Context is King

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 ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. That�s the goal. Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. Very few emails in the last month.

Maybe you�ve been busy shopping for NOCO and getting ready to send in, I don�t know, what your gifts are. We�ve received gifts in the past for Christmas, not a gift this year, not a single solitary gift.

No pizza coffee, no little funny mugs, nothing, ain�t got nothing for you. That�s all right. We don�t do it for that reason. Eight years ago we started, and we are just working through various issues.

I have received some mail correspondence over the years, not that much because of the internet. You can just send an email, of course. But some have been encouraging, some critical, and some looney tunes.

I offer to you category three today. This person has sent me crazier things, but this is in the long line of crazy. Give all of Jesus, and it�s got some glitter here. I can tell there�s Elmer�s glue around this little picture of the manger scene that they put the glitter on themselves.

Give all of Jesus, God did. A homemade card. It�s about five by seven, and then on the other side it�s written, �Jesus, the real gold, yes, despite vicious rumors. Now, this person has come to our worship services before and has tried to cause a little bit of fuss here and there.

And it says this, �Peace, joy, love. We all lick our chops, and yes, that is also a part of Jesus. But there is also a part that doesn�t sell seats in churches today, judgment. God�s mercy is as great as His judgment.

Now, actually, that line is true. She spells judgment both with the E and with two Es. So she spells it the wrong way and the right way, J-U-D-G-M-E-N-T. We had to repent as Jesus was clear and demanded this when He started His earthly ministry.

Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus actually did say that too. Why? The choice would be as clear as a bell, heaven or hell. Why am I thinking of some Pink Floyd song right now? And we had to let God be God, to lead people, gift people according to His will for people.

Even doing prophecy, one of the spiritual, scriptural gifts given, �Try it, I dare you. She wanted to give a prophecy, by the way, while I was doing a scripture reading one time, and that didn�t really work out so well.

I think we�ve told her not to come back. I don�t know if she has been or not. Maybe she�s listening today, who knows? Anyway, that�s how I coined �Follow the master, not the pastor. See? Aren�t you glad you�re not me?

Follow the master, not the pastor. Well, that is true. I don�t want anybody to follow me, ultimately. You can imitate me as I imitate the Lord. I think that is clear in scripture, but I am a sinner and I�m supposed to be shepherding God�s people, not saying, �Come unto me, the pastor, the pastor.

Follow the master, not the pastor. I mean, it was all preached passionately at such-and-such a church, and I think she�s talking about the pastor here. I�ll leave him out. I listened, question mark, exclamation point, star.

However, it was also taught we would never do enough for Jesus, so please forgive me, the world, for not doing enough. Now, if it was taught that we would never do enough for Jesus, well, then maybe she�s got a point.

Follow the pastor, not the master. Pastor-daster. I know I said it wrongly. And love, oh, that love part, is again stated loud and clear when Jesus said, �I am the way, the truth, and the life as we were all so taught.

You can�t have love without truth. Do I hear, �Amen or do I hear, �Call the cop. She sees clearly. I think that�s referring to when we said escort her out. Maybe it�s a different lady, but see, since I don�t know, it�s not signed.

I�m not supposed to read anonymous postcards made with Elmer�s glue glitter. I think I forgot that class in seminary. Do I hear, �Amen or do I hear, �Call the cop. She sees clearly. All of Jesus, the world�s greatest gift, despite vicious rumors.

See what God sees. We�re in great company, despite vicious rumors. And then one last time for the fourth time. It�s last call for souls, and 2 Timothy 4, 3 -4 is here, despite vicious rumors. Well, that�s what we have to deal with here at No Compromise Radio.

That�s what happens when you throw your voice out in the Ethernet, the Internet, the Etherealnet, the World Wide Web. If you�d like to write me, you can. I would just make one suggestion. Why don�t you put your name on it, and why don�t you refrain from Elmer�s glue and glitter?

Oh, I get it now. I get it. There�s the �Jesus is the real gold because she put the fake gold glitter on the top. All right. There you have it. I�d like today to talk a little bit about context. Are you ready?

What did I just think of? Are you ready for this? Context. I�ve been teaching through the book of Hebrews, and this book will yield a good illustration of context. When you first start reading the Bible, you will begin, especially in the epistles, to notice verbs, and you will notice present tense verbs, action verbs, intransitive verbs, past tense verbs, future tense verbs.

You�ll notice participles, I know aren�t technically verbs, I don�t think, gerunds, although they have in their root a verb. And you�ll notice those things, and that is very important. Every word in Scripture is important, because it�s all God breathed.

But do not forget connecting words, particles, but, and, because, therefore, since, then, et cetera. No, no, et cetera isn�t a particle, isn�t a connecting word, but it just means et cetera, et sera, et cetera.

We sometimes have a favorite verse that we�ve memorized, and we apply it to certain things, and in fact it�s probably true in that situation, but we don�t understand what the verse means in context. And while the Bible teaches what people think that verse teaches in context, actually that verse doesn�t teach what they think it does in context.

Does that make sense? Jesus is the real gold, despite vicious rumors. Despite, I�m writing this down, vicious rumors, okay, context is king, despite vicious rumors. That�s the name of the show today. Twenty-five minutes of gold, real gold, glitter gold, Elmer�s glue, glitter gold.

I mean, Elmer�s glue, that�s something everybody has to have in their cabinet someplace. I only had some wood glue at home, so I had to go buy some new Elmer�s. I usually had to do that for the kids every year, for their school projects, for their school supplies.

That�s chaos. That�s a chaotic particle, Jaron, for you. Over here looking at me the whole time is the solar pope. Dan Boorman is going to be here tomorrow in the studio, and I wanted to make sure he was greeted by the solar pope, which was a gift I got last year.

And again, no gifts this year. But there was a wonderful gift this year given. I don�t know if I talked about it on the show last week, or I probably didn�t do a show a couple last week. I sat down with my family this year during Christmas time in the living room and read Psalm 103 about the faithfulness of God, and we celebrated that the MRI shows no cancer in my prostate.

That was exciting, because it was one year prior to that, 1999. I got that in my mind because that was the year my daughter was born, 1999. I just was filling out something for frequent flyers points, frequent flyer points.

2017, sat down during Christmas, 2016 rather, and read Psalm 103 and told them I had cancer, but I probably wasn�t going to die from it and had to shepherd them through. Well, this year, after the MRI that I had in the middle of December, so far so good.

I will have some blood test every three months, an MRI in one year, and a biopsy in 18 months. Ouch! And then we could be home free to die of something else. I know I need to give up diet soda again. I think I told you that I never drank.

I gave it up years ago because I didn�t want to get cancer. Then I got cancer, and I thought I already have it, I might as well drink diet soda. So now that I don�t have it, at least I hope I don�t, maybe we better stop again.

Anyway, context is very important here on No Compromise Radio. Here is the passage that people love to quote, and rightfully so because it is such a great verse, but there is a context to this verse. There is something going on, and I need to just fast forward my notes here so I can get to this exact section.

Here is the verse in Hebrews. I won�t tell you where it�s from because you probably know it. Ready? The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

That is the verse. Great verse, huh? Wonderful verse. What does it mean? Now here is what we normally say, and by the way, this is all true, that the Bible is not dead, it�s living, that the Bible, since it�s the Word of God, God is alive and the living God, therefore He speaks and His Word is powerful and energetic, and we begin to talk along those lines, bibliology lines, the study of the Bible lines, which is fine.

And I think that�s appropriate secondarily. But what I did to you is I forgot the first word on purpose accidentally. It�s not the first word in the Greek. The first word in the Greek is living, to emphasize God�s Word is living.

But there is a particle there, there is a connector that makes everything sensible, makes sense of everything. 4, F-O-R, 4, the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart, Hebrews 4 .12.

That�s important, isn�t it? Every word is important. And that four is connecting this particular verse, verse 12, with the previous either verse, pericope, paragraph, thought, it�s connecting. And here is the previous verse, �Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sword of disobedience.

That�s the verse prior to that. Now to make it even more emphatic, let me read the two together without a pause. �Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sword of disobedience, for the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. Well, what�s happening here? This is not a verse about bibliology, although that informs our bibliology.

This verse has a context, and the context is, you need to rest in Christ Jesus. He perfectly obeyed the law, and when God would look at His intentions and His heart and His thoughts, there would be no sin to judge.

And now we, who are the resting ones in Christ, are not going to be judged because we are found in Christ Jesus. If you would like to turn your back on Jesus and all that He offers, and remember the context of Hebrews chapter 4 is people wanting to go back to Judaism and back to the temple and leave Christianity, Jesus is superior, and He�s so superior that on judgment day you�re going to be examined and found wanting if you�re going to turn your back on the superior one.

On judgment day, you won�t be examined because you�ll be in Christ if you are a believing one in Christ Jesus. That is the issue when it comes to context. When you see the word �for� there, it�s adding that.

That�s why it�s important if you�re going to read, for instance, the NIV, and it planes a lot of those words, especially if you look at James chapter 1. A lot of those connecting words are not found in the NIV.

I don�t know if it�s found in the new version of the NIV, the 2000 and, is that 2011? The 2011 version? In the 1984, it was not to be found, a lot of those connecting words. You need those because it�s helping you understand what�s going on.

You want to find out context because what the text means in context is really what the context means. Paul is hammering home a message, and that message is, �You better enter the rest or be scrutinized.

It�s going to be a disaster of spectacular proportions if you are going to fall short and be examined based on your own works. Remember the hide-and-seek game, hide-and-go-seek? You might try to hide, but God is going to seek you and find you.

It is the power of God�s Word, and you cannot avoid His judgment. The impossibility of hiding and sneaking away from God�s judgment, that is motivation to rest. You want motivation to believe in the Lord Jesus?

Okay, here�s the motivation. The Word of God is going to judge you. Only trust in Christ Jesus will lead to eternal rest, spiritual rest. That�s why this is so urgent, and you see that in chapter 4, the urgency.

You cannot mask, hide, duck. You might be able to hide from the government if you�re going to try to not show funds that you�ve earned because of tax ducking and diving and dodging and jiving. Duck and dive?

Is that what we call it? This is going to be the omniscient God with the laser-like eyes judging you, knowing your thoughts and intentions, God�s Word, the discerner. That�s where we get the word �critic by the way.

The critic. He will be your critic. Barnes said, �The design of this and the following verse is obvious. It is to show that we cannot escape the notice of God. That all insincerity, unbelief, hypocrisy will be detected by Him.

And since our hearts are perfectly open before Him, we should be sincere and should not attempt to deceive Him. And more than that, you should believe because there will be sin. There will be insincerity.

There will be self-righteousness in every other kind of sin. So trust in Christ and rest in Him. You need to be found in Christ. You need to be found in Him, not having a righteousness of your own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, Philippians 3, verse 9.

The character of God�s Word, the all-seeing eye of God�s Word, as it were, the power of God�s Word should make you say, �I need to rest in Christ. I need to rest in Christ. This is not a dead word.

This is not an old word for old days only. This is a living word, for the Word of God is living, present tense. This is always true of God�s Word. It's living, and it will always be true, not just now, not just in the days of the Israelites, not just in the days of Paul or this writer of this book, the book of Hebrews, but in the future too.

It's not going to go away. It's not going to be outdated. It has the power to judge. The Word of God, living. Remember what the King James Bible does with this translation? For the Word of God is quick and powerful.

The word �quick� means living or alive, quickening, if you think of that idiom. Sometimes they'll still use that with pregnancies, when you first feel movements of the baby. It's quickening. Sometimes if you hear the phrase �cut to the quick�, cuts through the dead layers of the skin, maybe you'll hear the word �quick silver, metal that runs around like it's alive, quick.

And speaking of which, 1 Peter, King James, �wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you, who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.

This quick word will judge the quick and the dead. You need to be trusting in Christ Jesus. These words are alive, called by Stephen in Acts 7, �living oracles. He received the living oracles Moses did to give them to us, or to give to us.

Sometimes you'll hear people, when they talk about the Bible, they have a section, the old systematic theologies, �animation. We're not talking about Disney cartoons here. We're not talking about anime.

We're talking about passages that show the Bible as living, like this one here, Hebrews 4, verse 12. They're alive. They give life-giving, they give life-changing power. They're animated. They are truly alive because they come from God, who is the living one.

�For you have been born again, not of seed, which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God. I mean, flesh is like grass, glory of flowers. You know what? That falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.

God's word does something because it's alive. Yes, it's called a sword, a judge, a lamp, mirror, water, food, gold. It's alive. Voltaire was a French philosopher, and he died in 1778, and he, before he died, predicted that within a hundred years Christianity would be null and void, obscure.

But the word of God is living. I don't like it, therefore, when people say bringing the Bible alive, showing its relevance. It is relevant. There's a CD for sale, Bible Alive, and it means somebody's dramatically read it in a clear and easy way to understand the New Living Translation.

No, the word of God just simply is alive. The word of the living God is alive. And it's not only that, it's active, and we're going to have to look at that next time. Active. Start with active. My name's Mike Ebendroth, and we're talking today about verses in context.

What you want to do is you want to read books like you'd read a regular book, not jumping all around, seeing what the context is. I love Iwana because they have children memorize verses. But you need to know where those verses come from.

There's a context. Let me give you another illustration, John 3 .16, for God so loved the world. In English, we have the same particle there, for, it's a connector. Why is that there? What's the reason?

And you go back and you see why the word for connects, and to what, rather, it connects it to. And you'll see about this snake lifted up in the wilderness and looking with faith to see that snake and then be saved as Moses lifted up that serpent in the wilderness.

And there's a connection. If you'd like to write me, info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. You can go to the website. We have books, Things That Go Bump in the Church, on sale for $7 .99, and Sexual Fidelity.

If you have a group of people that want to get Sexual Fidelity at a cheaper price, there's a church that needed to give one to the men's group, and I just sold 30 of them, or 25 to another church. I'll be happy to sell those to you at about $8 a shot if you buy 15 or more.

If you just buy two Sexual Fidelities, I'll send you, this month in January, I'll just send you Things That Go Bump in the Church for free. You don't have to say, send me Things That Go Bump, and the cart doesn't show it.

Just buy two Sexual Fidelities. You get that one free.

Okay? 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 Testament.

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.