Absurdity

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. I have to go downtown today to a Unitarian church to officiate a, well, tonight is just the rehearsal for the wedding.

It's 20 to 5. I have to be down there at 6. I think I can do one more show. That will be three shows today.

I'll go home and pass out with these blood thinners. I am so tired. It's not even funny.

That's why we have this nasty protein powder. If you'd like to go to Israel with us, you can.

You may. You must. It is late February 2021 through early

March. I have the itinerary. I have the exact days. Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

I have 26 slots open. Let's say you live in Atlanta. You just fly up to Newark and fly then with us over to Tel Aviv and we will travel around.

We will see some of the famous sites, but we'll do a lot of exploring behind the scenes because there are certain things

I don't do. I don't do Bethlehem because it's just dopey, although I guess it's good to say you've been there.

We'll do other things that are cooler, more fun, especially when I got Pat around. Pat is my younger brother.

For years, people thought I was the younger brother and that always kind of irked him, I think. I turned 60 in May and who knows?

Who knows how many more times we're going to be going? Coronavirus, who knows?

But at least we're planning on going now, right? We might as well just plan on going and we'll see. What are we going to talk about today on No Compromise Radio?

Always when I officiate weddings, I say to the congregation, well, in premarital counseling,

I ask four reasons why this man is going to marry this woman. She wants to know what he's going to say and it's very cute and he doesn't know if it's a theological test.

She's got a high view of the sovereignty of God. She believes in double reprobation. Wendy's asking, what are the exact dates?

It's something like, I don't know, February 24th through March 4th or something like that. That's about it.

But if you email me, wendymikeatnocompromiseradio .com, I'll send you the itinerary. On no cost, probably in mid -April, once the airlines have figured it out.

So anyway, they say, she's godly, she's beautiful, she's this, she's that. Then I say to the congregation that very thing and that I've asked the couple if I could share these four things and then

I do and then I talk about how it's right for man to pick because of, but God's love is greater than our love and he picks in spite of.

Then I always go to Romans where there's Romans 5, 6 -10, four descriptors of the people that Jesus dies for.

Helpless or weak is one, ungodly, sinful or sinners is actually the word, and enemies.

And just talk about how God loves people that are like that and that's a greater love.

So I was thinking about that because I have to go officiate this wedding tomorrow at this Unitarian Church.

And by the way, I'm going to say at the very beginning, on behalf of the triune

God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and this dear couple, I welcome you to this wedding ceremony. I can't wait to go do that.

All right, you should go, Wendy, it's your birthday. But if your husband says no, don't disrespect him.

Don't make him be embittered for you. You should always cancel the shepherd's conference to try to save the money.

Anyway, that's Romans 5, 6 -10, that passage that just is so easy to preach the gospel from.

I was just wondering, since I have the message translation here, what's it say?

I haven't done a message moment for quite some time. Remember in the old days we had the no -compromise television shows and I'd have a message moment, that'd be one section.

I'd have, are you a Roman Catholic, that'd be another section. I would have Kooks and Barneys, that'd be another section, and then teach for a while.

Those were fun days, but that took a lot of work. I have no lights on in here, the sun is setting, and I should hop up and change it.

So for now, I'm just going to say, all right, here we go.

Here, and away we go, as Jackie Gleason used to say. Christ arrives right on time to make this happen.

He didn't and doesn't wait for us to go get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready.

And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. Where is you at?

We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice.

But God put his love on the line for us by offering his son in a sacrificial death while we were of no use whatsoever to him.

Now, listen, when pastors explain things, they might explain that passage with some of those words.

But 5 .8 is God demonstrates, present tense, conspicuously, obviously, nothing behind the scenes where only the special Gnostic people get to know, nothing behind the smoke -filled rooms.

This was a conspicuous display for the world to see. This is not behind the holy of holies.

There's a curtain, and then there's a room, and then you can only get so far if you're a woman or you're a

Gentile. This is on full display. So I don't like it when he says he put his love on the line. That has nothing to do with anything.

Now that we are set right with God by means of the sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way.

I say, I just don't like that. Are you at odds with God? I guess there's a way you could say something like that.

But odds, how about enemy? Mortal enemy, right?

If when we were our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his son, now that we are at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life.

Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plotting prose.

That's like the dumbest thing I've read all day. Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plotting prose, prosing plot,

I can plot, we sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah. All right, well, my name is

Mike Abendorf, this is NoCompromiseRadio .com. We are back to recording, hopefully, for three new shows today.

Recorded a show last week with Dee Scott Meadows. Up at Exeter, New Hampshire, Reformed Baptist pastor that you might have heard of.

Great guy. I'm going to see Scott again in about a month or so. He's just written a new book on worship that you might want to pick up.

A small little booklet called Look Online. All right, what else do we have here?

Oh, I'm in the book of Hebrews, and you want to get a copy of the sermon this

Sunday. Not because I'm some great preacher, but because the passage is so great. We're talking about Jericho, the walls of Jericho, and Rahab, and the man that Joshua meets in Joshua chapter 5 before the whole wall scenario.

And I just want to say a couple things about the passage before I preach. I don't have enough time, and I don't have my notes today, so that's all right.

When it says by faith in Hebrews chapter 11, remember, it's by faith in the high priest, by faith in the

Messiah, by faith in God, not faith in faith, faith in, you know, a leap of faith or some kind of Kierkegaardian weird stuff.

Shorthand, it's not by faithfulness. These people were far from faithful all the time, but it's by faith.

And here's what he's trying to do. These men and women had faith in the

Messiah, and they had a forward -looking faith. They were in a trial, but they still trusted

God. They took him at his word. So therefore, you dear listeners to the book of Hebrews, and then anybody else, including me, you, and listeners at No Compromise Radio, no matter what's going on in your life, you can trust the

Lord. He's true and right and faithful. Therefore, His promises are true and right and faithful.

And then in spite of circumstances, you can still trust Him. I know it's hard. You're suffering. You're in a trial.

I'm scooting back here. There's something wrong going on in life, but you can still trust Him. Faith, the just shall live by faith.

That's shorthand for the just shall live, the justified by God. Those who are no longer condemned in the judicial court of God live by faith.

They don't live by sight. They're trusting God, not by faithfulness. Oh, living by faith will lead to faithfulness, but they have faith in the right object.

And so you too need to keep believing, even in spite of everything. And then he lists some things that are kind of far -fetched, kind of odd, similar to, and it's not in the passage, but, hey,

Naaman, the Syrian leper, you want to be healed, dunk yourself seven times in the

Jordan. Hey, wait a second. Our rivers are better. Our rivers are cleaner. Finally, he does it.

And the first dunk told you, second dunk told you, third dunk told you. You know, you ever play, you know, you're bobbing up and down as kids, you know, and you're dunking kids.

And it's like four times, five times, nothing. Six times told you. Seventh time you come up, you're not a leper.

I mean, this is odd. This is, this is strange. This is almost, all right,

I want to say this, this is the message moment coming through Mike Abenroth for just a second. Plotting prose, no.

This is kind of absurd. It's weird. I mean, you can't make this stuff up, can you?

So here's what we want you to do. We want you to march around the city of Jericho.

This is Joshua chapter five, moving into six, technically chapter six. And we want you to march around that city with ramparts and fortifications like you've never seen before.

You don't have any kind of bulldozers. You don't have any

Trojan horses. You don't have anything but probably some, some spears and some bows.

You don't have any metal or anything like this. Large structures to try to blow this thing down.

And you're going to march. And by the way, the text talks about, man, be quiet. You're going to shout the last day, but those first six times probably can't get 2 million people to walk around this nine acres.

So let's just say tribal representatives and you begin to march. And I want you to be quiet. First of all, that'd be hard to do.

Do you get a lot of people? Quiet. Second of all, it'd be eerie walking.

Just walking around. Thirdly, I would imagine, because I've been around a lot of basketball games and sports games and stuff like that, the taunting.

The people up on top of the ramparts, up on top of the wall of Jericho, the city that had to be taken and it would be taken.

And that angel of the Lord, the pre -incarnate Jesus was there telling

Joshua, this is mine. You're mine and they're mine. And this is what's going to happen.

So Joshua 6 is kind of interesting because they're quiet and they're marching around. Nobody talks. I mean, is this how you get the walls to come down?

I mean, what's the connection between I walk around and the walls go down?

So this is not a military battle at all. It's do you trust me battle? That's where the battle is.

And by the way, dear friend, whether it may be, I think we only have a couple of people watching, whether it's Wendy and Stephen or anybody else, you're going through life and the battle's always in the mind, right?

The battle's always, do I trust the Lord? Is there any reason why we love the verses, trust in the

Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways, acknowledge him and he'll make your path straight. But that's hard to do sometimes.

That's why it's so important to sit under gospel preaching that has a high view of God that talks about his transcendent glory and power and majesty and faithfulness and how you can trust his word.

And if he tells you to do something, then you just do it. It might sound absurd. It might sound odd.

It might sound foolish. What does that remind you of?

That reminds me of actually thinking about the cross. There's one man, always more than a man.

He's the God hyphen man, and he's going to die on a cross outside the city of Jerusalem, not for his own sins, but other people's sins.

Here's the thing. You just believe him and you have eternal life. Really?

Remember what John 3, 16 is based on? John 3, 14 and 15. Moses has a bunch of people who are complaining.

God sends poison to snakes. They bite the people. You look to the pole. There's a snake on the pole, an unclean thing.

It's a snake. It's a bronze snake. And if you look, you live. Wait, this is so weird.

It doesn't seem to make sense. But you take God at his word. That's the whole point.

I take God at his word. That if I look on this unclean thing, this snake on a pole,

I don't die. And that is going to lead to the spiritual truth. That when you look at the

Lord Jesus Christ with the eyes of faith, as he's up on a cross, treated as if he's an unclean thing, even though he's the holy one of Israel, blameless, spotless, sinless.

You look up, eyes of faith. You believe what he says about eternal life.

You get to go to heaven forever. And there's glories to follow. Wonderful life now, but I'm talking glory to follow.

That first second when you're in heaven, it's just going to be like, can you imagine the thrill of it all?

Especially if you die a slow, painful death and you go from slow, painful death to glory.

So you're going to be a shock. But I would, I would say to you that no matter what you do in life, you think it's the best thing to do ever, from that to glory in heaven, it's going to be a shock, a good shock.

Just as though on the flip side, people who are doing something wonderful on earth are thinking, are horrible on earth and horrible sickness and then go to hell, how they would long to be back to that horrible sickness.

But just talking here again about faith, taking God at his word.

No matter what he says, it's true. And therefore we need to tuck ourselves under that.

And therefore, when I'm thinking about 1 Corinthians 1, it makes all the sense in the world.

For since verse 21, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

For the Jews demand signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the

Jews and folly to Gentiles. This is amazing to me.

The word of the cross, verse 18 of 1 Corinthians 1 is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God.

So dear friends, when I'm thinking about Joshua and the walls of Jericho, no wonder it says by faith, because they had to do what

God said, even though it really didn't make any sense. There was no logical connection between if we march around, it'll cause an earthquake with 2 million people and the walls come tumbling down.

Is that what it was? I remember when I was a kid, we were on the swim team and when the coach wasn't around, if everybody in the swim team gets on the shallow end by the starting blocks and pushes back and forward at the same time, you can get a pretty big wave going.

And so maybe if we have all these people walk in some type of volcanic fissure, all the walls will come down, all jump at the same time.

Had nothing to do with that at all. It was supernaturally done. God told him to do it and he did it.

That's the point. And that's why we walk by faith too. And we say, you know what? I was preached the gospel and I've got trouble in my life now, and maybe it'd be better if I went back.

You can't go back. By the way, dear Christian, this is one of the reasons why you don't preach to people and tell them, come to Jesus and your marriage is going to be perfect and your life's perfect and you're going to get a raise and everything else.

No, no. What will be perfect is your status before God, because you're in Christ Jesus, the perfect one who merited a perfect righteousness for you as he was born of a woman under law, that he might obey that law and merit righteousness.

Not for him. He didn't need it. He already was righteous. But for you, for those who believe, you think, you know what? That's the only thing perfect is my relationship with God, which is the most important thing that you have in your life is your status before God.

Is there anything else more important? And the answer is no. So that's taken care of by simply believing.

Here's where more foolishness comes in. I want to work for my salvation. I want to do something. I want to contribute.

I want to merit. I want to earn. I want to somehow come alongside of God and we can work together.

And I begin to work. And then he kind of makes up for the work that I don't do. But at least

I started it. And I started a good work. And he can make it whole.

All this stuff is mumbo jumbo. Most of it's Roman Catholic hangover. But I don't really blame the

Catholics in the sense that they're just basing things on what the heart wants. And therefore, they codify it in the

Catholic religion. Of course, it's wrong. But I see where they get it. For us, though, as Christians, bad things are going to happen.

Unless the Lord comes back, every one of you and me included, myself included, we're going to die.

And we're going to have trials. And we're going to go through all kinds of stuff. I look at the lack of hair on my head and the gray hair and what these blood thinners are doing and the knee and all that stuff.

One of these days, I mean, I hope after the Shepherd's Conference, when I get done flying, I'm not going to feel this bad from these blood thinners.

I'll stop the blood thinners. But one of these days, I'm going to get some sickness, and I'm never going to get better.

Well, till heaven. So I want to brace myself now by the study of good theology and a high view of God.

The other day, I put on Twitter and on Facebook, I think, Arthur Pink's Attributes of God book for free.

There's a free PDF. So then when I'm hurting, and then when my body's racked with disease and cancer and other things,

I'm still thinking, you know what? I'm going to trust in God. From the outside, people could say, yeah, a lot of good trusting in God has done

Him. But on the inside, I know that God is faithful and that just shall live by faith, taking

God at His word. You believe on the Lord Jesus, your sins are forever forgiven.

Whenever I think to myself, is this all real? You know, you just have those flashing thoughts.

Is Christianity real? And then I begin to think, well, here's what I do know it's real. The universe, the world, this just didn't come together by osmosis evolution.

There's hydrological cycles and gravity and everything else. So the world has order and there's a creator.

And number two, I know I'm a sinner. What the Bible says about me is spot on.

And I'm worse than I think. And when the Bible talks about self -righteousness, that's me, right?

My struggle these days is not with gross, flagrant unrighteousness, although I could do that with my mind.

My struggle is self -righteousness, where I think what I do keeps my status before God, earns my status before God.

That's the trouble. No wonder Luther said every week I preach down self -righteousness because it's the idol.

So, dear Christian, now is a good time to begin to dive into the study of who

Jesus is. And when he says, you trust in me, even though, in spite of, then

I go, okay. I walk by faith and not by sight. That's one of the reasons why I love to read the Old Testament.

Do this, do that, dunk seven times, walk around the thing seven times. There's some crazy things that go on.

Like what? This is, it's foolish. Well, to those who are perishing, it is.

But to us, it's awesome. It's great. It's exactly as 1 Corinthians writes. But to those who are being saved, it's the power of God.

That's how God demonstrates. And no wonder Paul says then in Romans 1, 16 and 17, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

You think I would be, right? Because I show up in town and I'm going to get beaten. I'm going to get thrown in prison.

I'm going to get scourged. I'm going to get stoned. I'm going to get all these things. I'm going to try to go around and evangelize.

And I'm going to get shipwrecked. And I'm going to get all these sufferings and beatings and blisterings. But you know what?

I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Because it's the power of God unto salvation for everybody who believes. The Jew first and also the

Gentiles, right? Because in it, the righteousness of God is revealed as it is written.

It is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. So, dear

Christian, keep believing. Dear Christian, even though things are going to come up in your life, you're going to go, what?

That's why it's so good to see the faithfulness of God in Abraham. Even though Abraham wasn't faithful all the time. Faithfulness in God in Sarah's life, even though she's not so faithful.

The faithfulness in, even in the midst of chaos, right? You think, Abraham, how's he in there?

Hey, this is my wife. She's not my wife. She's my sister. You can sleep with her. Just don't kill me.

You know, I'm going to have the promise of God through Sarah. It's not really working. Where's Hagar? Let's do that. I mean, it's just crazy.

But it's the faithfulness of God, not my faithfulness. That's why faith and faithfulness must be distinguished.

Faith in God and His promises leads to faithfulness. If there's no faithfulness, you might ask yourself a few questions, right?

Anyway, my name is Mike Habenroth, No Compromise Radio. Mike at No Compromise Radio. If you want to talk about Israel, last part of February 2021.

I don't know, probably 3 ,500 bucks or whatever it costs you to get to Newark. Why am I going through Newark?

That's my all -time worst airport in the world. Anyway, you can write me if you'd like. I've been getting some good, encouraging emails.

If you've got an encouraging email, maybe the ministry is helping you in some way, shape or form, write me. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Habenroth 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.