The Message (Part 2)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr.

Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the

Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

Jonah, you have one job in your life, one privilege, and it's to proclaim the message.

You can hear almost echoes a thousand years later when Paul writes to Timothy, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God, even of Christ Jesus, who's going to judge the living and the dead, preach the

Word. That's your job is to preach, a formal proclamation, and that's what the Word is in Jonah chapter three, verse two, to go proclaim.

There's an announcement. I have talked to the king, received his message, and now

I proclaim the message of good news to you as an ambassador. I speak for the king.

That's why you proclaim, by the way. I don't proclaim to you because I'm better, because I'm worse, but I have a message from the king.

If it's my own message, then I'm going to share it with you. If it's my own message, we'll have a nice talk, but I have a message from the king.

It's like Ehud coming to Eglon. I have a message for you, and so Jonah is going to go into this city and he's going to preach.

Chapter three, verse three, heralds must preach, prophets must preach, evangelists must preach.

So Jonah arose. Wow, it's so different now than chapter one. It's different. He's not disobeying.

This time he arose and went to Nineveh. If you go by camel, if you go by donkey, if you go by caravan, it's going to take a month to get there.

It's going to take longer if you walk, and now he's going to do the right thing according to the word of the Lord. Yes.

Now, Nineveh was an exceedingly great city. The way the Hebrew is, it's a God -sized city.

It's a city of God. Yes, even this Ninevite city, it's a city of God. There are people there who are the image bearers of God.

They're eternal souls in Nineveh. It's a God -sized city. It's three days' journey in breadth.

Now, there's all kinds of inks filled about what's that mean. It takes you three days to walk across the city, and you know, if you stopped in the middle and preached some, we could see that.

Take three days to walk around the outside of the walls. Take three days to walk around the outside kind of the environment.

It's almost like saying, go to Worcester and preach, but he walks around Princeton, and he walks over to where, who else needs preaching?

Holden. You people who live in Holden need preaching. Fitchburg especially. And so, it doesn't really matter how big the city is.

Nineveh was bigger than Jerusalem. And there's some Old Testament illustrations of, if you say, go to some city, it means the environment around it as well.

The neat thing is, Jonah went to preach according to the word of the

Lord. Verse 4, Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey.

What was his message? He called out, he preached, he proclaimed, he has a message from the

Lord. He called out, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

Five simple Hebrew words and the original 40 days of purpose right here, in case you missed it before.

Forty days, over and over and over, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Not three points in a poem, judgment.

Now, you say, wait a second, is it all judgment? Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be sacked.

The word is to decimate, to destroy, total destruction. It shows the thoroughness of the destruction.

It's the word used in Genesis 19 .25, where Sodom and Gomorrah, it was totally destroyed.

Same word here. Forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. There's not grace in the words, but there's grace in the time period.

You've got 40 days to repent. Lot had a few hours to get out of Dodge and then the city's destroyed.

You've got 40 days. That is gracious. That is slow to anger. That is kind of the Lord. That is gracious of the

Lord. This city, Nineveh, this, as one man said, this

Sodom of a city, gets a message. Repent. Now, I don't know how much time took place between the vomiting and the preaching.

That's kind of a funny thing to say, isn't it? How long did... I never thought I'd say that publicly in my life. What's the time period between the vomiting and the preaching?

I don't know, but I bet you his face still looks bleached out. I bet you he still looks pretty funky.

And now he's coming preaching and now you've got the seaweed, turban -headed, bleached -out face prophet and he walks in, 40 days, your city's going to be overthrown.

Can you imagine getting the marching orders? Here's your marching orders. Go to Baghdad before the

Americans took over and just start walking around telling everybody Jesus is the Savior and Muhammad is a false prophet.

And by the way, make sure you get some of that kind of whitening stuff on your face. I know you're thinking about Michael Jackson.

Stop it. I know you are. Stop it. Sin is serious.

Judgment is on its way. Repent now. Consider your soul. Finally, by the way, the mariners are obedient to God.

The winds are obedient to God. The whale, the fish, in other words, rather, is obedient to God.

And now we have Jonah who's going to do the right thing. Forty days and then judgment.

Now let's talk about something for a minute. The world is saying this to Christians. You better shut your mouths.

Idaho, there's that marriage place where a pastor and a pastorette marry folks, some kind of marriage chapel.

You better marry homosexuals or else. Military, I thought about being a military chaplain years ago but decided not to do it for a lot of reasons.

If I was in there now, it's you better shut your mouth. The world, you can just see it. I used to think to myself, well, you know what, by the time they're going to throw me in jail for saying

Jesus is the only Savior and even died for the sins of homosexuality and all kinds of other sins, by the time they do that to me,

I'll be retired. I'm going to make it. I'll let my kids go to jail, but I'm going to make it.

It is coming so fast and furious, the world is saying you better muzzle your mouth.

You better shut your mouth. And if you don't, we're going to restrict you.

We're going to jail you. You know what, it's okay. It's like China with communism. You can believe whatever you want.

You can be a Christian, but you can't tell anybody. Just believe it in your minds. Jonah was told, look at chapter 3, verse 2 again, the message that I tell you.

And I want to just stop here for more than a moment. Christianity depends on a message that is proclaimed.

The way people get saved is always the same. These days,

Abraham's days, and our days, there's a message that must be proclaimed. Faith comes by hearing a message about Christ Jesus.

We are a proclaimer. We might not have the office of pastor or prophet or something like that, but we proclaim.

And now the world is saying, you shut your mouth, so we'll shut it for you. And so simultaneously, liberal

Christianity has gotten into the door of main evangelicalism and hurting evangelicalism in a big way with things like this.

Friends, you are the message. You are the fifth gospel.

Just live your life in such a way that you be the message, let people see your life changed, and then you be the fifth gospel for gospels they've never read, but they might read you.

There is a coming together of the pressure from the world and liberal

Christianity, which is no Christianity at all. I mean, some of the people that say this might be Christians, but it's liberalism.

And by the way, liberalism in 1930s, it was kind of a guy with kind of dumb -looking glasses and he wore wingtips or something, and he had flutters on, like, no, of course

I'm not going to believe you because you just look dumb. But now they're coming in and they're the cool ones, they're the hip ones, they're the,

I don't know if we're in Gen X now or whatever, I mean, some of them don't look so cool, I mean, some of them wear capris and toms as men, and so I just want you to know, don't ever do that because you're fired if you do.

I wear capris and toms. Who are you? But that's a different sermon. The world pushing down, be quiet.

And evangelicalism, because they're buying into liberalism, which is be the message, and it is a imperfect, unperfect, unholy storm.

There's a new book out called Be the Message, an evangelical publisher publishes it.

Be the message. It says in the brochure, I'm tired of hearing sermons, I want to see one lived out.

Every pastor wants to see his church move beyond just hearing a sermon. They want to see their congregations live out their faith.

Now it is true that we as Christians should live lives that are not full of hypocrisy, that are full of godliness and love and kindness, and we should be set apart people, and we are to be godly.

But when this book says you are the gospel, my spider senses don't go off, my red flags don't go off.

I say, that's a lie, that's a lie, but it fits so perfectly, just be the message.

Okay, so let's say I'm the message, because you know what, when I watch Mike's life,

I observe what he does and how he says things, you know, some things are just too good to be true.

Is that what you think? You should see your faces. You don't think that. If I'm the message, we're in a lot of trouble.

If you're the message, we're in even more trouble. No, we're in equal trouble. No, we're in...

We aren't the message. You mean to tell me that when you watch my life, you say, huh,

I don't know what to do today. I could either read the gospel of John or watch Mike's life. Tie. The book's promo material says, digging deeper, they discovered that the gospel message is really about a life message.

Your life lived out. Be the message opens up a new world of understanding about what

God calls you to. What would happen, this is a quote from the book, and everything in my mind just says, it's a lie, it's liberalism, but it tastes so good, it feels so good, because then

I don't have to open my mouth and cause my neighbors not to like me. Then I can just say, I'll just live my life and everything will be worked out perfectly.

What would happen if we talked about God less and walked with God more? Well, from the human perspective, then nobody would be saved.

We would have no good news. My life isn't good news. Now, I want to live a life again.

That's nice and good and warm and wonderful, but what happens when I'm short with my wife?

What happens when I exasperate my kids? What happens when... What happens when... I'm trying to think of some funny little comment to make about the little blub, blub, blub, blub.

When you look at my life, that's what you would hear. By the way, I like to hear those sounds, so leave that baby in here.

Maybe I could use the baby for an illustration. Jesus lives the perfect life.

He's the message, and even He's a preacher. God had one son and He made him a preacher. Turn your

Bibles, please, to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I want to remind you of something quickly. And thoroughly.

Because I want you to be an evangelist. And friends, I've got news for you. Lifestyle evangelism is a lie.

Lifestyle evangelism, Mormons do it better. Should you be kind and loving and warm?

Yes, but that is not evangelism. That's called, I'm just living out my Christian faith. Yes, I want to live my life in a way that people will see

I'm different. Hallelujah! But you've got to open your mouth. But we're afraid of people, and we fear a rejection.

And we don't want people to think we're some kind of crazy people. That Jesus is the only Savior, and they can only have their sins forgiven in Him.

We just think this way. But we ought not to. We have a message from the

Lord. The message that I gave you. God is a proclaiming

God. True? Yes. He proclaims His wisdom, and His power, and His might through nature.

God's a revealing God. God reveals His mind specifically through Scripture.

Salvation in Jesus Christ, substitutionary atonement, wages of sin is death. All these intricacies. And when you see

Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. If you don't like it that I say lifestyle evangelism is a lie,

Paul would say something much worse. Chapter 15, verse 1.

You say, Mike, you always go back to 1 Corinthians 15. Why? Answer, because it talks about the most important truth in the universe.

And the most important truth in the universe ought to be regularly talked about. Because if we assume this truth, our next generation is going to lose it.

Now, I would remind you, brothers, of the good news, the gospel. That I, ESV says, preach to.

But the Greek is gospeled to you. The gospel is to be gospeled.

I got the gospel, and I'm going to gospel it to you. It's good news in content. God forgives sinners through the perfect work of Christ Jesus.

His death, burial, and resurrection. Repentance and faith are the response to that gospel. And I gospel it to you.

I tell you, I'm like a runner in the military. I run up to the front, we're winning. I run back,

I tell the general, we win. There's gospel language. Victory over Nazi Germany.

We win. Ronald Reagan re -elected.

I almost said, we win. Whenever I'm out of town and talk to other congregations,

I say, well, I'm from Massachusetts, I want you to know two things about Massachusetts. There are Christians there. They're like, yeah.

Number two, in Massachusetts, not only are there Christians there, Republicans in Massachusetts are even

Democrats. So I just want you to know those two things about Massachusetts. You don't live the gospel.

Paul wouldn't know what to do. He'd say, you proclaim the gospel. When you watch news at night, let's just flashback.

Maybe you don't watch news anymore, but if you used to watch Walter Cronkite, for instance. We talked about Art Linkletter last week.

So now, Walter Cronkite. And JFK's just been assassinated. And Cronkite gets on the news.

Remember, he takes his glasses off for looks. Here's one thing I know. He's going to tell me the news.

Cronkite, you're not the news. Well, let me just kind of act out this thing. I'm seated here on the back of the car, and then the shots come, and he kind of dramas this out.

Michael Horton said, instead of reporting the news, we become the news. In fact, today we hear Christians speak of living the gospel, being the gospel, as if anything we do and can be are considered a supplement to God's victory in Christ Jesus.

1 Corinthians 15 does tell us the good news. And don't you love it? It's not about you.

It's not about me. It's about Jesus. And the subject of all these verbs, except for a couple, is

Christ. Verse 3, for I deliver to you as of first importance. This is the most important truth, what

I also received. Christ died. The Messiah died, not for his sins.

He was sinless. For our sins. That's substitutionary atonement language. And it's not just found in the

New Testament. In the Old Testament, too, in accordance with the Scriptures. That he was buried. He was dead. He was raised on the third day in accordance with the

Scripture, and that he appeared. It's about Jesus. And the message has to be about Jesus.

The object of faith has to be about Jesus. And so the world is going to say, no, don't say anything.

And it's going to feel so good. It's so wonderful. It appeals to our laziness, and it appeals to our desire to be liked by the unbelievers.

I won't say anything, because my life's the Gospel. No, if your life is like mine, that you sin, that you're vile, that you're wicked, that you fall short.

And this is all even as Christians, because in my flesh there dwells what? Enough goodness to live out the

Gospel. Of course not. Listen to these modifiers of the Gospel found in the

New Testament. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, Mark 1. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, 1 Corinthians 9. The Gospel of His Son, Romans 1.

The Gospel of the Grace of God, Acts 20. The Gospel of the Kingdom, Matthew 4.

The Gospel of Peace, Ephesians 6. The everlasting Gospel, Revelation 14. And not one time do you find in all the

Scriptures, I've looked, not in Greek, not in Aramaic, not in Hebrew, not in any other language, that the Gospel is me.

I'm the Gospel. I pity people that think I'm the Gospel. God is the

Savior. But everything just starts getting warped in. If there's some kind of centripetal force, some vacuum that has a black hole -like effect, and we just keep getting drawn in on ourselves, curved in on ourselves, as Luther would say, and this fits perfect to that thinking.

Herman Ritterbaugh said, while in Calvin and Luther, all the emphasis fell on the redemptive event that took place with Christ's death and resurrection.

Later, under the influence of pietism, mysticism, and moralism, the emphasis shifted to the individual appropriation of the salvation given in Christ.

In other words, when you used to preach the Gospel, you'd say, Jesus Christ died on the cross for sinners like you, through repentance and through faith, you believe in the risen

Savior. And now we preach the Gospel like this. Well, this is how my life changed.

You know, my marriage used to be bad, and now it's good. And I used to be a tempered man, and now I'm not so ill -tempered.

I used to be angry, and I'm not so angry. I used to be prideful, and now I'm not. And the focus slowly drifts, because of our own sinful thinking, away from the object of our faith, and I determined to know nothing among you except Mike Abendroth and his lifestyle.

I mean, it just sounds so weird, doesn't it? Who would do that? Getting saved.

If I ask you the question, tell me how you got saved, I wonder how you would respond. This is what

Jesus did for me, or this is how I let Jesus in my heart, and there's just this God -centered way to approach it, and a man -centered way.

I ask you this question. How do you live this message out without words? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all,

Romans 8. How do you act this out in your lifestyle with your neighbors, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age,

Galatians 1? How do you live out this, Titus 2, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness?

You can't live it out, so you have to proclaim it. And Jonah was no neo -evangelical liberal.

By saying, I'm just going to go there, and the proclamation is my life. And by the way, this is so good, congregation, because what do you do if you're like me?

Far from perfect in practice. Struggling with sin and temptation and failure.

How could God ever use me to evangelize? Answer, because it's not about me.

I'm the messenger. And that's why when people say, I don't go to church because there's a bunch of hypocrites there.

That is just such a farce, because people will use any excuse not to go worship Jesus, including that lie.

But I'm not here to tell you about me. I'm not the hero of all my stories. I'm here to tell you about, there's a captain, there's a man, a

God -man, who's going to come back, triumphant on a white horse, and he's bringing victory. His name's

Jesus. Let me tell you about Jesus. If I were to walk up to you and say, do you just watch my life for the next hour?

And you will never ever again think of the slogan. That's too good to be true. There's another book called

The Fifth Gospel. Bobby Conway. It starts off with a quote of someone you might remember,

Gypsy Smith. He was a British evangelist a couple hundred years ago. There are five gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the

Christian. But most people never read the first four. The good news isn't about me.

The good news is about what Jesus has done, who Jesus is. And you say, Mike, I get it all.

I know you get it all, but I'm reminding you, because the world is going to say, shut your mouth. And then an easy default, if we're not careful, is,

OK, I will, and I'll just live my life. Name me one great evangelist, a woman who preached good news often in Calabar, Mary Slessor, or someone else,

Adoniram Judson, who comes from Salem, Massachusetts, the first missionary sent from this soil.

Every evangelist that you love had a common theme, Jesus Christ saved sinners like you, and proclaiming the message, because that's how

God saves people. What I do and who I am is just as important as the gospel of Matthew.

You should look for a new pastor in Monster .com, if that's the case. The gospel isn't about me.

They came to Jesus and saw a demon -possessed man, the one who had the legion sitting there, clothed and in his right mind.

They were afraid. Those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon -possessed man and to the pigs.

And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. He was getting into the boat, and a man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him.

And he did not permit him, but said to him, Go home to your friends and be the message.

Go home to your friends, you're the fifth gospel. Go home to your friends and tell them how much the

Lord has done for you and how He has had mercy on you.

And he went away and he began to proclaim in the Decapolis, ten cities, ten

Gentile -run cities, how much Jesus had done for him and everyone marveled.

Should we live holy lives in front of our neighbors and mow our lawns and those kind of things?

I hope we're the best neighbors. But the good news for us is when we fail at work, in our neighborhood, in our marriages, there is one who does not fail.

And Jonah was to go proclaim a message that God had given him, and our job is to reject the message and say,

No, I'm just going to live my life. The world is going to say,

You better be quiet. And liberal evangelicalism is saying, It's perfect because we'll just live our lives.

But the God of the universe is telling you, you ought to say to people, there is something too good to be true, and that is

Jesus Christ saves sinners. Would you like to be forgiven?

How would you like to be forgiven? I know who can forgive you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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 8 .30 and 11 a .m., and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m.

We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org

or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE its staff or management.