Hebrews 5--Jesus the High Priest (Part 1)

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.

Perpetual Adolescence in American Culture and the Church

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. It is in real time, June�what�s my iPad say�June 23rd, Saturday, 725 p .m. That�s late for me to be in the industrial complex here, but it is what it is. So we are, Fred, not doing a rerun today, but I should be since I�ve got a�I wonder why they call it a �frog in your throat.

That�d be something good to know. Can somebody send me that? Here�s what happens on NOCO. By the time you send me something that I�m looking for, I�ve already forgotten what it was about. But I might remember this one, I just might remember.

If you�ve got questions, concerns, comments, or as we say, or as we say, you have some millionaire friends, you can send them our way, mike at nocompromiseradio .com. Summer schedule, I will take some more sabbatical this year because last year was truncated because of the prostate cancer.

I just got back my numbers for the blood test last week, they look pretty good. And I think we�re going to play the Romans series on Monday, I told Spencer to do that. I preach through Romans, 16 chapters, 16 Sundays, so we�re going to play the full sermons, not the truncated 24-minute ones, but the full sermons that�s on Monday.

Friday is always a rerun, but some of those are fun, aren�t they? Somebody said they listened to the Sinner�s Prayer or something a while ago. And then the other three days, I don�t know what�s going to happen.

I might try to figure out how to record where I am in the secret, undisclosed bunker. Or you just might get more reruns and then we�ll be back live Octoberish or something. But I�m going to try. I�m going to try to do a few shows from California.

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And you can go to the No Compromise Radio, Facebook. I had to make one, I think, and my first name�s No and my last name�s not Co, but Compromise. And now I can look at my own page. How does that work?

Obviously, I�m doing something wrongly. Today, on No Compromise Radio, we�re talking about perpetual adolescence of a spiritual nature. Perpetual adolescence of a spiritual nature. You just repeat it when you don�t know what to say.

Actually, I was writing something down here in my notes. I was writing spiritual, so I had to say perpetual adolescence of a spiritual kind or nature twice. Ben Sasse, I don�t know how to say his name, I should, because he�s a senator from my home state of Nebraska.

He wrote a book called The Vanishing American Adult. And he says basically that the teenage culture is the new model, it�s the new norm for the American life. And you have World War II, according to Ben Sasse, Senator Ben, and there�s a lot of wealth, and a lot of celebrity, and there�s a lot of consumerism, a lot of sexual overtones, and there�s a lot of responsibility avoidance.

I�ll make up a responsibility avoidance syndrome, R-A-S, RAS, I�m going to RAS you. Hey, let�s just shirk our responsibilities. Who cares? Young males, it is estimated, have played more than 14 ,000 hours on video games by the time they hit 21 years old.

Perpetual adolescence. Fully one-quarter of Americans between the ages of 20 to 29 now live with a parent, compared to 18 over a decade ago. You have adolescence, but then you have it in a perpetual nature of a spiritual kind.

And it leads me to say, in my opinion, that the church, the modern evangelical church, is full of perpetual adolescence spiritually. Juvenile spiritually. Like the 25-year-old man who lives in his parent�s basement and doesn�t pay rent and expects mom to do the laundry and fold the clothes.

I mean, it kind of makes sense, doesn�t it? If you put kids in junior church, and junior church consists of not biblical exposition and some music, which would be fine by me, if you say, �Well, what we�re going to do is we�re going to have a lot of fun, and we�re going to have a lot of skits and a lot of more fun, and some rock music and some more fun.

That�s at junior church, our junior high church, and then they go to high school church, and then they go to college church, and it�s the same thing except maybe louder. Then, when they get to big church, as it�s sometimes called, then they want the same thing.

And in one sense, who can blame them? I mean, trained from college church down to junior church with fog machines and rock music and strobe lights and skinny jeans and listening to Pablum for messages, �God�s not mad at you.

He loves you unconditionally telling believers and unbelievers alike that, jokes, entertainment, and then you�ve got faith journeys and small groups and me, me, me, what kind of service do I want? And I want family friending.

I want some Bible. I want something not too convicting. I want nothing about Jesus is the only way. And you have a church full of perpetual adolescents, �Hey, we better not bore the kids. That�d be the worst thing ever if they were bored.

That�s the unpardonable perpetual adolescence of a spiritual kind, sin, �We�re going to bore the kids, and we want them to be happy and up and peppy. And matter of fact, we�ll talk about a relationship with Jesus that sounds just like a relationship with a girl or someone of the opposite sex, someone that makes them feel happy.

And, you know, let�s create a God who, you know, He exists, but He�s far off, and He really has wound everything up, and He�s essentially deist. And I want to be fulfilled. That�s what I�m after. I�m after life coaches, and I�m after mentors, and I�m after enough God to inoculate me so I don�t, you know, act like a pagan.

I know that�s bad. �Hey, I�ve got a self-development journey that I�ve got to take a hold of, and why don�t you give me more emotion and less intellectual content? Give me a lot of emotions, and we like to, you know, emo, and then I don�t want to think too much.

The juvenileization of Christianity. Is that the way you think? I don�t think we have many people here like that. At least, I hope we don�t. I�m not sure I�m very, very pleased to pastor a church, you, a congregation, is what I�ll say to the folks.

Pastor a congregation that knows, that�s been trained, that understands doctrine, understands ministry, and understands the God-centered nature of it all. But there are some people that just need to grow up.

There are some people that need to mature. You should have been mature by now. There�s nothing wrong with being immature. If you�re a two-day-old baby, then, you know, I�m not expecting that you learn how to skip.

Right? Did you ever teach a kid how to learn how to ever skip? Hey, more interestingly, you ever see a grandpa skip? If you are a Christian for a while, though, you shouldn�t be wandering around in the kiddie pool.

It is time to move out of your parents� basement, spiritually, and move on to some Christology, some high views of Christ. Listen to what Hebrews chapter 5, 11 and following says, �About this we have much to say.

He�s talking about the priesthood of Melchizedek, Jesus, �and it�s hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.

You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

And the writer goes on to say the same type of thing in chapter 6. It really continues with the �Therefore� chapter 6, verse 1, �Let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

Negatively stated, grow up. Positively stated, mature in your faith. Keep maturing in your faith. If you�re mature in your faith, good job, keep going. Everyone can mature. Even the most mature saints can�t even mature.

If you�re immature, move on. If you�re mature, keep maturing. Ogden Nash said, �You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. The Juvenalization of American Evangelicalism. You must not be complacent when it comes to spirituality, when it comes to spiritual walk.

You must not be lazy. You can�t get stuck in sin. This writer, and then me, I�m trying to kind of echo that sentiment, would say, �It�s time for you to wake up. It�s time for you, with all love and gentleness but firmness, to keep growing.

And if you�re not a Christian, then I don�t need to tell you to grow, I need to tell you to repent and believe. You�re an enemy of God, angry at God, murderous toward God. You act like you are God, and you need to repent from all of that and start thinking about it correctly, like it�s a sin against God, and then trust in the one who�s the sin-bearer, Jesus, the eternal God who adds humanity, and now is truly God and truly man, and dies on the cross as a mediator, as a substitute, as a representative, and has been raised from the dead.

You can be forgiven, but you need to be born again. Hebrews presents the object of your faith. If you�re not a believer, you must believe God, you must believe that He�s your Creator and Judge and then Savior, and the Savior is very wonderfully proclaimed in Hebrews chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4, and the early part of 5.

Christian, this writer wants your faith to increase, that�s 2 Corinthians 10, 15, but our hope is that as your faith increases, 2 Thessalonians 1, 3, we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly.

That�s what we�re after. As your faith grows, you understand the object of your faith better, you will then have more obedience and more works and more deeds, and you will say no to sin more often. You have a right standing before God based on the work of another, and even if you have a small faith, you have the right object, you�re fine.

But this writer here is saying it�s time to mature, it�s time to press on to maturity. I think it�s Warren Wiersbe who said, I don�t have it here in my notes, but he said something like, �Pilgrims must progress.

If you�re a pilgrim, God made you a Christian, you ought to progress, you ought to move along the Christian life and mature. After all, if you had a child and they weren�t gaining any weight, and that�s happened to some of us, I think many of us, you take the child to the doctor, something�s wrong.

If you have a Christian and they�re not growing, something�s wrong. The Holy Spirit dwells in you, and you are just going to squash Him, you are to live a holy life, and that is flowing from your union with Christ and the Spirit of God dwelling in you.

But here, this writer expects for you to grow. Now after 510, what would you expect the writer to talk about? Well, remember, 510 is talking about God, the Son, is the cause of your salvation. As a matter of fact, let me just read that, because He is the finisher, and He is the cause as well.

It says, and being made perfect, verse 9 of chapter 5, �He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. Believe, that�s the call of obedience, and you either do or don�t. And if you believe, you have obeyed Him, �being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

So there in verse 9, I was thinking 10, but that�s the Melchizedekian verse. He�s the source of eternal salvation. Now you would expect chapter 7 to be here at the end of chapter 5, verse 10, �For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings.

That�s what you would expect. I just quoted to you Hebrews 7, verse 1. But He doesn�t give you 7 -1 until 7 -1. Now He gives you, in verse 11 of chapter 5, this �Press on, mature, grow up, you�re dull of hearing.

I want to keep telling you about Melchizedek, but you can�t really appreciate what�s going on about Jesus, the high priest after the order of Melchizedek. You want basic stuff, and you want ABCs, and I�m trying to tell you how wonderful this doctrine is that Jesus is a high priest.

He�ll get there, but right now, He basically wants people to look at themselves. Look at yourself in the mirror and see if you�re that kind of person. As I talked to the church last week, even, there are so many people who want six easy steps and four or five ways to live, and four ways to think, and three ways to do this, that, and the other.

It�s all practical stuff. It�s all law stuff. It�s all created in the minds of a pastor, who there�s probably some biblical truths in the application. But here the application is you need to look at who Christ is.

If you remember who Jesus is, it�s going to help you. You don�t want to lose your first love to talk with the language of John in Revelation, John quoting Jesus, of course. Remember when you first got saved, you�d do anything for the Lord.

You�d say, �I would be martyred for the Lord. I�d be a missionary to Madagascar. I�ll do anything. Okay, well, maybe you�re not those things, but will you still do anything? Will you still love your wife, even though she shows you no love in return?

Will you submit to your husband, even though he�s not a great leader? Will you obey your boss? And you�re like, �It seems like it maybe is easier to get martyred. Well, it just might be. It hurts more physically, of course, the martyrdom.

But the priestly work of Jesus needs to be understood. Have you committed enough sin today to send you to hell? Have you sinned enough today to send you to hell? Well, the answer is, any thinking person would say, �Yes.

Well then, isn�t it nice to be reminded of your priest, your high priest? The problem is, 511, people are sluggish when it comes to the Word of God about Jesus preached. And there�s a section that ends you can tell this is one big section all talking about the same thing 612 ends with the word �sluggish.

So 511 has �dull of hearing. It means sluggish or dull or slow, slothful. And then in 511 and 12, 511 dull of hearing 611 full assurance of hope until the end, verse 12, so that you may not be sluggish.

Okay, this whole section is about that dull, sluggish hearing. People that he was preaching to, that�s the kind of attitude they had in terms of reception of the Word. The Word wasn�t the problem. The preacher wasn�t the problem.

They were lethargic. They were listless. They were slack. They were stagnant, apathetic. These are words that you don�t want to be associated with when it comes to you receiving God�s Word. You don�t want that laid back, pokey, sleepy-headed, slothful.

This is all from a thesaurus. You don�t want that. Those words don�t describe Jesus� attitude toward the Bible and the Word. You want to be alert. You want to be energetic, lively, leaning forward on your seat.

Maturation comes through the Word of God. It comes through reading and listening and pondering who God is. You can�t walk through life spiritually sleepwalking. What�s a sleepwalker again? A synambolist, a spiritual synambolist.

Be attentive when it comes to hearing. If you�d like to mature, that�s the way it works. Now, I said this earlier, but this is really a pastor�s heart. He wants them to grow. That�s what all pastors want sheep that grow.

By the way, when sheep grow and they�re mature and they�re healthy, well, they reproduce. You get some healthy sheep and they�re out there evangelizing when it comes to people. Now, this section here, 511 -14, I�m going to give you for my outline tonight, since it�s night here.

Three questions to ask yourself to make sure you�re not immature. Three diagnostic questions to ask yourself, designed for you to keep trusting and resting in the high priest, but also keep studying his Word and learning about him.

These could be gauges or markers or pointers that would talk about your maturity or your lack thereof. Self-diagnostic questions. These are the questions, and then we�ll work through them in shows to follow.

Can I teach others? Because if you�re immature, you can�t teach others. Can I handle meat, the meat of the Word? Can I discern? Immature Christians can�t teach. Immature Christians can�t handle meat, and immature Christians can�t discern, or to say it overseas, discern.

Those are good diagnostic questions. If you�re a brand-new Christian, okay, well, you haven�t learned enough to teach. You want milk. You haven�t gone on to solid food yet, and you can�t really figure out what�s right and wrong.

You know, other people watch somebody on TV, and they watch Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, or somebody, and they go, �Oh, that�s easy. They�re wrong about this, that, and the other. And you think, �Well, they kind of teach the Bible.

They sound pretty good to me. I know something seems off, but I couldn�t really put my finger on it. Well, you�re a new Christian, and new Christians, immature Christians, can�t discern. Now, some errors are so obvious that even immature Christians can discern, but you get my point.

Can I teach others? Can I handle meat? Can I discern? If you go back to 511, it�s hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. The writer is talking about who Jesus is as the high priest of Melchizedek, and he�s talking about something that�s hard to talk about because the people are slow.

He says in verse 11, �About this, about this, about Melchizedek, about Jesus, about Christ, how does Melchizedek prefigure Jesus That�s the question. About this. If you want this to be Melchizedek, or about this to be Jesus as he�s the priest after the order of Melchizedek, the answer is going to get us to the same spot, because it�s hard to explain since you guys have become dull of hearing.

It�s hard to talk about, because you have become now, what could be happening here is they used to be in a better state, and now they�ve just become listless and non-energetic, and they�ve become full of lethargy.

Hey, that�s so hard to understand. It�s the Greek word, the Greek root, �Greet. �Groot. I am Groot. Hermeneuo is the word in there, dis-hermeneuo. Hard to interpret, it�s hard to hear, it�s hard to learn, it�s hard to figure this out.

Wow. Well, I think this is a good time to ask a question. If you�re preaching God�s Word, and you�re faithful to preach God�s Word, and the Word found in the Word of Christ, that is, I�m saying, in the Bible, and you�re like, �Well, the people aren�t really getting it.

They�re slow to learn. Don�t change. I am not saying you can�t say things like, in other words, that is to say, this word �propitiation� means such and such. But what happens in evangelicalism today, here�s what happens.

Well, people really aren�t learning and growing, so I will change the message. This writer is saying, this pastor is saying, �You�ve got a problem. You should be mature. I�m going to give you a charge.

That�s what I�m going to do. I�m not going to say, �Well, I�m going to change the way I do it. No, I�m going to say, �Sit up and listen, mature, grow up, get out of the basement spiritually, start contributing to the family, go out and win a woman for your wife, go out and get a job, stop playing video games.

That�s the idea. Well, time is fleeting. We�ll see you next time on Compromise Radio.

A Charge to Grow Up Spiritually and Keep Listening to 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 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.