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Hebrews 5 -- Jesus the High Priest (Part 5)
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, and we are recording show number three tonight. It is Saturday, I think the last day of June. It�s like 95 degrees out, 95 humidity, and it�s hot.
I got in the car and my glasses were steamy. That was how hot it was. I like to go into the church building and record some shows on Saturday night where it�s quiet. Usually, the custodians are here, and then I can kind of think through as I talk about this subject, and it�s kind of just a good review, right?
So every day, I usually review my sermon. Sunday, I preach it. I go home Sunday night and kind of cut and paste. What did I say that I want to say better next time, or what didn�t I say that I should say?
So I look at that Sunday night, and then I look at it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, then Sunday morning, and then preach it. So this is just kind of a good opportunity for me to do that.
I�m doing Facebook Live now. It�s a special No Compromise group. If you want into the group, I think you have to ask, and you have to be�you can�t be mean. We�re not going to have this kind of whole, you know, you can disagree with me, but you have to do it in a Solar Pope fashion, right?
We want to be a blessing to people. What was I just saying? For the summer, for NOCO, I might record some shows when I�m on holiday slash sabbatical. I had a sabbatical last year, and I cut that short because I needed to get some radiation done, and it was no fun having a sabbatical when it was just, you know, bathroom 10 times a day kind of thing.
Sorry to tell you that. But I feel good now. I just had a blood test, and I don�t have to have another blood test until December, MRI, December, biopsy maybe next year, and if those are good, like these blood tests have been, and one MRI, then I�ll be kind of off with my life.
I�m off, you know, back to regular life, and riding the bicycle a lot, dropping some weight, trying to get back to the shape I was in two years ago. Let�s see what else is new here in NOCO land, but anyway, I�ll probably do some reruns and recording Wretched Radio on Monday and Tuesday this coming week, so that�ll be July 2nd, 3rd, doesn�t really matter for those who aren�t on Facebook Live because by the time this airs on NOCO, it will be too late.
Stephen just said, �Here, are you going to be at Sufficiency Conference next October 2019 at Grace Well, I might be. They called me to speak, and my agent and I are working out the speaker�s fees, and I�ve got a few demands before I might say yes.
In my dreams, I don�t think I will. 2019, I didn�t know that that�s going to be there, but that sounds like it�s going to be fun. What else? You can write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com. You can follow us, I guess, on Facebook.
I don�t really do much Facebook stuff. I have Hootsuite, and if I have a quote, I post it to Twitter and Facebook. Most of the time I�m hanging around in the Facebook world, now I�m hanging out in the Twitter world, and I usually look at Facebook just to see if anybody�s made a comment or something like that.
But once in a while, we�ll just do some of these live things, and Twitter is atnocoradio. I had to register to get on Facebook even, so my name is No, that�s the first name, and my last name�s Compromise, and that�s different than the No Compromise group, but I don�t follow friends, and I get friend requests and all that stuff, but I prefer to remain friendless.
But anyway, it�s kind of nice to have the word No and have Compromise for the last name. That reminds me of the story that MacArthur tells. I assume it�s true. He told it like it was true, that people were in a hospital, and they didn�t speak English, and they were in America, and they named their kid Nosmo was the first name, and they needed a last name, and the last name was King, Nosmo King.
And it was because they looked up and saw the sign. They had to sign something for the kid�s name, and so it said, �No Smoking, Nosmo King. That�s a true story. Well, it�s true according to MacArthur.
I mean, I don�t think John�s going to lie. He said, �The Sufficiency Conference, Nosmo King. We�re talking about the book of Hebrews. I�ve been fascinated by the book of Hebrews, and I am not exaggerating when I say this book has changed my life.
It has been the perfect storm for me, preaching through the book of Hebrews at 56, and now I�m 58 years old. I�ve been in the book a couple of years, and then getting that call, �Mike, you have cancer, and you�re probably going to live, da-da-da-da-da.
But still, it�s crazy to get that. Very thankful that things are going well since, but it was a perfect storm that the Lord put me in, and I can. I�m not trying to boast or anything. It�s very humbling because I learned a lot.
There were a lot of times of little trust and lots of anxiety, but the object of my faith, Christ Jesus, He remained firm. He remained faithful. When I was not faithful, when I was doubting, when I was worried, when I would study WebMD and prostate cancer prognosis and diagnosis and remedies more often than I would read the Bible, my weak faith in a strong Savior was enough.
That has really changed my life, that God is faithful even when I�m not faithful. That is life-changing. When I understand in the book of Hebrews, faith is different than faithfulness, that also was a world changer for me.
It is faith in Jesus, this high priest who is the Son and who is also truly God, who is greater than prophets, greater than Aaron, greater than Moses, greater than angels, greater than anyone else, and you need to have faith in Him.
And then even getting to chapter 11, we like to think, �Well, Abraham was faithful and David was faithful and Samson was faithful. No, by faith, it�s not by faithfulness. How can the whole book, first 10 chapters, faith in Jesus, faith in Jesus, faith in Jesus, faith in Jesus, faith in Jesus, by the way, chapter 11, look at everybody else�s faithfulness.
Yes, faithfulness should come from faith. It is a corollary, but it is not the same thing. The evidence of your salvation, faithfulness, is not the same as the ground of your salvation, Christ Jesus. This book, Hebrews, and this trial that I was in have really done a work on me.
It is amazing, and of course, I�ve got a long way to go. I�m not saying I�ve arrived or anything like that. I�m just saying whatever I am today, it is because of who Jesus is, through the ministry of His Word, really getting my attention and showing my weakness through these trials.
I can say I�m thankful for the trial. I wasn�t thankful for a lot of the things that go along with it. It�s very embarrassing and all the different things that go along with it in the doctor�s offices and questions and everything else, but I�m thankful.
When I was younger, I know this has nothing to do with chapter 5 at the moment, but when I was younger, I always thought to myself when I met somebody who was really a mature Christian, a really wonderful Christian, kind and compassionate and just really caring when someone else was going through a trial, I thought to myself, �What makes them so wonderful?
What makes them so kind? What makes them them And of course, I knew it was the Lord who did that, but the Lord did it through trials. And of course, I�d like to be that kind of person. I�d like to be the kind of person who could be very encouraging and comforting when things are really going poorly, and contrary to kind of no-co and contrary to, you know, my Twitter persona, I�m mainly just a pastor, and if I come to your deathbed, I want to be kind and I want to show you Christ.
But the thing is, nobody is like that just kind of on their own. The great Christian saints, and I�m not saying I�m great, I�m saying whatever I was, I�m better than I was, but the great Christian saints, they all suffer, right?
And you think Jesus, the suffering Savior, has followers who suffer. It�s God�s will for us to suffer because it just rips everything out, right? All the issues that I had, when I got that phone call, so I�m almost, you know, you think, okay, Lord, what do you pray for?
You pray for growth? Do you pray for maturity? Do you pray for compassion and joy in spite of and all that? I think the answer is yes, but it�s kind of scary. It�s scary to pray those things because I know the means to the end, and it�s through suffering.
It�s through trials where you think to yourself, you know, all my thoughts about, I mean, from dumb things like bicycling to wonderful things like, you know, my wife and kids and future, dumb things like, you know, bills and what about retirement, and, you know, I�m not in a denomination, so what do you do about that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, none of those things matter, zero.
And as Stephen just said, he will hold me fast. It wasn�t my holding onto the Lord Jesus. He held me. And that�s the book of Hebrews. And you�ll see punctuated through the book of Hebrews, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 5, chapter 10, these things called warning passages.
And the warning passages in Hebrews are stark. How do you get somebody�s attention? Well, let�s talk about Melchizedek, let�s talk about human priests, let�s talk about what they do, chapter 5, and then all of a sudden it�s this, wow, Hebrews chapter 5, 11.
It�s time to grow up. You�ve become dull of hearing, it�s not the preacher�s fault, it�s not the Word�s fault, obviously, it�s your fault. And if you�re going backwards, if you�re regressing, and if you�re sluggish and lazy, it�s on you.
Don�t blame God�s sovereignty, don�t blame anybody else. Just own it, repent, God loves to forgive, and you can move on. And you�ve been a Christian long enough, you should be teaching others. Instead, we have to teach you ABCs.
I�ve got to pray your carrots again, spiritually. And then he asks the second question, what about meat? You want milk, but you should be desiring meat. And again, the language of infancy and childishness and kids growing is used.
He�s not saying, you know, you used to understand intellectually Jesus is a high priest, and now you forgot it. No, we taught you this, and in life you would apply it to your life, and you would see how it affects marriage and money and other things.
But you�re going backwards now, because you�re putting your focus on the trials instead of putting your focus on the Lord Jesus. Hebrews 5 .13, �For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness.
It�s kind of how the practical application of the word plays out since he is a child. The language is simple. This is the way it is. This is the truth. �Verily, verily is the kind of import here.
The conduct that you should have knowing that Jesus is high priest is essentially what he calls the word of righteousness. And you should be way beyond what you are. If you�re a new Christian, nothing wrong with being immature.
But if you�re not a new Christian, immaturity is wrong. I am shrinking now. My height used to be almost 6�2, now I�m probably 6�foot. And with this hair, who knows how tall I am. For a 58-year-old man, that�s normal.
You get shorter. But if you�re 13 and you�re shrinking, there�s a big problem. And it�s the same thing when it comes to spirituality and the walk of Christ Jesus. You need to be moving forward. Yes, this is not some type of Keswick sanctification and perfectionistic type of thing and Wesleyanism.
No, there just should be growth. And the more you understand who Jesus is, the more growth there should be. And he is calling them out. And he�s pushing them. He says in verse 14, �For solid food is for the mature.
He wants them to take the Word of God. Here Bud said, �Charcoal quickly kindles because it hath been in the fire, John Trapp. Excellent quote. So here�s the question you could ask yourself. Do you like doctrinal preaching?
If you�re a Christian, do you like doctrinal preaching? What�s your attitude toward the pastor giving you meat? One of my favorite passages when I talk about this is 2 Timothy 4 .2. Paul writes to Timothy, �Preach the Word.
Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience. And what? Instruction or doctrine, teaching. That�s what the Word is. Here�s how you should preach. You should preach the Word.
Preach all the time. Right? Preach in season, out of season. Preach, there�s kind of different ways, reprove, this is sin, rebuke, you�re the one sinning. Exhort, pick them up and help them along and encourage them after they�re convicted and they repent.
And then it says, �With great patience. You just keep preaching over and over and over. �And instruction or doctrine. Here�s the way I want you to preach. With doctrine. The world says, �Down with doctrine.
Immature person says, �Down with doctrine. Give me cookbook ways just to live. Give me the minimal. I just want the minimum. I don�t want to go overboard. Just give me the minimum. But friends, as you know, especially if you�re an Oak Hill listener, doctrine leads to doxology.
Who we are in Christ leads to praise, right? As Mark says here, �High theology produces high doxology. That�s right. It�s only logical to think, �You know what? I know me. I wouldn�t pick me. God picked me.
He loved me in eternity past. He loved me at Calvary. He loves me now. He�ll always love me. If ever He loved me, He�ll love me forever. And you think, �That�s doctrine. Think about it. What is doctrine?
Doctrine is simply truth about God. Truth about us. Right? It�s like false teachers. They only usually have two problems, bad view of man, bad view of God. Other than that, they�re pretty orthodox. Here�s what a Lutheran commentator said, �Doctrine has been derided in our day as though this word meant dry, sterile dogmas which are simply handed out so that people may bow to them in unquestioning assent.
This view is used to justify the opposition of doctrine and life and the supposition that people in our day do not want doctrine. But doctrine is any adequate statement of divine fact. That�s good. What do you mean you don�t want doctrine?
You don�t want to learn about who Jesus is, by the way He will be the subject of your praise, the object of your praise, and everything in between for all eternity? We preach doctrine. I know that immature people want to be entertained.
I know they want a bunch of stories. I know they want a bunch of illustrations. I know they want me to throw a football to them and give them special attention and have Braveheart videos and have Gladiator snippets played.
I know what they want, but there�s no possible way I�m going to do it because I�m not preaching for them ultimately. I�m preaching for the Lord. And the Lord said, �Preach doctrine and that�s what I�m going to do.
Toby is on Facebook Live and he said, �A lot of the woke brothers out there are downplaying the importance of doctrine. That�s exactly right, because if you don�t, then you don�t really have a leg to stand on.
A lot of those folks are confusing law and gospel as well, and it�s amazing to me when Reformed woke people conflate law and gospel. You think if anybody wouldn�t, they wouldn�t. When people say to you, �I don�t believe in doctrine, I just believe in Jesus which Jesus do you believe in?
The Mormon Jesus? The Jehovah�s Witness Jesus? The Guru Jesus? The Jesus who, when he�s 12 years old, goes to India and zaps kids for making fun of him? Which Jesus are you talking about? It is my responsibility not to entertain and to do all these things.
It�s my responsibility to preach the Word. Here�s a good question you could ask yourself. Was Jesus a doctrinal preacher? The answer is yes. Was Paul a doctrinal preacher? Yes. Even Acts 2 .42, �They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles� watered-down gruel illustrations, braveheart.
I�m telling you, if you really want to get in my crawl, then talk to me about pastors who play video snippets. I mean, that is the absolute worst. If I�ve got a pet peeve, I know we�ve done shows at NOCO on pet peeves, that�s like the new pet peeve, where you can�t illustrate something of sacrifice or you can�t illustrate World War II something or other or somebody on the top of Everest who lays down his life for somebody else or whatever as an illustration of sacrifice, and then you talk about how much more.
You�ve got to show a video clip. I mean, I joke around on Twitter that I think the fill-in-the-blank sermon outlines for babies. There�s truth to that, but that�s way secondary to this whole thing, �I�m going to show videos at church.
You say, �Well, the people like that. I know that�s why I�m the pastor, and they�re not, because I want them to mature. I know they�re going to get that phone call. I know they�re going to have that suffering.
I know things are going to be difficult. And some PowerPoint, a video display of the latest Incredibles movie is not going to help them. To understand the practical ramifications of Jesus as High Priest will get you through any trial in life.
I don�t have many quotable quotes. I don�t know if that is or not, but for me it�s going to be for the rest of the show. If you understand the practical ramifications of Jesus as High Priest, you can get through any trial that this world will bring you, that God will bring you.
You need to understand what it means to have Jesus as High Priest. And so the writer of Hebrews in this, I like to say this, sermonic epistle, or you could say epistlatory sermon, he wants them to understand, and he�s calling them out for going backwards, for wanting baby doctrine.
The question is, do you like doctrinal preaching? Do you want to have doctrinal preaching? If you have to hire a pastor, do you want him to be able to preach doctrine? How about Titus chapter 1? Not just Jesus who preached doctrine, not just Paul and Peter who preached doctrine.
If you are an elder, a leader in a New Testament church, you better preach doctrine or you�re out. Titus 1 .9, �Holding fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.
Titus 2 verse 1, �But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine. You should be sitting under doctrinal preaching. That is why when you watch Joe Osteen, and this is the Bible, and blah, blah, blah, blah, and whatever he says, and then he gives moralistic, pietistic TED Talks, that�s not doctrinal preaching.
And that�s not going to help you when you get the call. �But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine. Of course, I don�t care if you give an illustration. I don�t care if you try to come at it in a way so you can let the people understand the truth.
But you ought to preach doctrine. And you ought to preach, if you�re a pastor, all the doctrine you know. And I like it when people in the church know the same doctrine that I know. Why? Because I�m not trying to be the Gnostic insider where I know everything and they�ve got to come to me for it.
Vance Havner said, �Too many people are stamping their feet and clapping their hands and singing �Hallelujah� without the slightest idea what they�re singing �Hallelujah� about. Right? You�ve just got this kind of mush, vanilla, beige God, and you don�t even understand.
I want to preach doctrine. I want to preach in such a way where you think, �You know what? I might have to go home and listen to that again because there�s so much meat in there. At the end of every section of the Heidelberg Catechism, it says, �How does this comfort you
Knowing this doctrine, how does it apply to your life? Well, what about on your deathbed? Knox is on his deathbed, John Knox. He can�t talk. And what happens? He wanted to have John 17 read to him. He�s dying.
He had his attendant come to him, and that attendant said, �Do you still believe the same gospel you preached Right? You�re dying. Do you still believe it? If so, raise your hand. He raises his hand three times, like, �Yes, I do.
How about doctrine when it comes to dying, and you�re maching, and you�re in North Dakota? Sam. It was glorious. It was glorious. This is his final telegram, �Isn�t the Reformed faith grand Then he dictates the telegram to Murray, John Murray, and says, �I�m so thankful for the act of obedience of Christ.
No hope without it. Colossians, �So that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of the Lord. That�s doctrine.
So one of the signs of immaturity is, I don�t want doctrine. I don�t want any kind of, you know, the word justification, it�s too big, and if you have to give it to me, you know, it�s just as if I�d never sinned.
I don�t want to really know the real definition. Just give me some kind of quick little rhyme, that�s all that I�m after. Justification by faith alone. Do you know that doctrine? That�s a good question.
If you�re a new Christian, well, maybe you don�t know some of these doctrines, but if you�re listening to No Compromise Radio, and I gave you a little test today, and I�ll look at you in the eyes now on the Facebook thing, you should be able to understand and teach other people, if you�ve been a Christian for some time.
If I told you the doctrine of reconciliation, you should know it and be able to explain it. Do you? If I said to you, do you know the doctrine of redemption, tell me what redemption is, where it is in the Bible, at least one verse, and why it�s important.
And maybe a little background of the Old Testament. You should be able to do that. You should be able to tell me what the mercy seat is, and what propitiation means, and why that is so important to the atonement and how we view it.
You ought to be able to understand and articulate to others justification. What is justification by faith alone? You, No Compromise listener, ought to know the difference between law and gospel. You ought to know what the difference between what God has done and our response to what God has done, and God�s standards, and different uses of the law.
Do you know those things? You should be able to say to yourself, you know what? Can I articulate what sin really is? And sin starts with unbelief, it leads to lawlessness, and ends in immorality. You should know that.
You should know that because it is doctrine. And I�m going to end with this from Jim Eliff. And if a doctrine is broached which is controversial, then men fearing preachers will treat it so lightly, touch it so gingerly, speak it so generally, plead it so weakly, believe it so loosely, that the truth is neutralized down to nothing worth getting excited about.
And the preacher says, �No more doctrinal sermons, they won�t hear them. How can a preacher use the same Bible that spawned the Protestant Reformation, launched a modern missionary movement, and put his forebears on the block and never stir up anybody is a mystery to me.
So let me suggest that you go to your pastor and say something like this, �Pastor, I�m ready, ready to listen to something deeper, more substantial, even more difficult, if you�ll explain the terms, than I have put up with before.
Lay it on thick, Pastor, and I�ll listen intently. As for me and my house, we�re going to grow. You see, it is not that people are unable to hear strong sermons, it�s that we become lazy listeners. People died for those doctrines you take for granted.
What Paul meant by �milk� is not by what we mean. We want Kool-Aid. Milk is at least good truth in a digestible form for babies. But Kool-Aid is pure taste plus nothing, and oh how we crave it. Convicted?
I�m convicted too. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abingroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church and West Ham 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 10 .15 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.