The Day of the Placards

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. My name is Mike Abendroth.

This is No Compromise Radio. I am No Compromise Radio. You ever see that show with Ryan O�Neill and Barbara Streisand, What�s Up Doc? I think it could be one of my all-time favorite shows. I have a lot of association with that show in terms of family getting together, and we all laugh and watch it during Christmas time.

I know Barbara Streisand is a liberal, and who knows what Ryan O�Neill was or is. Is he alive? I think he was not married to Farrah Fawcett, but I think he, I don�t know, was a common law wife or something.

Who knows? But anyway, it�s funny. And when they have that one line, �I am you it�s just so hilarious. Anyway, my name is Mike Abendroth, and I am not you. We. Oh, there. Wendy is back. All right. Wendy, tell me where you live.

What state do you live? For those who are on the radio now listening, we�re doing a Facebook Live. I�m trying to do two of these shows a week, where what do I end up doing? I just take my iPhone and I click record, and the NoCo group gets it, and that�s it.

So we finished last time the worship and praise advertisements. How do you pick a church? I thought that was kind of funny. Now I want to talk a little bit more seriously about Hebrews 7 and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay, Colorado. There you are. I saw the stones in Boulder. How about that? There you go. With my mother. And they were walking, people were walking up the, in the Boulders, is it Boulder Stadium in Colorado?

And they were walking up and down the thing selling acid. And there I sat with my mom. Well, I wouldn�t have had acid anyway. I wasn�t that stupid. I said, �Beware the brown acid. It was just weird to be there with my mom, but she was that kind of mom.

I just was, I just had lunch, by the way, with Eric Raymond and his associate pastor Andrew. Let�s see, Redeemer Church, Watertown, Mass, and Eric Raymond used to be the associate pastor at Omaha Bible Church before he planted Emmaus Bible Church in Omaha, and Eric is originally from Leominster, Mass, Leominster, Leo Minster.

And we had lunch, and he told me a story about my mother. And so before we get into Hebrews chapter seven, this was a story about my mom, a Christian lady who died about 12 years ago, and his mom, a Christian lady who came and visited Omaha Bible Church.

I don�t know if Pat was preaching or somebody else. And my mom greeted Eric�s mom, and this is what Eric just told me the story over lunch two hours ago. And he said, �My mom said to his mom and his mom�s a staid Catholic, �Do you know if you were to die today, how could you go to heaven?

How do you know you�d make it into heaven And Eric said his mom paused and thought, �Well, you know what, I�m trying to be good or whatever the answer was. I don�t remember that part, but here�s the part I remember.

Eric said, �My mom said, �You�re going to have to do better than that. And that offended Eric�s mom. And two years later, via that offense and other gospel preaching, Eric�s mom got saved and is going to be a member of the church he�s now pastoring.

Anyway, that sounds like mom Carla mom would have been good on no-compromise radio. Sweet lady, but at least she loved people enough to tell them the truth. How do you know you�re going to go to heaven?

Oh, I�m going to be good. You�re going to have to do something better. Meg just said, �Hey brother, we have a family that goes to OBC and are blessed by that ministry. One thing about Pat Abendroth, Meg, is your family, every single Sunday, is going to hear the word of the Lord proclaimed and Christ Jesus heralded as an excellent Savior and the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, prophet, priest, and king.

Hebrews 7 and the Once-for-All Sacrifice of Christ

Today I want to talk about Hebrews 7, especially where it talks about once for all. In light of this whole Catholic issue and everything else, I think this passage, along with Hebrews 9 and 10, are going to be passages that you, listeners, if you have Roman Catholic friends and family and you�d like to tell them the truth and you�d like to have them know about what the Bible teaches, this is a good place to go.

If I would meet a Roman Catholic and they would ask me any question, I would find myself turning the Bible to Hebrews 7, 9, and or 10, one of those three passages focused on the perfect work of Christ Jesus.

And this passage in Hebrews 7 has some great historical background that I want to talk to you about today. I would like to share it with you because we share things. Have you shared lately? Hebrews 7, 27, this is a passage I�m going to be preaching this Sunday here at the church, to the church.

He has no need like those high priests, we�re talking about Jesus, He, He has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily for first His own sins and then the sins of the people, since He did this once for all when He offered up Himself, once for all.

And what happens is when we see the once for all, it makes me think of the French Reformation. And there�s something called the Day of the Placards, P-L-A-C-A-R-D-S, not Day of the Jean-Luc Picard.

Although that particular day would be good. By the way, my hair, my head, the way that is, when I first thought about having no hair, I said to myself, if I ever lose my hair, I�m going to be like Jean-Luc Picard, just might as well just keep it short because I thought Jean-Luc was the man.

Wendy said, �Ex-Roman Catholic, the Lord brought my husband out in February of 1998. Wonderful. And Meg, �My mom is a Roman Catholic apologist in Omaha. She does street evangelism there. Wow, that�s amazing.

Well, that�s one of the things that I always wondered about with Roman Catholics, if they really believed it, wouldn�t they be more evangelistic? And so some are. It�s sad that it�s not true. The Day of the Placards, 1534.

What happens is, we�ve got Luther in the early 1500s, and his doctrine has disseminated, that is, the Word of God has disseminated, and it�s made itself known in lots of places, including France, including Paris.

And 1519 or so, you�ll start seeing things written in France that Luther would talk about in terms of Sola Fide. And on 1534, October 18th, there were a bunch of placards posted all around in public places in Paris.

And the placards were 14 inches by 10 inches, and you know, like these posters, pasted all around town. Instead of, you know, the Ramones at 730 at the Civic Auditorium, here there are placards pasted all around Catholic Paris with Reformation doctrine.

And the title printed with Gothic type, Gothic font, said, �True Articles on the Horrible, Great and Insufferable Abuses of the Papal Mass. So, you had a little 10 by 14 deal here, and instead of saying �Worship and Praise� at the top of it, it said, �True Articles on the Horrible, Great and Insufferable Abuses of the Papal Mass.

And then the mass on that little sheet, on that poster, on that propaganda sheet, it was attacked four different ways. Number one, there�s only one sacrifice, and that of Jesus on the cross, and it is not possible to repeat that sacrifice.

So, this Hebrews 727 really held a preeminent place in this placard that was posted all across France. By the way, they said one of the placards made its way into the king�s antechamber, into the king�s bedroom area.

Second, Mass implied the real presence of Christ, but Scripture said Christ was with God, so how can there be Jesus in the wafer when he�s exalted at the right hand of the Father? Third, on the placard, the writer said that the transubstantiation, actually changing the bread into the body of Jesus and the wine into the blood of Jesus, was a human invention and not supported by Scripture.

Fourthly, on the placard, communion was a memorial service, not a miracle. But the first one is the Hebrews 727 one. And so, one writer said, �Assailing the Mass with its reenactment of Christ�s sacrifice, the placards insisted that Christ was a sole and only mediator and that this truth was compromised by the Roman Mass.

So, let me reread that passage again. �He has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

It�s interesting, Meg just said, �My mom says the sacrifice of the Mass is not a repeat, but it�s the same sacrifice being offered each time. Is this what the R .C. system teaches? Now, I have some stuff that I�m not going to get to in this show, but maybe the next show.

Some arguments from apologists who, when they are told, �Hey, you�re repeating the sacrifice what they respond to. But I can�t quite get into that yet because I�m going to work my way up to this. So, you�ve got these public placards pasted all over in 1534, one inside the bedchamber of King Francis I, and they think that the author of this placard was Antony Marcourt, and there was a public furor over this.

There were all kinds of people who were super mad. The Catholics who ran the town said, �You know what? The Reformers have said that they�re going to sack the Louvre and burn down Catholic churches and massacre the Roman Catholic parishioners who are attending Mass.

And you can just see kind of the fomentation of the hostility because of this surreal kind of thing happening there. It says in my notes, �The prison�s filled up with those who were arrested. The first sentences were passed on November 10th, and the first execution took place on November 13th, when a shoemaker�s son was burnt at the stake.

The next day, a rich draper was executed. At the end of the month, four more were killed. And they began to try to find these spies, these infiltrators, and they tried to snuff it out. But in January, the king returns to Paris.

More placards appeared on the streets of Paris. So guess what the king did? Here�s a fascinating thing. He said there�s no more printing in the city until further notice. So I can�t figure out how to stop these people, so no more printing.

That�s pretty fascinating. And then, of all things, now just think about this for a second. You�re going to be glad you tuned in, the five of you that are watching now. He ordered a procession, a parade, for January 21st.

Now my daughter, Gracie, in the last six months, I believe she�s been to the Red Sox Parade in Boston, and she�s been to the Patriots Parade in Boston. Now wouldn�t it be amazing if the Celtics won or the Bruins?

But anyway, she�s gone to the parades. And here we�re going to have a parade, and we�re going to have a long line of people with all kinds of different functions. And in the center of this procession, what would you put in the center of the procession if you were the king?

Well, you�d think maybe you would be in the center of the procession. But this king is wiser than that. He has the procession, and it�s going to be going through Paris. And there are going to be all kinds of people there from judiciary, from religious sectors, and he�s going to have a variety of shrines and relics in the procession.

He�s going to have the crown of thorns. They think the literal ones, and people are going to be awed by that, and ooh and ah. And then in the center, you�re going to have the blessed sacrament, the host.

And it�s going to be under a canopy, and it�s going to be carried by the king�s three sons. And right behind that, you�re going to have the king, who�s going to be in all black, bareheaded, and holding a lighted torch.

And you�re going to make its way to Notre Dame, and there�s going to be bells ringing and hymn singing and instrumental music. But wait, there�s more. You�re also going to have the procession going through the streets of Paris, and it will stop once in a while, and then you�ll take the sacrament out of the procession and put it on a transportable altar, and you will sing a song.

The people saw the king. The king was in tears. The king was sad. They finally make it to Notre Dame, and High Mass was celebrated. And it says in this account, �Then before an immense and distinguished crowd, Francis implored his subjects to denounce all heretics, even if they were close relatives or friends.

The king left before there were six more burnings at the end of the day. That is why, friends, some people think that Hebrews, the book of Hebrews, that we�re reading here on No Compromise Radio and I�m preaching on Sunday mornings, was the key book that the Lord used for the French Reformation.

Now, many people will think, �Oh, Romans is the book of the Reformation and certainly in Germany and certainly with Romans chapter 1, verse 16 and 17, �And righteousness revealed, faith to faith. And Luther and the �Aha� moment, that is true, Romans.

And of course, I�m sure Romans was used in France. But people think it�s Hebrews, because of this Hebrews 727, under the first article of the placard. And we have this once-for-all sacrifice. And we�re going to talk a little bit, maybe in other shows, about Rome can say it�s not re-sacrificing when they�re having the Mass, but we need to figure out exactly what they are doing and what�s going on with the sufficiency and finality of the sacrifice for sin.

The Contrast Between the Old Covenant Priesthood and Jesus

So anyway, we�re in the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 7, working our way through. And what I like to do with you, No Compromise video watchers, and even radio listeners, is you�re the guinea pigs. And when I first began to preach, I would always go in on Saturday, preach from the pulpit the sermon that I was going to preach on Sunday morning, and kind of practice.

And then you can hear yourself, and you think, �You know what, in my notes it seemed to sound good, but I couldn�t really explain it very well. I mean, I�m listening to myself talk, and I don�t grasp it well enough, I need a better way to explain it, I�m taking too long, I�m not showing people from the text enough, whatever it might be for the critique.

And now, since I have a day job, that is, being a pastor here and working on this message for this Sunday, I like to use you as the guinea pig, because this is part of my ministry, this is part of practice.

It says in Hebrews 7, 26, �For it was fitting� Jesus wasn�t ill-fit, He was not unsuitable, but He was perfectly fitting. We had the need for redemption, and He was perfectly fitting for that, that we should have such a high priest.

And then this high priest, Jesus, is explained. Let�s see if I can do it by memory. He is holy, He is innocent or blameless, He is unstained, He is separated from sinners, and He is exalted above the heavens.

And that�s this Jesus that the writer, Paul, or somebody else wrote with apostolic credentials. Jesus is holy, and so therefore He can be your mediator, because if you�re going to have somebody stand between you and God and He�s not holy, then the person who stands between you and God who isn�t holy is going to need somebody to stand between Him and God.

See? See how that works? And the same thing when it comes to innocent and blameless and pure. You�ve got to have a mediator who is truly and perfectly man to represent you, and truly and perfectly God, so He can have enough righteousness to give to all those who would believe.

And so when it comes to this passage in Romans� in Hebrews, what we have is a description of Jesus compared to these other priests. So here�s what�s going on at the end of Romans 7, and maybe I told you this last time.

There�s some phrases in the Greek, and it�s pronounced �men� like �men�, but it has nothing to do with men versus women, and �day�, D-E. And when you have a �men day� used in sentences, it�s basically this.

On one hand, on the other hand. That�s how you would translate a �men day. On one hand, the high priest in the Old Covenant. On the other hand, Jesus, the great high priest. So they died, He lives. They had a sacrifice daily, He doesn�t.

It�s this comparison back and forth. So why go back to this old system? And what�s so interesting about the Levitical system, there�s nothing closer to the Levitical system than Rome, with all, as we like to say very often, derogatorily, I know, bells and smells, and all the rules, and all the pageantry, and all the colors, and all the spectacle, and all the sensual, tactile eyes and ears, and everything�s affected.

It was very, very visual. It was very, very impressive. If you go to a Roman Catholic Mass at one of these big cathedrals at Notre Dame or St. Patrick�s in New York City, it is impressive. The buildings are impressive.

In the old days, I liked to go to those buildings, and you would be forced to look up to think God is transcendent. But it almost takes away from things, you know, they�re so transcendent, yet God is also imminent.

But you got these Hebrew believers, they�re getting persecuted for their faith, and they�re like, �Is it worth it? Hey, when I used to be a Catholic, nobody persecuted me. My family wasn�t going to kick me out.

Well, for them, it was, �When I used to be a Jew, no one was kicking me out. And by the way, instead of having just this little piece of bread and this piece of wine huddled in some basement somewhere, getting persecuted, why don�t we go back to Solomon�s Temple?

All those priests, all those trumpets, all those sacrifices, all that gold, all those labors, all those trumpeters, all the singing, all the opulent marble. I mean, one of the wonders of the world, the Solomonic Temple redone by Herod.

Oh, let�s just go back to that. Remember those days. And of course, this is very apropos, because there are many Christians who, before they got saved, everything was copacetic in their life. They were fine with their family as they were at a liberal Lutheran church, or a liberal Methodist church, or a Roman Catholic church, or a liberal whatever church.

Everything was fine. But the second you leave that, and then say, �Wait a second, Jesus is the only Savior, you have to have a personal faith in Him, you�re only saved by God�s grace alone through the non-meritorious instrument of faith.

Here�s what we bring to the table. We bring nothing but sin. God has to do it all. I don�t vote yes, and you know, God votes yes, therefore I�m saved, because Satan voted no. I mean, it is. We are depressed?

No, we�re depraved. This is not some therapeutic issue, this is not some kind of feeling issue, this is a spiritual state, I�m a natural man, I�m dead in trespasses and sins, I�m blinded by Satan, the world controls me, and if it�s not for the free will of God, I am undone.

So once you start talking that way, I mean, people are freaking, they�re freaking out. So this is such a good passage, because it explains, yes, if you go back and you look at the system, it has the pageantry, but it�s not as good, right?

It�s an old covenant, it�s built in with an obsolescence. This is how they make cars, this is how they make bicycles, this is how they make Apple computers. It�s built in obsolescence, it�s only going to last for so long.

Why do they do that? So you can have the new one, and the built-in obsolescence for things today has to do with functionality and it has to do with aesthetic appeal. But in those days, what are you going to do?

You got many high priests, one high priest, Jesus. In those days you had a temporary high priest, because they would die, Jesus is eternal and he�s at the right hand of the Father. You had high priests who were sinful, they had to make an offering for their own sins first, then for the people.

Jesus, he�s not sinful in any way, shape, or form, he�s blameless, he�s spotless, he�s pure, he�s the precious blood of Christ Jesus in 1 Peter chapter 1, and therefore he only makes sacrifice for the people, not for himself.

They had a sacrifice once a year for the Day of Atonement, and all these other daily sacrifices throughout the year, Jesus makes once for all. They had to offer sacrificed animals, and they just don�t go willingly, by the way.

There are tricks to get these animals to the places where you would slaughter them, and you can study Judas goats and other things for even today, and how do you get animals into the stockyard. In the old days, they would take us in Omaha into the stockyards for field trips.

No wonder I�ve got so many problems psychologically. But Jesus, what did he do? He offered up himself, he offered himself up, and he enters into the holy place of the presence of God by means of his own blood.

So, early on in this verse, the writer says, Jesus isn�t like these high priests. He is like those high priests? No. He�s not like those high priests that have need to offer sacrifices daily. By the way, I�m just going to look here on the NOCO sheet here.

Bring it on, brother. Thanks for sharing. I�m in Leviticus and Hebrews right now in my Bible reading, perfect. It�s the providence of God to be listening to this teaching, and I thank him for this. Amen.

Amen. I thank him that I�ve got something to teach. Can you imagine if it was just, I just have to talk about stuff today? What would I talk about? See, if it was left to me, what would I be talking about?

Okay. That�s probably what I would be talking about. You can tell, is the sun out? I think we have the sun out. Put him in the sun and watch him wave. Oh, man. So anyway, I have all these things I was going to say, get into the other things about once for all.

I never made it because it was the day of the placards, 1534, Hebrews 7, verse 27. If you�ve got Roman Catholic friends, what they don�t have is they don�t have assurance because they�re not trusting in the once-for-all-sacrificed Jesus.

You can know, dear friends, that you have a right standing in God�s eyes. And that�s how I approach the Roman Catholic. My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. You can always write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

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.