Jesus Saves to the Uttermost

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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. My name is Mike Abendroth, and occasionally we do some

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Facebook Live. It�s a closed No Compromise Radio group, so you have to ask to get in, and we check your theological

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IQ, and then we approve you, and then you can get in. I think you can post things. I don�t really do much in that group, except I try once a week or so, maybe every other week, to do a

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Facebook Live radio show. You know, you watch Todd Friel, and you can see him do the radio, and then

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I just have my camera video through the phone and do the same thing.

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So I guess you get that. But you can talk to other crazy no -quote people and quote things, and better stay in line theologically or else you�re in the�not the tone police.

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The tone police will probably never come after you, but the theological police might come after you. We live in a day and age where people don�t like what is said, and I get that, and then if they don�t like what is said, then they�and they can�t argue against it, then they don�t like how you say it.

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And I�m sure I�m guilty of saying things that are wrong and that are not right in terms of the delivery, but that�s kind of an easy way to just get rid of people, what they say.

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I don�t like the way you do it. I don�t like what you say and how you say it and everything else.

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So anyway, this is a free show. You can listen anytime you want, or you don�t have to listen.

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And today is the apology tour of No Compromise Radio. This is�I think the show says at the very beginning, if you like smooth, watered -down words, this show isn�t for you.

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Oh, man. Well anyway, I want to talk today about�guess.

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Any guesses? Solar Popes? Christless tunes and hymns?

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No, the book of Hebrews is what I want to talk about, because Hebrews is a book focused on the

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Lord Jesus. And that�s the favorite subject of No Compromise Radio. And really, you think about if you ever get asked to go speak somewhere or do a rest home ministry message or teach your kids the

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Bible or do junior church or Sunday school or whatever it might be, that�s a good topic.

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You�re like, what should I talk about? Who should I talk about? But in the book of Hebrews, really what is essentially the only

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New Testament sermon that is post -Acts, there are sermons by Paul and Peter, and there�s a sermon by Stephen in Acts 7.

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But when you�re trying to find a sermon, and of course Jesus� Sermon on the Mount, but if you want to go past the four

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Gospels, five Gospels, some people call Hebrews the fifth Gospel because it�s all about Jesus too, not what he does on earth, but what he does in heaven.

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I like that. That�s good news too. But anyway, you�ve got messages in Acts, but where are the other messages kind of sermons?

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I mean, the other books, for instance, are epistles, right? We have

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Revelation, of course, but as apocalyptic, excuse me, but that�s always a delay, by the way.

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There�s a delayed excuse me for coughing or something like that or sneezing. Do you say excuse me when you sneeze?

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I don�t know. I think you�re supposed to say it. But anyway, I�m in my office study studio alone, and then

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I cough, and then when you cough by yourself, do you say excuse me out loud? No. But then I realize, oh yeah,

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I�m on radio. I should probably do that. Well, we�ve been talking about the book of Hebrews and chapter 7 in particular because it�s focused on an argument like this, �On one hand, but on the other hand.�

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On one hand, on the other hand. And in Greek, there are a couple little particles, men,

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M -E -N, and then day, D -E, and when you see them together in sequence like that, Mende, the clause they call it,

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Mende Thursday, Monday I don�t like Mendes.

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Just another manic Mende. That sounds sexist, doesn�t it?

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Just another manic Mende. On one hand, on the other hand. And that�s what the writer of Hebrews, that�s a thing that he utilizes to make the point.

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And I like that. And you can almost hear people say that. You can hear him in the sermon. �On one hand, the

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Levitical priests were such and such, but Jesus, the Eternal Son, He�s greater. Right?

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On one hand, they all die. On the other hand, He lives.�

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And that�s how that works in Hebrews chapter 7, verse 18.

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�For on the one hand.� Right? And then let�s see if there�s another one in English that says that.

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Verse 23, it doesn�t say it, but it�s the same kind of thing. �The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office.

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But He, on the other hand.� That�s what I added in to the English translation, but it�s in the

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Greek. �But He holds His priesthood permanently because He continues forever.� And that is the language and the style of the book of Hebrews.

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Lots of quotes from the Old Testament, lots of personal addresses, lots of warnings. You can just hear it and hear the sermon.

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And He�s got one major point in the sermon. His goal is to glorify the

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Lord Jesus and speak well of Him. And His point is you should take heed to what

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God says and then respond with faith, respond with repentance, respond with trust, respond with the word that�s used often in Hebrews, rest.

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You just rest. It�s the opposite of trying to work to get to heaven, right? Our works are sinful.

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It is resting. �Jesus, I am resting, resting.� And even as Christians, we can just rest in the finished work of Christ and rest in His intercessory work for us at the right hand of the

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Father. And on one hand, you�ve got these priests, and they die one after another after another, planned obsolescence by God because they were pointing to the greater priest.

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On the other hand, verse 24 of Hebrews 7, �He, Jesus, holds His priesthood permanently.�

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So last time we looked at, and when we were in Hebrews, they just die one after another after another, right?

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Aaron dies on top of Mount Hor, he�s replaced by Eleazar. And then the list goes on and on and on,

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Judges, excuse me, Joshua 24, I believe, then Eleazar, he dies, and then it�s the next to the next to the next.

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And Josephus, the Jewish historian, counted something like 80 high priests between Aaron and the

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New Testament temple era. I don�t know if Josephus� I think, did

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Josephus write after the temple was destroyed? He just might have. But anyway, there�s a lot of priests, that�s the point.

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And then there are other priests besides high priest, and they all die too. None of those are permanent. On one hand, they die all the time.

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On the other hand, Jesus continues His priesthood because He doesn�t die and stay dead.

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He dies and now He�s alive, and He lives, and the text says He continues forever.

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So when you need a priest, dead priests aren�t going to help you. When you go to St.

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Peter�s Basilica in Rome, and I�d encourage you to go and walk around,

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I think it�s the basement level, one level down, kind of in a little corridor area.

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They have many old popes there, and they are bodies of dead popes that are hundreds of years old, and they have,

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I don�t know what you do to a body to keep it from decaying really fast. I�m sure there�s internal things that you can do when it comes to what�s the fluid, embalming fluid.

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By the way, if you ever want to just be weird and kind of like, �Oh, wow, good thing there�s a resurrection.�

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You should watch YouTube videos about embalming and how first they have to take out the blood that�s in the person, the ex -person, and then they, probably from an artery, right, away from the heart, and it just sucks it all out and then into a vein, then they put the embalming fluid.

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And you have to make sure you do it correctly, because if you put too much embalming fluid in an older person, it gets rid of all their wrinkles.

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It minimizes the wrinkles, because it gives them more fluid. And you want to try to keep the match there, don�t you?

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Isn�t that weird? That�s weird to think about. What would you do if you weren�t a Christian and this was just all like the end?

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And that would be weird. I�ve seen enough dead bodies in my life, I would prefer not to see one more.

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And just think about all that stuff. But I now realize, and of course

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I realize as a Christian, there is the resurrection. And since Jesus is alive and he has promised that he would bring those who trust in him to himself and give them a new body eventually, that�s good news.

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Because man, when you see those bodies in the caskets, whew, not good.

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Anyway, death is evil and awful, and there�s only one that can triumph over it.

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Well, back to this on one hand and on the other hand, the contrast is what the writer wants you to see.

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So if you�re listening today, no matter if it�s your pastor or priest or pope or whoever your spiritual leader is, you should see a contrast between them.

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I mean, it could be Buddha or whoever, whoever you�re Confucius, Gandhi, whoever you think is kind of like your leader.

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And even if you think salvation comes through education, whoever your favorite educator is or political savior, you ought to think,

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I think there�s a difference, there�s a difference between them and Jesus. There�s a difference between their term of office, which is, of course, terminated by death, and the

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Jesus who lives forever. There�s a contrast. Here, particularly, there�s a Levitical priesthood and the person of Jesus, and he wants you to see temporary, fleeting, fading, ironic, and then permanent, ongoing, continuing, you know, wonderful Jesus.

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That�s what�s going on. And here, he�s been talking about Jesus, and that�s really focusing on his person, right?

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It�s focused on his humanity, rather, that�s a better way to say it, a truly God, yes, and truly man.

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And you see that focus here because this man, he�s more than a man, but this man,

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Jesus, the Son of Man, is alive, and his priesthood, therefore, is permanent. There�s going to be no more death because he died, conquered death, and now is alive so he can continue forever, he can intercede forever, he can have an uninterrupted ministry, and therefore, you can go to him anytime.

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Why go to a priest that can�t go beyond the grave, that can�t go beyond his own mortality, who has to be replaced, who has to be, there has to be a succession of priests because this human priest, the

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Levitical priest, can�t live forever, right? Oh, yeah, I know that they die, and those that are trusting in who

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God is, they�ll live again, I know that, but this is something on earth here. How can you have ministry to help you on earth if this person�s dead?

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And maybe this is where we, and I have no idea, this is just no co -conjecture, we want to be helped on earth by people in heaven, and maybe that�s where we get, you know, there�s people up in heaven praying for us, mediators like Mary or something praying for us.

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There�s just this one mediator, there�s this one intercessor, this one person, this one

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Son of God, Son of Man, who is that, and there�s no one else. That was some peace coffee there.

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I�ve been told never drink on the radio, but I�ve been told never tell a radio host what to do on one hand, on the other hand.

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Why pick someone who�s sinful and mortal to be your intermediary between a holy

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God and you, a sinner? I would prefer, I would much request,

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I would ask with much pleading and asking God for mercy and grace to have a great high priest, the

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Lord Jesus. And He is by character, by oath, by designation, by the direct sending of the

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Father, He is a priest. It�s not having anything to do with hereditary qualifications.

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Hey, His dad�s a priest, therefore He is. He�s a different kind of priest, and we know that priest is after the order of Melchizedek.

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Jesus has an indestructible life, verse 16, and therefore His priesthood is unchangeable.

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That�s the word in verse 24. He continues forever. He lives forever.

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Every time we need help, He�s there. He remains. The word �continue� is also translated to �remain.�

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And Walter Riggins in his commentary says, �Therefore, it does not simply mean that Jesus will not die.

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This particular root carries with it a sense of service. We find it in context where a person has to remain in service to someone until a debt is repaid.�

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He continues forever. Well, just to take a little break here for a second, my name is Mike Abendroth.

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This is No Compromise Radio, NCR, or NoCo. If you want to follow us on Twitter, it is at NoCoRadio, or there is a

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Facebook site, and I have to tell all the listeners, remember on Facebook, you can make comments and all that stuff.

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But what I want you to do, and what I want you to remember, is there�s not a lot of interaction.

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If you really have a question that you need answered, you can always write us, info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

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And unless it�s really sinfully got an axe to grind, and you�re mean about it, and calling names, and ad hominem, or unless it�s spam, or unless, you know, you�ve sent like a thousand emails and we can tell you�re kind of crazy, we get those, we�ll answer.

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We�ll answer in one way, shape, or form. And see, that�s why, you know, compared to these big radio shows, we actually answer our email.

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No, I think they do too. So anyway, you can dialogue better through email because I don�t really look at Facebook that much.

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It�s just I use Hootsuite. It goes to Facebook and to Twitter, and Twitter seems more action -packed to me, and Twitter will give me news and updates, and sports scores, and journal articles, and what�s the latest evangelical deal.

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And I can just kind of scroll through it and then continue on with my life, so I�m not a big Facebook interactor.

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So I know some of you like to interact and ask questions. What about this? What about that? Just think of the

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No Compromise Facebook page as kind of like the show. It�s one way.

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You can yell at the show and say, �I don�t like that ,� but then I can�t hear, so it�s in the echo chamber.

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All right. Back to the passage in Hebrew. See, we had just a little break so I could get you to kind of like relax and enjoy the show and be satisfied with this high -quality radio.

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It says in verse 25, �Consequently.� I think this is one sentence, 23, 24, 25, but it breaks up in the

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ESV, one sentence in the Greek. But now it says in a new sentence, �Consequently.�

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Right? Truth has consequences. Ideas have consequences. Truth are consequences.

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Remember that show? Truth are consequences. I played my kids last night an old

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Velveeta commercial. They sang a song about Velveeta, Velveeta with a popular tune.

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Basically, when you put melted cheddar cheese on, I guess, vegetables, it just comes out in big oily clumps.

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But when it�s Velveeta, it comes out nice and smooth.

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Very, very interesting. Well, back to Velveeta radio here. Let�s just go ahead and make sure

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I just saw something that came my way, and I was looking at it, and now

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I�m back to my page. He lives forever. �Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them.�

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What a great verse. I�m going to read it again slowly. �Consequently, he,

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Jesus, is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he,

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Jesus, always lives to make intercession for them.�

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Now, let me make it very personal, Christian. Jesus always lives to make intercession for you.

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Christian, that�s good news, isn�t it? What about all those priests that died? What about your old pastors that died?

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What about, I mean, you can either put yourself in the shoes of the audience, you know, recipients of the book of Hebrews, or even now, whoever your religious leader is.

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If you haven�t gone through one pastor, priest, religious leader, you will, you know, sooner or later, or you�ll be the one who is terminated.

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This is a great conclusion to on one hand and on the other hand kind of talk. And almost every word in this verse, it just makes you think, �Oh, that�s good for me to just dwell on.�

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Of course, every word in Scripture is important, but let�s just look at five words that are in this passage, in this verse, to just make you draw the same conclusion that the writer does.

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And you just settle in, and you think, �Okay, I�ve got all kinds of issues in my life, all kinds of issues swirling around.

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I�ve got my own sin. There�s other people�s sins that affect me, and what am

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I going to do? And I struggle sometimes, and I worry sometimes, and I don�t have great faith sometimes, and I sin sometimes, and I fall short sometimes, and I am depressed sometimes, and I worry sometimes.�

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Did I already say that? I�m worried that I didn�t say worry. And I have lust sometimes, and I have greed sometimes, and I have self -righteousness all the time, and what about that?

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I need help. That�s what I need. And here�s the great conclusion. And the first word

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I want to focus on, since I don�t have tons of time left in this particular show, is the word �uttermost.�

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�Uttermost.� And typically what happens is we�ve got translations, you know, the

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Geneva Bible, and especially the King James Bible, and lots of times when people are trying to translate something, a newer translation, they will look at the

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King James, and they don�t, since a verse has been made so famous by the

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King James English, sometimes they�ll keep some of that. And I think that�s the case here with the uttermost. I think KJV�s uttermost here.

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And even if you think, you know, �For God so loved the world.� They�re just, you know, �The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.�

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Even though, you know, it should be, �I lack nothing ,� kind of thing. It�s just the language. I mean, �For so long, the

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Lord Yahweh is my shepherd, I shall not want.� You know, there�s something to be said for that, the history of that, and how it�s been used from pulpits.

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And I think a similar thing is here. Uttermost. He�s able to save to the uttermost.

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Jesus, the high priest Christian, does His work for you and unto God fully, completely, and you will make it to heaven.

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He�s able to save to the uttermost. Now, lots of people, when I have heard this passage read, they�ll say things like, �Save from the guttermost to the uttermost.�

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That�s kind of a fun way to think about it. Save to the uttermost. Think about it. The world, the world system, this is crazy.

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I mean, it�s just getting crazier and crazier. I thought the President Trump administration would probably stop some of the persecution, but I think it�s just coming in different ways.

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And of course, presidents come and go, and administrations come and go. And who knows who�s going to, you know, enter into office in a year and a half.

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But is that a year and a half? 2020? Oh, that�s next November. Okay, so essentially a year and three quarters.

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The world, a Satan, Satan is alive, persecution, your own sins, other people�s sins, they can�t stop the

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Lord�s work of getting you to heaven. Why? Because you have Jesus, the high priest. He�s there.

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He makes intercession for you, and He�s not dead. He�s alive.

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He�s able to save to the uttermost. That means He�s able to do His work completely and fully and perfectly and to get you to heaven.

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That is amazing. The word �uttermost� comes from two Greek words, �all.� That�s where we get the word �pan.�

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I mean, the Greek word is �pan.� We get our word �all.� Like �pandemic, all -demic, pan -millennial, it�ll all pan out.

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It�s so dumb, but it�s always funny. My favorite view of the millennium these days, you know, there�s pre -mill, post -mill, ah -mill, pan -mill, but there�s another one that I like the most, pro -mill.

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Are you pro -millennial? Yeah, sure. See, that way, if you�re ah -mill and you�re spiritual kingdom, you�re pro that, right?

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You�re pro -kingdom. You�re pro -Christ rule. And if you�re a pre -mill, you can say, �Well, yeah,

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I�m pro -mill. I want that kingdom to come.� It might be literal 1 ,000 years, dispensational pre -mill.

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It might just be a long time, historic pre -mill, but I�m for that. But I don�t know. What about post -mill? Let�s see.

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If I�m pro -mill, am I post -mill? If you melt cheddar, it�s oily and gloppy, gooey.

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If you melt Velveeta, oh, it�s smooth. Velveeta used to be made with real cheese.

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I just looked that up, and now it�s some kind of cheese product, cheese spread, cheese faux cheese.

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You can put it in some salsa and stir it up and serve it with chips for the Super Bowl game. Anyway, my name is

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Mike Abendroth. We�ll talk more about this next time. God bless you. bbcchurch .org