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Thankfully, God is not silent. God speaks generally in nature, but specifically in Scripture. Thankfully, God has revealed His mind in matters of His Son and of His 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 ministry. My name's Mike Abendroth, and yes, as of today, we're still doing five shows a week. Now, I know Fred would think that it's only four new shows a week, sometimes three, but I think I'm gonna make it official that Friday will be known as Fred Friday.
I'm gonna probably just play only reruns on Friday, Fred Friday. So we have Sermon Mondays, Pastor Steve, Tuesday Guy Tuesdays, Tuesday Guy Tuesdays, Interview Wednesdays, Potpourri Thursdays, Woodshed Fridays are gone, Fred has replaced them.
If you'd like to order the new book, Sexual Fidelity, No Compromise, you can go to nocompromiseradio .com. There's a little link there on the right-hand side, and you can order that. It should be on Kindle sometime in maybe January, February-ish.
I just have to do a couple more things. So far, I've been very pleased that it has been received by many folks. I've gotten lots of emails and encouraging responses via that. I wanted to make it more than just a moralistic stop doing things.
And I'm thankful, praise the Lord, for the book, if you wanna order it, that would be great. I have three daughters, and the three daughters have the responsibility for shipping. So if there's any mistakes, you can blame them.
Seriously, if you got your book and it was damaged or this, that, or the other, you let me know, because we want satisfied NOCO customers. What else is here? I have a variety of things to talk about, but let's do this instead.
Sometimes I just wonder, someone emailed me the other day and said, you know, your rabbit trails, sometimes I don't like them so much. I like the Monday sermons because there are less rabbit trails. But you know, you get what you pay for, right?
I sometimes tempted to just go to like two shows a week, dividing line kind of thing. I don't know. For right now, we just keep going. You need the daily dose of NOCO radio. Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.
Oh, I did receive last night. This is what I wanted to say. A Christmas card from Todd Friel, Todd and his family. So that was nice. And I looked to see if there was a sending address and he didn't put one on there.
So I still, he says he lives somewhere in Atlanta, but maybe you want to write him and talk about that. Oh, that's the worst coffee ever. I just did a Keurig Starbucks. It is the worst. I'm pretty much done with Starbucks.
All things Starbucks, not because of red cups or anything like that, but now what will you do with Keurig being owned by Pete's? I have no idea. All right, I'm going to give you some famous literature's first sentence, or maybe it's a run on sentences or two.
Literature with great beginnings. And you guess which book it comes from. It was a bright, cold day in April and the clocks were striking 13. Talk about a great line. George Orwell, 1984. That was written in 1949.
Here's another one. This is easier. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. But that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain and he told the truth, mainly.
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1884. And I did not mispronounce anything there. That was the way it was written. The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. Ooh, that was cool.
L .P. Hartley, The Go Between, 1953. I don't know that book, but that was such a great line. This one is very famous. I probably even uttered it on NOCO Radio. Call me Ishmael. Herman Melville, Moby Dick, 1851.
He is in the news now because of the movie from the Essex sinking. You Ought to Read the Heart of the Sea. And you, who wrote that? Filbreck, maybe? Filbreck, Nathaniel Filbreck. It's a great book. You want to listen to it and then read it.
And then if you have to go watch it, you know, the movie's always disappointing. It was a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. That's a good line.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813. All children except one grow up. First line of J .M. Barrie's Peter Pan, 1911. The cold passed reluctantly from the earth and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.
Who wrote that? Stephen Crane. What was the title of the book? The Red Badge of Courage, 1895. Now you probably know this one. Literature with Great Beginnings. Literatures for 500. He was an old man who fished alone in the skiff in the Gulf Stream.
And he had gone 84 days now without taking a fish. Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea, 1952. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life or whether that station will be held by anyone else, these pages must show.
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, 1850. This is kind of fun. Oh, now this one, this one spikes your mind. It was a pleasure to burn. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, written in 1953. Okay, a few more. Literature with Great Beginnings.
Marley was dead to begin with. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens. That was good. Marley was dead to begin with. I thought you're not supposed to end sentences with prepositions. All right, for the nerdy sci-fi people out there.
I know you listen. I know you listen. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit, not a nasty, dirty, wet hole filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat.
It was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort. J .R .R. Tolkien. The Hobbit, 1937. And last but not least, maybe the most pungent, maybe the one that makes the best radio. Let's take another swig of the swill, the Starbucks swill.
Yikes, it must be a bad kind or something. Maybe there's a mold inside the kerrig. It's the church kerrig, so you never know what could have gotten in there. The last bit of literature with a great beginning.
"'Where's Papa going with that axe?' said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast. Charlotte's Web, E .B. White.". I do not know when that was written. And the passage that I want to talk about today, some literature with a great beginning excels all of these times.
Infinity. People have called this book the most extensively developed and logically sustained piece of theological argumentation in the whole of the New Testament. Some have called it the stylistic epitaph of the entire Greek New Testament.
Another writer quoted, said this, provide, these verses provide the most arresting beginnings possible, combining elegance, alliteration, rhythm, rhetorical artistry, and unstoppable force with probably the most sophisticated and stylistic Greek in the entire New Testament.
Long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.
Having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. And I am reading from the book of Hebrews, chapter one, verses one through four. Happened to read it in the ESV.
Literature with great beginnings. Those four verses are packed with theological, doctrinal, glorificational. We make things up. It's fun to make up words, did you know that? I just looked down at my recording device and I'm not sure it's actually recording.
Somehow it looks like it may not be recording to the levels that I like. So maybe sometimes you just have to turn it up a little bit. There we go, there we go. Come on, make it happen. This is a jury rigged system over here, isn't it?
Of Hebrews chapter one, verses one, two, three, and four, are essentially the gateway to the entire epistle that makes you understand the entire argument of this epistle. Just imagine God speaking. And God speaking should make you say to yourself, that's amazing, that God would speak.
What if we were having a God that would not speak? God cannot be known unless he makes himself known. And the writer of this epistle, the human author, that is, he is goading on the Jewish people. And of course there were some Gentiles around as well.
But he's specifically talking in this Hebrews book, this book, what does word of life say? I'll add in my own little snippet. The book of Hebrews is written by a Hebrew to some Hebrews about the Hebrew to tell them to stop being Hebrews.
Something like that. Now we might add here, there, the other, but they're falling back. They're tempted to go back to Judaism. And the writer wants them to know that when you have Christ, you have everything.
So he exhorts, he encourages. And you've got to move forward. You can't go back. You can't slide back. And even if you are a Gentile, don't slide into Jewishness. Don't go back into being, don't be a Messianic Jew.
That'd be a good way to say something practically. But it was worse here in the book of Hebrews because they would go back away from Christ. When was this book written? Well, we're not exactly sure, but they're talking about the Levitical system in the present tense.
They are talking about, meaning the Holy Spirit and the author. We don't know who the author is. We'll talk maybe more about that in another show. If you were trying to say, as the writer of Hebrews is, that the Old Testament system, the Levitical system, the temple system is over with.
And it was past 70 AD where Titus had slammed and demolished the temple in Jerusalem. It would have been very easy for the writer to say and see the punctuation, the exclamation point, that God destroyed the temple where you can't even offer anything anymore.
You can't even have an atonement, day of atonement offering or sacrifice. Where do you sacrifice the bulls? There's no temple left. But he didn't say that because we think it was written before 70 AD.
Now it's probably before Nero is beginning to kill Christians. So let's just say early 60s, something like that. Timothy is still alive, chapter 13, verse 23. He was a close associate of Paul. And as you read chapter two, verse three, this is a second generation Christian.
So sometime in the 60s, I think is the best. And the reason why I think it's in the 60s, to repeat myself, there's lots of discussion about the Jewish sacrificial system in this passage, taking tithes, chapter seven, offering gifts according to the law, chapter eight, making the same sacrifices, chapter 10, sacrifices according to the law, chapter 10, every priest stands daily ministering, chapter 10, the present tense.
And if you wanted to show that the Old Testament system was kaput and done and obsolete and superseded or fulfilled, whatever language you prefer at the moment, he easily could have corroborated everything by saying, there's no temple, see, you can't do this, it is over.
But he didn't say that, and that means it was pre -1970. Yes, pre -1870. Yes, pre -70 AD. To the Hebrews. Goes way back to the second century, that title. We have a great high priest, Jesus Christ, and knowing who he is and belief in him should stop you from drifting.
It should stop you from any temptation to go back. It should motivate you, any lethargy, any slumber, sleepiness. So you've got spiritual sleep in your eyes. Here's a good elixir. Here's a good antidote.
It's called the book of Hebrews because it exalts Christ Jesus. And aren't people starving for the greatness of God today? They might not know it. They want another how-to message, but they're starving for the greatness of God.
Years ago, when I first started teaching the Bible, I probably was Michael Horton, and he was talking about emaciated children, starving children. And when you look at a starving child, you see their ribs because they don't have any fat, but their stomachs are bloated, they're distended.
And that is a sign of a starving child, distended bellies and ribs then showing as well. And that's how many churches are. Now there are some churches that do the right thing and they're large, but many churches, they're large, they've got big bellies, but they're starving.
And book of Hebrews would be perfect to study. I'm excited for the next few years at Bethlehem Bible Church. We are just going to settle into the book of Hebrews. Jesus is superior. He is the one who fulfills all the prophecies of the Old Testament, the types that were in the Old Testament.
You see the anti-type is Jesus, the fulfillment of those types, Jesus. Promise in the Old Testament, fulfillment in Jesus. And the outline of the book is simple. Doctrine, practice, right? Doctrine, duty, creed, conduct, credenda, agenda, orthodoxy, orthopraxy.
And so chapter one through the first, through the half of chapter 10, so nine and a half chapters, orthodoxy, and then chapter 10b, 11, 12, 13, we have orthopraxy and how to live that out. And Jesus is superior to the prophets.
He's superior to angels. He's superior to Moses, Aaron, the Old Testament, Old Covenant system. And when you see how great he is, you will have your mind lifted up to the heights of heaven as it were.
Remember Psalm 50 verse 20, you thought that I was like you. To quote the, I think it's NAS, thou thoughtest that I was altogether as thyself. And it sounds like King James, but the original NAS did some of those, thous, these.
Erasmus, regarding his thinking is corrected by Luther. Your thoughts of God are too human. And when you study the superiority of Jesus in this book, you're going to see that if Jesus is so great, then anyone else who comes along, any other system that comes along, any other religion that comes along, any other idol that comes along will be easily recognizable as sub par.
You will have an allegiance to Jesus as you are propelled to do that by the spirit of God studying such a book. And it's nice that it's smooth language. It's wonderful that it's stylistic, but it's substance over style, even though it's great that both go together.
Somebody once said, Romans reveals the necessity of the Christian faith and Hebrews reveals the superiority of the Christian faith. I could ask you now, the listener, when's the last time you read the book of Hebrews?
You don't want to be unfamiliar with the book of Hebrews. It is, what can I call it? Well, this, the swill here isn't so good. So let's not call it swill, that'd be bad. It's a good cup of Pete's coffee times a billion.
If I look at Hebrews, it doesn't start off with the author, Paul, an apostle called by the will of God. It begins to talk about God. Now the subject of this first sentence is God. The first word is in God, unless you have the King James, it rearranges things a little bit, but in the Greek, it's not.
For some of you, that doesn't make any difference. If the Greek says one thing and King James says another, you go with King Jim. Paul, many people think wrote Paul for years. I thought, you know, Paul probably wrote that.
He, he didn't write it. Let's just make it easy. In the Eastern church around 200 AD, they thought Paul did, Clement, origin, although he came around a little bit and said, in truth, God only knows. The moratorium canon, Irenaeus, Hippolytus of Rome, say Paul wasn't the author.
And I think Jerome probably was the smartest. It doesn't really matter who the author is because this book is, quote, honored daily by being read in the churches. Senate of Hippo, 393, Senate of Carthage, 397.
They said, both of them, of Paul, the apostle, 13 epistles, of the same to the Hebrews, comma, one. Both of them recognize it was not Pauline, in other words. Luther said it was the work of an able and learned man, a disciple of the apostles.
He did say, I don't know when he said it, but he said, we cannot put it on the same level with the apostolic epistles. Probably because he just, he wanted to make sure an apostle wrote it. Calvin, he said, I class it without hesitation among the apostolic writings.
Paul, when he wrote, he would say who he was. He would identify that, yes, it's Paul, the apostle. So it's hard to imagine, besides all this other evidence, non-Pauline words, different kind of style, different vocabulary.
He doesn't even introduce scripture the way Paul would. It is written as what Paul would say regularly. The scripture says that's not how scripture is introduced in the book of Hebrews. The focus of Paul, justification, union with Christ, that's not a focus in the book of Hebrews.
But I think Hebrews 2, verse three, Paul wasn't the one who would describe himself as, you know, I'm a secondhand person. That's that, I learned from the Lord, a secondhand. Matter of fact, let me just read this in verse to make sure I don't mess it up.
You know, I have a little mental note that I usually have. If you've got a verse in your mind and you think you know, but you're really not quite sure, it's worth looking it up. How should we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
It was declared at first by the Lord and it was attested to us by those who heard. But Paul did hear directly from Jesus. And he didn't have a person who told him, it was the Lord himself. So how could Paul have written it?
Now, others will then say it's an associate of Paul. You know, maybe somebody within the Pauline circle, a Silas or a Paphras, someone like that, a Luke maybe they would say. Others have said it was Barnabas, because Tertullian, he thought, you know, that could be the guy, even though he didn't give any reasons.
Barnabas was a Levite from Cyprus, Acts 4 .36. An associate of Paul, he was known as a son of what? Encouragement, and that's Hebrews 13. This is an encouraging letter, an exhortation letter. Others have thought it's Apollos.
And he was a coworker of Paul, who was Jewish, Alexandrian, educated, knew the Bible, Acts 18 .24 -28. But most people think that it's an unknown author. Andrew Trotter, the church has benefited for almost 2000 years from this magisterial work without knowing with any more certainty than we do today who authored it.
And if you realize who wrote it, that is the Holy Spirit, then you'll be fine. As you read the book of Hebrews, you will say to yourself, and this is not the best reason to believe this particular point, but as you read it, you'll say, this is the word of God.
The Spirit will bear witness to your witness. The Spirit will bear witness to your spirit. There you go, to your witness. Witness number one, regularly in the book, how does the author introduce quotations from the Old Testament?
God says, Jesus says, the Holy Spirit says. You'll read this and you'll think, the authority of this book comes from the Spirit of God and the interaction with the inspired, God-breathed Old Testament quotations and allusions, preaching the Old Testament.
Some say 38 quotations from the Old Testament. Some say 29, some in between, 40 allusions, 19 cases where the Old Testament is summarized. Everything pointed to this, don't turn your back on Jesus. So your homework, no co-listeners, for tonight is, read the book of Hebrews.
Now have enough time where you can just read Hebrews one through 13 in one setting. Take about 40 minutes, 45 minutes, and just read through the entire thing as we dabble in the next couple of years on certain days, rerun Fridays in the book of Hebrews.
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 six. 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.
The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.