Blood and Gore

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 here.

You can go to Israel with us if you'd like, and that is 2015, February 15th.

And I think I get back and then have to get on a plane and head on over to the Shepherd's Conference, the Uber Conference in Los Angeles.

If you go to nocompromiseradio .com, top right side, it says Israel 2015.

Click on that, fill out the form, $400 in to Bethlehem Bible Church, and tag that Israel 2015, and reserve your spot.

We don't have as many people signed up as I thought we would have, so that means we have a few folks.

Maybe they're just dragging their feet. It is first come, first served, though. The bus is going to be split with Omaha Bible Church and Pastor Pat Abendroth.

Well, what else do we have? If you are a Twitter follower, you might wanna follow

NoCoRadio. Didn't really do much with Twitter in days long gone by, but trying to increase that a little bit now with the

Twitter feed, Twitter mania. I know, I'm always behind. Hey, I'm 54 years old, so it's hard to keep up.

What do we have today? Things that go bump in the church. I've been encouraged by folks who've been reading that.

I just got a CBD e -copy of that book for free since I was an author, and I ran into Clint Archer down in South Africa, and I ran into him at the airport as well, the

Joburg Airport, and he just walking by, and my son Luke said, that's Clint Archer.

So where is Byron Yon when we need him? Byron, oh, Byron. We have some other projects that we might work on, but frankly,

I'm just tired and I'm enjoying the feeling right now of not having a bunch to do.

I have my regular responsibilities at the church, and I've got the knock, knock, knock of NoCo, four new shows a week.

Maybe I'll throw in some reruns once in a while, but besides that, the

S .O .S. Johnson Romans commentary is done. It'll be out in the fall. I don't think I have any more responsibilities for that.

John MacArthur graciously wrote the foreword, and Harvest House stuff is done, bunch of the other stuff.

So I don't have any outside. I've got to get these 24 messages done for the

Shepherds Conference, speak at Worldview Weekend and Branson with Brannon, host

Wretched Radio for five days in a row, those kinds of things. It's all done. So I know the wave is coming again, but I'm enjoying this little downtime, the

Shabbat. By the way, my wife said to me, honey, remember this feeling when you get asked to go do other things.

I thought, well, yeah, that's true, honey, but I'd like to go to New Zealand, but nobody asks.

I would like to go to, where else would I like to go? It'd be good to do a conference in England, but nobody asks.

Just was there for a few days with my son. It's a fun city, London, and enjoy the whole country.

Scotland, so no co -Scotland, but anyway, where else would

I like to go? I don't know, I've never been to South America. Chile, I've never been to Chile.

How's Chile? All right, enough of my ramblings. I do have in front of me this

Christianity Today, which gives me jump -off ability. That means

I see what they talk about, and then I jump off to discuss my own things.

I will say something nice about an ad in Christianity Today. More than a memoir, this is a lesson in recognizing

God's providence in one life, sorry. Jerry Bridges' God Took Me by the

Hand, A Story of God's Unusual Providence, NAV Press.

So see, something good comes out of NAV Press, Jerry Bridges. I would read that book if I were you.

That's what I would do. There's an article here, Why I Gave Up Alcohol. So we're gonna see this.

There's gonna be a bunch of legalists. There were a bunch of legalists in days gone by, and now with the emergent culture and sitting around and drinking scotch and smoking cigars, and they're gonna see this other trend that goes back.

And from the first part that I read here about temperance, total abstinence from all things harmful.

And where's that monster drink of mine when I need it? And that piece of coffee. So there's an article there about temperance.

I didn't give up alcohol because I wanted to flee from the evils of the world. I gave up alcohol as a way of engaging the evils of the world.

A bunch of nonsense. No matter where you come down on that issue, this one was nonsense.

Okay, there's some other article that I was looking for that I can't seem to find, and it's probably very obvious. So here it is.

My top five, Gregory Thornberry. And it says here, President of King's College in New York City.

Previously taught philosophy at Union University and is author of recovering classic evangelicalism, applying the wisdom and vision of Carl F.

H. Henry. Five books that every college student should read. Okay, so if you had to pick five books that every college student should read, what would you pick?

Well, I wouldn't pick any of these. Maybe, I wouldn't pick any. But I would pick the three that he's got.

I can agree with one, but I couldn't pick these. I wouldn't have this for my list.

He's got Plato's Dialogues. Okay, well, you know what?

When he says Plato's Dialogues are good for virtually everything that ails society. His takes on relativism, skepticism, materialism and incivility.

Confessions of St. Augustine, Augustine. Strength to Love, Martin Luther King Jr.

Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton. Either slash or by Soren Kierkegaard.

Would you pick those five? Now, should you read those? Sure, but these are the five.

These are the five. And of course, I'm glad here in Christianity Today, the return of late night fun. We've got an article about Jimmy Fallon.

Blessedly reminds us how to laugh at ourselves. Okay, there goes that.

What about this? I was at the library the other day and I saw a book.

It was eye -catching. The History of Money by Jack Weatherford.

Or as we say here in New England, Jack Weatherford. Or as they say in South Africa or Germany, Weatherford.

I don't know how they say it there. And so, The History of Money. And I was taken off guard.

I know that's hard to do. I was taken off guard in chapter one. Cannibals, chocolate.

Now, I always love the fact that salary is where we get our word salt.

Or switch that around rather. They paid their soldiers in salt. That was their salary.

I like the fact that if you give a deerskin, it's a buck. And so now we have, you know, a dollar is a buck.

Those are fun little facts. And I thought that I would get those kinds of things. Different currency, chocolate beans.

We pay in chocolate beans. We pay in, you know, beaver pelts.

What is currency? When was the first coin minted? I thought

I'd get some of that stuff. But what I didn't get, or I didn't think I would get, is at the very beginning where it's talking about Aztecs and sacrifice.

And so it's built into the system of humanity that there needs to be sacrifice.

And assuaging gods. And giving little fruits to the god cat at the

Chinese restaurant. And we need fertility. So we have sacrifices.

And we wanna have babies. So we give babies to Molech. And there's sacrifice built into the human fabric,

I think, because we know the wages of sin is death. And sin is so bad because it's against such a holy god.

Something has to die. Either we die or something else dies. And then what happens? The world and an evil heart perverts it and then turns

God's proper sacrificial system that was all pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ.

You read Leviticus. You read about Genesis 3, where the two animals were killed by probably the pre -incarnate second person of the

Trinity for Adam's sin and for Eve's sin. There has to be sacrifice and substitution in place of, in behalf of, on behalf of, instead of, for.

There's all that kinds of language like that. And you look at the day of Passover and you take the blood that was from the lamb that you killed and you put it above the door signaling there's already been death in this house.

Something's already died here. You don't have to kill anything else. We've killed it instead. There's this language of substitution and there's this language of sacrifice.

And again, we have sacrifice in the Bible to show us and to lead us and to direct us to the ultimate sacrifice, the once for all sacrificed

Jesus Christ as Hebrews 9 and 10 talks about. But we've got the human heart that just takes sacrifice to a wicked level.

Aztecs, for Aztecs, for Aztec merchants, the climax of the liturgical year of Aztec sacrifices came during the midwinter festival of Pancayzalisti, the raising of the banners when they could show off their success and wealth by sponsoring one of these human sacrifices.

This is page 15, the history of money. Unlike warriors who personally captured enemy soldiers on the battlefield for eventual sacrifice on the altar, the merchants had to buy their sacrificial victims at a price of up to 40 woven cloaks.

After paying for his victim, a merchant had to feed, clothe, and care for him in lavish style over many months as he was being prepared for the grand spectacle.

In order to sponsor the sacrifice, the merchant had to host four lavish banquets and celebrations for other merchants and military leaders.

Each banquet required new costumes, jewelry, and regalia for the merchant and his sacrificial victim.

After procuring the lavish goods, especially for the banquets, the merchant had to offer them as gifts to the guests in appreciation for their participation in the celebration.

Only after all the appropriate ceremonies had been performed, the banquets hosted and the expensive gifts presented did the merchant finally escort his victim up the long flight of stairs to the altar where the priest ripped out his heart.

After the sacrifice, the merchant took the mutilated body home where the women cleaned it and cooked it.

The merchant then served it in yet another ritual meal with corn and salt, but without the customary chilies.

Yeah, but I like my food spicy. As my daughter would say, daddy, that spicy, that spicy, dad.

Everyone was free to enjoy the flesh except the merchant himself for whom the sacrificial victim was something like a son.

Well, that immediately got my attention. Sacrifice in place of, under the guidance of the high priest called the thenamakakak, or forgiver.

So you got the forgiver, the high priest, he's the forgiver. The Aztecs orchestrated a series of sacrifices throughout the year.

In preparation for these rituals, the priest pierced various parts of their own bodies, including their tongue, other places, with mague thorns as an offering of their own blood to the gods.

See this built -in need for atonement, right? The consciences of people.

While these Aztecians, they don't have the moral law of God, the 10 commandments given to Israel.

Just a little dig there, sorry. They do have conscience. And they do have a conscience and they understand many things.

They want appeasement. They know they've sinned. They know they're guilty. And how do you get appeasement without special revelation?

You don't know how to do it. So you just come up with all these kinds of things. An appropriately pious priest always had small open wounds on his temples from which blood oozed down the sides of his head.

His hair grew long and matted with the blood, providing him with a frightening appearance and a horrendous odor that clearly set him apart from others in the

Aztec world. Now stop right here on No Compromise Radio. I know this is kind of the positive, encouraging

Caleb day. Aren't you glad you have a savior, Christ Jesus? If it was left to ourselves, this is the kind of stuff we'd be doing.

Just think if you were born back in those days, aren't you thankful that you're born today and you have the special revelation of God that tells you about the

Lord Jesus Christ? Tells you about the eternal son who loved sinners in eternity past, the father who loved sinners in eternity past, and the spirit who loved sinners in eternity past.

And they decided together to send the son. And the son, oh yes, he would show up the second person in the

Trinity in the Bible in various places, the angel of the Lord. But then it was not a taking on human nature forever.

But one day that was true. And Jesus was born and he had a mother and Jesus was completely human.

And you ask yourself, well, why does Jesus, the eternal son have to cloak himself with humanity?

Well, he has to be a representative. Humans have to die for humans. He has to be

God because he needs to have an infinite amount of righteousness to bestow upon all those who would ever believe.

He has to be human as well because, yes, it's a prophecy. There are many reasons, but he has to be human because he actually had to die.

He had to die the vicious death in our place. And so aren't you glad you're a Christian as I read these things? I mean, this is a wake up call.

Each God and each commemorative place in the complex, according to Jack Weatherford in the history of money,

Aztec calendar called for its own kind of sacrifice. In the early spring, for example, people fasted for rain and sacrificed tamales and small children.

Oh yeah, that makes sense. Later in the spring, they perform more rain dances. The fertility deity,

Kepe Toque, they serve with gladiatorial sacrifices. The priest tied the victim to a stone and armed him with a stick studded with feathers in the place of blades.

With this ritual weapon, he had to fight warriors with real weapons of sharp obsidian blades.

The warrior strove to cut the victim only slightly so that he might be cut many times and thus bleed as much and as slowly as possible to prolong the power and spectacle of sacrifice.

Priests seized less cooperative victims who refused to play the role of the ritual gladiator, bound them with ropes and offered them to the fire

God by slowly roasting them alive. Now see what I mean? I thought it was gonna be talking about minting.

It might even have a quote there that the love of money is the root of all evil. Exchange, gold, why is gold used?

I didn't know I was gonna get this, but it just reminded me. I'm so glad that I'm not the one who had to pay for my sins.

I'm so glad that I have revelation from God. So I'm not caught up in this kind of system.

In subsequent ceremonies during the ritual year, priests filleted men and tortured children to death so that their tears might induce the gods to send more rain.

Okay, now stop for a second. Instead of saying, oh, that's wicked. I'm glad I'm not like those people.

Here's what I want you to think of. You know what? Our hearts are that wicked.

We are sinful people. And the lesson is not, aren't they bad, aren't we good?

The lesson is, if you go around the world and you try to figure out what's the most deceitful thing in all the world, and you spend a 25 year study on all the deceit that's in the world, you better leave room for number one.

The hearts of people, the heart of each human being is desperately wicked, deceitful above what?

All else. The lesson is, thank you, Lord, that I'm just like these kind of people.

Oh, a little more sophisticated. Oh, a little more nice externally. But on the inside,

I could easily have been there doing this very thing that God supposedly had a special fondness for a certain kind of baby.

I don't even wanna read this part. And sacrificial victims. Oh, I'm not even gonna talk about abortion, but that would be an easy discussion.

Throughout the year, special victims impersonated the gods. An impersonator of the God, Tezcatlipoca, Tezcatlipoca, had to be a handsome young man without a blemish.

For a year, he lived as the God, participating in rituals, singing, dancing, and playing his flute throughout the city.

People regaled him with gifts and flowers. He had four beautiful wives, but at the end of the year, he had to leave them and climb the pyramid where his heart was ripped out and his head severed.

Now the rest, you can't really read. And then it leads into the

Aztecs used chocolate for money, or more precisely, they used cocoa seeds, usually called beans.

So we lead in to that. That is crazy. So now

I want to think biblically. Now I want you to think biblically on No Compromise Radio. And you think about sin, and you think about the

Savior, and you think about redemption through Christ's sacrifice. But when

Christ appeared, Hebrews 9, as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is not of this creation, he,

Jesus, entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood.

And you're going to love this next part. Thus, securing an eternal redemption.

Don't you love that? For if the blood of bulls, goats, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more?

How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living

God? Forget this kind of Aztecian priest who had to be without blemish and all that stuff.

You can see the echoes. You can see the flickers. You can see the dim mirror reflection of this kind of thing, because it's just built into the heart of people.

Gotta have a priest, gotta have atonement, gotta have sacrifice, gotta have blood.

Somebody's gotta die. We need something, so this has to happen. Propitiation, assuagement of God's wrath, the assuaging of God's wrath.

Assuagement, is that a word? That is now. Therefore, Hebrews 9, he is the mediator of a new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive.

Therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people saying, this is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.

And in the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship.

Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood and without the shedding of blood, there is what?

No forgiveness of sins. Thus, it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites.

But the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered not into the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, not to appear in the presence of God on our behalf, nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own.

For then he would have to have suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

Aren't you glad for the Savior? Do you believe in him? Have you turned from your sins and believed in the risen Savior, Jesus Christ? If not, then today's the day.

My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio, 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 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 its staff or management.