Favorite Preacher (Part 2)

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

Jesus as the Greatest Preacher and the Question of Who We Admire

I've had the privilege of going really around the world talking about preaching and the Gospel, and I love to ask people the question, who is your favorite preacher? I hear all kinds of answers. I hear Martin Lloyd-Jones, I hear John MacArthur, I hear Conrad Mbiwe when I was in Africa.

Who's your favorite preacher, if you had to name one? And then I ask the question, well that's interesting that you like that particular preacher, but why is it that you did not name Jesus Christ as your favorite preacher?

I think Jesus is my favorite preacher, and I bet He is yours as well. So let's turn our Bibles to Matthew 21 and see the greatest preacher and the greatest Bible teacher ever in the history of the universe as he dismantles works righteousness.

Left to ourselves, when somebody does something against us, my nature wants to get them back. I'll teach you to mess with me. I'm going to teach you a lesson, and what does God do? He's just arms wide open, God sending one servant, and another servant, and another servant, and finally He sends His Son, they kill His Son.

It's the unmerited grace of God, sovereign grace. By the way, they didn't kill the Son because of mistaken identity, they knew who the Son was exactly, and they wanted to control the nation for themselves.

They wanted the property, they wanted Israel, and so they'll arrange for His death very soon. Conspiring together, verse 40 of Matthew 21, when therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, we know that's God, what will He do to those tenants?

Now remember, Jesus is asking these people, and they're going to condemn themselves, it's such a great way to teach. All the listeners would know, and they know. When that owner comes back, what's He going to do to those tenants?

They said to Him, He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give Him the fruits in their seasons. He gets them to give the answer. That final murder is not going to go unpunished.

They know justice must be given, and He makes an application, verse 42. We've just had Jesus coming in on Palm, literally Monday, where this was sung, and so they should have already read it earlier in the week.

Here we have this messianic psalm, Psalm 118, found in chapter 40, found in verse 42 of chapter 21, Jesus said to them, by the way, this is like saying to the Bible teachers of the world, have you never read the Scriptures?

You don't even know the Bible? You've got that funny looking hat on, saying that you're the father of the church? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. So you're building this building, you think, you know what, we need a cornerstone, which is the most important part of the building, and let's pick this one up.

Nah, this one's no good, and so you chuck it in the pile, you make a big pile of rejected stones. The leaders took that rejected stone, took that stone and chucked it, but God in His plan took that rejected stone and made it the cornerstone.

They reject Jesus, Jesus is the cornerstone. The stone and the builders, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Peter talks about this in 1 Peter 2, in Acts chapter 4. And who was sovereign over all this?

Was this accidental? Was this kind of serendipitous? Was this just lucky, by chance? Everything regarding the Son of God has been decreed in eternity past and fleshes itself out. God knew exactly what He was doing and how He was doing it, it was all going to plan.

That this was the Lord's doing. Yes, it was the Lord's doing that this stone was rejected, but then be used for the cornerstone, all in His plan. These men did it by their own will, yet God did it and overrid it by His own will.

And what does He say there in verse 42 towards the end? This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. How can you take a bunch of murderers and kill the Son of God, yet that's actually part of the plan of God where He comes and sends His Son, dies for sinners?

Who can come up with that? Who can innovate that? Jesus makes them think about a psalm that they should have just read during Passover. The rejection of Christ Jesus, but then the exaltation of Christ Jesus.

Sinclair Ferguson said, Jesus, who would be despised and rejected by these leaders, was actually essential for access into God's presence. Isn't that good? The patience of God sending the Son, we need the Son so we can have access to the Father.

It was marvelous in our eyes, the sovereign grace of God. Verse 43, therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God, Jesus said, will be taken away from you and given to people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces.

And when it falls on anyone, it will pulverize them. The disobedient leaders, having the ministry yanked from them and then having it given to the apostles. When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard these parables, they might have been stupid, but they weren't dumb.

They perceived that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds because they held him to be a prophet. Not they, the leaders, but they, the crowds.

These people were so religious, who needs Jesus's death? This is good for us to sit up and reflect on for just a moment. Some people are so religious, they don't think they need the death of Christ. Because they've got all their religiosity wrapped up and all their moralism wrapped up and they believe in kind of a, as Christian Smith said, a moralistic deist who is very good when it comes to therapeutic issues, moralistic, therapeutic deism.

And I have this God and I don't have a sin that I'm guilty of, many sins that I'm guilty of, the sin nature that I'm guilty of, Adam's sin that I'm guilty of. And I need a sin bearer. I need relief. I need rest for my soul.

I need someone else to pay the punishment. If you think you can be good enough to get to heaven, why did Jesus die? Why did God the Father kill the Son when you could be good enough to get to heaven? Because you could just try to be good enough and then we never have to kill the Son.

But because the Son had to die, it shows us that that's how bad sin is when the Father has to kill the Son in our place. Even though he didn't sin, he was bearing our sins and that deserves death. I'll never forget it, one writer said, one sin deserves for you to be hung up on a cross naked and tortured forever because it's against a holy God.

And here Jesus dies on Calvary for us. But Jesus isn't done. One final parable, chapter 22. If I knew another kind of missile, I could say this is the third missile. We've got a Scud, we've got a Patriot, who knows here another kind of missile?

Cruise missile, thank you. Cruise missile. Now some of you might be asking the question that they ask, if the religious leaders are missing the kingdom, how do I not miss it? If they're teaching the wrong things, I want to make sure I'm going, how do I have access to God?

If the way they're teaching religiosity, ceremonies, rituals, spirituality, if that makes you miss by a degree but will cost you eternity, I don't want to miss, I want to make sure I have access to God.

Don't you want access to God? When I do your funeral and I bury you and they put you down in the ground, you'll be standing before God and how will you get access? We went to church, we read the Bible once in a while.

How can you be in God's presence with this holy gaze that penetrates your soul when you have any vestige of sin? So this parable answers the question. It's called the parable of the wedding feast. The parable of the wedding feast.

The Wedding Feast, the King's Invitation, and the Rejection of Grace

What does it take to get into the kingdom? Verse 20, chapter 22 verse 1, and again Jesus spoke to them in parables saying, same group of religious leaders, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, but wouldn't that be great to go to something like that back in those days?

You have no TV and know all the other things that we have and weddings were the biggest deal. Even now when I go to eastern countries, if I go to India, it's a seven day deal, parades marching up and down, somebody gets married and it's just all out.

The only thing that stops the extravagance is the person's budget. But now we have a king and his son. The king's going to get married. I remember watching Princess Diana get married to Prince Charles and everybody was watching, weren't they?

Everybody's watching. What if you got an invite to go? A wedding feast, boy this is going to be good. The king is going to get it. By the way, he's going to try to show off his extravagance and he sent his servants to call those who were invited.

Can't really text them, so you got to go back out and remind them, back in the day you gave the invite, come to the wedding feast. And then in case you're forgetting, then they send servants out to remind you.

It's just very customary, go remind them, oh it's coming up, okay, you're invited now come. The people invited, Jesus is saying, the religious leaders are invited to the feast of God's free forgiveness, but they would not come.

What's the text say? But they would not come. We're not going to go. You think we're going to go to your wedding feast? I don't care if we're reminded or not. This is a declaration of war. This is rebellion.

You invite us, who are you to rule over us? We're not going. This is not like the hockey player in Boston that says, I don't want to really go to the White House for some event, like that or don't like it.

That pales in comparison to this where the king invites you and you say no to the king. The king that's granted you protection, granted you freedom, granted you probably a wife, granted you land, granted you everything you have and the king says, come here and celebrate with me.

Look at the grace of the king. Look at how kind he was. Even though those prophets, one after another, would go and remind them of the great wedding feast and God sends Isaiah, God sends Zechariah, they all say no yet still, verse 4, he sent other servants saying, tell those who are invited, it's going to be good.

As we would say in Nebraska, this is mouthwatering. This is lip smacking good kind of feast. You got to come to this. Tell those who are invited. See, I've prepared my dinner, my oxen, my fat calves. They couldn't even eat calves back then, let alone fat calves, have been slaughtered and everything is ready.

Come to the wedding feast. That would be a good way to evangelize. Come to the banquet of God. All his goodness and his riches are yours. Repent and believe. Lay down your arms and come and say, we're here.

The extravagant generosity of the good king. He outdoes himself. It's all here. What a patient God, what a forbearing God. I know what I would have done. First time they killed Elijah, threw him out someplace, I would have said, that's it.

Verse 5 though it says, but they paid no attention. The leader, see, they went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully and killed them.

Let's kill the prophets. The king was angry. There's a time where God finally has had enough. Remember Noah's Ark after 120 years? Some of the metaphors in Hebrew for God and his patience. It says in Hebrew that he has a long nose.

Why does he have a long nose? The picture is not that God has a nose. The picture is God's nose is so long, it takes a long time for his fury and his anger to come out of his nose to get to people. It just means he's long suffering.

The king was angry and sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their cities. These lame excuses, shallow reasons not to come. God was furious and wiped them out, starting in 70 AD, by the way, in Jerusalem.

Then he said to his servants, verse 8, the wedding feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find. The language here is now present tense.

It becomes very vivid. It feels like you're caught up into the story. Well, we got this big feast, we might as well keep inviting more people. It's not the forbearance and the patience and the grace of God keeps coming.

Grace upon grace. Come to the royal banquet. We're going to fill this thing up one way or the other. If you have to go to the streets where the tax collectors are or the prostitutes are, go get them too.

The royal banquet, God's love for sinners. All walks of life, all kinds of people, Jew and Gentile, free and slave. And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all they found, both good and bad.

In society, the good people, the bad people. Let them all come. So the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there was a man who had no wedding garment.

Well, he stuck out like a sore thumb too. What do you mean he had no wedding garment? Maybe he just couldn't afford it. Well, back in those days, you had one piece of clothes, typically a robe with a few things.

And if you had extra money, you'd have an extra pair. And that's what you had. You had two pairs of clothes. That's it. And so when the king wanted to invite you to a big feast, to the wedding banquet, guess what the king did?

Besides getting the fatted calf, besides getting the oxen, besides getting all the food, he gave you a garment. Because if I've got all the money in the world and I'm having a feast for my son and you're coming, I don't want to have some kind of skid row smelling, kind of nasty homeless person smell.

I told the story to the first service. By the way, all the good things that I said to the first service, I'm including for your service. And the things that I thought were dopey, I've just excised out.

Seems to be going all right. When I was in L .A. and worked downtown for the first time in 1983, the guy that trained me selling batteries to these wholesalers, he said, now when you get into your car at about 6 a .m. after the call and there's a homeless person sleeping on your car, they're just trying to warm themselves up from the engine heat.

And so just get in your car, don't say anything, turn the car over and they'll slide right off when they hear the engine. And then just drive off. So I remember that very vividly and I remembered how homeless people smell because they don't have any way to clean themselves up.

And their clothes, they just live in those same clothes. And so if you're going to have a big banquet, you give clothes. So the king has given clothes to them. And of course, they knew that was the etiquette back then, so it didn't have to need an explanation like I'm giving now.

But the guy's got the new clothes, he gets invited and he says, I'm not wearing them, I come to the king on my own terms. I'm not going to put on those clothes provided for me by the king. I just show up the way I want to show up.

The host has been gracious, the host has been wealthy, kind, giving. And now the guy says, I'm not putting on appropriate clothing. And so the party's going on, the king's in the other room, the king walks in to see what's going on.

And sticking out like a sore thumb is a man dressed in his own robe of righteousness. Thinking he can just saunter on into heaven with his own righteousness. That's exactly what the false teachers taught.

He said to him, remember God has been kind, generous, gracious, friend. You go, that's kind of nice, friend. Jesus, what a friend of sinners. Abraham was a friend of God. But when Jesus talks like this in this particular context, friend is an ironic address that means I'm going to say something after this that's not too friendly.

Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. You false teachers think you can saunter up to heaven without any righteousness of Christ and free grace? They know better.

He was speechless. Isaiah 64 says, our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. Our best, not our unrighteous deeds are like a filthy garment, but our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. And you're just going to say, God, you're lucky to have me here.

I just died. Welcome me into heaven. I've been good. They weren't coming to the king on his terms. And beloved, you know this truth. If you don't come to the king of the universe, dressed in the righteous robes of Christ Jesus provided for you based on his life as a representative, death as a substitute confirmed by the resurrection, you will never enter heaven.

God has it ordained that you get to heaven through a mediator and an advocate. And for those that say, I don't care about Jesus. I just want to be religious. They're like the people that put their nose up at the king saying, I come to this banquet any way I please.

We need a wedding garment to get into heaven. You need the righteousness of God to get to heaven cloaked over you. You need to have Christ's perfect righteousness cloaked over you. I like to think about it, maybe some of the kids can think about it this way.

If God is holy and his eyes are like a laser beam, and he can see right through me, I need some kind of asbestos covering. I need a covering so it will be like a heat shield or like on the bottom of the Apollo lunar lander or the space shuttle.

I need something that will be a heat absorber. And so when the wrath of God is justly put on to things, I need to be covered and cloaked in something. I need the right kind of dress. I need the right wedding garment.

No wonder Wesley translated Zendikar's hymn and said, Jesus, thy blood and righteousness. My beauty are my glorious dress. Mids flaming worlds and these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head. When we have Christ's righteousness cloaked over us, what does Jude say?

You can stand in his presence, blameless with what? Great joy. You're not like a guilty person going before a king and they would hook up a knife under people's chins so you'd have to look at the king's eyes when he judged you.

No, we get to enter the glories of heaven with our head up because we're children of God. We're dressed in Christ's righteousness. He's made us born again. It's all his grace and we've come to heaven on his terms through Christ alone.

And these false teachers didn't like that at all. Verse 13, then the king said to his attendants, bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Hell forever and ever for those who say, I don't care about Jesus' death. I can get to heaven on my own. I can be good enough to get to heaven. They're to wear the wedding garment furnished by the king.

And by the way, when you do wear that, it makes us all equal because we're all equally clothed in Christ. We're all equally justified, all equally made born again. There's no ranks or social divisions or economic divisions.

We're all united by, though we were great sinners, we're covered by the righteous robes of Christ Jesus. I wonder if God took this all by surprise. No, verse 14, as we wrap up, remember Paul says in Philippians 3, he's got two full chapters to go.

He says in chapter 3, verse 1, finally. So we wrap this up, finally. For many are called, but few are chosen. God's sovereign over this sovereign grace, sovereign election. Here's the call. Everyone come to the feast.

Come to Christ Jesus. God is gracious and generous and has provided atonement for all the sinners that will cloak themselves with the righteousness of Christ. Many are called, come. If somebody's not a believer here, come to the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

You want rest for your soul? Would you like forgiveness? Would you like to be clothed with the righteousness of God so you have access to God through Christ the mediator? Come. Come. It's a general call.

Please come. Everybody who can hear my voice, please come. Repent. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Many are called, but because sin is so bad, because depravity is so invasive, it will take God choosing some and energizing them so that they can come.

And here we have the doctrine of election again. But few are chosen. You have to come. You have to believe. You have to repent. But if you come repenting and believing, you can know something for sure.

God chose you before you chose him. Many are called, but few are chosen. Israel's leaders rejected her Messiah. Don't reject the Messiah. If you learn any lesson here, here's the lesson. That when you feel like you want to earn God's favor by praying, by reading, by doing good, by serving, by attending services, that's the wrong reason.

You don't get God's favor by doing anything. God has favored you only through Christ Jesus. But then out of a heart of gratitude and love and appreciation, then you do things God has called you to do.

You can't earn your way to be a child of God, but once you're made a child of God, you sure can show your appreciation, can't you? So we like to use legalism, even as Christians, to say, if I've had my devotions, then I feel more spiritual today.

Do I want you to have your devotions? Absolutely. I want you to read your Bibles. I want you to pray. But that doesn't earn your favor with God because God favors you based on what the Son has done, and if you're in the Son, you're favored.

My second point of application to leave with is, if you've got a friend or a relative or a loved one caught in religious legalism and morality, they need to be preached to, and they need one topic, that is the cross of Christ.

That's all they need. They're going to be good and go straight to hell. Be good, be nice. It's nice to be nice. It's good to be good. Legalism damns, and so people are like, well, we want America. Do we want a Mormon president?

Do we want a Catholic president? Do we want all these things? That stuff is so meaningless to the kingdom because you must be born again. I want nicer neighbors. Do I either want a prostitute living next to me, or do I want to have a Mormon?

Do I want to have a moralist? Do I want to have a ritualist? I'd rather have the ritualist as terms of a neighbor, but we've got such a great gospel that it can take God hating people like us, and instead of wanting a certain kind of neighbor, it can change us so we actually love our neighbor.

And if you want to love your neighbor, you tell them the free grace of Christ Jesus offered by the Father to all those who will come. And you say, come to the feast of God. Christianity is not, you can't smoke, you can't drink, you can't go to movies, you can't do this, you can't do that.

You know what Christianity is? Come to the feast. I'm getting hungry for lunch, aren't you? This is a feast of God. Come to the feast, all provided. The only thing you have to do is you have to be invited, and you're invited today, and you have to be by faith cloaked with the wedding garment of Christ's righteousness.

Come to the feast. Let's pray. Father, thank you for saving us from legalism. Thank you for saving us from religiosity. Thank you for teaching us free grace. The greatest preacher who ever lived, Jesus Christ.

Thank you that we're not on the receiving end of his blistering condemnations, but because of your eternal love for us, Father, we're on the receiving end of his righteousness. Thank you for that. Help Bethlehem Bible Church in these days to respond with thanksgiving, with love and appreciation to your free grace, and help us to be good evangelists, loving other people, and telling them the gospel of grace.

In Christ alone we pray, amen.

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 8 .30 and 11 a .m., and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're right 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.