Hebrews 12: Zion/Gospel

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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 divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

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My name is Mike Abendroth. I told you I'd be right back, and now I'm right back. So, it is Friday, May 8th, and we're talking about mountains, two mountains,

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Sinai and Zion. Work your way to heaven perfectly, obeying the law, or trust in the perfect law keeper, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Can you imagine? Jesus loved God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and he loved his neighbor as himself.

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That's very impressive, if you think about that. Have you, dear Christian, done that any day of your life?

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Have I done that any day of my life? Perfectly loved God? For how long could we do that? I don't think we could ever do it.

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I think even our best worship, our best good works, our best attitude of devotion to the

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Lord is still sin -tainted. But the Lord Jesus, because of his work, and because we're in union with him, in him, in him, in Christ, Ephesians, for instance,

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God accepts you, therefore he accepts your work because of Christ. That's the good news.

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How could God ever accept my feeble worship? God, I don't even feel like I can pray because my prayers are so tainted with sin.

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God, I feel like when I evangelize, I don't say everything I should, and I feel like there's a little bit of fear of man still in me.

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God, will you accept these offerings? God, I'm singing on Sunday morning with the saints, but I'm not really wholeheartedly singing.

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I acknowledge that you're great and kind and faithful, but I just somehow, I don't have it with me today.

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It's not in me. I will praise you, but my heart's farther away than I wish it would be. Ever thought those things?

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Ever done those things? How does God accept your worship? How does God accept your less -than -perfect evangelism?

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How does God accept your less -than -perfect praying? Answer, he accepts you through Jesus, so he accepts your works.

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Think about with your own kids. I am quite positive, and this is my rampage these days, that I'm always thinking about and talking about.

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Many people think that their father on earth is kinder than the

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Father in heaven. Now, of course, you always have to make the caveat, the caveats, caveat, that some people had horrible dads on earth, abusers and other things, and I'm sorry for that, and I'm not talking about that particular case.

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For many of us, though, we had fathers that worked and tried to provide and were kind and did not kick us out of the house and did not take away our last name because we half -heartedly obeyed, that we obeyed somehow less -than -perfectly, that he gave us the law, mowed the grass, and then we missed some spots.

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That would never happen to me. How can we have earthly fathers who were tainted by sin, earthly mothers tainted by sin?

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They received our less -than -good works. Why did they receive them? Because they received us.

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So, we say, you know what, our earthly fathers, they didn't take away our last name because we didn't have enough sincerity, we didn't offer up perfect works enough, but what about God the

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Father? So, I think we ought to be thinking better and more rightly when it comes to this.

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Well, anyway, my name is Mike Gaben Roth, this is No Compromise Radio. We're talking about Hebrews chapter 12, which is the contrast of all contrasts, the contrast of the

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Old Covenant, called Sinai, and the New Covenant, called Zion. And he pretty much just lists seven things about each one,

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Old Covenant and New Covenant, so that you would, if you're a Christian, rejoice that Jesus has earned this

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New Covenant privilege for you. And if you're a Christian, to make sure you realize that the way back isn't a good way, and that if you're not a

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Christian, that you would come to the end of yourself, come to the end of your rope, as it were. I'd like to know where we got that etymologically,

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I think I probably know. And that you would trust in Jesus, the mediator of a New Covenant. So he compares, no, he contrasts the two and shows the differences.

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And the language that he uses, we looked at last time, fire and darkness and trumpet, smoke, those are all things that the

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Old Testament regularly equated with the presence of God. We can't see God and live, but we can see kind of the after effects, as it were.

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And even when you think of Isaiah chapter 6, you don't really get to see much, because he's on his face.

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He starts describing things from the ground up, if I remember properly, because I think he just fell over.

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I think Isaiah was, hey, slain in the Spirit's correct, he fell over. I remember once my mom was telling me that somebody was trying to, her

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Lutheran pastor, ELCA Lutheran pastor, was trying to slay her in the Spirit. And so she went up for prayer.

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I think my dad was dying of cancer. He started pushing her head down, and she didn't go over.

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They tried to push a little bit harder, and then she didn't go over, and then she's leaning down, you know. And finally they just went to the next person.

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That same pastor and his associate pastor called us up for prayer as a family when dad was almost dead.

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And then, I don't know if I've ever told this story on No Compromise Radio. We go up for the prayer, and they put their hands on us and begin to pray.

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And the senior pastor, Pastor Ellison, I believe his name was, he began to just pray in English, Dear Lord, please comfort the

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Avendroth family, and we would ask that you would heal Lee from this disease.

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And the other pastor, Pastor Gruber, I believe his name was. What's his name? Not Wayne Gruber. I don't know, but Pastor Gruber, I think is his name.

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He was doing this. You think

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I'm making it up? Well, he was right. I mean, I didn't know. I don't know if I've ever looked over or something. I was not even a Christian at the time.

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I mean, I was a monotheist, right? I had a spurious faith. I believed that Jesus was the only way, but I wasn't born again yet.

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This was 1989 -ish, early on.

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Got saved later that year. Anyway, I don't know. What's that sound? I don't know.

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Maybe I should start giving him the benefit of the doubt. He might've been asthmatic or something like that. Vicki just said, you know what, granddaughter, three years old, draws a picture of me, presents it with love.

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And I'm sorry to hear, Vicki, you just ripped that up in the child's face. Of course not.

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You say, thank you, sweetheart. Why? Because you accept her. That's a great illustration.

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Anyway, when it comes to the presence of God, you need a mediator and you need a mediator that is able to put his hand on you, to represent you, and to put his hand on God, as it were, to be in between you two.

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That's exactly what Job talks about, right? First book of the Bible written, Job was anticipating, in Job chapter 9, an arbiter, an umpire, a mediator between God and man.

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And we know 1 Timothy chapter 2 is the man Christ Jesus. So Jesus, the eternal son, as humanity, and therefore he is perfectly

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God, perfectly man, truly God, truly man. I think I've told you the story. I used to say things like 100 % man, 100 %

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God, fully God, fully man, and then I was corrected and there's a better way to talk about the hypostatic union, and that is using words not of quantity, but quality.

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So therefore I don't try to say 100 % anymore, because that's kind of a measure.

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I want to talk about the quality, and so he is perfectly, or truly, man, and perfectly and truly

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God. And of course, then when I was on American Gospel, the second show, what's posted?

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100 % man, 100 % God. That's really good for my humility, because people call me all across the country,

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I was just watching American Gospel 2, and you were in it. And of course, my flesh wants to say, I was supposed to be in the first one too, but I was so sick after some of the radiation treatment,

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I just told Brandon Kimber that I just couldn't be in it.

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And he said, well, can we use some no -co shows for the second one? Sure. Use the ones that talk about me not saying more precisely things about Christ's deity and humanity.

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I know. Say goodbye to your film career. I told Scott Clarke the other day, I said, don't judge me based on that movie, because I think he's in it too.

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I don't think I got any royalties yet. I got a lot of phone calls. Friends, by the law, no one can be justified, because Adam sinned.

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We get credit for that sin. So even though hypothetically, if you obey the law, God would have no reason to damn you, right?

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Because you did justly, you did righteously. That's an impossibility now. And therefore, we need someone who can perfectly obey the law.

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You can't be justified, or you can't be right in God's eyes based on law keeping.

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So this first mountain, Mount Zion, without going over every word and describing what it is, it's talking about the presence of God, and how you are not going to be able to escape the presence of God, if you try to approach

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Him based on your own merits, your own righteousness, your own civility, your own legality, your own morality, your own piety.

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What other words can we come up with? Your own obedience. You won't be able to hide if you try to approach

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God like that. You'll be judged on your deeds, as Revelation talks about.

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And you, like Adam, John Owen said, will no longer be able to hide yourself, but will have to appear and answer for your transgressions.

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John Owen writes, they have no refuge to betake themselves unto. The law condemns them, they condemn themselves, and God is represented as a judge full of severity.

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Wow. Wow. And by the way, that's what we all deserve, right?

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How could you have joy today, locked up in a house, and you can't see your grandkids, or this, that, or the other?

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You think about what you deserve, and you think about what you get in Christ Jesus, that should give you joy.

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There's some audible elements to this section with Sinai. There's trumpets blasting, there's a voice speaking, and when that voice speaks, they don't want to hear it anymore.

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They don't want to hear judgment coming from the judge. When the judge speaks, he is going to judge.

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And when you hear the trumpet, it's pretty much, what do they call that trumpet when you die is different than when you wake up revelry in the morning and taps at night.

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This is like the coronet. What's the difference between a coronet and a trumpet is what I always wanted to know.

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The valve, the fingerings are all the same, I think. I used to play the baritone, because then you could go from trumpet to baritone and then switch to the sousaphone.

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But these images are meant to make you afraid, not running back to the law.

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And these Jewish people, they were tempted to go back to law keeping. But this old covenant, here's the point, inferior.

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That's why Hebrews keep saying all the time about Jesus and the new covenant, better, better, better, better, superior.

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Why would you go back to something inferior? Sometimes new things aren't as good as old things, right?

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New and improved. And they're not new and improved, they just want to change the packaging so they can sell you less and make more money, etc.

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But this, this is new. This is the fulfillment of everything. This is going to make sure that you can stand before God, even as a sinner.

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Holiness of God, sinfulness of man. The problem has been taken care of because Jesus has been the propitiation for those sins.

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This is going to be talking about grace and gospel. And while you were given the law, you could not overcome disobeying it.

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And there was no power to discourage you from obeying it.

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The law doesn't give you any power to obey. That's what I wanted to say. Remember that little ditty?

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To run and work the law commands, yet gives me neither feet nor hands. It's funny,

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Terry Flood was talking about John Bunyan and Worldly Wiseman and the council. I have that quote right here.

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So Christian turned out of his way to go to Mr. Legality's house for help. But behold, when he was got now hard by the hill, it seemed so high.

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And also that side of it that was next. The wayside did hang so much over that Christian was afraid to venture farther, lest the hill should fall on his head.

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Wherefore there he stood still and wotted, w -o -t -t -e -d, not what to do.

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Also his burden now seemed heavier to him than while he was in his way. There came also flashes of fire out of the hill that made

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Christian afraid that he should be burnt. Here, therefore, he sweat and did quake for fear.

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And now he began to be sorry that he had taken Mr. Worldly Wiseman's counsel. And with that, he saw evangelist coming to meet him at the site also of whom he began to blush for shame.

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And of course, he, evangelist, gets him thinking the right way.

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Legalistic obedience to the law. I'm not talking about, you know, wearing skirts, seeing movies. Legalism, technically, trying to obey the law in order to have the right standing before God is going to end with doom.

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Verse 20, they could not bear the command, even if a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. By the way, why don't you go over and slit its throat?

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Because you can't get over there to the mountain. You'll be dead too. So you have to throw stones over so you don't trespass this holy mountain.

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In the old days, see, there you go. What are wadded, no are new.

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That's why it's so good to have you guys here with me, because you can look up stuff, right? Remember when

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R .C. Sproul talks about blessing and cursing in the Bible. Blessed are and woe to.

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And R .C. always says, wheel and woe, W -E -A -L, wheel and woe.

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So you can look up, Terry, look up wheel for me right now and see what you find. You can't even get close to the mountain to kill the animal.

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You have to pick up stones and throw them because God is inaccessible by your own obedience.

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You can't keep the law and get to God. Even Moses, you think if anybody could do it?

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Moses says, I am full of fear and trembling. This is like Revelation chapter one.

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When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. That's the idea. This is the transfiguration where Peter and James and John are on that high mountain and Jesus begins to be transfigured and the glory that was inside of him, as it were, shows on the outside, bright cloud overshadowing.

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And they are afraid. They don't know what to do. Moses even says,

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I tremble with fear. And when I thought about that, I thought, you know, we regularly say God is awesome, but we say other things are awesome too.

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That was an awesome meal. That was an awesome sunset. You know, we've heard lots of people throughout the years.

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You can't say awesome unless you're saying something about God. I think you could probably say some things that are awesome, but this is certainly an awesome sight.

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It's made to make you afraid, to make you say, that's not the way I want to go.

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I typed in, our God is an awesome God, lyrics. And you guys thought I was making it up when I posted on Facebook and on Twitter.

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It had, our God is an awesome God. He reigns in wisdom, power, and love. Our God is an awesome God, or whatever it said.

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And it had that, I'm literally saying, 20 times. And then underneath, I think it said

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Michael W. Smith at the top. And then it said at the bottom, something about, you know,

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Rich Mullins or something. And I think people thought I was being mean or rude to Rich Mullins for just saying that, because they said, oh, there's other lyrics and everything.

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But that was just what was on the Google search, so don't blame me. We need to be reminded that God is an awesome

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God. That's true. The Rich Mullins story, I think he, did he not go to Rome or dabble in Rome or decide to go back to Rome or rag him up in Rome or something?

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I think maybe that's the case. I'm not exactly sure. But our God is an awesome God. He reigns from heaven above.

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This particular sense, he's not showing his love, wisdom, power, and love. He's showing his power and his holiness, his awesomeness, his awfulness.

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This kind of God cannot be approached by, oh, he's the big guy in the sky, buddy

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God, daddy God, Pal -a -mine God, big guy in the sky

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God. Really? Okay. I rarely say things like this, but I'm going to do it for you listeners today.

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I think if people were by that mountain, I think they wet themselves. Now if they didn't, that's the idea.

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Certainly Joshua, the high priest in Zechariah chapter three, he had that white, nice priestly garment on and it was soiled.

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He soiled himself. What a picture of our sin and the soiling nature of sin.

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And this is the kind of view that is trying to make you say, I never want to experience

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God like that. You know that old book years ago that came out 20 some years ago, Experiencing God. You don't want to experience

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God without a mediator. You need this mediator that Hebrews has been trying to tell you for a long time. He's the perfect priest because he's the sacrifice and he makes perfect prayers and that he's better than the prophets.

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He's better than the angels. He's better than Aaron. He's better than Moses and he's better than the old covenant because with Jesus you don't get doom and gloom and all that.

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You can read the accounts of Jesus in John 10 and find out something that's much different. Why would you go back to Old Testament ritual and sacrifices and Levitical priesthoods and everything else when this is untouchable at a distance?

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You can't be close at all because we're going to see soon enough the God who is named

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Emmanuel, God with us. You want the presence of God? We've got the presence of God for you, but it's with the mediator.

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Why go back to Jesus, to the judge when you have the new covenant fulfill

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Jesus? So anyway, let's just go to chapter 12 verses 22 and following for the good news.

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There's bad news and then there's good news and I don't want anybody here going back to some kind of law, religion, or even

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Judaism of the old covenant because you're not going to be able to be in God's presence. Now here's the cool thing.

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I'm just going to get to this right now. What's this part here about festal gathering and angels?

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This is fascinating. I mean, I get the Mount Zion part, right? Sinai, Zion. I get it that it's not a dead

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God. It says city of the living God. I get that cities are, are, are fortresses, are protective areas and, and cities is this gathering of people and to heavily in Jerusalem, Jerusalem was great.

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It was a wonderful city, but how about heavenly Jerusalem just for today, innumerable angels in festal gathering.

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That's pretty neat. By the way, it says you have come and by the way, we'll talk next time about worship and are we entering in to worship with these angels and the saints of old on Sunday morning, but that's a different topic for right now to innumerable angels in festal gathering.

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Wow. You know, the old Testament talks about angels helping deliver the law.

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That's Hebrews chapter two, verses one and two. That's Stephen talking about that in Acts chapter seven, verse 53.

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I believe here the angels aren't delivering the law. What are the angels doing? They're in festal gathering and it's like they're saying, worship with us.

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It's joy. If you look up festal, actually to the

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Facebook people that look up things for me, I had to look up festal. I knew we'd get the word festive, but it's the root word feast.

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I also looked up the word and you can look this up on your own sometime festoon. I thought it was some kind of big kind of ladle thing you drink, but I don't think that's what a festoon is.

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Festoon is some kind of ribbon for festive occasions. Can you imagine because of Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, it's not law because Jesus has fulfilled the law.

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It's a festive festival. Now I don't want to say party in some kind of, you know, blasphemous way, a party with Jesus.

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I don't mean that, but you can just think about whatever celebration you love the most.

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You can think about a Thanksgiving feast. You could think about Christmas when you're a kid.

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You could think about, I don't know, some reunion where you get to see all the family. You think about celebrations.

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You think about birthday parties when you're a kid. You think about festive feasts and festoons.

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That's this. There are innumerable angels and they're all worshiping and they're in festal gathering.

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And this is what you've come to. Yes, please, please enjoy. Join the angels in Revelation chapter four and five.

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Worthy is the lamb who was slain. Join the angels. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty.

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Join the angels and come right into the presence of God. It's a festal gathering and it's not, oh, we better stay back behind the mountain.

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Don't go across the yellow police tape. No, come right in. Worship. Please, please.

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The no trespassing sign to the presence of God has been replaced with a welcome mat.

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Please come. Worship. The angels are worshiping. You get to worship too. Don't you like that? The festal gathering of the angels, innumerable angels.

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You can imagine when you look at the Bible with shepherds and angels, glory to God in the highest and an earth peace among those whom he is well pleased.

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Luke 15, there's joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. And now those repentant sinners are called, are beckoned.

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Please come into the presence of God and worship the triune God with the angels. Why would you go back to law keeping when you can have festal gatherings, joyful gatherings, celebrations like they used to have in civic areas and athletic competitions?

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And even when you'd win the Olympics, there'd be a festal gathering. Same Greek word. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is

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No Compromise Radio. And see how nice I was today? I don't think I critiqued anybody by name.

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It was all glee, jocular, laughing, merriful mirth.

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

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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.

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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.

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