Resurrection Sunday (Part 1)

No Compromise Radio Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author,

Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the

Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the Scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.

Only Jesus, laying in that casket, laying in that tomb, could make himself get up from the dead.

How about that? That Jesus Christ himself died on the cross, and of course the text says the

Father raised him, the Spirit raised him, but the text also says that the Son of God raised himself from the dead.

Just how great is that? But my question this morning is, what did it prove? What was the point?

Why was Jesus raised from the dead? And so today we're going to examine a topic that if you understand, you will then more greatly appreciate the resurrection.

That is to say, when you grasp this central truth, the central truth of Christianity, the truth of Christianity that if you don't get, you don't know

Christianity. If you grasp that today in Hebrews 9 to 11, you'll appreciate the resurrection a lot more.

You'll praise God for the resurrection a lot more. You'll say to yourself, oh, if the resurrection confirms something,

I know what it now confirms. If the resurrection is God's exclamation point with a fine -tipped pencil, a fine -tipped pen, if it's the exclamation point, now

I know what the sentence is. It's one thing to say, well, Jesus was raised from the dead. It's another thing to say, why was he raised?

For what purpose? What did it signify? Why is the resurrection a big deal? So today, we're going to look at Hebrews chapter 9 and 11 to see these two central concepts that when you get these right, you'll understand

Christianity. So let's turn our Bibles to Hebrews chapter 9. I usually preach through the Bible verse by verse, text by text, sequentially, but after last

Sunday, we need a break and we need a breather. And so we'll hit the resurrection passage today in Hebrews chapter 9 and 11.

When it's Christmas time, our resurrection Sunday time, I'm drawn back to Hebrews. If you just want to point me in a direction and say,

Mike, you get to preach about anything you want, wherever you want. If I fly overseas and they say, just preach about what you want,

I will preach from Hebrews because Hebrews is a book that says, here's the summary of Hebrews.

Jesus Christ is great. There's nobody like Jesus. There will be nobody like Jesus. He's superior.

He's transcendent. He's the eternal God, man. And Jesus is superior to any religion, any system, any person, any angel.

Jesus is better. I think that's pretty good. Resurrection Sunday service. Don't you? Jesus is great.

He's the majestic one. And so my underlying purpose to make very explicit what you might think is implicit is

I want you to value if you're sitting here today, Jesus Christ as great, as superior, as majestic.

I want you to believe in him. I want you to trust in him. You too will be in that casket one day and I'll probably do your funeral.

And so for many reasons, you should believe in Christ Jesus. The minor one being so it would make it easy for me to say, this man knew he was a sinner.

This lady knew she was a sinner and she trusted in Christ alone for salvation. You know how much easier that is for a family, easier it is for a pastor, but it transcendently more easy for you because you'll stand before God one day and you will either believe that Jesus is majestic today on earth in your life or you will bow before him in the great day of judgment saying,

Jesus is Lord. And so it's our desire here at the church that you'd believe today. That's what we want. If you're a Christian who already believes today, then you'll be reminded again,

Jesus is great. He's my savior and he's my Lord. And so today we'll look at Hebrews, this book that stirs up the soul when the soul is kind of lethargic, when the soul is kind of out of focus.

A while ago, my wife and I went to go see a movie and we were the only ones in the movie theater, the only ones.

And we sat there watching the movie and I could tell when the introductory credits came up with the introduction of the movie and all that, who's in the movie, it was all blurry.

And so I got up and I walked to the person and I said, do you think you could tune that movie? After all, we're the only ones in the movie theater, so it's not like it's my eyes were bad and everybody else is good.

I guess, you know, fix it to my eyes. And so the same thing with the book of Hebrews, the writer writes it in such a way where when people are kind of seeing

Jesus hazily out of focus, he's not very crisp or clear. Hebrews just puts a fine point to it, the nice focus.

And then after I sat down with Kim and then you could see first it was even out of focus more and then they tightened it down.

I thought, okay, I'm engaged. And then we watched a horrible movie and then went home. The absolute supremacy of Christ Jesus preeminent over mosaic law, replacement over mosaic law.

Jesus Christ is great. And once you get this, there's no going back. There's no going back to tradition.

There's no going back to religion and there's no going back to one of my major pet peeves in all of life.

And that is, oh, I, you know, are you a Christian? Well, no, I'm very spiritual.

I'm just kind of spiritual. Translation, get all that Holy Roller stuff out of my face.

I'll die on my own terms. Thank you. And I usually think to myself, you are very spiritual and you just happen to worship money.

You just happen to worship yourself and you need to know who Jesus Christ is so you can get that stupid notion out of your mind that spirituality gets you to heaven.

What we'll talk about today is there's only one thing that will get you to heaven. Only one thing.

If there was 50 things, I wouldn't be so riled up about it. If there are three ways, well, then, you know, engage in these other two ways.

But if there's one way, one person, one Christ, one sin bearer, then don't you think it'd be important to preach that one way?

Absolutely. And so today we're going to look at Hebrews 9 and Hebrews 11, looking at two key words.

And those two key words are blood and faith. Two key words. Without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sins.

And without faith, it's impossible to please God. Our two centerpieces of the table, when you go home and have a nice dinner today.

My mother was very strange, as you know. She was a godly lady. But I remember the day we had bunny rabbit.

We had rabbit on Easter. That was very interesting. You go, that explains it.

The psychological shrink in you are going, now I get why he is the way he is. I thought that was kind of a good lesson.

There's no such thing as Easter bunny. We just ate rabbit for Easter. And then we had hallowed chocolate eggs after that.

Not hallowed, but hallowed. Blood and faith.

Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission, no forgiveness. And without faith, it's impossible to please him.

So those are the two pieces on the center of our Easter table this morning, resurrection table. The hubs, the focus, as we'll do some exposition in chapter nine, some exposition in chapter 11.

Without faith, it's impossible to please him. And without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sins. And I want you to believe.

And I want you to believe in the blood atonement. And if I had to describe Christianity with two words, and only two words, not saying

Jesus Christ, but saying what he accomplished, it would be blood atonement. It would be blood atonement, substitutionary atonement.

And that is going, I'm already telegraphing what I'm going to say, but that's good because I want you to get it. The exclamation point called the resurrection makes blood atonement much more important, much more efficacious.

And so today in this book that talks about Jesus is superior to angels, to prophets, to Moses, to Aaron, to the old covenant, we're going to look at these two key words, blood and faith.

And the resurrection, by the way, frankly, would be moot if these truths didn't exist. Now let's look at chapter 9, verse 22 to start.

This is our first centerpiece, and we'll take a look at it, then we'll back up, and then we'll focus in on it once again.

The first word is blood, and we'll see without the shedding of blood in Hebrews 9 .22,

the bloody Christianity. I'm not talking about wars, I'm talking about sacrifice. Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood,

Hebrews 9 .22, and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. No forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood.

This is like the law of gravity. This is like the law of entropy. This is like the law of thermodynamics.

In God's economy, no forgiveness without bloodshed. That's just the way the world works.

That's just the way the creator has designed it. So I ask you a question. How does God forgive? How does

God forgive? Does he just kind of let things go? Does he just kind of maybe forget?

He's got a lot of things to control in the universe, and a lot of people to be concerned about, and a lot of false religions to go after. So God just kind of forgets once in a while, or says, ah, that's not that big a deal.

Remember the old movie, Oh God, with George Burns? He's kind of like a senile grandpa, kind of forgets, hardy har har.

They're not really portraying God at all like the real God. I ask you another question.

When someone sins against you, how do you forgive them? And is it similar to the way

God forgives? The answer is it's not similar at all, because if I sin against Tom and say,

Tom, would you please forgive me? Tom says, yes, I do. So why can't

God forgive that way? God please forgive me. Okay, you're forgiven. But that's not how God forgives.

This is not some kind of divine fiat like in creation. Let there be light, and there was light. So God says, by divine fiat, you've sinned against me.

Let there be forgiveness. And then there's forgiveness. That's not the way God works. Lloyd -Jones says,

God the Father is no indulgent father who just says, all right, my child, come back. All is well. Let bygones be bygones.

No big deal. You're forgiven. Gone are your sins. God is not like my grandmother,

Nona. And on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, I went to Grandma and Grandpa's house. My mother's parents, and we called them

Grandma and Grandpa up the hill because they lived up the hill. They loved us.

And I was an ornery young lad. And she had a yardstick over there, you know, the kind you get from Ace Hardware, True Value, Au Bichon.

I used to give them out all the time. Oh, here, put this in your bag, a yardstick. She just kept saying, if you don't obey me, you're going to get that right on your derriere.

And she kept saying it over, and over, and over, and over. And I realized she was never going to follow through with her promises.

She was all talk. And so I walked over one time, and she said, you're going to get that on your bottom if you keep it up.

Walked over, took it right in front of her, walked over to the kitchen table, broke it over my knee, and handed it to her. And she still didn't spank me.

That's the way God is. He's kind of grandma, all threats. But see,

God is a holy God, too. The holy seraphim veil their faces in the presence of God.

Abraham, the friend of God, said before God, I am but dust and ashes. Job said,

I abhor myself. Isaiah said, woe is me, for I am undone. My eyes have seen the King, the

Lord of hosts. Habakkuk says, God, your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and you cannot look on wickedness with favor.

Let's go back to Genesis chapter 2, and I want to give you three illustrations of blood atonement so you can see how bad sin is and how great

God's forgiveness is. Three examples of gracious substitution. Here's what

I'm going to try to do today. I'm assuming that some of you know hardly anything about Christianity, and so you need the basic rudimentary principles.

This is the rudimentary principle, that there has to be bloodshed for there to be forgiveness. No forgiveness, no shedding of blood.

No shedding of blood, no forgiveness. It's very, very interesting. If we go all the way back to the garden, we see this.

This is why it's good to read all your Bible, to see the way God works through time, and you'll see the theme is the same.

Bloody atonement, substitutionary atonement. Something dying in another's place. Something dying instead of.

And by the way, that's what you're going to need today. If you're a Christian, you need to be reminded of that so you say, oh, this morning we were singing those songs.

I thought, yes, hallelujah, what a savior. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. I'm forgiven. I have a risen savior.

If you're not a Christian, you need to understand this. Adam and Eve were given commands by God, and it says in chapter 2, verse 17, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely what?

Die. The wages of sin is death. That's God's law. The good thing is

God's not just just. He's not just holy. He's not just righteous, but he's compassionate, gracious, merciful, loving, and he provides atonement through the sacrifice of another.

He makes a substitute. This person should have died, but he has something else die instead. But what do

Adam and Eve first do? I call this along with this, it was Johnson, the denomination of the fig leaf.

This is where all religion started. This is where all we're really spiritual started. I don't know why

I have to say it that way, but I just have to say it to make it more lame. We're so spiritual. Here's, here's

Adam and Eve being really spiritual. What do they do? Verse seven, they sewed fig leaves together and made for themselves loincloths.

This is religion. This is tradition. We figure out a way. We know we're sinful. We know we have a conscience.

We know we try to believe in evolution and everything else, but we realize at the end of the day, there's a God. He created us.

We'll stand before him. So let's kind of throw out some things to God. We'll appease our conscience. We'll soothe our, our sin.

And we'll just kind of make our own fig leaves by being spiritual or by doing any kind of ordinance.

But God's goodness is seen by a bloody sacrifice. Look at chapter three, verse 21,

Adam and Eve can't pay for their own sins. They've sinned. They need someone else to pay for them because if they sin for it, if they, they pay for their own sins, they not only physically die, but they eternally die forever and ever.

And here we have the first illustration of bloody perfect. No, not quite perfect yet, but bloody atonement and the

Lord God, Genesis three 21, forget the denomination of the fig leaf. The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife, garments of skin skins and clothed them instead of Adam and Eve immediately dying.

These animals did either one animal or two or more. How about that? The wages of sin is death. You sin.

Something has to die. And instead of Adam and Eve dying, God kills animals and then takes their skins and gives them clothing.

Every sin has to be dealt with. Jump with me to the next book of the Bible, Exodus. I'm going to give you three quick illustrations of bloody substitution so that the resurrection makes sense about this stuff.

There's no real reason for the resurrection. And why is Christianity so bloody?

Because men and women are so sinful and because God has ordained it this way. So this is interesting.

Passover Exodus chapter 12. Remember the wage of sin is death. Something has to die.

But God in his goodness and in his mercy and his compassion says, I'll have someone take the bullet for you.

We use that terminology today. I'll stand in your place. I'll be the vicarious sacrifice.

I'll die instead of you. And early on, it was not another person dying, but it was the concept of something would die.

And instead it was the animals. And now we have Passover. Verse five of Exodus 12.

Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats and you shall keep it until the 14th day of this month when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.

Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.

That's not just the entrance of the door, but a very place of security back in those days. Verse 12, for I will pass through the land of Egypt.

You don't want God passing through. You want him passing over. I will pass through the land of Egypt that night and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast.

He's also going to punish those false gods too. And on the gods, all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgments.

I am the Lord. Verse 13, you don't want to pass through. You want this

Passover and the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are.

And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And no plague will befall you to destroy you.

When I strike the land of Egypt, there's going to be a sacrifice instead of you, a substitute.

Something's going to die. You've earned death. You've earned it because you've sinned. But when I pass over, if I've already seen there's been a death in place of you,

I'll just keep right on going. I was trying to explain this to some kids the other day. And I said, just imagine how costly sin is.

Just imagine dad comes home, maybe you're on the farm and dad comes home and says, I have a little three week old little lamb and it's going to be your pet kids gather around.

Let's name the lamb. What do you think we should name the lamb? Fluffy, scruffy, whitey,

I don't know what we name these little lambs. And you know what? You have inside dogs and outside dogs. It's going to be an inside lamb.

You can have the lamb in the house. You can feed that lamb and that's what the lamb gets to eat over here.

And sometimes the lamb gets to sleep in the same bed with the kids and they love the lamb so much. That little lamb,

Mary had a little lamb and then it's one year later, you say, okay, kids, we've sinned in this household.

Dad sinned, mom sinned, everybody else here sinned too, you kids too, the wages of sin is death.

And so God can either kill you, you'll die one day and stand before him.

Or we have a sacrifice. Lamb didn't do anything wrong. Lamb's perfect, matter of fact, it's got all four legs and it's just nice and unblemished and we get a lot of money for that down at the shop if we sold it.

So I want kids all to come around with daddy, a son, go get me the knife. All the kids come around, put your hands on that lamb and we'll symbolize that our sins are going to go into the lamb and the lamb will die in our place.

So put your hands on the lamb, put your hands on the lamb's head and calm the lamb down a little bit. And daddy takes an eye from the son and from one side of the neck to the other, that young man right there is listening.

And as the blood and the life drains out of the lamb, so too do the tears just come screaming down the faces of the kids and probably parents.

That concept with a little bit different arrangement as the priest would slay things is the exact concept of how heinous sin is, how heinous sin becomes unless there's a substitute because it should have been the neck of the dad and then right on down the line.

This is just the economy of God and instead of saying how sad, we should say how sad yet I'm so happy it's not my neck.

It's not my neck on the line. Now let's go to another one. The third one to get us an idea here of blood sacrifice is found in Leviticus 16,

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, three illustrations, three quick ones of blood sacrifice substitution.

So you realize why the atonement had to happen and what the background is, how bad sin is, the goodness of God that he would provide a sacrifice, that he would provide a lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.

Leviticus 16, this is the day of atonement, the Jews would call it the day and this is almost exactly what

I was talking about in the last illustration. Leviticus 16, 14, jump right in there. I want you to think of substitution.

I want you to think of blood. I want you to think there's life in the blood and when you sin, something has to die and he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it.

Leviticus 16, 14, with his finger on the front of the mercy seat on the east side and in front of the mercy seat, he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times and he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people.

See that kill the goat for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat.

Verse 18, skip down to there, then he shall go up to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it and shall take some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat and put it on the horns of the altar all around.

Yearly the substitutionary atonement in Yom Kippur, all leading to what?

All leading to who? To whom was it leading? You think about Adam and Eve, you think about Passover, you think about Yom Kippur and now let me read these

Old Testament words to you and then you get the point. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, but the

Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him, substitutionary atonement.

If you'd like to describe Christianity, that is it, substitutionary atonement, something dies in your place, but I've got a question for you, if blood is required for your sins to be taken away and if you don't want to keep sacrificing something every year because you need a better sacrifice, you're going to need some better blood, you're going to need infinite blood, you're going to need godly blood, divine blood, but God is a spirit,

God doesn't have a body, you need God's blood, God doesn't have any blood. So what happened?

You need God's blood to be shed because it's of infinite value, because there's no sin in God, he's not dying for himself, he's dying for somebody else, but you need to have a bloody sacrifice,

God is invisible, God has no body. So in the eternal counsels of God, in the great plan of redemption, what did

God decide to do? God decided, the Father, Son and the Spirit decided that the

Son would go and cloak himself with humanity and bleed for his people.

So now let's go back to Hebrews chapter 9, a substitute life and blood needs to be shed.

If it was as easy as, you know, somebody needs to be strangled in your place, then let's find somebody to strangle, but here we need bloodshed, and so how do we have bloodshed?

A bloodshed that's righteous blood, of an infinite value that can be applied to all those who would ever believe.

What do we do when God doesn't have a body? God adds human flesh, and it's called the incarnation.

It's called Jesus Christ, the God -man, it's called the virgin conception. And now we parachute into Romans, excuse me, into Hebrews chapter 9, go up to verse 11, and all this language is about Jesus' personal sacrifice causes eternal salvation for those that would believe.

Christ's blood instead of goat's blood, instead of your blood, instead of anybody else's blood, it's divine blood that's efficacious, that can save you from your sins.

If your sins require death, and they do, then you need somebody who can pay for those with a blood that's shed that won't just happen once a year, but once and done.

That's Christianity. 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 bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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