Death And Repentance (Part 1)

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.

And for those listening on radio, I'm gonna try a Facebook Live to the public. Usually it's just the NoCo group itself. Special Gnostics get ahold of that insider information, but I thought I would try to do it to public.

I don't know what that really means. Ben told me to do it, so I thought I would. I've shut all the shades here in the church building and still get this, and turned off the lights and still get this kind of weird, I don't know, chromatic change in aura, but that's just the way it goes.

You can always write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com if you need some help or info at nocompromiseradio .com and Spencer can help you with maybe more administrative things. Oh, what else is going on?

Israel is still on at the moment, February 24th, 2021. If you wanna have the itinerary from the 24th of February through I think March 4th-ish, 2021, go ahead and email me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

We'll know about the exact prices soon enough. I just got new ear headphone deals. They used to kind of slough off and make my ears kind of like these little black splotches, and it looked like I had, what do you call those earrings that they've got the big holes, like the big punches in there?

What's that called? Not studs, but something else. You can email me and tell me. I've been thinking a lot about scriptures lately, as we're all probably home more than normal. Some of my routine has not changed because I still preach to livestream on Sunday and trying to do some discipleship via Zoom and trying to record four new shows every week now that my knee feels a little bit better, riding the stationary bicycle and walking some.

So I'm trying to kind of maintain a normal life, but still it's abnormal in the sense you're like, well, what do you do tonight? Well, I guess we watch this in Claire Ferguson video, and then I don't know, The Amazing Race or something.

Death, Funerals, and Learning to Think About Mortality

A while ago, I found an illustration, and it was about South Koreans and how they would fake their funerals so they could learn. And back in the day when I read this on Reuters, it was interesting because not many people think about death very often.

And of course, that's changed in light of what's going on in our world today, of course. I'm gonna try not to say the word virus today, except for that time right there. Seoul, Korea, Reuters. A South Korean service is offering free funerals, but only to the living.

More than 25 ,000 people have participated in mass living funeral services and so-and-so healing center, can't pronounce the name, since it opened in 2012, hoping to improve their lives by simulating their deaths.

Quote, once you become conscious of death and experience it, you undertake a new approach to life, said 75-year-old Cho Yai-Hee, who participated in a living funeral as part of a dying well program offered by his senior welfare center.

Dozens took part in the event, from teenagers to retirees, donning shrouds, taking funeral portraits, penning their last testaments, and lying in a closed coffin for around 10 minutes. Nice. Now what's this thing here say, share to friends?

Maybe we share, but what happens there? It's just a short sharing. I have no idea what that does. Anyway, one of the professors there in South Korea said, it is important to learn and prepare for death even at a young age.

And this is in light of the country's high suicide rate, which is double the global average. We don't have forever, he said. That's why I think this experience is so important. We can apologize and reconcile sooner and live the rest of our lives happily.

And for that, I'm happy in the sense that if there are things that need to be done between family members and reconciliation, that's great. These days though, I think the world is thinking about death.

They don't wanna say death, but they want to say something about a virus or something like that. How does a person respond knowing that they'll die one day? That's the real question. And what's fascinating to me as a pastor and just a regular person, a sinner simultaneously just, is that people have more time to think now.

There's lots of people who are thinking, somebody just tried to call, it's a no caller ID, about death because they can't think about sports. They can't think about entertainment. They can't think about what they're gonna go do when they go out to eat.

I guess they could think about it, right? But they can't do it. And I don't blame anyone for thinking death is an enemy. I don't blame anyone for trying to avoid death. It is ugly and painful. It is grim.

It awaits us all short of the Lord's return. And it is an enemy. It is rare for us to just sit and think about dying. We're gonna die one day. Now I'm almost 60. I turn 60 in a couple months. And I know I'll have to die one day.

And what happens? I think it was Jim Elliot, the martyr to the Akha Indians, said something like, make sure when it's time for you to die that you don't have anything else to do but die. That is make sure you're standing before God is right and you're reconciled before God.

Did you know 150 ,000 people will die today around the world from all kinds of causes. And they will go through various stages. 15 minutes to 120 minutes after death, there's pallor mortis, there's a paleness.

Then they will go through liver mortis, L-I-V-O-R, and that is the blood settles in the lower portion of the body. Then they'll go through algor mortis, the reduction of body temperature until the temperature matches the room temperature.

And then rigor mortis, when you become very stiff, that's where we get the word rigor, it means stiff in Latin. And then our bodies begin to decompose. I don't really want to think about that. I don't want to think about all those mortises.

I don't like that. And when you look at the number of deaths and what causes death from top to bottom, heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, accidents, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, influenza, and suicide.

But at the bottom line for all this, why do people die? We know as Christians, because the Bible has told us, God has revealed it to us, the wages of sin is what? Death. Remember the old New England primer?

A, in Adam's fall, we sinned all. I still don't know what's going on here. I blocked every one of these things, but it's so sunny today, 60 degrees here in central Massachusetts. That's pretty nice, sunny.

And tomorrow it's going to be probably snowy. But I want everyone here to know, Christian and non-Christian, that there's something worse than death, right? There's something worse than death. And I think people innately know that.

Of course, they know there's a God, Romans chapter one, and they try to suppress it. They suppress that truth about God being the creator in unrighteousness. They try to hold it down. They try to ignore it, but they certainly believe that.

Everybody knows though, they're going to die one day. And then what happens? You have to face the Lord's either pleasure because you're a Christian, or disfavor his punishment because you're not a Christian.

I don't like to think about that very often. John Owen said, Satan's greatest success is in making people think that they have plenty of time before they die to consider their eternal welfare. Oh, we've got lots of times to get everything settled.

So let me just live it up today. I want you to think rightly about death. And these times during tragedies, where every day I'm told how many people die per country, we should, as Christians, think about death properly.

Luke 13 and the Right Question to Ask About Tragedy

And so if you have a Bible, today I'm going to talk about Luke 13. This is a passage that gets preached when there's a national tragedy for a reason, because Jesus talked about tragedies and death. And what's the response to tragedy, to accident, to murder, to death.

And I want to know from Jesus how to think about life and death. Since Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

And then of course he said it to the people there regarding Lazarus's death. He said to everyone, and do you believe this? People like to ask the question when there's a tragedy or a death, why? How could a loving, all powerful, good God allow this to happen?

Why do bad things happen to good people? People ask those kinds of questions. But today in Luke 13, Jesus is going to teach us that it's not really why, that's not a good question. Why, it is going to be what.

What does this tragedy teach me? What should it teach me? What kind of lessons should I learn? And maybe you've already heard this from your pastor the last couple of weeks on live stream. That's weird, isn't it?

You know what I should do? I've been coming to the church building and doing the live stream on Sunday mornings. And you know, there's five or 10 people here or something like that. First week there was 19, but we could have 25 or less.

So far we've obeyed. But maybe I should just record it on Saturday night. And then if it's good, we post it. And if I bomb homiletically, then we redo it. It's kind of like with no compromise radio, except now I've been recording the actual radio show, but with FaceTime live, it is what it is.

Why, why, why, why, why do all these things happen? What should I learn from them is a better question. I mean, if you're a scientist and you're trying to figure out why do so-and-so things. Wendy's on there, good to see you're well.

I'm glad your husband and son are well after SHEPCON. And Meg's there, do I really redo? Usually on the radio, I only redo if I'm about three minutes in or less. And then I say something I don't like, then I redo it.

But if not, it just, it is what it is. If I was Todd Friel and I had a bunch of editors and other things, I would. But we, sometimes I'll interview people on Wednesdays and they'll say, could you edit that out?

I said, it's all or nothing, unless you're gonna give some kind of modalistic civilian heresy, I'm not gonna edit it out. Tragedies should teach us lots of things about death, about life, about judgment, and about repentance.

So at the church I've done, the last two weeks we've been out of the book of Hebrews and I've taught, give us this day our daily bread from Matthew chapter six, since I thought that was important. What does the Lord say about daily provision?

And then I also talked about last week, the Lord is my shepherd. And you have this theme of the Lord as a shepherd and then the Lord as a great banquet host. And how can we go through trials and ups and downs, knowing verse four, the Lord is with us.

But today and this Sunday, I'm gonna talk about Luke 13. I have the sermon ready for Hebrews 11 and I have Luke 13 ready as well. But why is God allowing this to happen? That's just a bad question. Did God fail?

Did he fall off his throne? Did he miss? Was it a miscue? One writer said, did God, you know, make it just make a blooper? Charge or foul, charge or block rather. We should probably think about things a little differently.

Jesus’ Teaching on Fear, Hell, and Judgment

So we go to the book of Luke, Luke 13. And of course, Luke is writing about the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's going to put, remember in chapter one, verses one through four, an orderly fashion account.

He's going to say, you know what? Just like he's a doctor. And so you would not be surprised that it would be an orderly account. I'm gonna walk through this in a way that everyone can understand. It's gonna be logical.

It's gonna flow. It's gonna have cohesiveness, cohesion. And he just got done saying, in the chapter before Luke 13, listen to this. I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do.

But I will warn you whom to fear, Jesus said. Fear him who after he is killed has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Jesus said, now, when you're gonna be afraid, you ought to be afraid, that's true.

But not of people that can just kill your body. And of course, this language goes against the Tim Keller, C .S. Lewis model of hell, that hell's door's locked on the inside and you get what you want when you don't wanna believe in God.

Now, in one sense, that's true, but that's not the best truth. That's not the priority truth. That's not all the truth. This passage here talks about thrown in, cast in. It's not like people just get what they want.

We don't wanna have anything to do with God. No, no, no, God is the judge, jury, and executioner. And if their sins are not paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ, his son, in whom he offers all people to believe and to repent and trust in this risen savior, then he's going to cast in.

He's going to throw in, if you look at the language of Matthew. Luke 12 also says, I came to cast fire on the earth, Jesus said. I would that it were already kindled. That's Jesus. I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished.

Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? Is that what you think? Do you think that I've come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather what? Division, for from now on in one house, there will be five divided, three against two and two against three.

They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

He also said to the crowds, when you see a cloud rising in the West, you say at once, a shower's coming. And so it happens. And when you see the South wind blowing, you say, there'll be a scorching heat.

And it happens. Then Jesus said, you hypocrites, you know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? That is Luke chapter 12. Coming judgment.

We need to be aware of that. We might not want to think about it, but just like when I went in to get biopsies for cancer, I didn't want it to be true. But when that phone call came, what was I gonna do?

Just ignore it. Just turn into a Christian science philosopher. It's not really real. Cancer is made up. Illness is a myth. Sickness is a myth. Sin is a myth. Death is a myth. That's not going to do any good.

We need to have courage. We need to have stability. We need to have trust in the Lord that we can really know, all right, just give me the diagnosis and we'll work from there. Because as Christians, of course, we know the Lord is with us and we know we don't ultimately have to go to hell or anything like that.

But it is good to look through the lens of Jesus and his eyes as these things come up. So we come to Luke chapter 13. That's not a bad introduction for 16 minutes. We finally got to the passage. There were some present at that very time.

So remember all the stuff that's going on in Luke chapter 12 about this division and judgment and can't you look at the weather and get it right? Yes, but you can't look at spiritual things and get it right.

Why is that? Now there were some present at that very time who told him about Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. So the narrator is tying these two things together at that very time.

There had been lots of crazy things going on in chapter 12, including the one guy who just blurts out in the middle of all this stuff. Hey teacher, can you tell my brother to divide the father's inheritance?

Something similar, just dumb, not paying attention. Don't fear. And now these people are going to say to Jesus, what about Pilate? Should we fear Pilate? What's going to go on with Pilate? And they bring up this scenario where we don't know anything about biblically except this spot here, that Pilate had killed some Galileans, probably who were in the temple sacrificing, maybe even for Passover.

And the soldiers, not Pilate himself that did it, but the soldiers of Pilate go in, of course they go past the court of the Gentiles, past the court of the women, into the court, into the place where they, in the temple where they're slaying animals.

And this is not good for any kind of Gentile to do. And then he slays, he, Pilate's soldiers, slays these offeringers, offerers. You're my practice sermon, by the way. It's Friday, this is practice. We're talking about practice.

Type in Alan Iverson practice in YouTube and see what he says. That was classic. In the temple, this is going on. This is a bad thing, right? This is an awful thing. This is a sinful thing. We would call this a massacre.

We would call this a first degree murder. You'd have people sacrificing animals. And then now the sacrifices were the sacrificers. Does that make sense? And if you go back and study history, not Bible history, but history through Josephus, the Jewish writer, he's going to talk about all kinds of ways that the Romans did bad things to the Jews.

And some were massacred while they were building aqueducts in Jerusalem. Some were killed because of, I could just read some of these. Samaritans were attacked on Mount Gerizim. You've got Archelaus slew 3 ,000 Jews in 4 BC.

6 ,000 Jews were murdered by Janus who was pelted with citrons during the Feast of Tabernacles. The only citron that I know was a car. Must've been strong people like Samson, like people who were throwing citrons at the Roman soldiers.

What is a citron? The only thing I can think of is some kind of lemon or lime they were throwing. They were pelting them with rocks and garbage as David Letterman used to say. What's the point? Well, this happened a lot.

Violence, massacre, killing. The Roman yoke over the people in Israel, the Jewish people was pretty heavy and it was not light. And what happened is this particular case is even more sacrilegious and the people want to know what Jesus, the teacher, thinks.

Repentance, Perishing, and the Call to Be Ready Before God

Now, what could have Jesus have done here? He could have said, well, let me give you some political commentary. Let me give you some Zionistic kind of nationalism. Let's overthrow the Roman government.

Let's talk about social commentary. Let's protest. He didn't say any of that though. It's very fascinating to me to ask the question when you study the Bible. When he said it's an honor. Well, last week when I did this, I thought, oh, here's first time caller right there.

James Bice, good to see you. Or whatever that is there, Semper Fi deal. You know what? Think about it. Sola fide, alone faith, faith alone. Fide, fidelis, semper sola fide, fidelis. People are tackling all these questions themselves.

Now Jesus, the teacher, is there. And they run up to him and they ask him this question. And he had an opportunity to talk politics, but Jesus, of course, talked spiritual things. And he is going to make sure he hones in on the things that are the most important.

And that is, let's forget what's going on with a lot of these other details. I do know that I one day, in fact, will die and then stand before God and face judgment. What can this tragedy teach me? And the answer is, life is fragile and I'm going to be judged.

Think about what he says in verse two. This is fascinating. A lot of people think Jesus is a different kind of person than what he really is. And when you read Jesus, you'll say, I marvel at what he says.

I'm kind of shocked once in a while. It's very abrupt once in a while. Of course, other times it's tender and shepherding. But here, he goes for it. This is jugular stuff. And he answered them. How do you think he would answer?

Of course, you already know the answer because you've already probably read Luke 13. But how does he answer? And he does this kind of question regularly. What do you think? What do you think? It's kind of like Paul learned, I'm sure, from Jesus when he says in 1 Corinthians, do you not think, do you not know?

Okay, I want you to think about this. Because we don't think, we just emote. We just feel. We just hedonize. I don't know, is that a word? Do you think, I want you to really think about this. Don't read the Bible too fast.

Do you really think that these Galileans were worse sinners? I'm gonna sneeze. Excuse me. Cover your face when there's nobody in the church building because it's a ghost town. Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way?

Is that what you think? This is amazing how Jesus does this. Do you think they were worse sinners? They asked Jesus a question. What happens when you ask Jesus a question? Well, like a lot of times, he asks you another question and then he gives you an answer.

Verse three, no, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. I'd like to see their faces. I'd like to see the looks on the faces of the people when Jesus responds this way, when he brings that up and when he responds this way, especially in light of everything that's gone on in Luke chapter 12.

He says, no, you would think they would think, hey, you know what, you do bad things, God's gonna judge you. Karma, kind of like Job's friends. See, they were worse sinners and therefore they got what they deserved.

No, that's not it. That is not, he denies his word. So Jesus has a great answer. Now, we're just starting to pick up speed, talk about repentance and what it is and what comes for faith and repentance, but I'm running out of time, not for Facebook, but for the radio show.

So in about 15 seconds, I'm gonna close both, open it back up again for the same Facebook channels, and we'll work through this great passage. Luke 13, there's a national tragedy. What should I do? Make sure you're ready to stand before God and the only way you can do that is trusting in the perfect work of the Lord Jesus, his life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, session and soon return.

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.