandments, which

I love. I'm sorry I had to do this to the iPad, but it is the no compromise iPad directly.

Calvin said, we owe to scripture the same reverence, which we owe to God, because it's

God's word. In these last days, he's spoken to us in his son. So I don't need to have people come up and say,

God told me this, or God told me that. Lord, who do I marry? Well, I'm waiting for God to tell me something. No, we don't need that.

Spurgeon, is the truth at which I imagine to be revealed to me by some private communication? Am I to fancy that I enjoy some special revelation?

And am I to order my life by voices, dreams, and impressions? Spurgeon, brothers and sisters, do not fall into this common delusion.

God's word to us is in the Holy Scripture. All the truth that sanctifies men is in God's word.

Do not listen to those that cry, low here, low there. Spurgeon said,

I'm plucked by the sleeve almost every day by crazy persons and pretenders who think that they have revelations from God.

One man tells me that God has sent a message to me by him. And I reply, no, sir, the Lord knows where I dwell.

And he is so near to me that he would not need to send to me by you.

There will be no more revelations, Spurgeon said, no more needed. The canon is fixed and complete. And he that adds to it shall have added to him the plagues that are written in this book.

Anyway, my name is Mike Cabendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. You can write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com.

Make sure you hit subscribe and like the YouTube channel. We lost our old channel, so now we're trying to build that back up again.

Mario is doing a great job. Also, you can order 10 books or more at 40 % off if you email me, mike at nocompromiseradio.

So if you want three cancer books, five assurance books or whatever, you can email me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.