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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.
Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Mike Abendroth back here at the microphone. It isn't a gold microphone, it's black. It's got the letters W-E -9 and then something else, or maybe that's V -6 -3-M.
I think that's what it is, but it's upside down. We are going to sign the contract to be on WV &E for another year, so you will have No Compromise Radio, not just on iTunes, not just on nocompromiseradio .com.
You can go to the download podcast area, but I was gonna say live, but not quite live. On WV &E from 3 .30 in the afternoon until four in the afternoon, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Typically, Mondays would be a sermon from a sermon that I've been preaching in 1 Corinthians.
Charlie Crane does a great job editing that and preparing that. Tuesdays, I'm in the studio with Steve Cooley, my associate pastor and friend. Wednesdays, I like to talk about books, and I can't burn books anymore after all the hype about that, but I can tell you what books are good and what ones aren't.
That's Wednesdays. Thursdays tends to be, well, let's have some kind of doctrinal show, some kind of topic that you should know about as a Christian, taught from a positive perspective, positive, encouraging.
And then Friday, it's usually some kind of critique, some kind of discernment. And our theme here at this radio show, No Compromise Radio, it's always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.
So I am trying to push the envelope. I am trying to push some buttons. I want you to think. I want you to listen. I want you to respond. And I want you to test me to see if these things are true and use the word of God to test them.
Don't use tradition. Don't use what your pastor says, what you've been taught. You need to get your Bibles open. Today, I'd like to talk about the book of Hebrews, the great book of Hebrews. And here is my subplot.
Here is my desire. This is my purpose today, is I want to remind you, it's probably gonna take me a couple Thursdays to do this, but I want to remind you that what you believe matters. And your beliefs will flesh themselves out.
They will actually become incarnate, if you will, and they will determine what you do. So the paradigm, what your doctrine is will determine your duty. If you have certain beliefs, they will influence your behavior.
See how good this is with the Southern Baptist alliteration? Maybe it's just Baptist alliteration. Here's no alliteration, but it's still, it's got a rhyme to it, at least. What you believe, your credenda, is what you believe determines what you do, your agenda.
For those Latin students out there, my son's taking Latin, so there you go, Luke, that's for you. Your position and your practice. So when you have a truth, like Jesus is the supreme priest, Jesus is better than the prophets, better than the angels, better than Moses, better than Aaron, better than the new covenant.
He's just better, better, better, eternally better. He is superior. Then that should change the way you live. It's like S. Lewis Johnson, who would ask the butcher. They asked the butcher, has Christianity changed your life?
In what ways are you different? And S. Lewis Johnson said, the butcher said, I no longer weigh my thumb. And every time he would weigh the meat or the cheese, he would just push his thumb down secretly, specially, so he would have an extra ounce there.
And now he says, I no longer measure my thumb. So much so has he changed that the butcher said, I give an extra ounce to everyone trying to pay back what I have done wrongly. So what you believe is very, very important.
Doctrine matters. We look at 2 Timothy 4, verse two, preach the word is a season, not a season, right? You need to be ready. You need to stand ready to do that. And you need to preach with doctrine. That's what you need to do.
You need to preach with teaching. It's not all about what you do. We, of course, want to do the right thing, but it's based on our belief. And so the book of Hebrews does the same thing. 13 chapters that all should help you remember who Jesus is so that it changes the way you think, and that will change the way you live.
The word repentance means to change your mind. It doesn't mean to change your life. It doesn't mean to change your duty. It means to change the way you think about God, sin, heaven, hell, man, Jesus, et cetera.
And believe me, I'm not non-lordship, I am lordship. But repentance, if you do change your mind, everything else about you will change as well. And that's why we need to love God with our minds. That's why preaching should be to your minds.
Of course, it could be to your will, and it can be emotional at times, but we are after your mind. Your mind, as John Stott said in his nice little book, I should probably reread again, your mind, what?
Matters, your mind matters. So when it comes to the book of Hebrews, the way you live is determined by what you think. And I think Philip Edcombe Hughes is correct when he says in his commentary on the Epistle to Hebrews, if there is a widespread unfamiliarity with the Epistle to the Hebrews and its teaching, it is because so many adherents of the church have settled for an understanding and superficial association with the Christian faith.
Yet it was to arouse just such persons from the lethargic state of compromise and complacency into which they had sunk, and to incite them to persevere wholeheartedly in the Christian conflict that this letter was originally written.
It is a tonic for the spiritually debilitated. We neglect such a book to our own impoverishment. Now that is a great quote by Philip Hughes, commentary to his epistles. Page one, I don't want to be unfamiliar with this book.
I don't want to somehow think it's too hard. I want to be no longer lethargic. I don't want to be in a state of compromise, especially on no-compromise radio, of course. I don't want to be complacent.
I don't want to be one of those people who say, I was all fired up when I first got saved, but now I'm too mature to do such a thing. I would like to persevere wholeheartedly in the Christian faith, wouldn't you?
And Hughes doesn't even call it the Christian faith. He calls it what? The Christian conflict. The Christian conflict. So we will spend today, and it already seems like since we're seven minutes in, next Thursday on the book of Hebrews from a very high level, that is not high scholastic level, but a high level flyover, just hitting the high points of this book, the book of Hebrews, that declares, that trumpets forth, Jesus is the majestic one.
Not anyone is even, no one is close to how great he is. Nothing is close. And Jesus, as a prize fighter, seemingly takes on all challengers and all comers as the preeminent one, Jesus Christ, the great high priest.
And basically that is the theme of the book. And Paul, see, I'm tipping my hand, although I don't even think it was Paul. He wrote so many other books though. Paul or Apollos or Barnabas, whatever other man it was who wrote the book, you can look at Hebrews chapter 11 to see that it's written by someone who is a man.
I've heard that Priscilla maybe wrote it, the Virgin Mary possibly wrote it. No, it was a man. And this man, this inspired man, inspired at least as he wrote this book, says that Jesus is superior to the prophets, Hebrews chapter one.
Later in chapter one, he says Jesus is superior to the angels. And then what he does is he slips an occasional warning into his thesis, into his epistle. He gives us a warning there in chapter two and goes on to talk more about how Jesus is greater than angels and angels are servants.
They're certainly not sons. Jesus is superior to Moses chapter three. Of course, Moses was faithful, but Moses was just a servant. He wasn't a son. He gives another warning, don't defect. Talks about Israel in the wilderness.
And as the concentric circles get smaller, we go from prophets to angels to Moses, now to Aaron. And a long time is spent on how Jesus is superior to Aaron. Chapter four, chapter five, chapter six, chapter seven.
And Jesus is our compassionate high priest and he has his priesthood. And therefore in chapter five and through six, eight, there's another warning, don't degenerate. He rebukes people for their immaturity and he warns them against apostasy.
Jesus is greater than even the old covenant ministry, chapter eight, nine, and half of 10. Jesus's covenant, the new covenant, better. The sanctuary that Jesus has is better. It's perfect. The heavenly sanctuary is perfect.
Jesus has to bring a sacrifice. Priests bring sacrifice. And Jesus's sacrifice as a priest was the better sacrifice, chapter nine and chapter 10. It was a blood sacrifice, purifying the heavenly sanctuary, and it was a permanent sacrifice.
So then there's an outflow, there's an outworking, there's some practical application. Does what you believe make a difference? Certainly what you believe makes a difference. And so this is Mike Abendroth on No Compromise Radio.
We're talking about the book of Hebrews today, Jesus is Better. Probably written before the temple was destroyed in 70 AD. There's all kinds of present tense language. And here the writer of Hebrews is trying to tell us God is speaking.
That's probably why the author didn't tell us who he was, because that wasn't the point. It's written in such a style that you would say, yes, this is God speaking in this book. God is talking, and here's what God is saying.
Jesus is superior. Jesus is the great one. He is the exalted one. Cotton Mather said, the great design and intention of the office of a Christian preacher is to restore the throne and dominion of God in the souls of men.
That's correct, I would say, to restore the throne and dominion of Jesus Christ in the souls of man. We want to make sure we preach Jesus Christ. There's all kinds of to-do lists out there. There's all kinds of morality out there.
As Michael Horton says, there's all kinds of Christless Christianity. And you can do good, and you can be nice. And after all, it's nice to be nice, isn't it? It's good to be good. No elbows on the table.
Make sure you have good manners. Yes or no, sir. Shake somebody's hand, look them in the eye, squeeze firmly. Morals are good for society. I'm glad for them. But for the Christian, for those that want to respond to Christ's great sacrifice properly, those that want to honor the Father as they honor the Son, they know that morality doesn't drive this train.
Morality is the caboose. It's hooked together. It's clamped on. I don't know what the technical terms are for how a train hooks itself to each other. I just know you don't want to get your finger caught in one of those things, that's for sure.
But you have the engine, and the engine that drives and makes possible our response to God is who God is and what God has done. That is the key. That is the issue. The indicatives, the statements of fact, the good news that Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead, those indicatives then allow us to respond to the imperatives of God, to repent, to trust, to believe, et cetera.
And so Jesus is the superior one. And this is a good message for people in evangelicalism today, where they want better marriages, they want better finances, they want better fulfillment when they need to look at the better one and contemplate Him and meditate upon Him.
And therefore, if you do that long enough and hard enough, you'll want to live a different kind of life. And the names of Christ in this book, author, these are alphabetically, apostle, captain, Christ, finisher, firstborn, God, heir, high priest, Lord, mediator, shepherd, son, surety.
Can you imagine all about Jesus Christ, the God-man, the one who was conceived by a virgin, God in human flesh, sinless. And so this greatness of Jesus in the book of Hebrews needs to be applied. That is to say, it needs to be taken to heart and you should respond to that.
No response is a response. And so there's an exhortation, one long Greek sentence in chapter 10, verses 19 through 22. This is the so what? This is the therefore. This is, okay, if you believe this truth, how then shall you live?
So Hebrews is supposed to teach us and does teach us the greatness of Jesus Christ, but then it calls for a response. And some think this book, the book of Hebrews, was some kind of sermon. It's called an exhortation in chapter 13.
And so what if this was a sermon? And so how would you like to listen to this sermon? Those that have their pencils out ready for some kind of application, here comes the application. And what's the first application when you hear Jesus is great?
As you're writing to some Jews, some believers, some unbelievers, these Jewish people who no longer are, they've been told that the temple is not where it's at. They are the temple. And instead of sitting before the great grand temple, Solomon's temple that was redone and refurbished by Herod, beautiful, picturesque, tall, bright, the smells, the sacrifices, the incense, the people, the trumpets, the singing.
And now they're sitting in some dingy, drab, maybe living room with 10 other people. They're the church, they're the temple. I can imagine if I was one of those Jewish people, I might say to myself, I think I might wanna go back to Judaism.
I might want to go back to all the smells and the bells and the tactile responses and tactile feelings and the sounds, the grandeur, the wonder. And you can hear the writer of Hebrews say, that's fine.
Those things were great, they served a purpose. But it's done now because you have something greater, something more superior, someone more superior. Prophets, great. Angels, great. Moses, great. Aaron, great.
Old covenant, great. But here is someone who is greater, greater. And the exhortation in chapter 10, verse 19, then says, therefore, if Jesus is great, then how do you respond? And he says, therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil, that is his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, what would you say?
Well, the answer, the first response is not give money. It's not give to a radio show, that's for certain. It's not to get baptized. It's not to tell other people. Some of those things are very good things, but the first response, if Jesus is this great high priest, the first response is get saved.
You need to be born again. And the way the writer of the Hebrews says this is very Hebraic. It's written to Hebrews. So then he says in verse 22, here's your response to Jesus. Here's how to be a loyal responder to Christ's great redemptive accomplishment that never needs to be repeated ever, ever again.
Here is the response so that the warning passages won't ever apply to you. Let us, Hebrews 10 .22, draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Isn't that great? Here's the response. This is the only God-honoring response. God the Father says of the Son, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well-pleased. And the response to Jesus, the great mediator, the great high priest, is to believe.
Come near, come near with a heart that's cleansed from an evil conscience and bodies washed with pure water. Have boldness, have the freedom. How can you approach God and live? How can you even get close to him and still exist?
Well, now we no longer have God as our enemy, we have him as our friend because of what Jesus Christ did. You have a high priest, you have a wonderful high priest, and he is the one who is a high priest who has ratified a contract.
He ratified what has gone on through his flesh. And so Jesus' flesh, torn as it were at the crucifixion, remember the second temple veil that was torn when Jesus died, 60 feet long, 30 feet high, six inches thick, ripped, torn, no longer needing that way of entrance any longer, no longer blocked.
Hebrews 10, 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. And make this, own this, make this your own, thoroughly possess this, hold onto it, grab a hold of it, kind of lock your arms on it, kind of lockjaw.
When I was a kid, I never wanted to get lockjaw, so here's good kind of lockjaw, super glue, some kind of vice grip. You need to believe, you need to personally believe that these things about Jesus are true, that he's the substitutionary sin bearer and was raised from the dead.
You must believe these things. Your mom can't believe for you, your dad can't believe for you, or your pastor can't hold onto these things for you, your friends, your denomination, your relatives, you've got to hold onto these things.
And this means no longer having some kind of other mediator, no longer Mary, no longer some priest, no longer anyone else, Jesus is the only one, and you need to hold on to Jesus. No looking back to the old covenant, not hankering for the old days like Lot's wife, as it were.
No. And he says, consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. That's the second thing he says. Number one, get saved. Number two, you need to, in a positive way, agitate each other. You need to sharpen one another.
You need to stir up one another. Here you are having the entire old covenant fulfilled in Christ Jesus, and it's not that you're, oh, we're just lawless people now. No, there's love to be given and good deeds to be done.
So think in your mind with thoughtful contemplation how you can stimulate one another to love and good deeds. That's the corollary to the gospel, the belief in the gospel. You naturally respond to God, and since God isn't on earth, you minister and love other people, and you have to be around other people.
You can't do this on your own. Verse 25, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. You gotta be around each other to encourage one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
And then he shows some great examples of this kind of faith. You say, well, you know, I'm weak, and I'm frail, and I could never act like Jesus acts. Of course you couldn't act like Jesus acts, but we have this great high priest who is our new and only and last mediator, but there have been other sinful people.
I don't mean Jesus, but I mean along with you and along with me. There have been sinful people who were created, who were fallen, who were weak and tired, not perfect practically, and they have lived a life that has shown that they have drawn near to God, and they have personally taken a hold of the faith, and that's found in chapter 11.
Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. By faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible, chapter 11, verse one and verse three.
You get a great demonstration of people in what we call the hall of faith. There are other people, when I read a biography or when I read Hebrews 11, I think two thoughts. Number one, I don't live a life commensurate to my belief in the gospel.
I'd like to strive by the grace of God more to show God my love to him and respond to him properly. But I also, and maybe more importantly here in context, is that I know that other weak people have run the race, and they've run it well, and they've run it by faith, by faith alone.
So that's what the writer is saying. And so if you are a Christian, you can say to yourself, God has worked in such a way through other people that I want to be one of those kind of people as well. I want to run the race in such a way where I can demonstrate that faith in the great shepherd, Jesus Christ, is worth it, that it is a benefit to believe in such a great God, that I have laid a hold of Jesus personally by faith, and it's worth it.
Luther said, faith apprehendeth nothing else but that precious jewel, Jesus. Christ is the bread of life. Faith feeds upon him. Christ was lifted on the cross. Faith gazes at him. So if you today have looked to Jesus Christ, he is the great high priest.
And if you haven't looked, today's the day to look, to grab hold of, to consider, and to believe by faith alone that he is what God said he was, the great high priest for us.
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 six. 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.
The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE in staff or management.