What Is A Festal Gathering?

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, a ministry. Mike Abendroth, and it is snowing this morning a little bit here in New England, central

Massachusetts, May 9, 2020. It didn�t really collect on the ground, but I heard some sound in the basement, and it was the heater in the garage going off.

I have it set so if it gets, I think, below 45 degrees in the garage, the heater turns on, so I don�t want any pipes to freeze.

These days, the dog has to sleep in the garage, so I usually turn it up to about, I don�t know, 60 for the dog and her little kennel.

The NoCo mascot is getting older. She�s 15 years old, and can�t control herself very well, if you know what

I mean, so she now is relegated to the garage. We still are planning to go to Israel 2021,

February 24th through March 3rd, extension to Rome. How that all works out, I don�t know.

They said in April we are going to get prices, we meaning Pat Abendroth, Omaha Bible Church.

52 spots, I think, are in the bus. I have 13 slots here already taken, and the way you get a slot is to send in your $300.

If the trip cancels, you�ll get your $300 back, but at least you get your payment.

You don�t have to live here in Massachusetts to attend. Pat will be flying from Omaha to Newark, then we do

Newark nonstop to Tel Aviv. If you want to either meet us in Israel or you meet us in Newark, there are lots of ways you can go.

Our travel agent will help you with that. We�d love to have you go if you�re a NoCo listener. I�d like to have all of my slots filled,

I think about 24, 25 slots, something like that. We�d love to have you come. I guess even if we had to have more than 25, maybe we get two buses worth.

Who knows? I doubt that would ever happen. Last time on No Compromise Radio, I don�t think we had very many.

I don�t know why. I just got news that Darren Patrick, Acts 29, used to be

Acts 29 president maybe, leader, has died yesterday.

I think it was at the gun range, and I think it was self -inflicted, so what a sad scenario.

49 years old, a dad, and a husband. I believe he�s restored

Seacoast Church is the name of his church. He�s written a lot about masculinity and other things, and I�m just thinking, if you, a listener, are going through a time, a dark valley, and you�re even thinking about that, you need to reach out to somebody.

Those are times when you really need other Christians to come alongside. We all have bouts of sadness and anxiety, and we feel bad, and whatever nomenclature you want to use, depressed, melancholic, down, you need to reach out to somebody.

By the way, if I could help you, I�d be willing to help you as well. You can always email me, Mike, at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

When people email me, lots of times I just say, �Give me your phone number ,� and I call because I can�t type all this.

I turn 60 in a few days. My hands are arthritic. I can�t do it.

Well, I�m in the book of Hebrews, as you know, if you listen at all. Sometimes I like to do the message moment.

When I used to have a TV show, the NoCo TV show, I had broken it up into sections. We had the message moment.

We had, �Are you a Roman Catholic ?� and I asked questions to determine if you believed about justification in terms of Roman Catholic way or a

Protestant reformed way. I had a section where I taught some Romans. We had

Kooks and Barneys. Remember Kooks and Barneys? I don�t really do that anymore. Friel doesn�t have me on, so we don�t do really

Kooks and Barneys. Since Todd went to the hourly show and not the two -hour show,

I think he�s on more stations. I�m not too sure a lot of those stations he�s on would like my

Kooks and Barneys segment, if you get my drift. I�m teaching the book of Hebrews and I�m in chapter 12.

There�s a section there. It�s a contrast, maybe the greatest contrast in all the Bible. The writer, the preacher of Hebrews, to the

Hebrews, he wants to make sure people don�t go to Sinai law because you don�t want

Moses as a mediator. Instead, you need to go to Zion, Jesus, because he�s the mediator of this new covenant.

The new covenant is better than the old covenant for lots of reasons, and mainly because Jesus is the mediator. You get all kinds of benefits from that.

If you think about Calvin and the duplex gratia, the double benefit of grace, not only justification but sanctification.

You could phrase it a lot of different ways. By the way, those two things go together, justification and sanctification.

They are inseparable, but they are distinct. The second you start jamming sanctification talk into justification talk, that�s where there�s a problem.

It happens to be a Roman Catholic problem, and that�s why it�s easy to identify. Ultimately, if you go back to the

Protestant Reformation and see what happened there, you have to submit to Jesus as Lord, surrender to Jesus as King, give hearty allegiance to Jesus, the

Creator, in order to be saved. Or, putting that in the category of legal standing and justification, that would not be right.

It is sola fide. You have faith in what God has said, and in his

Son, and the promises. Then, of course, the other benefit will be a transformation, a life of fruit -bearing and evidence and works that testify to your justification.

I�m just sitting here thinking, and I was thinking about Snow, and then

I was thinking about Darren Patrick and the family, and just trying to minister to the family. I personally am not going to minister to the family, although if I knew them,

I would. I did talk to somebody yesterday, and they lost their 96 -year -old dad.

One of the men at our church, his name is Orlando, his dad died of COVID -related illness.

That�s where I think it�s really wreaking havoc on the older people and those who have immune systems that are compromised or diabetics or something like that.

Anyway, I just said to Orlando, I said, �Tell me a story about your dad.

Tell me something that you remember about your dad, because I wanted to know him better, and it�s just good for the soul to remember some of those things.�

Anyway, back to the point. I have Hebrews 12 here, and I wonder how close

Eugene Peterson�s loose paraphrase is when it comes to this contrast of gloom and doom and fire and darkness and tempest and frightened and fear.

That�s the old covenant. If you want to try to approach God based on your works, based on your civic responsibilities and duties and discharging those, if you want to get to heaven based on religious things, how�s it going to go for you?

You do not approach God via the law because you, me, we�re all lawbreakers, right?

Therefore, we need a different kind of covenant, a new covenant, a gracious covenant, a gospel covenant, where Jesus is the mediator and he has fulfilled the law positively.

Think about law. There�s a positive aspect of fulfilling it, and there�s a penalty aspect of not fulfilling it, and Jesus has taken care of both of those.

We say things like active and passive obedience because that�s talking about the law -keeping and then the bearing of the law -breaking.

Where are we? The thing is with Eugene Peterson�s message, paraphrase, it doesn�t give you verse numbers, and you say, �Well, verse numbers aren�t in the

Bible.� That�s true, but they are in English Bibles typically, so then I can have faster references.

It would be verse 18 in chapter 12 if it had a reference. Here it is. �Unlike your ancestors, you didn�t come to Mount Sinai, all that volcanic blaze and earth -shaking rumble, to hear

God speak. The ear -splitting words and soul -shaking message terrified them, and they begged them to stop.

When they heard the words, �If an animal touches the mountain, it�s as good as dead ,� they were afraid to move.

Even Moses was terrified.� And you know what? There�s some truth to that.

It�s just not good to have as your Bible. It�s not good to have as a translation. I don�t see anything here about stoning, �as good as dead.�

Just kind of this weird vernacular, right? This kind of guttural, not even, not guttural, but just kind of gutter language, you know, street language, �Yeah, you�re as good as dead ,� versus, �You better pick up stones to stone them.�

And why would they pick up stones to stone them? Because then if you go try to kill the animal with a knife and slit its throat or stab it or something, you�re now going to be touching that mountain as well.

That first section there should be telling you, you can�t approach the presence of God without a mediator.

And all this language of fire and shaking and gloom and darkness, you�ll see that regularly in the

Old Testament, talking about the presence of God. And that�s how people are going to approach

Him if they don�t approach Him through the mediator, Jesus. Well, let�s see what the positive side is here before we talk about it more.

And this is still from the message translation paraphrase. No, that�s not your experience at all.

You�ve come to Mount Zion, the city where the living God resigns. The invisible Jerusalem is populated by throngs of festive angels and Christian citizens.

It is the city where God is judged with judgments that make us just.

You�ve come to Jesus who presents us with a new covenant, a fresh charter from God.

He is the mediator of this covenant. The murder of Jesus, unlike Abel�s, a homicide that cried out for vengeance, became a proclamation of grace.

Now, I have no notes in front of me. I don�t even have the English of Hebrews chapter 12 open. But that one really messes it up.

I mean, the Zion part and the living God and invisible Jerusalem. Okay.

God is judged with judgments that make us just. When you�re talking about God as the judge of all, you�ll see as I open up the text, maybe not this time, but next time,

God�s going to be judging your enemies. That�s the idea. He�s already judged you. He�s judged you innocent in the

Son. There�s going to be no more judgment up there. You don�t think about, I have to come to God as judge any longer.

You have a mediator. You have an advocate. You have somebody that�s already paid for all those things. There�s going to be no double jeopardy.

Therefore, this judgments that make us just, that�s also

Roman Catholic language of infusion and making us. That must be in the category of sanctification, transformation, but not accounted, declared, imputed, reckoned.

Forensic legal courtroom language isn�t found here in this message.

You�ve come to Jesus who presents us with a new covenant, a fresh charter from God. I don�t know where we get the charter stuff.

He�s the mediator of this covenant. That part�s true. The murder of Jesus unlike Abel�s. Talking about the sprinkling of blood is the

Greek text. You ought to be thinking about old covenant, sprinkling of blood in Exodus, but the sprinkling of Abel�s blood.

The problem is things like this. They become this interpretive paraphrase.

Now, the NIV is an interpretive translation, and to some degree every Bible is, but it�s an interpretive translation.

You just have to assume they�re going to get it right. To this day, I like to use the NAS because if something�s vague in the original language, many times it leaves that as vague.

The NAS leaves that as vague. Then I, the reader, say, �Hm, which one is it ?� I better study to figure out which one it is.

Anyway, my name�s Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. We hope to open our church up back in May 24th.

By the time you hear this, who knows when this will be aired, but this is probably going to be a

June podcast. Also today, within the last 24 hours at least, in the last day, I�ve learned that Ravi Zacharias has terminal cancer and that MD Anderson there in Houston can no longer do anything for him.

Sacrum had some tumor, and then I don�t know what else happened, but they can�t do anything more, and I believe he�s going back to his home.

I don�t know where his home is, Atlanta, and he�s going to just die there, and so you want to pray for Ravi and also the family of Pastor Darren Patrick.

Of course, when you think about these days like that, while there can be theological differences when people are healthy and fine, or maybe after they�re dead and gone for years, we talk about theological differences, but any differences

I have with Ravi Zacharias at the moment, you know, see how this all makes it fade away.

You have an estranged relationship with your family member, and then something comes up like this, and then this just all kind of goes away.

So anyway, I want to make sure we�re very careful as we think through these and act in Christian love.

Well, in Hebrews chapter 12, there�s something about these angels here that I want to talk about a little bit more, because it�s fascinated me all week.

We have a family at our church and a matter of fact, you�ve listened to Larry McLaughlin on No Compromise Radio a few months ago when he was still able to talk, even though he had brain cancer.

We talked for 25 minutes on the show, and I think you probably listened to Larry. Well, Larry died in the last week.

He was in the hospital for a while, and with the virus and everything else it makes it hard because family members could not visit.

And then finally he was stabilized enough and off the ventilator that he could go home and die there with the family surrounding him and Mary Ellen and the rest of the boys and daughters.

I thought about Larry and what he must be doing now, and then

I thought about this passage. And Larry is a man, or was a man, on earth that was trusting in the mediator,

Jesus. My last conversation with him was a Zoom conversation where I did in fact talk to him more about this

Jesus. And this language in Hebrews chapter 12, this festal gathering, myriads of angels in festal gathering, that�s pretty amazing.

Now, I just like to look up words, festive, and I pulled it up online, 1650s, pertaining to a feast.

From Latin, festivus, festive, joyous, gay. From festum, festival, holiday.

Noun use of neuter, of adjective festus, joyful, merry.

Word is unattested in English from 1651 to 1735. It does appear in a poem by William Somerville with the sense of fond of feasting, jovial.

And modern use may be back formation from festivity, meaning mirthful, joyous, in English is attested by 1774.

Earlier adjectives in English based on the Latin word were festival, pertaining to the church feast, late 14th century.

Festful, or joyous, early 15th century. Feastial, pertaining to a church feast, early 15th century.

Feastly, F -E -S -T -L -I, fond of festivity. And of course, then

I looked up festoons, those garlands that you would put up for feast and these parties. This word, this assembly, festal gathering, was used in secular language, and it was to denote a party, or this gay celebratory attitude and atmosphere.

When your team won and everybody flipped their wigs, how do we get that saying?

Yeah, he flipped his wig. Even with the Olympic discussions, there was this festive, festival type of flavor to the celebration.

How can we understand this? So Paul, if Paul is the author, or unknown author is the author, he's trying to say this, the old covenant, which required perfect obedience.

Don't go back to that. Remember Esau and the call just before that with apostasy?

Don't be an apostate. Don't go back. There's nothing to go back to. You want to go back to this? Remember with Worldly Wiseman's advice to Christian who had not been saved yet?

You don't need to go look for a cross and a wicket gate and all this stuff. Why don't you just go back to legality and civility and back to the mayor of Simpleton?

And then what's the first thing he sees is Mount Sinai, this steep cliff. It's impossible to try to climb that.

The angels were said in the old covenant to deliver the law.

Now this is fascinating because you probably will, you're like, well, where does it say that? It says, the

Lord came from Sinai and dawned from Seir upon us. He shone forth from Mount Paran. This is

Deuteronomy 33. He came from 10 ,000 of holy ones with flaming fire at his hand.

What do you mean by that? Hebrews 2, 2, for since the message declared by angels proved to be a reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

You've got the law communicated through angels. Of course, the author of Hebrews is trying to say later revelation is communicated through the sun.

So the sun is better than the angels. But still listen to Stephen in Acts 7 before he was killed, which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?

And they killed those who announced before the coming of the righteous one, whom you now betrayed and murdered.

You have received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it. So the angels in the old covenant deliver the law, a law that can't save, a law that shows your need of salvation, a law that reflects

God's nature as holy and righteous and just, and a law that demands obedience.

Do this and live. That's what they brought. And if you don't want to trust in Jesus, the perfect law keeper, how's that going to work out for you?

Where these angels deliver that. And now, excuse me, for the

Christian, for the one trusting in Jesus, the mediator, the risen savior, the high priest, prophet, priest, and King, what's the angels role now?

Well, the angels did their job and now they're in heaven, festal gathering, like a feast, like a festival, like a festival, like a celebration.

And that's when I began to think about Larry, what's Larry doing in heaven now? Seated in the center of all this festival is the

Lord Jesus, of course, and he, Larry, with the angels and with everyone else who's been saved by faith alone through grace alone.

Old Testament, New Testament, there's an assembly there and they're all singing, saying, shouting, bellowing, worthy is the lamb who was slain.

It's all holy, holy, holy, revelation chapter four and revelation chapter five. It's fascinating.

The angels are no longer these messengers of the law.

They're celebrating the law keeper. Can you imagine? I've been to some parties before, but nothing too great.

I was down at Cape Cod and went to a pretty fancy wedding and it was an open bar, but it wasn't just an open bar for alcohol.

That's probably expensive, but it was an open oyster bar. I think that's probably the wildest thing

I've been to. I guess I've been to some corporate America functions where they've rolled out the caviar and other things, but they had an oyster bar right down there close to the beach and it was just as many as you wanted.

And I started eating so many that even my wife said, honey, save some for other people.

And I talked to somebody who worked there and they said, oh, this is as open as you get. There's not like a limit.

Did I have 30? I can't tell you if I did or not, but it seemed like there was some number like that.

Who knows? Anyway, the law delivered his angels, old covenant. And what happens if there was a transgression or disobedience?

Just retribution. But now for the new covenant, those trusted in Jesus, Larry McLaughlin, mediator of a new covenant, festal gathering of angels and the assembly of God.

I can't imagine the sound. Can you? If the sound for the old covenant, doom and gloom and darkness, we don't want to hear your voice anymore.

God, what's it like in heaven? I wonder what happens when there's a swirling of worship worthy as a lamb who is slain.

I would imagine Jesus says stuff in heaven. So how does everybody know to stop? I just think they know.

Everybody stops and just like the waves on the sea of Galilee, it's just calm.

And then he speaks. Who knows exactly the details of heaven, but there's rejoicing there, a festival and it is acceptance.

What's the point? Old covenant, no admittance, no acceptance. You don't want the presence of God. New covenant, come right on in.

May his face shine upon you warmly with joy, with delight, not only yours, but his for you.

That is amazing. That points to the work of the Lord Jesus. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. Make sure you're believing in this great

Lord Jesus. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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