Profaning The Sacrifice Of Christ--Felt Needs

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. It�s Mike Abendroth and I haven�t recorded lots of shows lately, but today,

I�m making up for lost time. Today is show three. It�s because of that bulletproof coffee.

When you add butter into your coffee, everything�s fine, so now it�s 1 .40

in the afternoon, still haven�t eaten any food. The Novocain, though, is wearing off. Oh, well,

I�m thankful that we live in a modern -day society for lots of reasons. Plumbing is one of them, fresh water is one of them,

Novocain is one of them as well. So what do we do here on the show? Well, if I had the preaching skills of John MacArthur, Sinclair Ferguson, and S.

Lewis Johnson, I would just play my sermons and then you would listen. Maybe you wouldn�t.

If I had those skills, I had mad skills, then you would. But since I don�t have those skills,

I�m glad they have them. Good for the Kingdom of God. I just do what I can do. And so,

I try to talk about biblical issues in a way that�s kind of back and forth, engaging.

And so, by the way, speaking of back and forth, I think I�ve had Todd Friel on promoting his book, but when was the last time

I was on Wretched Radio? Many people I ask when they�ll write in, and I�ll say, �How did you find out about the show ?�

They�ll say, �Through Wretched Radio.� So, I don�t know. Todd, what�s going on? He texts me sometimes.

Maybe I should text him back. Oh, I know what I could announce. I�m going to be speaking with Phil Johnson and Todd Friel at the

Reformation Montana 2015 conference.

I think it�s on the church, and it�s in June. So, I�ll already be out in California, I think, by then, hopefully.

Then I�ll zip up to Montana. I�ve been to about, I guess, 42, 43 states.

I�ve not been to Montana. So, it�s kind of fun. I also need people in Alaska for a conference.

Where else haven�t I been? North Dakota? But not next year, because I think

Machen was 55 when he went to North Dakota and then died of pneumonia. So, I want to go there in the summertime.

Do they have churches in North Dakota? If you�re a listener from North Dakota, I�d like you to email No Compromise Radio and say, yes, there are

Christians in North Dakota. All right, I�ve been talking about the death of Christ and thinking properly about that wonderful event, that historical event, but even more than historical, that theological event, where Jesus Christ is our sacrificial sin -bearer.

He never sinned. Christ died for our sins and not his own sin. He was raised from the dead.

It was a Trinitarian work of redemption, Trinitarian work of resurrection. If you think about the cross wrongly,

I would have to say, like everything else, if you think something unbiblical, it would be sinful. So, we want to think about the cross righteously, in a

God -honoring fashion, in a glorifying way. I�ve been going through Malachi, and Malachi chastens the priest for accepting blemished sacrifices from the people.

You should be turning them away and saying, you know, you need to repent. This shows your hard attitude for you to give a sacrifice like this, but they just accept them, and the priest�s hearts are even colder.

So, I don�t want to have a blemished sacrifice to give if I was in Judah back in the day.

And now, even more, I don�t want to think about Jesus� sacrifice in any way that�s unbiblical.

I want to think about it in the maximum, in the way that glorifies him the most, glorifies the

Father the most, glorifies the Son the most. So, we�ve been going a little mini -series, how not to profane the sacrifice of Christ.

Don�t profane the sacrifice of Christ by thinking that the Father�s a reluctant, angry judge who has to be convinced to love people, because God, the

Father�s love, was antecedent to sending the Son, right? �For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten

Son.� That was a few weeks ago. Two weeks ago, it was the sin of presumption, the

Roman Catholic doctrine, which stems from an inadequate view of the death of Christ. If Christ�s death was once and for all, if Christ�s death was sufficient and adequate to deal with all sins, past, present, future, of everyone who would ever believe, then we don�t have to lack assurance.

We can have assurance, and I try to make the case that adequacy of the atonement is tied to assurance.

Inadequate atonement, no assurance. Adequate atonement, you can know that you have eternal life, 1

John 5. Last week, we talked about the blemish of morality, where you say you believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, but the moral exhortations from the pulpit denigrate or downplay or ignore the death of Christ.

Today, we�re up to the next one to talk about maybe one, maybe two ways to blaspheme or profane the death of Christ.

I want you to think about his death properly in an honoring way. What should we talk about today?

I�m fast -forwarding here in my little notes. If you think of Jesus as a solver of felt needs only, or felt needs primarily, that is a profaning way to think of the sacrifice of Jesus.

Now, we here at No Compromise Radio understand that most churches who talk about felt needs would still have a cross in their church, and they would say, yes,

Jesus died. Victory in Jesus. They might sing the hymn, but many churches want and pastors give felt need -driven messages.

This is not helpful when it comes to thinking about Jesus in the

Bible. You�ve got a broken relationship. Let�s talk about healing it.

You have a successful life. Let�s tell you how you can have a successful life.

In some ways, this is related to the moral message. Although, the moral message might not necessarily be felt needs.

The moral message could be, tell the truth, don�t lie, work hard. The felt needs message, we live in a secular culture of Dr.

Laura, Oprah, self -fulfillment, felt needs.

Then that gets taken into the church. Some area of my life

I perceive as a need, that I need some questions answered in regard to.

I say, you know what, if I trust in Jesus, then shouldn�t he give me a happy life?

You say, if I trust in the Lord, then my life should be fulfilled. I can have a life of meaning, of felt needs.

I�m lonely. Can you talk to me about loneliness? I�ve got a relationship breakdown.

I want to try to manage my relationships. I need to do some stuff when it comes to debt.

I�ve got stress. How do you cope with stress? I�m unemployed. I lost a loved one.

There�s a mental illness in my family. I think maybe I have it. So, again, tangentially, the gospel applies to many of those things.

Here�s what I�d like to emphasize today. If the main problem that people have is they�re sinners who stand in front of a holy

God, will stand in front of a holy God, then everything else is going to work itself out.

Let me rephrase that. We need to preach who

Jesus is and to come to Jesus Christ on his terms. If you know you have sin and are a sinner, and you know you need forgiveness more than anything else, the solution will be tolerated.

What do I mean? I didn�t feel like getting that shot of Novocaine today in my teeth, but I tolerated the shot of lidocaine, whatever it is, because I didn�t want to have the drilling take place without any kind of numbing.

When the unbeliever realizes, by the grace of God, that their number one problem is being right in God�s eyes, having a right standing before God, having their sin dealt with, then they will tolerate the solution of parting with their sins that they�re in love with.

Now listen to this. If there�s felt needs involved, then how do you bear up under such a verbal barrage?

Jesus, Luke 9. If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it. But whoever wishes to lose his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it.

For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him will the

Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

I mean, this cross talk, this crucifixion talk, this following Jesus, losing life, right?

That�s not really a felt need. I don�t want to go through that. But if that�s the path of forgiveness, that�s the conversion side of forgiveness, man�s side of forgiveness, his response to the grace of God, then okay,

I can put up with it. See, when we talk that way, if you�re after something besides forgiveness, you�re not going to go the path of God.

You�re not going to want to follow that because it�s too hard. It�s a stumbling block. 1

Peter 2, verse 8, �A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.� It�s a scandalon.

It�s a snare. It�s an occasion to stumble. You ever stub your toe? I�ve stubbed my toe before and split the big toe, literally open, right down the middle.

Man, that hurts. And see, when people come to felt needs preaching, they don�t want to offend because you have a feeling, you have a need that you think is important and I want to try to massage that.

Jim Eliph, I like it when he wrote, �Jesus couldn�t even give a marriage seminar without opposition.

Then men fearing preachers will treat it so lightly, touch it so gingerly, speak of it so generally, plead it so weakly, believe it so loosely, that the truth is neutralized down to nothing worth getting excited about.�

Snooze, Eliph says. And the preacher says, no more doctrinal sermons, they won�t hear them.

How a preacher can use the same Bible that spawned the Protestant Reformation, launched the modern missionary movement, and put his forebears on the block and never stir up anybody is a mystery to me.

Jim Eliph. Hey, if people want felt needs met, then how are you going to preach about sin?

Nobody wants that. You know, I don�t want to deal with sin, so we want to run from that.

We want to run from felt needs issue preaching because forgiveness is the issue. You can�t have a good marriage and go to hell.

You can�t be employed and go to hell. You can�t have every relationship with your kids wonderfully arranged and go to hell.

You can have no financial issues and go to hell. Sin needs to be dealt with, and so the preacher needs to preach a sin -bearing

Jesus Christ. Well, what else are we going to talk about today? My name is Mike Abendroth, and the snowplow guys are outside.

You can hear the beeps. You can hear the sand coming out. At least I can see the sand coming out. It is chaos here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

It is, I don�t know, level one. This is some kind of red alert or something.

Who knows what this is? You know what? I�m going to interrupt myself here for a second.

I came across this. Death and dying euphemisms. I would give the

URL, except it seems like it is too long. Death and dying euphemisms. For years

I have been saying people don�t want to talk about the word death because there is a finality to it, and then it means there is judgment afterwards.

It is pointed for man who wants to die and then judgment. Think of John Bunyan quotes in light of that from Pilgrim�s Progress.

But the thing is we have to deal with death. I would always think about passed away and kick the bucket and sleep and stuff like that, but I did not know

I have page after page after page. One, two, three, four, five pages of small print with death euphemisms.

I�m just going to read you a few. This is why your view of the atonement needs to be so solid, because you are going to die one day and stand before God.

A one -person chamber, 15 minutes of flame, 20 ,000 bodies into the past, six -foot death trap, seven steps to heaven, a little folding of the hands to sleep.

We finally got a little biblical one in there. A little sleep, a little slumber, a lot of death, a place that reminds us of above, a place in the sun, a real deadbeat, a really grave situation, a stiff, a tangible hemisphere.

So those are all the ones that start with a number or with the letter A, the word �a�, and now these are the ones that start with the letter

A. Adios Park, afterlife dwelling, after limbo, after the last chance, all souls camp, an awfully big adventure, and it has seven steps, angels ways, answer the last call, apparently out, ash can, assumed room temperature, at the end of one�s rope,

Avalon, avenue of souls, awake to life immortal.

So those are the ones with numbers that start with the letter A for euphemisms of death. I don�t know, do people sit around and try to figure these things out?

It is appointed for man once to die and then judgment? Let�s go on to Bs. Bad shots reunion, barrow, basting the formaldehyde, be all over with one, be gathered to one�s fathers, hey, there�s a biblical one, be no more, be taken, beehive tomb,

Binehouse, beneath the shade tree, bereft of life,

Beer, big sleep, bite it, bite the big one, bite the biscuit, bite the dust, bless the world with one�s heels,

Bob�s used coffin lots, body barters, body dump, body farm, body humidifier, body park, bone bayou, bone garden, bone ground, bone house, bone orchard, bone yard, bone yard bonanza, bone zone, boogie land, boot hill, bought a pine condo, bought a yugo, bought� wait, wait, wait, stop, it�s no compromise radio,

I almost made it through the Bs, I almost made it through the Bs, and then didn�t make it,

I bought a yugo, how is that a euphemism for death, bought his lunch, bought the disc farm, bought the farm, boxes of bones, break one�s necks, breathe one�s last, bucket kicking carnival, burial ground, burial mound, burial place, burial plot, burning gnat, g -h -a -t, bury, patch, buy the farm, and that�s it for Bs.

I�m going to make a little notation here so I don�t do Bs again, we�ll do Cs next time.

Alright, now let�s tie this into a theological point. You need to make sure you think properly about the death of Christ, because you�re going to die, and Jesus Christ is both your representative, or must be your representative and substitute, right?

So you have a representative, if you�re an unbeliever, his name�s Adam, and Adam sinned, and God gave you credit for Adam�s sin, and as a consequence, now you are a sinner, and you�re a sinner in thought, word, and deed, you�re a sinner by nature, a sinner by actions, and you don�t sin, your sin doesn�t make you a sinner, but you�re a sinner, therefore you sin, that�s all you can do, you have no free will not to sin, everything you do is sin, without faith it�s impossible to please

God, and even religious acts are sin, even going to church is sin, even reading the Bible is sin, whatever you do that�s not because of and through the perfect work of Jesus Christ, it�s sin.

And so you think to yourself, okay, everything I do is sin, my best is sin, my best righteous deed is like sin, it�s like filthy rags, it is sinful in God�s eyes, see

I�m trying to talk really fast so you can�t hear the beeps in the background, all this excavating stuff that�s outside. You need to stand before God, and then what?

Pay for your own sin? I know it�s just, but I don�t want that for you.

I�m concerned enough for you that you think rightly about the atonement and your felt needs, which are sometimes really needful, really felt, right?

A real personal. There�s something even more important, and that is Jesus Christ dies for sinners� sins.

He is a sin -bearing Savior. He makes expiation and propitiation.

He forgives sins, and he has assuaged the wrath of the Father, because we�ve broken the laws of God.

And we know that God the Father accepted the sacrifice in our place, on our behalf, in our stead, because He raised

Him, the Father raised Him from the dead. And so, I think to myself, while I�m kind of joking about those death euphemisms for a little bit, just thinking earlier today and yesterday,

I�m 54, and my father died at 55, non -smoking lung cancer.

My mother died at 66, non -smoking lung cancer. I probably have fewer years left than what

I�ve already lived, right? I just cannot imagine me living to be 100. There�s just something about it.

I can�t believe I�m going to live to be 109 years old. So, who knows?

Let�s say let�s average 55 and 66. I may get to 60. I�ve got six more years. For some reason,

I think I�m going to live longer than that. I have no idea. I could fall over dead today from bullet -proof coffee.

But I have to think about these things. I�m going to die. I look at myself in the mirror, and I should never say to myself, �No one ever told me.�

Because I look, and I have receding hairline. I have eyes that can�t see.

I need glasses all the time. I need hearing devices because I�m pretty much deaf.

I went to the doctor, and he�s like, �Were you in the military? No. Why? Because your hearing is what an infantry person would have.�

So, all those kind of issues. I am a sinful man. You�re a sinful man or woman.

And how do you approach God when you die? On what basis can you be accepted by a thrice holy

God? You say to yourself, �I�m sinful.� But how seriously do you take your own sin?

And if you take it as seriously as the Bible does, then there�s only one hope. Because you�re separated by your sin.

And what are you going to do? I love Leon Morris. The Bible sees sin as a barrier separating man from God.

Isaiah 59. A barrier that man was able to erect, but is quite unable to demolish.

Sin is a barrier that man was able to erect, but is quite unable to demolish.

But the truth on which the Bible insists is that God has dealt with a problem.

He has made the way whereby sinners may find pardon. God�s enemies may find peace.

Salvation is never seen as a human achievement. In the Old Testament, sacrifice has a large place, but it avails not because of any merit it has of itself.

But because God has given it as the way. Leviticus 17. In the New Testament, the cross plainly occupies the central place.

And it is insisted upon, in season and out of season, that this is God�s way of bringing salvation. There are many ways of bringing this out.

The New Testament writers do not repeat a stereotyped story. Each writes from his own perspective.

But each shows that it is the death of Christ and not any human achievement that brings salvation.

And so today on No Compromise Radio, we�re talking about thinking rightly about the death of Christ. And when you think rightly about the death of Christ, it has to be more than in a felt -needs fashion.

�Jesus, make my life whole so my marriage can get together, and I cannot be lonely, and that I don�t have to have this mental illness.�

And the list goes on and on and on. Jesus Christ dies to deal with the sin issue.

And if you are so anxious to have your sins forgiven, and so desirous, and you understand that�s the top priority of your life, to stand before God as just, as declared righteous, then you�ll say to yourself, �I�ll put up with repentance.

I�ll put up with forsaking the love of my life, sin. I�ll put up with hating my own life, sick of my own life, all the other things that are man�s side of conversion, man�s side slash conversion.

Then it all makes sense. But if your number one goal is not, �I want to stand in the presence of a holy

God today and forever ,� then you�re not going to put up with the rest. You�re just going to say, �Just help me get by another day.

I just want to have my best life now.� Well, my name is Mike Ebendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. You can write me at info at nocompromiseradio .com,

or you can go to our YouTube channels, you can message me online, and that would be through at nocompromiseradio is the

Twitter account. So, thanks for listening. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth 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.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.