Why Read the Old Testament

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.

Opening Banter and Show Introduction

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Tuesday guy, present, accounted for, yo, here. Si, coming up. Steve, for those who are just tuning in, maybe they are Todd Friel crossovers here. Tell us about you.

Enough about me, let's talk about you. They know me, you know, the international book selling and speaking tours and all that stuff and autographs for $10 each. But what about you?

Well, I've known you for 18 years. We'll see, I met you.

Here's how I've profited from you. Well, because I'm trying to make it about me. Yeah, really. What about, how many years have you been the pastor here or co-pastor, single pastor, mingling pastor,.

Pastor of assimilation? You know what, next, in a couple of weeks here, it'll be eight years. Eight years? Yeah. We should probably do something for you on your 10th year anniversary. What would we give you?

A silver fig.

Silver fig. Steve, I have a book in my hand and it's one of those books that you see, but you rarely read. And I'll just show you, it's C .S. Lovett.

This is not Lyle. I thought it was gonna be C .S. Lewis. I just thought of C .S. I just thought of C .S.

Help, Lord, the Devil Wants Me Fat. A Scriptural Approach to a Trim and Attractive Body. And on the front, it shows cakes. It shows donuts, sundaes, like ice cream sundaes. And on the back cover, it shows fruits, milk, eggs, and whole grain bread.

And so, I did wanna open up this book just to let you know that it says on page 50, it shows a man watching TV. When you're watching TV, the commercial break is one of the devil's favorite moments. I was not aware.

Yes, you have to be careful of that. But that's why I use a DVR so I can fast forward through the Oh, okay, perfect. And then it has

Avoid temptation. That's right. The Five Phases of Fasting. Now, what would you think? I'm closing the book so you can't look over. The five phases. What's the first thing that happens, do you think, the phase one?

I already know. What? Because I heard you say it to somebody else. Okay. Phase one, hunger. Boy, you know what? I can probably save my money on this book and not

You go hungry, bop, bop, bop.

And then lastly, it's got a picture of a man looking at a glass of water. He's got an old-fashioned tie-on with an old-fashioned kind of hairdo. Looks almost like my dad, the way he would dress,.

Polka-dye shirt. If I may say, he looks like he's getting ready to die. He's got that look on his face like

Well, to me, it looks like he's just swilled it around a little bit to stir it up. And it says, a glass of water will do for breakfast. It's surprising how satisfying water can be. Okay.

That is just goofy. And then for lunch, how about an apple?

I haven't seen anything this dumb since the way down. Gwen Shamblin non-trinitarian TD. Jake's diet.

You know it's gonna be bad when on the front, all the food's looking good and everything, and you're just like, oh, I'd like some of that. And you look at the back and you go, I'd rather die than have to live like that.

On page 181, it says, white flour, white sugar, white death. Oh, man. So I think we want to eat well. Well, and wait a minute. Let's go back to the subtitle,.

A scriptural approach. Uh-huh, see? Uh-huh. Yeah, because there's nothing that says scripture like white flour, white sugar, white death.

Well, one of the things we like to do on No Compromise Radio is to make sure.

There was an illustration of a guy eating a sandwich, and he wasn't just eating a sandwich. It was like he was trying to jam the whole thing in his mouth. A triple decker. And he had a bib around his throat.

Come on.

Here's a person standing by the refrigerator. Do you know why you are standing there? The devil has dropped the eat idea into your mind. You are conditioned to respond automatically.

You know what? I just have to say something about that. Please do. It's radio. I just want to Thank you. That's one of the scariest ideas to me in evangelicalism, that Satan has access to my mind.

I mean, I just don't know if that's a I just don't know if that is a biblical idea, that Satan can somehow get inside my head. Now, does he affect me and infect me from the world system? Yes. But I've got plenty of depravity on my own.

I don't need Satan crawling around in my cranial cavity.

Steve, I actually think, and this is proven by exegetical research, that stretch marks are the stigmata of Satan.

I was not aware. You were not aware.

You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com, and we promise to read every emailer, unless you're just being a jerk about it.

Well, or unless you send us dietary tips, in which case, spam folder.

Yeah, see? That's right. Put the subject line, dietary tips, and it just goes straight into Steve's spam. Spam, spam. Steve, let's have a positive, encouraging show today.

Reading the Old Testament Instead of Ignoring It

Here's what I'd like to talk about. Okay, a positive, encouraging show, which we started out by talking about the devil wants me fat. That's the blub-a-bus.

Here's what I'd like to talk about today. I'd like to talk about the Old Testament, and I'd like to talk about how we should be reading the Old Testament. I got an email today from Andrew, a young man at our church, and he said he's trying to read through the Old Testament.

He's very encouraged, and so I thought, you know, let's do a show on trying to encourage people to read their Old Testament. I have a few notes in front of me. You don't have any, but I think you can talk off the top of your head, as I look good with notes, and you just, the devil wants you to be confused.

Fat.

You know, it'll be better, though, if I talk from my mouth instead of off the top of my head. Yeah, okay.

So, the Bible, we know, has 66 books, God's Word, and the first 39 books in the English canon, 22 in the Hebrew canon. I'm not reading, by the way. You might think I would be, because the sentences are so perfect.

You know that there are 39 books in the Old Testament and 22 in the Hebrew canon?

And so, let's do it this way to start, Steve. Why don't people read the Old Testament? Well, let's go from the opposite. What obstacles do people face? That's kind of a Matt Chandler thing, where you go, this is the truth, you should read the Old Testament.

What obstacles do people face in reading the Old Testament?

Well, one is, I think once you get to, you know, basically it starts slowing down in Leviticus, it hits a brick wall in numbers, because you go through some pretty interesting developments and stories in Genesis and Exodus, and then it gets a little more difficult when it's God telling you how he would like to be worshiped and you go, okay, I don't even understand what gopher wood is, you know?

And what's a cubit and what is all that? Well, I would argue that it even,.

And I think you agree with me, it starts to slow down in terms of our understanding. In Exodus, after the Ten Commandments are delivered and then what is the priestly vestments, what does that entail and everything else?

And so that's an obstacle, some of the tougher reading where you have to kind of slog through it. Another obstacle is, some people think, don't you think, Steve, that, well, that was Old Covenant, that was Israel, we're New Covenant, we really can't learn so much, we're New Testament people, therefore what does the Old Testament have for us since we're not Israel?

Yes, people do say that, and here's how I would respond to that. I would say that the number one thing we understand, at least I get, out of the Old Testament is technology's changed, the world's changed in many ways, people have not changed, and God has not changed.

We're still rebellious, we still, in our hearts, long to flee from God and to worship idols, and God is as steadfast as he's ever been, he's as sovereign as he's ever been. The Old Testament really, ultimately, is about God himself.

It reveals a lot about his character, his nature, and it also reveals a lot about us and our nature and our character.

Steve, I think you're completely correct, and one of the reasons why I like to study the Old Testament is because, excuse me, I then begin to think about our current events today, I guess current means today, current events today.

Pretty much, yeah. Current events a century ago.

Current, yeah, which would be no longer current.

It makes me read the news and live my life thinking theologically, because what we get in the Old Testament, especially with the historical books, Joshua on through to, I believe, Ezra, you have a theological history.

It's not just simply history, it's history with what you said earlier, with God in mind. How does God deal with people? How does God deal with his covenant people? What is sin? What is God's holiness?

How does God redeem? Does he keep his promises? And so don't you think we need a good dose of looking at the world theologically today?

Absolutely. I mean, it is, in many ways, the perfect antidote to these people who just want to live on the grace of Jesus and just kind of, which is fine, but if you want to ignore the wrath and the holiness and ultimately the totality of the character of God, then just ignore the Old Testament, ignore sections of the New Testament, and just kind of blithely live your life that way.

And you can come to all kinds of unbiblical assertions by not reading the Old Testament.

Steve, I just looked at the table of contents and the historical books are from Joshua through Esther, so I was wrong. Okay. But I wasn't that far off. I'll give you a waver. Well, you know, Ezra, Esther, what's the difference?

Just a couple of letters. It's no big deal. All right, we're talking today about studying the Old Testament. Steve, don't you think this would be a good reason to study the Old Testament? God is the author of the Old Testament, and anything that God writes should be interesting and should be something we would heed and read.

Absolutely. I mean, if the Old Testament was given to us for our example, and it is, we know that from the New Testament, then why would we not want to read it? Why would we not want to learn more about the character of God?

Why would we not want to see how powerful He is? I mean, what is a greater comfort when you're in times of difficulty than knowing that God is in control? You know, some people don't like to think about God's sovereignty in terms of salvation, but when we see in the Old Testament how He says, I have delivered thus and such a nation or thus and such a people into your hand, and then it comes about, I think that those kind of things.

Are very, very comforting. Steve, if my wife wrote something to me, for me, I would really want to read it, and I would want to know what she says. Really? It wouldn't go in your spam folder? Well, we only text each other.

God is the author, and let's just think about some classical writers. Let's just think of Mark Twain, for instance. I think he's in that category now, right? He's pretty classic, yeah. When I read Mark Twain, I think to myself, now, that is an interesting man.

The wit, the insight, the humor, the way he can turn a phrase. He can paint a picture with words, and you think you're there. You can take a fiction book, and I feel like it's almost non-fictional as I learn about Huck Finn or something, and that's just a man, and then we realize that God, through men, writes exactly the words that He wants.

It's fascinating to me, not just to read something like, you know, I don't know, some love poetry in Song of Solomon, but just some proverbs. When I read those, I think, who could come up with such a thing?

And you read what God does in Genesis. Who could create things like that? And so, since God is the author, I think we should want to read the Old Testament.

Well, you know, all you need is the New Testament. It's like the greatest hits, you know, like bands have their greatest hits.

The greatest hits. Steve, another obstacle just popped in my mind. I don't want to read it in the Old Testament at all because that portrays God as... Angry. Angry, spiteful, killing Canaanites, and I like the love God.

What's wrong with that conception?

Well, it creates a false bifurcation that says that, you know, the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New Testament, and, you know, even in the New Testament, what do we see? We see, you know, Ananias and Sapphira.

We see different things happening where God brings about judgment or promises judgment upon people, even who take of the Lord's table wrongly. So, I mean, there really is that false dichotomy. And on the other hand, the God of the Old Testament, I would argue, is super loving.

If we just look at how many times Israel disobeys, how many times they worship idols and everything, and every single time God saves them, he rescues them out of whatever chastisement they've been put in, that is a loving and forgiving God.

Good thing God made an unconditional covenant in the Old Testament for Israel because if it was conditioned on Israel's obedience, they would have been pretty much.

Selavi quite a while ago. Well, they would have been smoked right after God brought them out of Egypt. You know, the first thing they'd do is start complaining, and he would have just been like,.

All right, I'm done with you lot. See, I can't remember the exact name, but I was listening to S. Lewis Johnson the other day talk about the validity and reliability of Scripture. And some king, some noble person, some Frederick the Wise kind of guy, wasn't him, but someone like him, asked the prophet, the preacher, the man of God to come and with one word prove the Bible true.

And it was interesting, the one word he used to prove that the Bible was true was Israel. That's a good word. The future of Israel, the Jews. That's a good word. Look at the history of God taking care of his covenant people throughout the centuries, and we even see that now.

Not that Israel today, the nation, is the Israel that I think we'll see in Revelation, excuse me, Romans chapter 11, but I thought that was pretty good. That's very good. I like that. All right, we're talking today about studying the Old Testament.

Let's just be pastoral, Steve, and ask the question to the people who are listening. When was the last time you read through the Old Testament? Are you reading through the Old Testament? Do you have a plan to read the Old Testament?

Now, if you want to read the New Testament first and then the Old, well, that's fine, I guess. But Steve, most Bibles today, don't they have reading plans somewhere in the Bible?

Yeah, and if not, there's plenty on the internet and everything. I mean, there are definitely places to get that stuff.

I'm looking at Exodus chapter 34, and this is a good description of who God is in general, not just Old Testament God, New Testament God. God is unchangeable. Steve, what's the theological term for that?

He's unchangeable. He cannot change. The Word's coming. He doesn't have any kind of mutability, does he? He's immutable. You know what I find, Steve, is if I'm teaching the IBS class and I'm looking at my notes and it says publish or something, and I'm going to write publish up on the board, the second I pick up the marker and start to write publish in front of people on the board, I can't spell.

I know how to spell, an I before E except after C, blah, blah, blah, but I can't spell if I'm writing on a whiteboard. If it's a chalkboard, I could, because the sounds help me spell better.

Well, there you go. And you know, I was going to say, I was going to say, you know, the thing about the Old Testament, I was having an exchange recently about it, and somebody was talking about some archeological find that came up recently, and it wasn't our bogus Arminius scroll.

It was an actual find, and now I'm going to forget what it was, but anyway, it just kind of proved the Old Testament true. It's about a pilot or something. That's New Testament, though.

Yeah, it was some kind of Old Testament deal, and I'm like, this is what always happens. You know, they say Oh, David, some inscription about David.

Yes, but, you know, there was a time where the critics said David didn't exist, and that he was a mythological compilation of the imaginations of men, and then they found, you know, some time ago, decades ago, the Tel Dan Steel, which was kind of, it was something you would write after your nation won a battle.

You would put up one of these, like, placards.

Kind of like the banners in the Boston Garden. Yeah, and so they find this, you know,.

This great victory by the house of David, and it was like all the archaeologists said, oh, well, maybe David is real, but, you know, this is not real, and they're always, you know, creating stuff like that, but the cool thing about the Old Testament, or one of the many cool things about it is, when you're reading it, things come up when you study, especially if you study archaeology or history of that era, where you just go, how did they do that, or how did they know, or, you know, it's like when you're over in Israel and you actually see Hezekiah's Tunnel, and it's only vaguely even referenced in the Old Testament, and then you actually see it, and you go, this is wild.

This is really crazy how, you know, God's people and how true the Bible is. You know, people want to say it's made up or whatever. It is true from the beginning, from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. It's true, true, true, every single word.

The Immutability and Self-Disclosure of God

Before I forget, Steve, Exodus 34, the Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed. Now, this is God's self-disclosure, so what do people think today? If we pick six or seven or eight descriptions or adjectives of God, we would talk about just, righteous.

Would they say that, or would they just go,. He's loving, wrathful. He's friendly, He's nice. Well, the Old Testament God,.

They think He's so cruel and everything, but here it says, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children.

So I find that fascinating that we only have one or two, something about judgment, this or that, so you read the Old Testament so you can understand God. Let's go further, Steve. Was there something on the floor over there,.

Some mouse or something? Well, you know what I was going to say, though, is people love to think, once saved, always saved, which is right, but it's based on God's character, that He's the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and that He wouldn't change His mind or anything like that.

Well, if He's the same yesterday, today, tomorrow, forever, then maybe we ought to look back and see who He was, who He used to be when He was the same. He didn't change from the Old Testament to the New Testament and it's just good to look at the totality of the character and nature of God.

Love it.

Why the New Testament Depends on the Old Testament

Here's another reason why you should study the Old Testament, is you will understand the New Testament better. All the allusions to the Old Testament, the references, that was their Bible, and we know you know that on No Compromise Radio, but if you read the book of Hebrews without a knowledge of the Old Testament, it will be very, very difficult.

I was just going to say, I was going to ask you, you know, what would be probably the two hardest books in the New Testament to preach? And I think the two hardest ones, in my mind anyway, are Hebrews and Revelation, because if you don't have a firm grasp on the Old Testament, you're going to murph it, you're going to blow it.

You just can't get through those two books. I mean, every book in the New Testament has, I think almost every book has some allusion to the Old Testament. I mean, why? Because these New Testament writers were steeped in the Old Testament.

That was all they had then when they were writing these books.

So, Steve, along those lines, I do have this as a quote in front of me. Roy Zook, those scholars differ in the number of Old Testament quotations they see in the New. Most agree that the number is somewhere between 250 and 300.

But he goes on to say, allusions, not I-L-L, But A-L-Ls, yes. Are far more numerous. The list varies from 442 to 4 ,105. All the New Testament books, however, allude to the Old Testament and probably to all the Old Testament books.

This would account for more than 10 of the New Testament is made up of citations, are direct allusions to the Old Testament. Sounds like a good reason to read the Old Testament.

Well, I mean, think about it. If you're going to teach the early church, if you're going to teach them how to think, how to view the world and everything else, what are you going to be basing it upon?

Well, in large measure, it's gonna be on the Old Testament. And so they're gonna say, like Jesus said, you've heard this and kind of citing an Old Testament saying or teaching, but I tell you this, and this is what the New Testament is.

It's kind of an explication of the Old Testament through the lens of the New Covenant. In other words, they're living in a new era, so what are we to make of God's promises? What are we to do with them?

All these kind of things.

Christ in the Old Testament and the New Testament Fulfillment

This is what we do. And speaking of the New Covenant, probably the last reason we have time for today, but the most important maybe, is because the Old Testament preaches Christ Jesus, the Messiah to come.

It talks about the eternal Son of God, and it talks about this anticipated suffering servant who would die a substituent death for sinners.

Yeah, I mean, starting in what, Genesis 3 and moving all through the Old Testament, we see illusion or foreshadowing kind of of Jesus Christ. It is Him and the need for Him that we see over and over and over again.

God is a Savior, and He's fully fleshed out in the man Christ Jesus.

If we read that 1 Corinthians 5 talks about Christ, our Passover, I think it would be helpful to understand Exodus 12 about the Passover, so we would understand why Jesus is called the Passover.

And on and on it goes. I mean, almost every, like I was saying about Revelation, and so much of that is tied to the Old Testament, and your understanding of it, so much of Hebrews, so much of each and every single one of them, the New Testament letters, is based on an understanding of the Old Testament and of kind of fleshing out the truths about Jesus that were present and not fully explained in the Old Testament, and now fleshing them out in the New Testament.

You'll like this quote, Steve. Scroggie, that's his last name. Yep, I like him. Christ is predicted in the Old Testament, present in the Gospels, proclaimed in Acts, possessed in the Epistles, and predominant in the book of Revelation.

I do like that. And it's very Baptistic, too. Very Baptistic. So we want you to read your Old Testaments. We would like you to read your Old Testament, and then we'd like you to email Pastor Steve and say, I read the Old Testament, and this is the new foreign doctrine I've gotten out of it.

Could you please explain Ezekiel chapter one? Yeah. No.

That's right. So that'd be a good place to start is Ezekiel chapter one.

No, that would be a horrible place to start because you'll read Ezekiel chapter one, and you'll just go, either. I have to read it again,.

Or I'm done. Maybe you'll start singing. Ezekiel saw the wheel way up in the middle of the sky. Well, you could. If you read the Old Testament, Steve will sing that song on the radio. I almost promise.

Info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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.