The Evil of Unbelief (Part 2)

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. My name is Mike Abendroth, and we are No Compromise Radio. Well, I am. Is that the royal �we�? If you have been listening for the past eight years, thank you.

If you�re a new listener, great. If you�re a millionaire donor, you must be sending money to the wrong address. By the way, I have a special announcement to make. It�s that time of year again. We�ve got a lot of bills to pay, a lot of things to afford, and I need some new gear.

Wouldn�t it be nice just to say, �All right, I just need some stuff, some new cool gadgets. Help me. Anyway, I�ve always made fun of some of the bigger ministries too, ones that I even respect, the teachers that I respect, and you know, �Okay, it�s that time of year.

We need money. I�m sending your gifts and all that stuff. And it just always just strikes me oddly when they do that. I think I pretty much know it�s the end of the year and ministries need help. I think I know that.

I understand that. Anyway, we have been going through the book of Hebrews at Bethlehem Bible Church. If you�d like to hear that sermon series, it is bbcchurch .org, bbcchurch .org, and you can just go to the sermon section and pull up the last 40 sermons or so.

We�ve been playing some on Mondays on No Compromise Radio, and my mind is just involved with and revolving around the book of Hebrews and its main attraction, and His name is Jesus. It�s all about Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the eternal God. Jesus is in fact also human. When I say Jesus, that emphasizes it. In Hebrews chapter 3 verse 1, �Consider Jesus. The writer could say, �Consider, think a lot about Christ the Messiah.

That would be good, that�s true, but he�s focusing on the Messiah who�s the God-man, Jesus, His human name. Obviously, He�s more than human, He�s just been telling us that, but here we have Jesus the God-man.

And I�ve been thinking a lot about faith in Jesus. I am a normal person, regular person. I am not a theological superstar, that is to say I try to learn, I try to study, I go to seminaries, I read, I try to teach, I like to live up to what I teach, but I am dealing with this flesh, this indwelling sin principle, this Romans 7 issue, and therefore I have a lot to learn.

Many days I would think that my life is somewhat, to some degree, commensurate with the truth that I�ve learned, and praise be to God that union with Christ causes me to walk in the fruit of the Spirit, but many times I fail and stumble, and I�m not trying to say stumble and fail are not sins, using other words for sin to try to camouflage something.

Well, stumble actually is a word in the Bible about this issue. But I sin, I transgress, I don�t live up to my calling. Well, what do you do then? What do you do if you�re a struggling, sinful son or daughter?

The book of Hebrews is very helpful because it�s not about our performance, it�s the performance of another. If you�d like to stand before God based on performance, as I like to say, how�s that working out for you?

But additionally, the only performance that could ever be acceptable to God would be perfect performance. Therefore, you�ve got to stand before God based on the perfect performance of Christ Jesus. That�s the only way.

And our fruits, our works, our love for God is a response to, motivated by union with Christ, the Spirit of God working in our lives, etc. But that�s not, my standing isn�t based on that. The ground of my justification is Christ�s work.

The reason for, the condition is Christ�s work, and therefore I don�t lose my sonship when I�m sinning or struggling or not doing things like I should. It doesn�t give me, it must not give me a license to do that, but it should tell me, you know what, I need to really be thankful that I still stand before God based on Christ Jesus and I am in Christ and He sees me wrapped in the robes of Christ�s righteousness.

Jesus is the one that perfectly obeyed the law and that�s how I stand. That�s the ground of my standing before God. That is why, lately on social media, I have gone, I have gone out of the way to post things about justification, to discuss issues about the ground of salvation because there are many who, I think at the end of the day, I think they just are careless with the words.

They�re sloppy. You know what, lots of times I�m sloppy with my words and I�m careless, but we need to be, well, when we�re corrected, then we should tell people, you know what, I was sloppy with those words.

If you pull up some of my old sermons in Mark and other places, I know I�ve got errors there. I know how moralistic and law-driven those things are. But I would then say, �You�re right, you�re correct, and I have changed those things.

Now I haven�t gone back to change every message. The good news is the Mark sermons aren�t up, so we don�t have to worry about that. If I preach Mark today, it would be much different. So if you say to yourself, �When did this particular person say these things

If it was 20 years ago, well, I say, �Give them a break. I�d like to have somebody give me a break on what I used to teach, but if I�m currently teaching it, and then I�m going to be corrected by others, and I still force it, and I still have other people trying to defend me, I just think there�s a problem.

So I�m going to just be tweeting and doing Facebook posts through Hootsuite, it makes it easier, about justification, standing before God based on the work of another. That�s your only hope. And if you just would simply say, �Well, Belgian Confession 2324, show us the difference between justification and sanctification, or you read London Baptist Confession of good works.

It tells me what I need to know about good works. Then I�m happy. If you say, �I�m justified by faith alone, but that faith won�t be alone. Okay, I�m there. But if you say, �You�re not saved by faith alone, be killing sin.

That�s a recent desiring God tweet, and it just makes people confused. Oh, well, what we meant is the all salvation, and the redemptive flow, and a different kind of ordo, and all these other things.

I throw things out to be cute, and I�m sure it happens there too, but that�s not helpful if you�re not going to throw something out and then clarify. I mean, hey, listen, I�ve done that before. When I say to the congregation, �You are saved by works, the works of Christ.

But see, I�m getting you to think, and then I�m going to give you the right thing. Well, I think this all stems from a misunderstanding of law and gospel. It misunderstands the act of obedience of Christ.

It misunderstands what Adam had to do as a federal head, covenant of works. Call it something else if you like, I don�t care. Justification by faith alone, it�s a needed doctrine. Read Buchanan. We talked with Kofi the other day about that and some of the books.

Well, that�s why I�ve been loving Hebrews so much is because when I stumble, and fumble, and bumble, and mumble, sin. Well, my status doesn�t change. I don�t become less justified. I don�t need to do some other things so my next justification is good.

I�m justified, Romans chapter 5. I�m justified. I can�t become less justified. I can�t become more justified. I can�t become justifiable. I am justified. The antonym is condemned. I�m no longer under any condemnation.

Now the book of Hebrews will not let you forget that you need to be trusting in Jesus. You need to believe in Him as your Messiah, and sin bearer, and high priest, and sacrifice. You try to run from it, but you can�t go very far.

And that is why if you are not going to believe in Jesus, it says in chapter 3 verse 12, it is very evil, an evil unbelieving heart, and it�s going to lead you the wrong way. It says leading you to fall away from the living God.

Not a dead God, not tradition, not a man, a simple only man, but here it�s going to fall away from the living God. This is the God that has done the miracles in the wilderness. This is the God who lives now, not a dead temple that�s going to be torn down, tabernacle that had to be put away, not a dead person, the living Savior Jesus Himself, the God who lives.

I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, because He�s the living God. Right? Abraham�s dead, Isaac�s dead, Jacob�s dead, but He�s their God.

Why? Because they are living, and He is living. It�s amazing. Don�t fall away. Don�t turn your back. If drawing near to God is the right direction, don�t go the opposite. Hebrews 10, 22, and 23, �Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. Peter talks about people who left the straight way, people who wander off, they veer off. You know what?

2 Peter 2, 20, �If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.

Don�t let that be you. If you�re listening today, don�t let that be you. Say, �Well, see, it talks about falling away, therefore you can lose your salvation. Really? You�re really going to use this verse to teach that you can lose your salvation?

Well, first of all, you didn�t earn your salvation now, did you? So you can�t lose what God did. So God gained salvation for you, and He made you alive again, and you�re going to just say, �No, I�m not.

He justified you, and you can unjustify yourself. Now, see, that�s a very good question. Can the justified person unjustify himself? Can the justified person make himself a little less justified? Can the justified person make himself a lot less justified, a lot more justified?

Can you obey and God makes you more justified? Justified times two, justified plus N. Isn�t this ridiculous? Yes, it�s ridiculous to talk this way, even on radio. This has nothing to do with losing your salvation.

He�s talking about, you know, today when you hear this message and sin wants to affect you and you�re in a bad spot in a trial, where are you going to run? Where are you going to go? Keep believing. Verse 13, if you�re going to leave and you�re going to go AWOL, that�s the idea, AWOL, then you�re leaving God.

I�m going to turn my back on God. So what He does, the writer of Hebrews, He says then in verse 13 of chapter 3, �But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Now, what�s the context? Chapter 3, verse 12, �Unbelief. Chapter 3, verse 19, �Unbelief. In the middle of all this, unbelief all around, are you your brother�s keeper? Exhort one another every day.

What kind of encouragement would that be? Hey, way to go. Good job. No, exhort one another to believe, to keep believing, as long as it�s called today. This is corporate church life. This is not Jen Hatmaker, haymaker, sitting by, you know, some water with her bare feet saying, �This is my church today.

And then people defended her. It�s crazy. If you�re defending Jen, you�ve got other issues theologically, in my opinion. Well, whatever they do is between them and God. Exhort one another every day.

The context here is the local church. You encourage one another by keep believing. I guess I could ask it this way, a Christian�s faithful walk, trusting in Jesus, happens by osmosis. As my father would say, �Mike, that room�s not going to be cleaned by osmosis.

I could say it this way, are you, when you�re giving counsel to other believers, reminding them to keep trusting in Jesus, this great Savior? I think this is counseling�s forgotten verse, New Thetic Counseling, ABCD, NANC, CCEF, ABCDE.

This is the counseling forgotten verse. Now, those places probably teach this, but I can�t remember. It was too many years ago. Hey, if you keep believing, here�s where it�s going to end. If you don�t believe, here�s where it�s going to end.

See those bodies laying there in the wilderness through the pages of Scripture? I care for you, so walk by faith. Keep believing. God can be trusted. The word �encourage� there in Hebrews 3 .13, �parakaleo� is the root word.

Come alongside, to summon, to urge someone. It has a background in Greek regiments, and they were getting whipped in war, and they were losing heart, and the general would send someone to talk to them to try to give them a shot in the arm of encouragement.

It is not one time, and then you�re done. It is present imperative. Encourage, so you�re not falling away from the living God. Keep believing in the sacrifice of this Messiah, the great promise of the Messiah, the great priestly work of the Messiah, the great lineage of the Messiah.

Encourage one another to keep focused, otherwise you�re going to see blaming God, mad at God, distrusting God, just like those people in the wilderness. Keep believing. Don�t stop believing. Don�t fall away.

Don�t turn on Jesus. Yes, this is a means to the end. People will persevere because they�re preserved by God. How do they persevere? By other Christians telling them, �Keep believing. This is the means to the end, daily, today, habitual, present tense.

Negative warning, �Watch out, take care. Positive encouragement, �Caleb. This is the Caleb verse, man. This is a reminder to people to look up, to look outside of themselves, externas, the object of your faith, not going inward.

Oh, by the way, we want piety, we want godliness, we want holiness. Be holy for I am holy, 1 Peter 1. But when you drive yourself to the inside and when you�re preoccupied not with Jesus but on the inside life of your Christian walk, inward orientation as some people have called it, what I�m supposed to do and how I�m supposed to act, it�s not going to help.

This is, think about who Jesus is. Yeah, you�re supposed to do things, but how about, let�s do this, let�s believe this, believe in Him, that�s the issue. Spiritual disciplines, we could talk about that sometime.

The point is here, thinking about who Jesus is. Why? Because it�s today and you could be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. You could be swindled. You could be defrauded and tricked and duped. Why?

Because here the context is, if we just go back to Judaism, it�ll be all, everything�s going to be good. I mean, it was so good in those days. And can�t you hear? It�s just like leeks and garlic. Remember Egypt�s?

Egypt�s great leeks and garlic? I�m going to write this down while I�m thinking about it, Egypt. That�s what sin does. That�s the deceitfulness of sin. Hey, it would be better. Remember when we weren�t Christians?

Suppose it, Christians? We�re just going to go back. Those were the days. And actually, see, what we�ve done is we�ve done a disservice to people because we�ve told people, �Come to Jesus, everything gets better.

When we should have been telling people, �Listen, come to Jesus by faith and your standing before God will get better, infinitely better, forgiveness, righteousness imputed, but things could get a lot worse for you in life.

Might get fired, spouse might leave you, kids might disown you. Happens all the time. We never talk that way. We rarely talk that way. If we did talk that way, maybe it wouldn�t be so difficult because you�d know it was coming.

This deceit, this sinful deceit that hardens people�s hearts, basically says, �You know what? I think Egypt is better. Oh, those days of leeks, garlic, all the yummy food we had back there when we were slaves.

When we were slaves. See how deceitful sin is there? It�s awful. Don�t do that. Sin is deceiving. It�s not going to be better. I�m going to type this in, �Make sure you evangelize and tell people the costs.

There. That�s it. That�s right. So, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. Don�t forget, if you want to order some books, things that go bump in the church. I�m trying to just make some kind of special online deal for stocking stuffers.

If you order two sexual fidelities on the website, nocompromiseradio .com, I will ship you those two sexual fidelities, and I will also send you two free things that go bump in the church. I think they�re listed like $14 .99.

So, you order $26 worth of books, $25 worth of books, I send you four. All you have to do is, as you fill out the little form, say, �NoCo Special. That�s all you have to do. Say, �NoCo Special. So, order two systematic theologies.

That�s in my mind because I�m thinking about the S. Lewis Johnson systematic theology. I would love to do that one day. Order two sexual fidelities, make a little note on there, �NoCo Special and I�ll send you two things that go bump in the church, two books that I either wrote or co-wrote.

All right? That�s the special, and it�s through Christmas, through Christmas. Hey, tell your friends. That�d be great. Tell your�or order them for your friends. I keep asking myself, �How do people hear about NoCo Radio

Since it�s been one year since I�ve been on Todd Friel�s �The Wretched Radio I don�t know how people hear. That�s my main advertising. I�m going to actually get off this phone, and I will text Todd and tell him it�s time for me to be on.

He asked me to come on in the summer, and I could not get to a studio because I was in California, so that made it more difficult. I�ve been reading a lot of Louis Burkhoff�s systematic theology. You can get that online, I think, for free.

There�s a free PDF found. If you can�t, you can always write me. I�ll send you the PDF, info at nocompromiseradio .com. Great stuff on justification. I mean, in the middle of all this justification debate, I wish people would just read Louis Burkhoff.

I wish people would see that when you�re talking about sanctification as the ground, somehow, maybe not by exact nomenclature, but you would find out that�s Romish, that�s Ostiander, that�s Piscador, that�s other people that you don�t want to be like.

It�d make my life so much easier if we didn�t have to keep harping on justification. But I like to, because that�s maybe my favorite doctrine. Is that your favorite doctrine? How do you stand right with God?

Can you stand before God righteously? God is righteous, and He also gives righteousness through imputation. My name is Mike Abendroth.

No Compromise Radio. 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.