Hebrews 7 and Drawing Near to God

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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

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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.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

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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

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry, show number three today on Saturday, January 5th, 2019.

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Kind of a raw day today in New England, so I thought I�d come in and do a few shows and do some things

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I�m not supposed to, like drink the Super Coffee Protein MCT Oil, zero sugars, 80 calories, 10 grams of protein, original flavor, unsweetened.

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Maybe this is why I can do three shows a day. If you�ve got questions, you can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

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I got an email the other day from a young Mr. Smith, and he�s 13.

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He wanted me to do a show on lordship and sanctification of the Christian life. I think we�re going to do that, but not today.

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Today on Something Called No Compromise Radio. Seriously, you have to pull up that relevant magazine article,

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Something Called No Compromise Radio tweeted something about Beth Moore. So, I guess we�ve hit the big time.

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I�m just wondering when I�m going to get the blue checkmark in the Twitter account. This live feed we have now on Facebook is to appease my

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Facebook friends. I know there�s a whole kind of Facebook deal out there. I don�t really know much about Facebook.

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Once in a while, I�ll go there just to see the comments, but I just post on Hootsuite, and Hootsuite just pastes it to Facebook and Twitter at the same time.

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For me, social media is a one -way street. You can watch if you like.

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If you want to go put on a Sinclair Ferguson sermon, you can go do that instead.

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By the way, I just was watching, I think I posted it, Sinclair Ferguson, Loving Your Enemies, a

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YouTube, Vimeo type of thing. It was devastating in terms of conviction. So, if you want a good dose of conviction, you can turn off NoCo right now, or you can pause it and type in Sinclair Ferguson, Loving Your Enemies.

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He�s talking about words that our Lord gave, Loving Your Enemies, and how to be kind to them and what to do.

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Over the years, I�ve accumulated a few enemies, some my own fault, some

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Bofus� faults, and sometimes not my fault at all. It just happens to be that when you do radio like this, kind of a flowery,

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K -love, affirming, we talk about being broken and wounded all the time, you just get enemies.

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I don�t know. Speaking of which, when it comes to the book of Hebrews, I�m pretty sure that the

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Jesus preached in many pulpits is anything less than the great prophet of Deuteronomy 18, the great priest of Hebrews 7, and the great

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Lord of Lords in Revelation 19. The Jesus that�s preached regularly is a

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Jesus that is effeminate, a Jesus that is a coward, a Jesus that is begging you for a relationship, a

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Jesus that is somehow courting you and doesn�t want to step into the, you know, components of your will to violate your free will.

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No wonder there are no men at churches like that. No wonder people so resist such a

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Jesus. Compared to the Jesus in the Bible, remember Paul, the persecutor?

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Call him Saul, and he�s on his way to Damascus to persecute more people. Three times the book of Acts, make sure you regularly understand, you often understand that Jesus is

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King, and when it comes to slaying His enemies in Psalm 69 and then turning them into friends and giving them back to the church as a gift,

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Jesus is King, and Jesus does whatever He pleases as often as He pleases and always as He pleases.

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Jesus is the one who is the King of kings, and He doesn�t come across as one of these, �Well, you know,

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I�m standing at the door knocking, and please, I would love to have a relationship with you, but I�m not sure we really can, and I�m going to try to convince you.�

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I don�t like it when people act that way, let alone the God of the universe, the God who creates, the

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God who is the exact imprint of God, the

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God who upholds all things by the Word of His power, the God who purges our sins, the

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God who is raised from the dead, who defeats death, the God who is in the wilderness against Satan and who wins,

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Jesus wins, and then we�ve got this Jesus from the pulpit, �Well, He�d like to be your Savior if you just let

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Him into your heart.� No wonder. I mean, and of course when

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I say there are no men at the church, there are no godly women at those churches either, because the godly women are thinking, �That�s not the

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King of kings. That�s not the Jesus of the Bible.� So, let�s start preaching who

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Jesus is from the text, verse by verse. Let�s preach all of it. I�m now 58 years old, and I�ve realized something.

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I�ve got two options if I want to teach every verse in the Bible. Either have my brain chirogenically frozen, preach faster, or be resolved to the fact that, �Lord,

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I don�t think I�m going to be able to teach through every book of the Bible.� I�m just going off the top of my head. I don�t have any of this written down, obviously, you can tell.

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I�ve taught through Genesis and Exodus. I�ve taught through Obadiah. That was an easy one.

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Second John, third John. Taught through those. Taught through Jude. Done some jet tours of Revelation.

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I�ve taught through Esther. It took me 70 weeks to teach Daniel. I think that�s actually true.

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That was actually true. Seventy weeks it taught me to teach. That�s a sign, by the way. That�s a very important sign. What else have

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I taught? Ruth, Jonah, many Psalms, several

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Proverbs. I did teach through Song of Solomon. Mark, Ephesians, James, 1

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Corinthians, Romans. There are books that I�ve taught through, but I�m not going to make it all the way through.

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But I am determined, �Lord, if I live long enough, that�s what I�m going to do.� So, I�m not going to speed up, but I�m just coming to the point where I�m like, �You know,

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I�m not going to make it.� Well, if you�re at a church and the pastor has the attitude that he�s going to teach you the

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Bible and you show up. By the way, there�s a church locally that didn�t have the

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Sunday before Christmas services. They had the Sunday service where you just have a play. Fine, if you want to have a play, great.

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Have the play on Friday night, have the play on Monday night, have the play on Saturday night, whatever day you want to have the play. Actually, have the play on Sunday night if you want, as long as you have the

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Sunday morning Lord�s Day preaching the Word. These are the kind of people, no wonder

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Christianity has a bad name because we won�t even do what the Lord of the church tells us to do. And He tells us to preach the

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Word through His Apostle Paul, and we won�t have skits and plays. And by the way, I�m not going to atrocious, and I don�t mind that we don�t have five -star performers doing things because I�m not a five -star preacher.

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The question is never greatness, it�s just faithfulness, but come on, just preach.

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Could somebody tell me some good news? I said this last show, don�t you have some good news for me? I didn�t measure up this week.

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I wish I could have been a husband. I�m convicted about my parenting. I�m convicted about my attitude at work.

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I�ve been saved for 20 years, and do you have any good news for me? Do you have good news for Christians?

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That�s what I want. The sermon, to make sense, to be a

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Christian sermon, has to talk about the Lord Jesus. If your pastor can preach a sermon that makes sense without the death, burial, resurrection, pre -existence of Christ, incarnation of Christ, then that�s the wrong kind of sermon.

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So, what we�re doing today on something called No Compromise Radio. I need that embroidered.

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Something called No Compromise Radio. We�re talking about Hebrews chapter 7.

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Since God is so holy, we need to approach Him with a mediator, and we�ll call that mediator a priest, because that�s what a priest does.

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He essentially makes intercession, and he makes sacrifice.

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And this particular priest, Jesus the high priest, he himself is a sacrifice. And since we don�t understand the holiness of God, we don�t really get that we need such a priest.

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David Wells said this very fascinating quote, �The loss of the traditional vision of God as holy is now manifested everywhere in the evangelical world.�

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That is, we don�t really get God�s holiness. It is the key to understanding why sin and grace have become such empty terms.

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Divorced from the holiness of God, sin is merely self -defeating behavior or a breach of etiquette.

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Divorced from the holiness of God, grace is merely empty rhetoric, pious window dressing for the modern technique by which sinners work out their own salvation.

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Divorced from the holiness of God, our gospel becomes indistinguishable from any of a host of alternative self -help doctrines.

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Divorced from the holiness of God, our public morality is reduced to little more than an accumulation of trade -offs between competing private interests.

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Divorced from the holiness of God, our worship becomes mere entertainment. The holiness of God is the very cornerstone of Christian faith, for it is the foundation of reality.

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Sin is defiance of God�s holiness. The cross is the outworking and victory of God�s holiness, and faith is the recognition of God�s holiness.

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Knowing that God is holy is therefore the key to knowing life as it truly is, knowing

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Christ as He truly is, knowing why He came, and knowing how life will end.

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David Wells, No Place for Truth or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology. I mean, those words resonate with me.

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Those words convict me. Those words steal my resolution, S -T -E -E -L, my resolution to preach the

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Word. When I first got here 22 years ago, almost 22 years ago, I would listen to an

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NPR show on the way to church at like 7 .30 in the morning, and it was just liberalism.

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It would just be good, do good, be nice things, you know, be nice. It's nice to be nice. It's good to be good.

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And I regularly would say, sometimes out loud, Lord, I'm not that great of a preacher. I don't preach, it ain't so good.

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But Lord, if you allow me to stand in that pulpit, I'll tell people what you say in your

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Word. And the thing is, what he says in his Word is a very Christ -centered Word. And that's what we want.

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And by the way, if you're watching today or listening today and you're not the preacher, when you teach your children the

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Bible, when you evangelize, when you teach Sunday school, you have the same marching orders essentially.

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If I'm supposed to give Christ -centered messages about the person and work of God, His nature,

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His character, His attributes, His plan, His decree, then you're supposed to do the opposite when you teach the kids?

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No, no, no. I'm trying to model, right? Preaching is caught and taught. And I hope you catch from your faithful preachers that you have, that what they're telling you and how they're telling you and how exactingly they're telling you, is that a word?

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It is now. How precisely they're telling you, and this is a present tense, we have this great high priest, that you say to yourself, of course, you don't have to talk to a congregation like you talk to your two -year -old, but you're still conveying them that kind of truth, the truth about God, the truth about His Son, because God is holy.

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And God is holy, holy, holy, as we looked at last show. So, if you have your

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Bibles, you can turn to Hebrews chapter 7, or you can just listen to me talk about Jesus, the high priest after the order of Melchizedek, and what's been happening in the book of Hebrews.

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You could almost see thrown out in chapter 2 a little bit about priest, and now is when finally the writer gets to expand on this, because he wanted to give them some exhortations first about them being not mature, etc.

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Hebrews 2 .17 says, therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

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That is to say, in chapter 2 was the first flicker, the first comment about this chapter 7

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Melchizedekian priesthood. And the first 10 verses of chapter 7 of Hebrews is essentially a theological commentary of Genesis 14, one of the most important concepts in all the

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Bible, Melchizedekian priesthood. And if you were asking people, other Christians, who is

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Melchizedek, I wonder how many would know. And if your meals consist of Caleb radio only, no one's going to know because it takes some thinking, and the thinking is simple.

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The thinking is Jesus is from Judah, that works for his kingly line, but that doesn't make him a priest because his last name isn't

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Cohen, haha. He's not a Levite. And so, what the writer does is he says, okay, remember in Genesis 14,

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Abraham, as we talked about on a show last week or two weeks ago, Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, a priest.

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And so, just think about it this way. Genesis 14 talks about Melchizedek and how

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Abraham, the father of the nation, who was way before the Levitical priesthood, pays tithes to this priest and recognizes this monotheist as a priest.

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So, there's another kind of priesthood besides the Levitical priesthood. Then you have Exodus 28 and Leviticus, and Deuteronomy is reiterated.

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This is what the Bible says about being a priest. And you have to have a certain hereditary line to be a priesthood.

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But then later in Psalm 110, there's this talk about Melchizedek. So, what does that tell you?

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If the Levitical priests were adequate, why would later on David write about Melchizedek?

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And so, now the writer of Hebrews is saying, this is why. And so, if you had to summarize Hebrews 7 -11 through 19, it'd be very simple.

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You have to take a deep breath because, you know, you're trying to process all this stuff, and you're like, okay, wait a sec. But again, to repeat

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Genesis 14, there's a great priest named Melchizedek that Abraham, the great father of the nation, pays tithes to, and the lesser pays tithes to the greater.

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Somebody's greater than Abraham. Where were the Levitical priest when Abraham was there? Not around. But they, a

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Levitical priest, would receive tithes from other people. But the one who gives tithes is

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Abraham to Melchizedek. There's another kind of priesthood. And so, you can have the lion of the tribe of Judah as a king, but you can also have him be a priest because his priesthood isn't

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Aaronic. His priesthood isn't from Mosaic law. His priesthood is Melchizedekian priesthood.

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And that is why Hebrews talks a lot about it. And he is going to say in the book of Hebrews, in the chapter of Hebrews 7, something wonderful.

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How do you become a priest in Levitical system? Answer, if your daddy was, you're a son, now you're a priest.

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How do you become the high priest after the order of Melchizedek? You've got to have something that Hebrews 7 is going to describe as, you ready?

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An indestructible life. And so, see, he's better. He's better than any of these

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Levitical priests. So, here on No Compromise Radio, we're going through Hebrews 7, verses 11 to 19, and the point of 19 is you've got to draw near.

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How can you draw near to God? Well, you've got to have a priest like Jesus. You've got to have a

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Melchizedekian priest so you can approach God, because that is such an important aspect.

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Draw near to God, James says, right? And he will draw near to you. The forever priesthood of Jesus is superior to that of the priest of Judaism.

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And the listeners to this book, especially originally, would say things like this,

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I'm getting persecuted for believing in Jesus. I better go back. And he's saying, don't go back.

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What kind of priest do you need so that you can draw near to God? In Hebrews 7, 11 to 19 answers the question.

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Well, just to have a pause here for a second, because we like to do things you're not supposed to do. One of the reasons

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I'm doing that is because I'm thirsty. The other reason is these mental concepts, sometimes you just need a break, and you're like, okay, wait a second,

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Melchizedek. I mean, I get it. I get it even when I talk about it, let alone do radio shows about it.

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Anyway, I had something I was going to say. Better not say it.

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By the way, this would be a bestselling book, wouldn't it? If you think about Crazy Love and what are those other

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Francis Chan books? Letters to the Church. What's that other book that he did with his wife?

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You and Me Forever. Type in You and Me Forever Francis Chan video, and you can see him singing a special video together.

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Maybe my wife and I should do one of those. Maybe I'll have Ben videotape one of those things. Okay, back to Melchizedek.

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So, that was just a breather. That was just to get your mind off of this for a second. What kind of priest do you need to draw near to God?

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You need one that can give you perfection, and you need one who is perfect. That's the simple outline.

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Do you see verse 11? Now, if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek rather than the one named after the order of Aaron?

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For when there is change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. See how that works?

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Do you see what's going on here? He's basically saying this. If the

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Levitical priesthood could make you perfect, to give you perfect access to God, could let you saunter into God's presence, could make you approach

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God, then why would there be another priest? But since these

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Levitical priests aren't able to do that, you need a different kind of priest, and his name is Jesus, and though he does not have

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Aaron as a father or a great -grandfather, he does come from a different order, after Melchizedek.

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And Melchizedek, of course, Melek is king, and Sedeq is righteousness.

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He's a king of righteousness. He's the king of Salem. He's the king of peace. You cannot have reconciliation between you and God through these

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Levitical priests. So, something greater must be coming. If this doesn't do it, then what does?

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How many times do we have to slay these animals? I used to think about that often. I'm a pastor now. What if I was a

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Levitical priest back in the day? Basically, I would be a butcher. My wife and I and children, we went up to the polar plunge in Maine on January 1st, and my family jumped in.

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I didn't. I did a couple years ago, but my knee hurt, and I didn't want to run and jump in the water and all that stuff, so I had an excuse.

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And afterward, we went to this little Maine grocery store, and we got some lobster, because my wife was going to make with the girls lobster macaroni and cheese, with some special cheese and some lobster.

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And so, I got to pick out the lobster, and then I got to have to kill the lobsters. I'm like, oh, great.

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You know, and they're crawling inside the pan, boiling. You know? I'm like, oh.

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Now, if I have to do it, I have to do it, but I just don't prefer to do it. So then, the guy came over, and he said, well,

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I just boiled these just, you know, earlier today. I promise, you know, I boiled them today, and then you can just take them home.

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You don't have to do it. I'm like, oh, what if I was a Levitical priest? How many throats am I going to have to slit today?

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Problem, people are going to sin the next day, too, and I got to slit more throats, and they're going to sin the next day,

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I got to slit more throats. The Day of Atonement for the nation, I got to slit more throats. How many throats do you need to slit before this thing stops?

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And the answer was, it never stopped. It just kept going and going and going and going, because the

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Levitical system was not meant to do what

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Jesus did. It was meant to point to what Jesus did. It was meant to give you, oh, this is what's going on, and we see what's happening, wages of sin is death, we need to have a substitute, but it was pointing to something.

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It was pointing to the greater. It talks about the greater priesthood, and how do you get permanent access to God?

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By a greater priest, because this is not permanent, I'm back tomorrow. How do I get free access to God? This is not free because I got to do another sacrifice tomorrow, and so you see where this is going.

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A great sacrifice by a great priest gives permanent, free access forever with one -time sacrifice, and that's

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Hebrews 9 and 10 as well. The priesthood, imperfect, yes, from God, but not meant to be perfect.

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The law, of course, it's not unholy or anything like that, but it doesn't make people perfect.

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That's the point. It's a schoolmaster to tell you you're wrong, to beat you into submission for you to go, ah,

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I maybe need somebody else. But you are not able to get this perfection and be acceptable to God in the

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Sevitical priesthood. It was pointing to something, yes. It was wonderful, yes, in that, you know, you're thinking,

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I need to have my sins taken care of, but the old priests could not be giving us perfection.

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And so the writer of the book of Hebrews is trying to tell you, so why run back to this imperfect system when

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Jesus once for all is slain? Hebrews chapter 1, he purges sins. He sits down at the right hand of the

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Father. Remember that sitting down language? He sits. What piece of furniture was not found in the

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Holy of Holies? Well, what do you call those kind of fake beds?

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Futons. There are no futons there. There are no beds there. That's true. But there were no seats there.

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That's the big one. So when the Levitical priest did his work, he couldn't give you perfection.

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You'll be back. And then he couldn't sit down because there's no rest. Here comes the next group. Here comes the next group.

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Here they come back. Here they come back. Here they come back. But when Jesus sacrifices Himself as the High Priest, who's also the sacrifice,

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He sits down. It's done. He sits down. The work is finished.

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And He sits down at the great exalted hand of the right hand of the Father. Well, do you notice what's happening, listeners? The more you think about this, the less you think about yourself, and the more you think about the

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God who made you to worship Him, to think about Him, to mull Him over, to think thoughts about who

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God is, because it's easy to think about everything else, right? If I want to remember what I'm supposed to do for the day,

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I just get down on my knees and pray, because all those other thoughts flood in. So now we have to be consciously absorbed in the

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Bible and its teaching. Well, to the Facebook people and to the No Compromise people listening today on radio,

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I'm glad you listened. We'll see you soon. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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.

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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.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.