Theology for 500

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.

Why Christians Avoid Direct Speech and Bold Preaching

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, I'm Mike Abendroth. We are doing this show today from beautiful downtown West Boylston, Massachusetts. It's interesting, some people can't say Massachusetts, nor can they spell it.

And the same people that have a hard time saying Sushi, have a hard time saying Massachusetts. And maybe you're one of those people. M-A-S-S, Mass, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There's no real downtown here in West Boylston, a small town of about 6 ,000 people.

We have a little common, and on the commons you usually have a congregational church. And many times that's liberal, and it's turned into a federated church. You have Unitarians and Congregationalists, with sometimes Baptists, all federating, putting their...

It's not that they believe in federal theology, but they can't really get enough people to attend, so then they all go together. And so the Unitarians and the Baptists and the Congregationalists all worship, I don't know, three different gods?

Okay. It might not be three different, but two, right? Some worship Satan and some worship the triune God. I mean, it's just crazy. Anyway, I also realized, post-production, that I tell my kids, any church that starts with a U, it's usually got problems, Unitarian, Unity, Universalist.

And so I still stand by that, but my friend in Escondido goes to a good church that my son's actually been to, that starts with a U. So maybe there's a United Reformed Church that might be good, third class might.

Now maybe you live in a town that starts with a U. I don't know, what would be a town that starts with a U? And then it's got the town name in front of Baptist or Reformed or Presbyterian or something like that, Uptown.

She's an Uptown girl. Someone came to me the other day and they were bragging how many times they saw Billy Joel lately. I don't know, I've just never been the Billy Joel type, so I don't know, just different folks here.

The Problem of Wanting the World to Like the Church

What we're going to talk about today in No Compromise World is how the Christians pretty much do not want to speak directly and boldly, and if pastors preach in a way with conviction and with clarity and with a heralding element, then a lot of people get bothered.

You would think that you've got a bunch of Christians that are trying to get the world to like them, kind of like a desperate high schooler trying to date the captain of the football team, or to be fair, trying to date the cheerleader, wanting to embrace, wanting the world to embrace them and wanting to be accepted and wanting the world to love them.

Pretty much then you have to become like the world to get that to happen. And you follow fads and you follow music and you follow entertainment and pastors often, and preachers often, and therefore then churches.

They're afraid to offend people, and they want to talk, therefore, in inclusive ways, in pluralistic ways, in broad-minded ways, and I really think that they're embarrassed, that they're afraid of what the Bible says.

And of course it's especially manifest with Andy Stanley, for instance, and unhitching the Old Testament. I mean, can you imagine if you're leading with homosexuality is a sin, and women can't be teaching elders, ruling elders, elder-elders, elderenas.

It's also, I think, made manifest in the ministry of Tim Keller, because it seems to me, in my opinion, that he has to water down certain things in New York City, because if he came across as a six-day creationist, or if he blatantly said homosexuality is a sin, and this, that, and the other, then it'd be much more difficult for him to get the clout and the acceptance that he wants in the city.

I think we have forgotten that Jesus is a stumbling block, and Jesus is an offense, and he's the rock of offense. And if you are afraid to talk about the Lord Jesus in biblical terms, in terms of he's the only way, and the exclusivity of the cross, and hell, and sin, then maybe you're thinking too much about the people you're preaching to, instead of the one who sent you to preach to those people.

I know what it's like in radio, at least, and in Speakerville land, not that I'm some A-celebrity or anything like that, A-list celebrity, I do get to preach sometimes at other places, and I'm happy for that, but if you offend donors, if you offend people that give you money, if you offend those in your church, and giving goes down, then there's some problems.

So anyway, in No Compromise Radio, I just think the whole tone police, and how you say it in this tone fallacy, and I'm going to not listen to you, and I'm going to detract from the validity of what you say because you didn't say it in a way I liked, there's some big problems.

Hebrews as a Sermonic Epistle

And here's the problem, and here's my five-minute intro that now I'm landing the plane. Do you think the writer of Hebrews, the epistle to the Hebrews, do you think that author, if it's Paul or whoever it is, do you think he offended the Jews, the unbelieving Jews that read that letter?

He did, absolutely, and it was for their own good because it was true, and it was demonstrated in a biblical way, in a logical way, in a loving way, and I am positive the recipients of that letter had their toe stepped upon, on, epi.

I'm sure their feelings were hurt. Were they offended? Most definitely. Did that phase the author? No. Now remember, Hebrews is an epistle, and it's, I was going to say letter, and it's a sermon. As we say here, it's an epistolatory sermon, or a sermonic epistle.

Either way, you'll see that in 1322, especially as you think about this, this exhortation. Delivered like a sermon, length of a sermon, second-person imperatives like a sermon, all kinds of ways we could talk about how it was a sermon and how it was crafted so brilliantly and wonderfully and Christ-centeredly.

This author, when he preached, slash wrote, wrote, slash preached, when you say things like the old covenant, not as good as this one here with Jesus, better covenant, temple going, going, gone, right?

I think the temple was still up, but it was on its way out. Priests insufficient, priests weak, priests sinful, priests not as good. There's a better one coming in order of Melchizedek. I think this template, if we could use Hebrews as a template, ought to be used more often in pastors these days for many reasons.

Preach Christ more, preach from the Old Testament more, better delivery, well-structured messages. But in addition, being direct. I want pastors to be direct. I want pastors to preach clearly and emphatically and herald.

The Bible doesn't only just say, teach the Bible. The Bible doesn't just say, you know, it doesn't say this anywhere, but you have to share. That's a nice sharing message that you have. Please share. If I preach on Sunday and you come up and say, thanks for sharing, you are going to be in trouble with me.

I'll try not to let my face show it. Thanks for sharing. I think probably at the Bible study or home group or something like that, if you'd like to share something. But remember 2 Timothy 4, herald, keruchs is the root, to proclaim a message from the King to the people as an ambassador.

There needs to be more of that. And I think Hebrews is that. It's a heralding. It's a calling people to think rightly about their sin, repent, and think rightly about the object of their faith, trust or rest, to use the language of Hebrews chapter 4.

This author knew that if you don't believe in Christ Jesus and trust in him for your legal standing before God, then you are going to spend eternity in hell. He knew those people were dead and trespassing sins, and he knew the only thing he could give them was the Lord Jesus for new life, for eternal salvation.

And he knew love rejoices with the truth. Of course, and I don't even like to say it, we are not to be obnoxious, but we are to be truthful and we're to tell the truth. And I don't think the world is going to like what we say, and I don't think the world's going to like how we say it.

They want sharing. They want everybody contributes. They want, then think about it with Facebook and responding and everybody's involved and you can read an article now on the Wall Street Journal and you can say some comments down below.

This writer told the truth boldly, unapologetically, forcefully with herald-like qualities, I was trying to think of an adverb there, and therefore this is the kind of preaching I think we ought to like.

If you don't like this kind of preaching, then you better revisit the book of Hebrews. Therefore, today in our message in No Compromise Radio Land, we're talking about this firm, forceful, direct delivery that the author has as he tells them about the high priest.

Hebrews 7 .26, for it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest. And then he describes this high priest. This is the high priest that God chose for you. When it comes to choosing priests, if we had to choose our own priest, here's what we would end up doing.

We'd choose Satan, right? We'd choose Satan as the prophet, priest, and king. Go back to the garden, Adam and Eve, well, you know what, Satan said this, and whose word do they take? They take prophet Satan's word, and I don't mean P-R-O-F-I-T, but P-R-O-P-H-E-T, the words coming from Satan.

They pick him for the prophet. Who's going to mediate between this God and the people? Well, Satan, the priest, and who's the lord of the world and thinking that he can lord it over them, and who is even the ruler of the world according to Ephesians chapter 2.

It's Satan, Satan, prophet, priest, and king, small p, small p, small k, but still, if it was up to us, we'd pick them. That's why when you watch a show like Jerry Springer, people love that because they realize they're not so bad, the viewers, compared to what they see on TV, and yet deep in our heart of hearts, we are either self-righteous or unrighteous, but we have no righteousness of our own.

That's why we need the righteous Lord Jesus, who obeyed the law and earned righteousness and could credit it to all those who would ever believe, and also paid the penalty for all the unrighteousness and self-righteousness of the elect, and that was confirmed, by the way, via the resurrection, through the resurrection, justified by the resurrection.

Different kind of word, justified. Jesus was vindicated by the resurrection, that's what I'm thinking about. Anyway, when you look at, okay, I'm needing a high priest because I know I sin, and on one side of me is the thrice holy God, and on the other side of me is, well, no, that's the wrong way to think about it.

I'm standing here, there's God, I'm going to meet him one day, and I need somebody in between. What do I do? Who do I pick? What kind of priest do I pick? And so what ends up happening is, we pick people more like us than more than like God.

Now we need a human priest. We need perfectly human priest, a truly human priest. That's true. But he's not like us at all, and we've talked before on the radio, and I've tried to say from the pulpit, the closer you get to God, the more you'll see your sin.

Except that's not true for the Lord Jesus. The text says here, it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

Those descriptions, those five, are the kind of priests that God would choose for us, not from the Aaronic, not from Levitical priesthood, but from a different category, a different order, to be correct, taxonomy, taxus, I believe in the Greek, if memory serves, of Melchizedek.

He's not from Judah, he's from a different order, a better order, and if the first order was so great, then why would there be another order? So if Exodus and Leviticus, Deuteronomy order, was the end all, then why would later David write Psalm 110?

This is a fitting priest. This is an adequate priest. This is not an unfit priest. This is not an ill-fit priest. This is the perfect priest that we need, and this is the one that God has chosen. We would pick wrongly.

We would pick a prophet, priest, and king, Satan. This particular king, he is holy, and remember, that's not the usual word for holy. This is a word that essentially means Jesus always pleases the Father in every aspect.

He is wanting to please the Father. That's the good way to think about it. Innocent is the next one, or blameless, you could translate it. This is a word that means harmless, not evil, not bad. It's got the word bad and an A, an alpha privative in front of it.

It means not bad. So if something's significant or something's typical and you want to make it not, you want to make it the opposite, you say it's a-significant. No, you say a-typical, and here you say a-bad, right?

Because you're completely without blame. He is also, do you see the text? He's unstained. He has no stain that can get into his person. Do you remember back in the old days, my mother would get tie-dyed material, and that means you'd have to get some kind of Fruit of the Loom shirt that actually had tags back in those days, right?

Some cheap shirt from Richmond-Gordman or some Omaha store. For those of you who listen from Omaha, you'll remember Richmond-Gordman and those cool animal slides downstairs, by the way, or in the back, wherever they were.

And then you'd have to take your shirt and tie it tightly, these knots, because if you're going to tie-dye a shirt and you have loose knots, then that Rit dye, that staining dye is going to get into the knot and it's not going to be cool.

It's not going to be Haight-Ashbury. It's not going to be San Fran. By the way, San Fran, how'd you like to live there now? That shows you what liberalism can provide. What a cool city and what a trashy city it is now.

Anyway, there's a way that the dye can get into those little crevices. And here, stainless, unstained, there's no way for sin to get into the character and the nature and the essence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This word is used of defiling sexual sin. And when you're married, there's no defilement or stain. And so the Lord Jesus, if he was less than this great, perfect high priest, if he was more like Satan, or he was to any degree like Satan, then he couldn't be your high priest because he then would need a high priest.

How do you stand before God? Well, you need a mediator. And to have a mediator that's less than perfect, he will then need a mediator, and the list goes on and on and on and on. And if you notice the text, it also says, separated from, or set apart from sinners.

That's pretty fascinating when you think about it. What kind of separation is this? Now, right after this one, it talks about exalted into heaven. So there's two ways to look at this separation. You can either say the separation is, he is morally separate, and of course he is, or you can say he's spatially separate.

That is, he's ascended into the heavens, and of course, now he's this perfect high priest, and there's no way that he could be anything less because he's not on earth and he can't fall on earth now or anything like that, and so he is in heaven, separated.

So he's got either moral perfection or this spatial separation, and of course, both are true. And if you think about it, Jesus had to be human and is human, and he had to be sinless, and when you watch him on earth in the Gospels, you say to yourself, oh, he slept, he ate.

He's truly human, but he was not affected by the sins of other people. He was around people all the time who sinned, but he didn't applaud their sin. He didn't celebrate their sin. He did not condone their sin.

He came to seek and save the lost, but he was never influenced by them. Evil company corrupts good morals is a good slogan, is a wonderful proverb, but it is not universally true because it did not have that effect on the perfect man, Jesus Christ.

So what's going on here? You've got to have a great high priest, and he's either morally separate from sinners, which the first few words would help us with that in terms of Jesus as holy and blameless and unstained, but then he is also exalted.

So you can look at it both ways. Matthew 9, 10 looks at it the first way. Of course, that's something the Levitical priest would not do, and I'm sure one of the reasons why they wouldn't do it is because they don't want to have that kind of, you know, sinfulness rub off on them.

Matthew says, look, behold, it's pretty amazing, behold, many tax collectors, not just one, not just two, quite a bit. And we've almost got a view from Matthew that would be a reporter's external view.

Hey, these people are eating together, reclined at table, they're just not sitting at a table. When you have this kind of feast, this kind of celebration, you extend your legs out on these couches, you lean on your left elbow and you eat with your right hand.

This is amazing. But this is a shindig, this is a party, a festival, a feast that Levi himself gave. It says, Levi and Luke 5 gave a big reception for him in his house, and there was a great crowd of tax collectors and other people who were reclining at table with them.

This is essentially an evangelism party. You know, lots of people in the church, they want to sell Pampered Chef or Tupperware or other things like that. Remember Shackley and Amway and Magnet stuff, and you are knives.

You make money based on, you know, people you know. And actually, you know what? If your motives are good, I'm not going to trash the Tupperware people right now or Pampered Chef. If your main motive is to make money, that's not the main motive that this party was given.

I can at least say that on No Compromise Radio. This is an evangelism party. This is preaching Christ. This is real hospitality ministry. Many tax collectors, many of them, depending on if you look at Mark or Luke or Matthew, there are tons, double emphasis.

So many people. I mean, it's an offense for Jews to eat with Gentiles. How about all these people, all these tax gatherers who are Jewish most likely, but total apostates in the mind of the Jew, because now they're turncoats, they're rebels.

They're trying to take money for Rome. And the other word that's used here is sinners. These people don't, you know, there's a general word for sinners where we all fall short, but this is a specifically derogatory word that talks about these people don't follow Moses.

These people aren't following the Mosaic law. These people have, you know, they're kind of like, you know, in the caste system, the unmentionables, just like an occupation for them, sinning and being awful.

What do you do for a living? Oh, I sin. And what are the Pharisees ended up doing? It says in Matthew 9, 11, and when the Pharisees saw this, they said to the disciples, his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

I mean, they're very snooty. They're very much saying guilt by association with Jesus. They, the Pharisees are the Hebrew separated ones. Remember that's, that's how, that's how you're going to think about it.

They're separated. And this was unthinkable, what Jesus was doing. What is he thinking? And Jesus knows what they're saying because he heard it. And so he answers the question. The question isn't addressed to him, but he answers anyway.

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick go and learn what this means. He quotes the old Testament. Hosea, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

Don't you love that? Puritan Brooks said, for Jesus to refuse to associate with sinners would have been as foolish as for a doctor not to associate with the sick. Jesus came not to call the righteous, i .e. people who think they have their own righteousness, but sinners, people who know they have no righteousness.

And Jesus comes and saves these people as sinners, right? They don't have to get better on their own. He comes as the doctor to heal. He has not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, Luke chapter 5.

He doesn't just leave them in their sins. So my name is Mike Abenroth, this is No Compromise Radio. We're talking today about being direct and clear and preaching like the author of Hebrews, preaching like Jesus, yes with love, but boldly and directly and talking about the exclusivity of Christ and not trying to say, I want the world to love me.

If that's what you're wanting, you're in for a big shock. That's not what you want.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abenroth 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 bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.