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The Urgency of Salvation
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, Michael Lee Abendroth, and I have to write this other thing down here before I forget, the last show, Warning Passages, Part 3, Biblicism, Sola Scriptura, Predicta Pen.
The Predicta Pen is still here. I did clean up this desk pretty much, but I left the Predicta Pen here. If you�re lucky, no-brainer, dare you live by the pen. Convier son avier a un stylo. Something that says.
I can�t predict that. I can�t read that. Do you meet your mates tonight? Let�s click it. If you�re lucky, do you do some chores? It�s unclear. Ask again. Huh. Predicta Pen. The next one I was going to read, I can�t really read.
Dumbo. Dumbo Jumbo. So, we�re talking a little bit today about urgency of belief. I think the show will help you when it comes to evangelism. If you are listening because you like theological talk but you�re not a Christian, hopefully this show will also address that.
When you study the book of Hebrews, which I�ve been doing quite a lot lately, you see five times in chapter 3, verse 7, verse 13, verse 15, and then twice in chapter 4, verse 7, the word �today. �Today, if you hear his voice.
�Today, if you hear his voice. This is the opportunity to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ today. I don�t know when you have another opportunity to do that. Maybe you�ll be alive tomorrow, maybe you won�t, but it�s solemn.
Today is the day to listen to the voice of God, through Scripture, through frail preachers like me, and respond with belief. David McWilliams, in his commentary, said,. �The text virtually cries in our ears to hear.
O eternity, O eternity, press upon my heart the reality of God�s judgment. Do not permit me to put off until tomorrow the response to the gospel of grace, for tomorrow may never come. Today, today, today, today, today.
�Behold, now is the favorable time, behold, now is the day of salvation. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 2. When you�re reading this warning passage, if you�re a believer, well then keep believing. The evil, unbelieving heart will then avoid that.
How do you avoid that? By believing. By taking God as His Word, trusting. You know about God, you know the facts, you assent to those facts, and you trust. Knowledge, assent, and trust. And so you keep believing.
And you�re like Paul, with Galatians chapter 2, verse 20. �I�ve been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I live now, I live in the flesh� sorry, I said it wrongly �and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.
That�s how the believer should respond. But the unbeliever, how do they respond? Today. Today�s the day to believe. Today is the day to believe. The Holy Spirit, and of course this is back to chapter 3, verse 7, where the warning passage starts, �Today as the Holy Spirit says.
And he�s quoting Scripture. The author is thinking. The author knows. The author acknowledges that Psalm 75, no, Psalm 95, is written by the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. High view of Scripture, Psalm 95, today.
And there�s a warning. This is the warning, that if you�re an unbeliever, you�re called to faith, you�re called to look to the Lord Jesus that�s been described in chapter 1 and 2 as the one who purges sins and who has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, who is called by the Father, God Himself.
Your Creator is telling you this. That�s why it�s so important. And you�re going to die one day. I did some study this week online, 50, and this is world statistics, 55 .3 million people die each year in the world, 55 million.
There�s always a need for pastors and mortuaries, morticians. So, if you divide that out, that is 100, why am I so tired? It�s 9 o�clock at night, that�s why. 151 ,600 people die each day. That�s a lot of caskets.
That�s a lot of cremations, a lot of cremains. 6 ,316 people die each hour. 106 people die every minute, and every second, 1 .8 humans die. No wonder, James says, �Come now, you who say, �Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.
Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. No wonder, Revelation 22, towards the end, he who testifies to these things says, �Yes, I am.
I am coming quickly. And then John says, �Amen, come, Lord Jesus. John chapter 8, �Therefore Jesus said, �therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.
And if you�re listening today and you�re an unbeliever, then the words of Isaiah are for you. �Come now, let us reason together says the Lord, �though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
Though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. There's a sense of urgency you notice in the Gospels when Jesus is preaching, John the Baptist is preaching. You see the sense of urgency with Ezekiel preaching.
These aren't people kind of like, �Well, here's a talk, it's a TED Talk, I'm going to try to use induction. It is a warning. It is urgent, and the one who's the most urgent, seemingly, in this call to salvation is Jesus.
When you look at Matthew, as an illustration, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, what does he say? �Enter through the narrow gate Matthew 7, 13, �for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. Jesus is talking about salvation, entering the kingdom of heaven, believe. That's essentially what he's saying.
He's using different words, but that's what he's saying, believe. There's no purgatory, there's no burning off some of the sins, there's no middle ground, there's no annihilation. It's either heaven or hell.
It's either bliss or torment. It's either take God at his word or you don't. It's either everlasting life or everlasting death. There's no second chances, no do-overs, no reincarnation. There's few. He said elsewhere, as he was passing through from one city and village to another, teaching and proceeding on his way to Jerusalem, someone said to him, �Lord, are there just a few being saved
You know, maybe that's just, you know, the Jews thought only a few, or maybe, you know, how many angels dance on the head of a pin? Maybe just a few. You know, what's the number of the elect? Maybe all of Israel gets saved.
�Strive this is what Jesus said in Luke 13, 24, �Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. And in the middle of all this, you've got false teachers compounding the problem everywhere you go.
Chapter 7, verse 15, �Beware of the false prophets Jesus said, �who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. What's the sign of their false teaching? Well, it's a lot of things.
Self-righteousness, religiosity. But if you look at the context in particular, probably Lloyd-Jones is right. These false teachers that you're to beware of, these false prophets who wear religious garb, call themselves pastors and priests and imams and reverends, what do they say?
They say the opposite of Jesus. What does Jesus say? Jesus says it's a narrow gate, and they say, no, it's a wide gate. That's what they say. So you've got compounding problems. And not only are these false teachers going to try to deceive you, you can deceive yourself.
Self-deception is real. Matthew 7, 21, �Not everyone who says to me, �Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, that's who will enter. Many will say to me on that day, �Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles?
And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. False prophets, false teachers, false leaders, false religious organizations, and now false converts, false followers.
These people, they don't show the evidence of their faith practicing righteousness. They show the evidence of their faithlessness, their unbelief by practicing lawlessness. These are scary. This is a scary passage.
I don't know what the scariest thing that you've ever done or been a part of. Today it is Friday the 13th, and it's making me think of Halloween haunted houses, and people are, you know, house of horrors and horrors of houses.
This is Judgment Day, though, here. This is Judgment Day chills. This is not just waiting for the doctor's results to come back and wondering, knowing deep down, you know what, I've got it. This is not the person who's the rock singer or the person who says, I'm going to hell and I know it.
This is the religious person. This is the moralist. This is the Bible teacher. This is the self-righteous one. Friend, you have a soul. It's going to live forever, and you're going to have a glorified body to either live in the presence of God with the saints in heaven or weather the presence of God in hell forever.
Because that's what makes hell hell, is God being there. You can even be deceived about the possibility of being deceived. There was that old Donald Gray Barnhouse sermon, weighed and found lacking. I think it was called The Scales of God, and, you know, on one side of the weighing scale is holiness and righteousness and, you know, perfection.
Do this and live. And on the other side is what you've really done doesn't balance out. Jesus here, when He's preaching, He's preaching with urgency the same kind of language in Hebrews. Today, today, today, today.
Tozer said, We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish goodwill between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, or the world of sports or modern entertainment.
We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum. That's what Jesus is saying. There's a false calf, false God. You got Jesus just talked about, first false prophets, everywhere you go, false, false, false, false.
Matthew 24 later, it'll talk about false Christs, another Jesus, 2 Corinthians 11. What did Paul condemn? Another gospel. You have false teachers, false apostles. There is a real entity known as Satan, and he's trying to deceive people.
False faith. That is amazing. You want to run from false faith, and you want to enter by believing. You can't just say, well, you know what, I never will be deceived. No, you could be deceived. The question is, are you deceived?
That's the real question. J. Vernon McGee taught the Bible for a long time, and some of you might not know that he's dead, but his messages are recorded, and he tells the story of the devil, quote, that had a meeting with his demons to decide how to persuade men that God was nonexistent.
Since the demons themselves believed in his existence, they wondered just how to do it. One demon suggested that they tell people Jesus Christ never really existed and that men should not believe such fiction.
Another demon suggested that they persuade men that death ends all and there is no need to worry about life after death. Finally, the most intelligent demon suggested that they tell everyone there is a God, Jesus Christ, and that believing in him saves, but that you can get to heaven by simply professing faith and then go on living in sin as you used to.
Is that you? John 2, 23, and 24, many believed in his name, but Jesus did not commit himself to them. John chapter 12, many believed on him, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him. No root for a while they believed, Luke 8.
And it can happen to people, or even pastors. The account of Abraham Kuyper, who was called into a meeting by an old lady at the church, was convinced he wasn't a Christian, and she preached the gospel to him, and he got saved.
That's Abraham Kuyper. You look around right now, maybe you live in the South, Bible Belt, everybody's a Southern Baptist. Talking about nominal Christianity, talk about, well, we go on Sundays, but our lives don't show evidence or fruit that we're a Christian, that's scary.
That's Proverbs 30, verse 12, those who are pure in their own eyes and not yet cleansed of their filth. And you can be around the Bible for a long time. Think about Luther, we're celebrating the 500th year anniversary, 1517.
He wasn't saved, I don't think, until 1519, by his own description. So he nails the 95 Theses up, he's been lecturing on the Psalms, and Romans, Galatians, and yeah, I believe in Jesus, I believe He's the only God, I believe He died on the cross, but He's not born again.
He's not born again. There's a judgment day coming, and that's what Jesus says in Matthew 7, 22, on that day, judgment day, the terrible day, Spurgeon said, the great last day, the day for which all other days were made, that day by which all other days must be measured and judged.
And Jesus is the judge, for not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, John 5, verse 22, so that all will honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and does not come into the judgment, or into judgment, but is passed out of death into life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
2 Thessalonians chapter 1, these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, for our testimony to you was believed.
Matthew 25, but when the Son of Man comes in His glory, Jesus speaking, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All nations, all the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them from one another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.
Yeah, yeah, but I was, but I had, I had urgency, Lord, Lord. Chapter 7 verse 21, Lord, Lord. Chapter 7 verse 22, Lord, Lord. People say that when they want something. Regularly, when you study Matthew, they say, Lord, when they're in search for divine aid, as Michael Wilkins says on page 324 in his commentary.
Where are the preachers these days? Like Jesus, who tried to get deceived people undeceived, hey, the demons believe in shudder. It's a false faith. There's a faith that doesn't save. There's an emotional faith that doesn't save.
A faith that keeps on saying, you know what, I believe, I believe, I believe. Not everyone who says, that's a present tense, who keeps on saying it, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord. They're fervent.
It seems like they're saying it in front of other people. False teachers, they're zealous. People at the door, Jehovah's Witnesses, they're zealous. Mormons travel door to door. They're zealous. Zealousness is not salvation.
You're not saved by grace through zealousness. You say, well, but I've had an experience. Here are these people, they prophesied, they cast out demons, they perform miracles. But if you recall, even Judas Iscariot, he could cast out demons.
He could do those things. Matthew chapter 10, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, freely you receive, freely give. Everybody would have thought, you know what, Judas is the black sheep because he can't do any of these things.
No, he can do all those. You can claim something and it can be not sufficient. Satan's power, maybe that's the way this is done. Who knows? But the key here is, when Jesus says, I never knew you, you want God to know you.
He knows who you are, but this is the language of intimacy. He knows us. How does he know us? Well, you're saved by faith. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. That is the instrument.
Belief. You don't want to hear, I never knew you. Of course, we love Him because He first loved us. But your response is not stop your sinning, not make yourself savable, not having a bunch of conditions.
Your response is to believe the Lord Jesus Christ. He dies on a cross for sinners like you, not for His own sins, and is raised from the dead because the Father confirmed His great life and His great substitutionary death.
You do not want to hear, I never knew you. Spurgeon said, there is more thunder in those four words than you ever heard in the most terrible tempest that has rolled over your heads. There's no stamp of the foot or fire glance of the eye to accompany them.
They are spoken calmly and deliberately, yet they are terrible and overwhelming. I never knew you. I never knew you. That's courtroom stuff. That's judgment stuff. You don't usually hear this very often, but Elizabeth Needham wrote the poem, I Never Knew You, from this text.
When the king and his beauty shall come to his throne and around him are gathered his loved ones, his own, there will be some who knock at his fair palace door to be answered within there's mercy no more.
Here's the refrain. I never knew you. I have never known you. I have never, I have never, I have never known you. The last stanza. O sinner, give heed to the story of gloom. For the hour is fast nearing that fixes your doom.
Will you still reject mercy, still harden your heart? Oh, then what will you do as the king cries, depart? I have never known you. I have never known you. I have never, I have never, I have never known you.
Today is the day of your salvation. Today, today, today, today, today. That's the urgency of Hebrews, to believe the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't believe yourself anymore. Don't believe your own sin bearer anymore.
Don't believe that somehow you can get to him without Jesus. He's the way, the truth, and the life, and no one can...
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.
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