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No Compromise Radio. 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.
Leviticus 16, 14, jump right in there. I want you to think of substitution. I want you to think of blood. I want you to think there's life in the blood and when you sin, something has to die. And he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it, Leviticus 16, 14, with his finger on the front of the mercy seat, on the east side and in front of the mercy seat.
He shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. And he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people. See that? Kill the goat for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat.
Verse 18, skip down to there. Then he shall go up to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it and shall take some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat and put it on the horns of the altar all around.
Yearly, the substitutionary atonement in Yom Kippur, all leading to what? All leading to who? To whom was it leading? You think about Adam and Eve, you think about Passover, you think about Yom Kippur and now let me read these Old Testament words to you and then you get the point.
All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. Substitutionary atonement. If you'd like to describe Christianity, that is it.
Substitutionary atonement. Something dies in your place. But I've got a question for you. If blood is required for your sins to be taken away and if you don't want to keep sacrificing something every year because you need a better sacrifice, you're going to need some better blood.
You're going to need infinite blood. You're going to need godly blood, divine blood, but God is a spirit. God doesn't have a body. You need God's blood. God doesn't have any blood. So what happened? You need God's blood to be shed because it's of infinite value.
Because there's no sin in God. He's not dying for himself. He's dying for somebody else. But you need to have a bloody sacrifice. God is invisible. God has no body. So in the eternal counsels of God, in the great plan of redemption, what did God decide to do?
God decided, the Father, Son, and the Spirit decided that the Son would go and cloak himself with humanity and bleed for his people. So now let's go back to Hebrews chapter 9. A substitute life and blood needs to be shed.
If it was as easy as, you know, somebody needs to be strangled in your place, then let's find somebody to strangle. But here we need bloodshed. And so how do we have bloodshed, a bloodshed that's righteous blood, of an infinite value that can be applied to all those who would ever believe?
What do we do when God doesn't have a body? God adds human flesh, and it's called the incarnation. It's called Jesus Christ the God-man. It's called the virgin conception. And now we parachute into Romans, excuse me, into Hebrews chapter 9, go up to verse 11.
And all this language is about Jesus' personal sacrifice causes eternal salvation for those that would believe. Christ's blood instead of goat's blood, instead of your blood, instead of anybody else's blood, it's divine blood that's efficacious, that can save you from your sins.
If your sins require death, and they do, then you need somebody who can pay for those with the blood that's shed that won't just happen once a year, but once and done. That's Christianity. Christianity is not, look at Jesus, how much He loves us on the cross.
I love you this much. He does love us on the cross. And I get it if kids say that. But here's the love of God. Not that He just dies on the cross as some example of love, but that He dies as an atonement for the sins of people who would believe in Him.
He didn't deserve to die, and yet He dies. He takes our death instead of us dying. He dies, and look at how great the death is. Chapter 9, verse 11. Hebrews 9, 11. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, He entered, verse 12, you might want to underline these next three words, once for all, once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, those yearly Yom Kippur sacrifices, but by means of His own blood, thus securing not just an annual redemption, not just forgiveness for a year, but securing a what?
An eternal redemption. Just imagine if you had to do that game with the kids every year, you just got done slitting the throat of that lamb, Fluffy was dead, and now you go out and bury Fluffy, and then Dad says, by the way, kids, we're adopting another animal today, because we have to do this next year too.
And then when you kill Fluffy number two, then that same day after you bury Fluffy two, you say, go get another lamb, because we have to do it again. And you think you cried with old Yeller. None of my kids will watch old Yeller.
Dad, we can't watch old Yeller. It's such a good show. Sacrificial death of Yeller. Sorry. He saved him. It's a picture of Christ. No, it's not. Don't you hate that? Well, we really want to go see this movie, so we have to turn it into something very Christian, and then we can.
You know, the gospel and the matrix. Just quit. And then have a movie screen up here. You know what? Today my sermon is so weak and so unbiblical. We'll have a big video screen, and we'll play Braveheart for you.
Come on. I mean, aren't you in the drama of redemption here? It should have been you. It was someone else, and in the plan of God. How does God bleed? Because He adds human flesh, and then He bleeds once, and done.
Took Christ's blood to make effective once for all salvation. God had to become human to make redemption. Verse 13. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more?
How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Jesus in the plan of God offered Himself, and He wasn't coerced.
He wasn't forced. We used to take field trips to the stockyards in Omaha, Nebraska. I don't remember anything, but if I could remember, I would see things like animals tethered together in the line, being drugged to the executioner against their will.
The pigs and then the cows, they know something's wrong. They know death is imminent. They hear the sounds. And they were brought involuntarily. Fluffy would have been killed involuntarily. It would have liked to have gotten away.
And what does the text say about Jesus? It says because of this great triune love to glorify the Father and then secure our salvation. What does the text say? He offered Himself. He's not just the high priest.
He's the sacrifice too. That's better. That's great. Death by sacrifice. Same terminology used for the sacrifice of animals. What's the price of redemption, you ask? The blood of Christ Jesus, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many.
That's why if you sing a song, Washed in the Blood, what are you talking about? Let's just get some of Jesus' blood and just pour it and just wash. We're washed in the blood. Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
It's figurative language to say, are you cleansed by Christ once and for all, effective sacrifice? You knew it should have been you getting your throat slit, but Jesus was crucified on your behalf. You know there's power in the blood?
What does that mean? It's got a little beaker full of blood. There's power, power, wonder-working power. If you want to get saved today, I'm just going to throw the blood over you and then if a drop hits you...
Maybe that's why the centurion said, this is truly the Son of God because when they were beating Him up, some of the blood of Jesus fell on the centurion and therefore He was cleansed. No, because the blood here is a blood that's a vicious death.
It's a blood that you let blood unto death. Not that you bleed to death, but you're killed in a vicious way. Death and violence of the blood sacrifices. Look how He just won't let this go, verse 15 of Hebrews 9.
Therefore He's the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance. Since a death has occurred, that redeems. There are some deaths that occur that don't redeem.
You have to do them next year. It redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. Just as all those people before Jesus died were retroactively credited with Christ's perfect substitutionary bloody death, so too all those on our side of the cross who look back to the cross are credited with Christ's perfect atonement.
Verse 22, according to the law, one may almost say all things are cleansed with blood. There's a few things that weren't, but the principle is, and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness, no cleansing.
Theological shorthand, the word blood means substitutionary death. So here's the issue. What does the resurrection punctuate? Why is the resurrection an exclamation point? Answer Romans 4 .25. I wonder if God accepted the sacrifice.
I wonder maybe Jesus died for his own sins, and then he would have been punished for his own sins. I wonder if God said, you know what? That was a once-for-all sacrifice. It accomplished eternal redemption for all those who had looked to the cross to live.
It really worked. It was effective. And the answer is, the resurrection proves, of course, that he conquered sin and death and hell and Satan, but it also confirms that the satisfaction was accepted by God.
I accept the sacrifice. Let's see, back in the Old Testament, you say, well, you know what? I don't really want to give this good lamb. I want to give this lamb that's got some blemishes, and just something's wrong with this lamb.
And, you know, it's kind of like that story where the farmer has the two calves, and says, I'm going to dedicate one of these cows to the Lord's service, and when they get older, I'll give the cow to the pastor in the church.
And the cows grew up, and then one of them died. And then the farmer called the pastor and said, you know, I've got some bad news. Your cow died. And for those of you that didn't get it, then it's either not funny, or it doesn't really matter.
The best we give to God. Was the best given to God, the Son? Yes. And so God says, I affirm Christ's death was a sacrifice pleasing to me, and I will raise him from the dead. It worked. And to think, listen to these verses.
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. For you, if you're here in the congregation today, you're a sinner too. And God does mark iniquities.
He's counting them all. And you'll stand before God, and either you'll pay, or Jesus Christ, as you look to Him by faith, will stand in your stead. John Calvin said, no one knows the 100th part of sin that clings to his soul.
Spirituality isn't going to get it. Religion isn't going to get it. Tradition isn't going to get it. Blood atonement is the only way you can have your sins forgiven. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins.
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their, what? Guilty stains. John Wesley was returning home from service one night, and he got robbed. Wesley hardly had any money on him, but he had some Christian tracts.
Stop, Wesley said as the man was rushing off. I have something more to give you. My friend, you may live to regret this sort of life. If you ever do, here's something to remember. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
Fast forward five years. Sunday service. People approach the pastor. They approach Wesley. I'm now a successful businessman. I'm now forgiven. I'm born again Christian. I owe it all to you, Mr. Wesley.
Oh, no, my friend. Not to me, but to the precious blood of Christ that cleanses us from all our sin. The sacrifice of Christ worked. Second word. Let's go to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6. The second word this morning, not just blood, but faith.
Without faith, it's impossible to please him. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6. This is our second centerpiece. Blood atonement was confirmed by God the Father and acceptable in his sight by God raising him from the dead.
And now, since this is such a great truth, I call on you to believe this truth. To repent of your sins and your own spirituality and trust in this God. Without faith, it's impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.
You know the bumper sticker, don't you? Everyone must believe in something and I believe I'll have another beer. Faith is not jumping to conclusions, it's concluding to jump. These ridiculous kind of quotes don't describe what real faith is.
Let's back up to chapter 11, verse 1 and just look at the nature of faith. What is faith, you ask? Let's find out from the writer of Hebrews. What is faith? God's not going to believe for you, you must believe.
And you can try to trick yourself all the ways you want from alcohol to evolution to say, you know what, this isn't true. But one day you'll stand before God, I'm certain. And I want you to believe now in this great bloody atonement confirmed by the resurrection.
Hebrews 11, 1. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it, verse 2, the people of old received their commendation. By faith, we understand that the universe was created by the word of God.
So that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. And then now we come to a bunch of heroes of the faith. These are great heroes who believed God. Adam and Eve are jumped over, I think they're in heaven.
Why are they jumped over? Because they talked with God, they walked with God along life's narrow way. You could say they didn't have faith initially. They could hear. But then there's some general history here.
And there's some people here that are saved by faith before even the law. They couldn't have kept the law to get in because they had no law. Abel. And then we come to the passage that we'll dwell on this morning.
Just for a few minutes. Verses 5 and 6, Enoch. Direct rapture to heaven, how about that? Extraordinary faith of Enoch. An extraordinary saving God. By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death.
He was not found. Because God had taken him. Now before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God. By divine testimony, Enoch was walking with God. He was a godly man. And then up to heaven he went.
And verse 6, don't lose the context. 5 goes with 6. And without faith, it's impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him. That's what Enoch was.
He pleased God with faith. He came to God believing that he was who he said he was. Monotheistic. For us, we understand God as triune. And that he is a rewarder. Not just on earth. A rewarder by taking Enoch to heaven to his eternal reward of those who seek him.
By faith. So here's my question. When I was growing up in a church. I got baptized. I got catechized. I got confirmed. I went on missions trips. I would have said Jesus is the only way of salvation. But I didn't have a saving faith.
Did you know there's a faith that doesn't save? There's a faith that just believes the facts. So let me just give you a quick acronym so you can understand faith. It's super easy. K-A-T. CAT. If you understand this acronym, you'll understand Bible faith.
That is a saving faith. That has the right object. That's not just, I believe I'll have another beer. K-A-T. Knowledge. Ascent. Trust. Knowledge. Ascent. Trust. You have to have knowledge of the one that you believe in or else it's just a blind faith.
It's a blind leap. You don't even know what you're jumping to. Some kind of current guardian thing where you just don't even know. You have to have knowledge. You have to have knowledge. You, if you're not a believer today.
Yes, there's this blood atonement. A sacrifice in the place of sinners. Confirmed by the resurrection. Knowledge is good. It's essential. But it doesn't go there. You also have to affirm that knowledge or ascent.
Yes, I believe it. I believe that's true. I would affirm it. Yes, there's some truth over here. The Buddhists believe such and such. The Hindus believe such and such. The Muslims believe such and such.
But you don't say, if you're a Christian, you could say I have knowledge of that. But you don't affirm it. You don't ascent to it. You don't say, yes, I agree. You don't say, I'm signing on the dotted line.
I believe that. No, with Christianity, I have knowledge of it. I ascent of it. And then what's the last part? K, knowledge, A, ascent, T, trust. To trust. To say, I'm looking away from me. All my works.
All my merit. All my gyrations spiritually. My spirituality. My goodness. My dad's a Christian. My mom's a Christian. Everything else, I turn away from that. And then I cling. I trust. I rely on God and his promises for my eternal salvation.
I believe that he is the I am who I am. I believe he's a living and true God. The only living and true God. And I believe that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. If you read the Psalms, it doesn't take you long to read the Psalms and know that seeking the Lord means to firmly rely on all his promises.
To say that I'm going to seek him means I will rely upon all his truth, all his promises, his great covenants. Jesus and Nicodemus were talking and John's gospel says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him.
That's just not knowledge. That's just not a scent. That's just true reliance upon the one who believes in the son of God has a witness in himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar.
Why is this so important? If you say, you know what? I'm not really a believer. I'm not really a Christian. I have my own way. I'm really spiritual. Then that blood atonement that God has provided for all those who will look to him has been counted in your mind as a big fat lie.
We all, you know, I'm kind of there. I'm almost there. Not too sure. Well, then basically you're saying I won't take God at his word and God, you're a liar. Belief. Trust. John Payton, he was a missionary and the missionary shows up to the New Hebrides Islands and they have a lot of cannibals there.
And since John, John Payton doesn't know how to speak cannibalese, he just camps out on the beach. God was very generous to him and saved his life. He had to bury his wife and son and sleep on their graves so the cannibals didn't dig them up.
But God used him to get into the hearts and minds of those cannibals. Many became believers. And John Payton said when they would hold their hands out for communion, their old bloody hands stained with old blood, as it were, just not many years ago, killing people.
Now reaching out to take by faith communion. And he began to translate the Bible. Here's my point. How do you describe faith to somebody that doesn't have faith in their language? How do I describe faith to you who could think it's just merely creedal?
Facts. He began to pray. I need a word for faith. I need a word for faith. I need a word for faith. And one of his workers came into the hut after a really hard day of work and leaned back on the chair.
I'm so tired. I feel I must lean my whole weight on this chair. Praise God. Payton said, I've got my word. I've got my word for faith. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever leaneth his whole weight on him should not perish but have everlasting life.
And whether the words are repent, submit, flee to him for refuge, or believe with a confident assent, with trust, you must believe in Christ Jesus. So today, Resurrection Sunday, blood, faith. The blood of Christ is the atoning sacrifice that God has provided for all those who would believe.
And either you will stand and pay for your sins one day, or you will stand behind Christ as he represents you as he has paid for your sins. God confirmed that by raising him from the dead. And your response to that is not anything except, God, I take you at your word.
That's what faith is. I take you at your word. God, when you raised Jesus from the dead, you know what it was? It was God saying this, if I may say this without being blasphemous. Amen. So be it. It's true.
I like it. Good job. I confirmed it. Mission accomplished. That's God saying that to the son on Resurrection Sunday. And now your response is the exact same thing. I believe it. I trust it. I say amen to it.
Good job. I stake my eternal life on that atonement that was bloody. Let's pray. Father, we simply thank you this morning for the bloody sacrifice that was Christ Jesus' alone 2 ,000 years ago. Dying for us and granting us justification, forgiveness, peace with God, reconciliation, redemption, propitiation.
Those who are enemies now made friends, all because of Jesus' work. We contributed nothing. We were sinners. We were your enemies. And yet now, that's real love. Thank you for that. Father, for those that are visiting today, those who are members today, some of our own kids who are not believers, who have knowledge maybe but no assent and no trust, as you have granted salvation full and free, would you now grant them repentance and faith springing to eternal life?
Father, it's good to know that a little of this faith that has knowledge, assent, and trust brings our souls to heaven because of the object who really brings us to heaven. Christ Jesus. A little faith in a great object saves.
We're thankful for that. Increase our faith in Jesus' name.
Amen. 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 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.
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