Hebrews & Morality (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.

Doctrine, Duty, and the Order of Hebrews 13

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth and it is May 22nd, Friday, and we are in the studio today. We, Royal We. That is me. Pastor Steve will probably be in next week. We did record a couple of shows on Tuesday via phone, but probably that will all be in person coming up soon.

I think there are more reasons for church disagreements now, right? You�ve got homeschool, private school, public school, psalms only, psalms without music, hymns only, trinity hymnal only, praise music only, praise music and hymns.

What else do you have? You have vaccine, anti-vaccine, you have trick-or-treater, non-trick-or-treater, you have Maybasket, non-Maybasket. Now you have masks, no masks. Okay, here we go. Today, Donald Trump, our president, said it�s okay for churches to meet.

I don�t know how that plays into governments by state, but we�ll have to see and find out. I don�t know about you, but if I were to ask you, what�s more important, what kind of sermon would you like to hear?

Would you like to hear a sermon about doctrine or about practical application? Doctrine or practical application? Maybe I could put it this way. Would you like to learn more about doctrine, do you think that�s more important, or about daily living?

Well, I was listening to the White Horse Inn, and while the old shows, I think, are still the best, they play those every once in a while, kind of flashback, the equivalent of my Friday rerun, although my Friday reruns are probably worse because I think I wasn�t as reformed as I am now.

Or maybe you could say maybe I wasn�t as dispensational. I mean, I was more dispensational then, covenant now. Anyway, I was listening to Shane Rosenthal, and he went to the pastors� conference someplace and interviewed pastors and asked that question, what�s more important, doctrine or daily living?

I think half of them said practical living, and I just kept thinking to myself, of course, there are laws in the Bible, there are commands for Christians, the importance of practical daily living. There�s a way to respond to God, not to keep our salvation, not to get our salvation, but because we�re saved.

There�s nothing wrong with practical application, but if it�s not tethered to or hooked to or, what do they call when trains are linked together, I don�t know, whatever that thing is. What are those things called?

Somebody look it up and tell me. There�s a certain kind of coupler. Maybe that�s it, the coupler. If your doctrine is coupled to practical application, then great. If it�s uncoupled, it wasn�t some movie star just saying she was, instead of getting divorced, they were uncoupling.

They were a couple, they�re uncoupled. But you�ve got doctrine and duty, right? This is the epistle. These are the epistles. You�ve got conduct because creed is first. You�ve got agenda, but you�ve got credenda first, what you believe and then how you behave.

You�ve got exposition and then exhortation. And so, it�s important for you, dear listener, to make sure you realize that the commands, the laws, the imperatives in the New Testament for you are done in light of who Jesus is and what He�s done for you.

That�s what you need to remember. Now, the book of Hebrews is fascinating because chapter 13, yes, railroad cars uncoupled. There we go. Thank you, Vicki. Vicki, you always watch Vicki when I do FaceTime, so I can�t avoid.

I don�t know how you know that I�m on, but I�m glad you�re watching. Hebrews 13, it has a bunch of concluding commands and concluding exhortations. And there�s nothing wrong with that, obviously, and we�re going to go through some of those today.

But I just want you to remember, here�s the dumb moment. Chapters 1 through 12 happen first. And if you take the Bible and you say, you know what, I�m going to rummage through the Bible and I�m going to try to find all my practical stuff that I can do so I can do it, you�re not reading the Bible rightly.

There�s a story to the Bible. There�s a theme to the Bible. And even within an epistle, a particular letter, there�s a way to read the letter. And of course, with Ephesians 1 to 3, typically we think of doctrine, and then there�s an outgrowth of that doctrine.

Remember what he says in chapter 4, verse 1 in Ephesians? To live in a manner worthy of your calling. It�s language of a weight and a scale. And the weight goes down on this side, that�s chapters 1, 2, and 3, and then the way you live, you try to balance out the scale by the grace of God, the Holy Spirit dwelling in you.

You want to respond properly. And again, I have to say it over and over and over, not to keep your salvation, not to earn your salvation, not to get your salvation, not to have some final justification for your salvation that would be different than your initial justification.

But because you�re a Christian, then you want to obey. And let�s just stop and think about it just for a second. Think about what you deserved as an unbeliever. I can think about what I deserved, some of the things that I did.

I mean, I�m just like, I cannot believe I did that. That�s true, too, of me as a Christian. But thinking about myself as an unbeliever, what if I would have died as an unbeliever? I know it�s impossible to have God�s unregenerate elect not come to faith, but if I would have died in my sins, can you imagine what a tragedy, how awful, how irrevocable would the judgment of God be?

And just, by the way. And for you, too, if you�re watching, it just would be a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God, this consuming fire, this thrice holy God. And we deserve to go to hell.

And there was someone who came to rescue us. The Father loved, the Son loved, the Spirit loved, and the Father�s plan was to send the Son, and the Son gladly went, and the Spirit of God helped the Son while the Son was on earth.

And He also applies the Son�s earned benefits to our account in time. Just think. Somebody would save you and rescue you. What if somebody saved your kid from drowning? Would you respond with what? Here�s two bucks.

Okay, maybe here�s a fiver. If somebody saved your son from drowning, you would be thankful to them. And of course, the illustration goes farther because they would save your son at their own expense.

But the way the Lord saves, He saves terrorists and rapists and murderers and adulterers and everything that we are at His own expense. And so, what�s the response? Ah, who cares? I�d like to take advantage of it.

I realize that sometimes when we sin, that�s exactly the flippant attitude we have. That�s awful. We should repent from that. That�s wrong. It�s sinful. But when we realize, okay, God is so great. I�m saved.

I get to go to heaven. I�m 60 years old. My dad died at 55. My mom died at 66. And I�m right there in the middle. Walking time bomb, right? Ticking time bomb. Walking time bomb. Sauntering time bomb. I get to go to heaven.

It�s guaranteed. There�s nothing I can do to get there, and there�s nothing I can do not to get there. Nothing I can do to get there, He saved me. Nothing I can do not to get there, because I�m saved and I�m going to make it.

And so are you. So, how do we respond? And so he tells these believers how to respond in chapter 13. That�s a long introduction to some wonderful commands he has at the end. And so, �If you so extol the grace of God in Christ Jesus, and free grace, and sovereign grace, and free justification, and justification by the perfect meriting of Jesus� law-keeping, and then Him paying for your law-breaking, full and free and clear, He did it all.

He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but by His work. I can�t remember the rest of Titus 3. He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but by something that He did justified.

Now I have to look it up. That�s the problem. That�s the problem. What if I had to be saved by memorizing Titus chapter 3? I�ve memorized�well, this is my pride now. I�ve memorized the entire book of Titus, but when crunch time comes and somebody�s watching me, I probably could have done it if I would have just done a regular show, but now I can�t do it here.

This is my testimony, is it not yours? �But when the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

This is a trustworthy statement, and I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. Now right there is what I was after when it comes to the book of Hebrews.

It�s this trustworthy saying, �You devote yourself to good works. But why do you devote yourself to good works? Because of that, mercy saved, poured out freely, wonderfully, and then Mike just said, �Tell me something good.

And by the way, if you don�t perfectly obey them, He accepts them because He accepts you. So you say, �Well, you know what? I don�t really do this with perfect intentions so I better not do it at all.

No, you don�t do it. No, just go ahead and obey. The first one is, let brotherly love continue. The first exhortation in chapter 13 is Philadelphia love, and make sure you love other people. Now, remember in this book, there's some persecution happening.

In Hebrews chapter 10, it tells us that homes are being taken away, property plundered, people put into prison, property plundered, prison, always illiterate. And so what are you going to do? When you have problems yourself, you're so focused on those, sometimes it's hard to think of other people.

So if you think about kind of the shutdown, even now, you're like, well, I have to get all my food, and I have to get all this, and my prescription, and everything else. Well, don't forget about letting other Christians, don't forget about serving them.

And chapter 12 of Hebrews talks about kind of the response we have to God. Think about the first great commandment, loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And in chapter 12, you have this response of gratitude and acceptable worship, because our God is a consuming fire, and you need to make sure when it comes to the salvation, and since we've come to Zion, not Sinai, we respond properly, gratitude and acceptable worship that is prescribed by God.

And then this is almost like now in chapter 13, more horizontal, and therefore, these are toward other people. And Vicki's right, the therefores are important. If you study the therefores in the book of Hebrews, it's going to be very important, and you'll see that very thing.

So here's something that says in chapter 13, let brotherly love continue. That's the Philadelphia word. So we've got eros is erotic love, storge, it's only used in the negative in the New Testament, that's family love, lacking family affection, that's 2 Timothy chapter 3.

You've got agape, sacrificial love at a cost to you for the benefit of someone else, and then Philadelphia love. And you know these different kinds of words, and this is brotherly love. Let it continue.

And why does he say let that continue? Because guess what? In chapter 12, this is the hook, this is the fascinating part to this. This is the coupling between the end of 12 and the beginning of 13. There are some things that aren't going to remain.

The earth isn't going to remain. These heavens aren't going to remain. Of course, the third heaven will remain. But there are things that aren't going to remain, and therefore, what do we do? Go up to the roof and sit there and wait for the return of Jesus?

Jesus is going to come back. How do I act? This is 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 7 through 10 language. The end of all things is at hand, therefore, what? Be sober-minded, be hospitable, use your spiritual gift.

Don't just sit someplace and kind of wait for Jesus. Luther, I believe, was asked if the Lord was going to come back tomorrow, what will you do? He said, I'd plant a tree today. That's the idea. And therefore, he says right at the very beginning, well, other things aren't going to remain.

I want your love for other Christians to remain. I was reading Archibald Alexander this morning about worship and obedience and holiness in light of who we are in Christ. Very convicting. And I think the convicting part was spending time thinking about it.

There's a command from God. We no longer are receiving these commands from God as judge, but as Father. And then we just see the commands, let the love of the brother continue. But what Hodge was trying to say, excuse me, Archibald Alexander, think about how could this be played out of my life?

Who are my neighbors? How do I actually love other people? I've got this common bond with other Christians. How could I serve them? There's nothing wrong with serving other Christians. There's nothing wrong with loving other people, right?

Loving your neighbor. Here there's a special kind of love that you're supposed to have for other brethren and other sister. Did you know? This is a present imperative, so keep going. And also, did you know the word brethren?

I don't know if you've ever heard this before. Maybe the Plymouth brethren taught this to you. Maybe the, just that was going to be a joke, but that's okay. Don't be ignorant, brethren. Remember 1 Thessalonians 4?

There's a Plymouth brethren, there's a closed brethren, the open brethren, and the ignorant brethren. I know, it's so dumb, but I always found that funny. Don't be ignorant, brethren. The word brethren comes from the word womb and brother.

It's like your twin brother, a brother from the same womb. A sister from the same womb. How would you treat them? I mean, I have two daughters that are closer in age. I have three daughters total, but two are closer in age.

And sometimes they act like they're twins. And I think about the love all my kids have for one another, and how do you treat one another if you're from the same womb? Brotherly love, sister, sisterly love, is that how you say it?

There's some sisters up the street. I always drive by their commune, their monkery, what's a place, a nunnery, get them to a nunnery. A convent, maybe they uncoupled from the world. Oh, by the way, did you see, this is all joking aside, there was some lady, I think she was a basketball player for UConn, or one of these Ivy League kind of schools here in New England.

I know UConn's not Ivy League. And she thought about getting married, and then she became some kind of sister, some kind of Roman Catholic sister. And I think she gets to see her parents, like when they're about ready to die, and otherwise she can see them through plexiglass.

And I just thought, this is exactly opposite of what this writer, God the Holy Spirit, is trying to convey. Those that come from the same womb, or you come from someone's womb, and then you don't get to ever see them because you're devoted to some higher calling of monastic isolation with a bunch of other people, the same thing.

I just thought, first of all, my heart broke. I almost cried. And then I thought, that's as satanic as you get, is trying to separate people from other people, separate people from parents. And I don't mean the kind of separation, of course, that Jesus talks about, if you believe in him, and it might cost you your relationship with your family.

But all for a big lie. It was so sad. There's a question that all of us should ask and answer, and that is, since the Lord loves me, how am I loving brethren? How am I loving other people as natural members?

Of course, now as a pastor, I don't get to pick the people that come to church. The Lord picks them. And you, as a congregant, when you go to church, you don't get to pick other people. You might get to pick the church or the pastor and the leaders, but you don't get to pick the other people who come.

And then as time goes on, you get to know these people, and the different backgrounds, they look differently, they act differently, they sound differently. There's nothing in common with you. Maybe you found a couple friends here or there that have some similar likes and dislikes and hobbies and affections.

But you begin to love them. There's this love that God gives you for other Christians. And half of them, and I'm talking about myself, I'm in the bad half, are weird. Some people at this church are crazy.

They're different. They're odd. Some, Terry Flood said that nunnery is no funnery. I cannot believe you just said that. What are the people on the radio going to be thinking as I say those things? S. Lewis Johnson said, I love all the saints, some people say, but some I love better at a distance.

First John 4, if someone says I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. For the one who does not love, that's agape right there, his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

How about 1 Peter 1, since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, Philadelphia, fervently love one another from the heart. That's what we want to do.

And of course, other people love us that way. And we think, you know what, Lord, that you would give someone else a burden to love me that way. Thank you. I, as a pastor, I like to think that I have loved people and served them.

I have many regrets where I think I could have served people better, but I've also been on the receiving end of people who have loved me and served me and served my family. And so I thank God for that.

Let brotherly love continue. First Thessalonians 4, 9, now about brotherly love, Philadelphia love, we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. Isn't it interesting?

You say, well, I haven't been taught the one, two, three steps. I don't know. I don't have the Ikea instructions. I thought the Bible was basic instructions before leaving earth and it doesn't tell me exactly what to do.

So therefore I don't have to love. Isn't it fascinating? First Thessalonians talks about, well, you know what, that's just built in. The fruit of the spirit. What's the fruit of the spirit? You say, well, it's a different word for love, but you get my point, right?

And by the way, I watch the church here in the midst of all the virus crisis stuff. And in a way that I almost can't explain, I mean, my old language would be, I'm proud of the people here. And maybe I could say there's a certain way to be proud.

Paul uses that language, but I'm just happy. I'm just, I'm thinking, wow, I get to pastor these people who go around behind the scenes and they serve and they take care of, and they love the brethren.

And we think, you know what? We are children of this great God. We're adopted in the family. And therefore, since we've been a born of the same womb, as it were, we ought to be very thankful and continue to do this love.

John Owen said, brotherly love is very apt to be impaired if we do not endeavor continually to preserve it. It is part of the wisdom of faith to consider aright the occasions of the decay of mutual love and the means of its preservation.

Without this, we cannot comply with this caution and injunction in due manner. I think that's fascinating. And I don't know how you work, but maybe you buy a few extra gifts for people at Christmas time.

You don't know who they're for, but you just think we should buy like five more of those things. They're kind of cheap, but cool, on sale, and let's have those around so when someone comes over and we weren't expecting them to come over and we weren't expecting them to give us something, at least we have something to give back.

At least like, at least we know we're, it seems like we're thinking about them and we have some gift to pay back. That's not, there's nothing wrong with that. But the brotherly love here, here's my point.

It's not, they do something for me and then I do in return. And by the way, I think too many marriages are just this way. Too many relationships as Christians are just this way. We've been saved by grace of God alone, sola gratia, but we expect other people to do the right thing in order for us to be kind to them or to love them or to be sweet to them or to do something nice for them or whatever.

It's exacting, it's payment, it's you owe me a debt because I did something to you and now I'm going to wait for you. How liberating, how freeing it is to just love other people in spite of them. That's how the Lord loved us.

It's liberating to love other people if they don't give anything back. It's just, let's see, Vicki just said, here too in Ohio how we are caring for one another in a deeper way. When we've had our together, I can't, I don't think I can push this button here because something's going to happen.

Taken for a time, how joyously we return. Oh, yes, you know, you don't have that and then you get to get back together with people and you realize how much you miss it. Well, my name's Mike Abendroth.

It's No Compromise Radio Ministry. We still are planning to go to Israel and therefore it's February 24th through March 4th. I think I have 10 slots open. That would be 2021. You can send me an email, mikeatnocompromiseradio .com if you'd like some more information, but we're going to plan on going.

I hope we go, but if not, as the Lord wills, I'm going to take about a two-minute break. We're going to do one more Facebook Live and call it a day.

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.