Classic Friday: Thankfulness or Jesus (Part 3)

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.

Current Events, Evangelical Controversies, and the Limits of Discernment

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I�m glad to be your host. I think we�re going on to our fifth year or something like that. Has it been four and a half years?

Five years?

I have no idea. Sometimes it seems a lot longer. I try to do four or five shows a week, because Monday is a recorded sermon, so if I do five shows a week, that means I get one show ahead, and that means if I go out of town or go someplace to speak or something like that, then I have a little wiggle room, so I could resort to a few reruns.

Once in a while, I�ll think, �Oh, I think that was a good show and I�ll play that.

As a rerun.

But I forget often what those reruns are. Hopefully, it was biblical, provocative, in that order. I�m trying to think of some things that are in the news here lately. I was criticized once that, yeah, that�s it.

I was criticized once, period. I was criticized once because the show was recorded ahead of time, and sometimes it�s not up to date on the current issues in evangelicalism. So I don�t know what to say to that, except I have a day job.

So today happens to be Saturday at noon. I�ve got to pick my daughter up from she�s taking ski instructor lessons to be a ski instructor for some kids, and I�m on my way to pick her up, but I thought I�d come in and do four shows because, hey, it�s holiday weekend, and everybody gets the holidays off.

True, unless you have a radio show. So I am glad to be your host. I�m glad to do it. Most days, I�m actually glad to do it today, but it�s tiring. When you do teach, it becomes tiring. And so, let�s see, what are some issues in the news today?

Ferguson is in the news today. This is probably going to be delayed, of course, but I have criticized Votie Baucham before regarding the Faith-Driven Family, Family-Driven Faith, what�s the name of that book?

What He Must Be.

Those are two different books.

You just combine them all together. And, you know, in terms of soteriology and anthropology and bibliology, he�s solid with all those things. I understand that, and I�ve heard some really good messages from him, but the family-focused deal is more than I care for, and so I�m not a big promoter of Votie Baucham.

I just pick other people to promote. I don�t think I�ve slammed him too many times. I don�t think I�ve critiqued him too many times on the radio show, maybe one or two.

I don�t know.

Maybe none, but I will say his response to the Ferguson issue was amazing. And so my background is if you live in Norway and everybody�s white, if you live in Zambia and everybody�s black, those churches don�t have problems with race because they�re homogeneous, of course, and then I think maturing Christians don�t have any problem with race either because Jesus is the son of man who came to seek and to save those who are lost.

And so really we all come from Adam, and I honestly, I don�t really give race a second thought. I mean, I think to myself regularly and often my sinful past and my prejudices and my racism and what our family taught me that exacerbated my own sinful nature, and now I never think.

About it.

I mean, my initiation into church life as a new Christian was in Los Angeles, and so that was a perfect melting pot for perfect pot providences with Cuban food, with Asian food, with� the list goes on.

So to me, I liked Voti�s response to Beatty and O�Wehle�s response, not so much. And I find it fascinating that both were put on the Gospel Coalition�s website and then Justin Taylor said something like, �Isn�t it good we can have both these kind of responses under the big tent or something like that

So whatever. I don�t even know what�s going on with Justin�s Between Two Worlds. I used to read that thing every day, and then now I just scan it maybe once a week and I get enough pro-CS Lewis, pro-GK Chesterton stuff to last me for a lifetime.

So I don�t know what happened there, but it�s not my cup of tea. It was Machen who was making hot chocolate in World War I, the front lines in France. And the French always said of hot chocolate that, �It�s something like it tastes great but doesn�t inebriate.

That�s my own mangling of that. And so, I don�t know, what does that have to do with really anything? Not sure. And then what�s the other thing in the news these days? Oh, the Driscoll thing. You know, he�ll start a church in Los Angeles in no time, is my opinion.

I haven�t really got on the anti-Driscoll thing. I�ve spoken against the ministry there for a long time. There was a guy on Twitter that said basically I was a coward and a false teacher because I maybe he didn�t say false teacher, I don�t know what he said.

He did say I was a coward because I didn�t say Mark Driscoll was an unbeliever. Now, time may tell if he�s an unbeliever, but how do I know when the gospel that he does teach, when he does talk about sin and the Savior, it�s right.

I wouldn�t hire him as a youth pastor for the last 15 years, but that doesn�t mean he�s not a Christian man. Maybe some of these pornographic visions and a variety of these other things will be the, you know, early signs of his eventual undoing, kind of like a Rob Bell.

I don�t know. My guess is no. I don�t think that�s the case. So while I�m not endorsing Mars Hill, Mark Driscoll books, I�m not going on record to say he�s an unbeliever. I�d have more of a problem with I think there�s a bigger chance that Rick Warren is not a Christian man because he does know the truth and then he doesn�t teach it.

When you go to Ted�s and you don�t give the gospel and when you�re speaking at the Vatican and the list goes on, I�ve got a bigger question mark in my mind with Rick Warren than I have ever had with Mark Driscoll in terms of how can that guy be a Christian and say that?

How can that guy be a Christian and do that? So ultimately, of course, I don�t know. That�s the Lord�s business. But for those of you that want some current events, no-co, current events, I guess that�s it.

Luke 17 and the Point of the Ten Lepers

So what we�ve been doing in No Compromise Radio lately on these Thursdays, are these.

Thursdays shows?

I don�t know.

We just put them up whenever we want to. See if I had a book of common prayer, a book of common no-co etiquette, then I would just know what to do. I wouldn�t have to do anything else. It would just be so easy for me to just be told what to do.

We�ve been going through Luke 17. And so at the risk of overdoing something, we never do that in No Compromise Radio. Luke 17, Jesus heals the ten lepers. One comes back to say thanks. He was a Samaritan.

We ought to show thanks. That's how most people teach that passage. And that's the wrong way to teach it. The Bible is about God. Does it tell us about thankfulness?

Certainly.

1 Thessalonians 5. In response to God saving you, you should be a thankful person. That is all true. Can it be a secondary application from the Luke 17 passage that we too should be thankful for our salvation like the cleansed leper was?

Yes. But what's the point? The point of Luke is to give an orderly account of this great Jesus who did things among them like seek and save those who are lost. And so Luke gives this account. And in Luke 17, it's about Jesus because it's about Jesus since early on from the prologue to his infancy to everything else, Galilean ministry, and as he sets his face toward Jerusalem.

So we've been working through the passage because it's quite fascinating to just focus on the person and work of Christ and learn a hermeneutical lesson as well, because we are prone in our listening, we're prone in our preaching to do spiritualization.

And in this particular case, moralizing, don't do this, do this, right? Do this, don't do that. It's that kind of thing that we're so easily caught up into and we want to avoid. So if you're going to open your Bible to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, I hope you're going to tell them something great about Jesus.

Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't it be nice to have pastors say, here's who Jesus is. Just look, observe. I was in St. George's Tron in Glasgow, Scotland in 2000 with my family, six of us jammed in some small car.

And we went to the worship service there at that Presbyterian Church in Glasgow. And St. Clair Ferguson happened to be the pastor. He had recently taken over from Eric Alexander. And I had called the manse to see if St. Clair would be preaching that night.

We would still have probably gone to the service, but we wanted to know if he was going to be there. And so the answer was yes. He actually called us back to tell us that. And so after the service, I introduced myself, told him I was a new pastor, told him I appreciated his ministry.

I've been preaching through Mark. He wrote a commentary on Mark. I almost said gospel. And that I said I was having a hard time figuring out application for the congregation in the book of Mark. And so here's what I was really saying.

I mean, I didn't really know how to articulate it. But this is looking back at the old me. This is what I was saying. I know Mark's all about Jesus, servant, Jesus, this great God man. Everything about it's about Jesus, but I'm trying to have the people do something.

There's a rub.

See, the feeling of the rub was a good feeling. And it didn't, the penny didn't drop until much later. But Sinclair said to me, Mike, is there anything wrong with showing people the glories of Jesus Christ every week from the book of Mark?

That's a bad question because no answer is an answer and every other answer except yes is a bad answer. There's nothing wrong with showing people the excellencies of Jesus Christ every week. Now, when Jesus is tempted, we know that our response, our gut, our visceral, our initial desire to teach that passage is, well, when you're tempted, hide God's word in your heart.

Use God's word. Use Deuteronomy even. All three quotes from Jesus were back to Deuteronomy. Of course, it's not found in Mark one, although we have a summarized account in Mark one. When you go to Luke four and Matthew four, you see that.

But the point of the temptation ministry in Luke, in Matthew, in Mark, it's a little bit different than what we would normally believe. Adam was tempted.

He failed.

Eve was tempted.

She failed.

Israel in the wilderness was tempted. They failed. Jesus tempted in the wilderness. He did not fail. And I'm glad because when I'm tempted, I fail. Regularly, when you're tempted, you fail often. And so what's the point of the passage is Jesus was tempted.

He's fully man and he did not fail.

Hallelujah.

What a savior.

And so we're so prone to moralism. It's just in our nature. And so I've taught this passage so many times, so many times the wrong way that this is kind of my, I'm making amends. This is my penance. On the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee.

And as he entered a village, he was met by 10 lepers who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices saying, Jesus master, have mercy on us. Here we have these for all intents and purposes, as Josephus would say, the Jewish historian, these dead men, they were treated like dead men.

They were in effect, dead men, flesh is eaten. We don't know how it's affected their skin and to what degree it's affected, but they are unclean. And they, according to Leviticus 13, should cry out unclean, unclean.

He shall remain unclean. That is the leper all the days during which he has the infection. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp, outside the village. These people were a way off and they've got the stigma.

Remember what AIDS was like in the eighties, in the mid eighties, in the late eighties, there's this stigma to the whole thing. And they are cut off from God's house. Second Chronicles 26, they can't be priests.

Leviticus 22, got to shave your head, tear your clothes. Leviticus 13, say, Hey, I'm unclean, quarantined. And what did they do? Jew and Gentile alike, that is Jew and Samaritan to be more specific, get together.

They raise their voices and they say, Jesus, master, that word master is only found in Luke in the New Testament. And they know Jesus could give them hope. They need his mercy. Well, people ask the question, how did they know Jesus by name?

How did they know about his miraculous power? How were they aware of Jesus as master? And to have a master, you realize you're under someone, you are subordinating yourself to someone. It is going to be the good pleasure of the master to either heal or not heal, to give mercy or to not give mercy.

Please help us. And who knows what kind of gurgling sounds came from their throats that didn't have pallets or might not have had pallets. The voice is destroyed with certain kinds of leprosy and they managed to say master.

Now this was used earlier in Luke. Simon answered Luke 5, master, we toiled all night and took nothing, but at your word, I will let down the nets. Master have mercy on us. This is what people say when they want to be healed.

Someone who is of superior, who is a superior or in a superior position, you want mercy from them. You want pity from them. You want compassion from them. You want healing from them. That's what they're really after.

We want to be healed. Help us. Now back in those days, I did some research. No, I didn't do some research back in those days, but from research back in those days that I've uncovered these days says this is how you treat certain sicknesses.

You would use blood, urine, milk, hair, and ground up shell and bone. In addition, certain mineral products were commonly used. Salt and bitumen, also accompanied by magical rites, incantations, and prayers.

I want to say Latin, but it didn't say that here. Herbs, plants, these were applied to the body as a poultice. Is poultice and poultry have the same, well, it has the first same five letters. Sometimes ingested by mouth.

Frankincense and myrrh were also used. Sometimes wine was thought to have medicinal value. Maybe they used some oil aroma therapy or something. Verse 14, this is a very unexpected response from Jesus.

By the way, this is No Compromise Radio. Mike Abendroth, info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. When he saw them, he said to them. So, when Jesus saw the lepers, right? They are far off, but he's heard them.

So, he hears his voice, Jesus Master, he looks over. And when he saw them, he said to them. Now, what do you think he could have said? Well, he could have said all kinds of things. What do you think the lepers wanted him to say?

The lepers wanted him to say, be clean.

Be healed.

Go and show yourselves to the priests. Okay, go and show yourselves to the priests. Wait, we're not healed. I want you to say, be cleansed, be healed. But after all, we called you Master and we should probably do what we're supposed to do.

We're supposed to go and show ourselves to the priests. Now, Jesus didn't touch the lepers like he did the leper in Luke 5. But when you put these two things together in this verse, go and show yourselves to the priest.

If you go and then show yourself to the priest, by the time you get there, you're going to be cleansed. You're going to be healed. And the text goes on to say in verse 14. And as they went, they were cleansed.

So, Jesus is far off. And he says, okay, go and show yourself to the priest. That means he's going to have to do a long-distance healing.

Right?

And there was a long-distance healing in Luke chapter 7. So, Jesus can do that. He can touch and heal right then. Or he could heal right then. He could say the words and they'd be healed right then. But there's a long-distance healing, remember, with the centurion servant.

So, show yourself to the priests. Remember, the priests did all kinds of things. And in this particular case, they were like health inspectors.

Go.

Tell yourselves.

Go tell yourselves. Go tell yourselves.

It came about that as they were going, they were cleansed. I mean, okay. Would you heal us? Please, Master. Go and tell the priests. Show the priest. All right. Now they start walking off going, what was that?

Do you think it'll work?

Do you think he's got the power?

Do you think he's got the willingness? It seemed like they just went. Right? One writer was saying, I wonder if someone said, why bother? Once a leper, always a leper. Sores everywhere. Deformed arms and fingers bitten off by rodents.

Off they go, doubting all the way, shuffling band of sufferers. One step, still lepers. Two steps, nothing happens. Third step, leprosy clings to their limbs. But on that fourth step, something wonderful.

Something unbelievable. Something they never dreamed possible happened. With that fourth step, they were healed. Instantly, miraculously, all 10 at once. I mean, one minute there, no change yet. What am I going to tell the priests?

This is going to be dumb. I'm going to go tell the priest what? I'm still a leper? And at whatever moment it was, between Jesus and the priest, you can imagine they would feel differently. Able to walk better.

Energy zooming through their limbs. I mean, they must have heard that Jesus could heal lepers. Luke chapter 5 talks about it. If you are willing, you can make me clean. And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.

I am willing, be cleansed, and immediately the leprosy left him. They must have heard about that. And so, what's the point? What's Luke driving at? If you only had up to this particular verse, what is the point that Jesus is God?

Jesus is the son of man. This is Christological. He can heal lepers. Who can heal lepers from a distance? Who can heal anybody from a distance? And when you think of healing at a distance, something should go through your mind.

And here's what should go through your mind. The healing of Naaman in the Old Testament. Only God healed Naaman. A leper. A Gentile leper.

Yes.

A Gentile leper. Healed from a distance. God gets the glory. Jesus is God. 2 Kings 5. And so, you have lepers in the passage. You have foreigners in the passage. You have healing. Delayed healing. You have thanksgiving.

This is a fascinating passage. 2 Kings 5. Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.

So, we've got the general, and God through common grace has even given victory for him, to him. Now, the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman's wife.

She said to her mistress, that my lord were with the prophet who was in Samaria. He could cure him of his leprosy. So, Naaman went in and told his lord. Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel.

And the king of Syria said, Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. So, he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy.

And when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, Am I God to kill and to make alive that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Only consider and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me.

Hey, we got kind of a ceasefire, and this is gonna rise up all the tension. But when Elisha, the man of God, heard the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he said to the king, Why have you torn your clothes?

Verse 10, it says,. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored, and you shall be clean. Here we have a Gentile who was cleaned. Wash and be clean.

It's fascinating that we have similarities of Samaritan location, communication from a distance, delayed cleansing, there's a return, praise. Fascinating. Only God can clean a leper. God cleansed a leper in 2 Kings 5.

Jesus cleansed 10 lepers in Luke 17. Jesus cleansed one leper in Luke 5. Jesus is God. The point of the passage is Jesus is God.

Do you believe it?

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 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.

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