Resurrection

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. Pastor Mike Abendroth here with Pastor Esteban Escule.

Buenos dias. Buenos tardes. Steve, I�ve received quite a few social media type of responses saying that they love the

Tuesday shows. They love the banter. They love the Christian humor. I must say

I�m surprised because we try as hard as we can to not be funny at all.

In fact, I remember your first words to me many, many years ago were, �Steve, let�s just do Tuesday like the old

Dragnet show.� You said, �I�ll be Joe Friday and you be whatever his name is.�

Max Headroom. I did not say that. Well, the thing about it is there�s no script.

I think the people would be impressed to find out that we don�t script this out. I know some radio shows, they probably take hours of preparation.

If we don�t use a script, what is this? See, I�m paging through the�

Well, that�s why we have a microphone. So it�s like, �What are these 25 pages ?� This is just a yellow legal pad and I have a pen.

I do have a stack of papers here, but I don�t have a Bible. Oh, I threw away the

Joel Osteen � This Is Your Best Life Now� board game. I threw it away this morning. You could have�

I�m going to have to go dumpster diving to get that bad boy out. Well, it�s just over there in the kitchen if you want. I don�t know if there�s any tuna juice that kind of�

I could feel some eBay action coming on there. I could too. Well, you know what? You�re the guy that knows how to buy and sell games, right?

I think I�ve called you in the past the gamester of Triskillian. Have you? Yeah, have you?

Tell me about your class. I know it�s online. I remember standing at the

Shepherd�s Conference with you and Stuart Scott, and you were telling him about your men�s class.

This will be my saying here. It�s been a real hit. It�s been important. Men are learning and getting convicted.

It�s online, so tell us about it. It was exciting to talk to Dr. Scott and just tell him what

I see just from being here, but just kind of the observations of what�s been going on as a result of discussing the principles in his book and just trying to put my own little spin on them, because what

I�ve done is just kind of distill the major themes of the book, and then we just talk about them, and I try to put some personalized spin on them.

We have a little fun. In fact, one of the guys told me they just listened online, and they said the first show was so funny� or the first class was so funny, they were glad they weren�t there because they didn�t think they could listen because they just have tears running out of their eyes.

And I�m like, �It wasn�t that funny. Come on.� There was some humor, but I mean, here�s one of the things� let me just give you an example of one of the things

I said. I just wrote up on the board, �Falling feels like flying till you hit the ground.�

And that�s not from the book. That�s from a song, right? And I said, �Because here�s the problem with guys.

We presume that there�s nothing wrong with our marriage, our relationship. We feel like we�re flying until our relationship hits the ground.

When all of a sudden our wife leaves or she files for a divorce or something, we�re like, �Well, what happened ?�

Because we thought everything was fine because she wasn�t complaining. Because if we were upset, we would complain.

And I�m like, �Here�s the problem, guys. Our wives are not like us. You think, �Why can�t they be more like us ?�

And I said, �Because one selfish jerk in a marriage is enough, right ?� And I said, �I can say that because I am a selfish jerk.�

Our job is to unselfishize ourselves, you know, to love our wives like Christ loves the church.

And we�re not going to do that naturally, right? It takes effort, and it obviously takes the

Holy Spirit. Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church.

A love marked by giving, not getting. Christ�s love makes the church whole.

His words evoke her beauty. Everything He does and says is designed to bring the best out of her.

Did Oprah write this? Dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness.

And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They�re really doing it themselves. They�re really doing themselves a favor since they�re already one in marriage.

That was our massage moment. One shining moment.

Did you watch One Shining Moment last night? I did. Yeah? Yeah, mostly because I ate unwisely, so I was up late.

I�ve been really watching what I eat, but yesterday, not so much. You know, I literally have to watch what

I eat now if something�s really good. I put my reading glasses on so I can see the food that I�m eating, because that�s part of it, isn�t it?

It�s just, you know, the beauty, the color, how orange those oranges are and how yellow those bananas are.

Yeah, I hadn�t really thought about it. Anyway, the class is going really well. I�m enjoying it, and I�m just impressed by the results that, you know, what the

Lord�s doing through the class. So the third class is this Saturday? Is that true? That is�let me see if that�s true.

I don�t think it�s true. It�s going to be the third Saturday of the month. So this is going to be�

Oh, the first. Yeah. Okay. So it�s a couple weeks. So the first two, they are online?

Yes. And the notes are online as well. bbcchurch .org. The only thing I�ve kept, Steve, from the game, the

Osteen game, is this. It looks like an hourglass, but I think it�s 30 seconds, because this is the�

It�s your best 30 seconds now. Mm -hmm. I know. And I saved these cards that I have not read.

I opened the seals. And the ones, the seals this morning� How many seals were there? I think there would be seven seals.

Seven seals. Okay. Find strength through adversity cards. I just want you to just see one right here.

This one that I just opened up too randomly, the Steely Winston Churchill Admonished.

If you�re going through hell, keep going. Now Joel says this. It doesn�t really say that, does it? Yeah. Talk about a time when your perseverance in the face of adversity helped you to get to the other side.

If you�re going through hell, keep on going. That�s a good country song. I don�t know. Well, I think,

I don�t know if this goes from purgatory into Hades, into Gehenna, where this actually leads to, but I�m not feeling the best life now.

No. Okay. Well, then I wonder what the same card says under the letter B. Mother Teresa had a sense of humor.

Oh, she was a riot. I know God will not give me anything I can�t handle.

I just wish that he didn�t trust me so much, she said.

Now, here�s what Joel said in light of that. Share with the group a situation where you might have felt that God had overestimated your ability to cope.

This is, I�m destroying the church right here, the thing. What is going on here?

I don�t know, but this, you know, our studio is first class. Your son -in -law did that,

I think. Okay. One more on the card here. This is on the same card. It�s spectacular.

I don�t know why it says five on the front for this. You�re going to want to put that in one of those protective sleeves. Have you seen those?

They�re really popular with gamers, you know, so you don�t want anything to happen to that card. Right. Well, you know, like when

I had the football cards and it would be the Green Bay Packers, John Brockington. Yeah, similar. Yeah. Okay. There�s a terrific saying, �Sometimes the littlest things in life are the hardest to take.

You can sit on a mountain more comfortably than on a tack.� Joel says, �Talk about a problem that grates you even though it seems relatively small.

How might you overcome this small problem ?� I thought when he was saying, you know, sometimes the small things in life, I thought he was talking about like a virus.

That�s pretty small. Some microorganism. Well, I don�t know if you�re going to talk about Stuart Scott�s class and kind of communication with wife and that kind of stuff because the verse that I thought of, of course, with marriage and coming to an agreement and thinking about your wife and making sure she�s in on your decision was

Acts 5, verse 1, �But a man named Ananias with his wife Sapphira sold a piece of property, and with his wife�s knowledge, he kept it back for himself.�

Mm -hmm. They talked about it. Yeah. They were in one accord. Yeah, they came to agreement, and it didn�t necessarily work out so well.

Steve, tell us about what happened here for Easter Sunday. I think that�s pagan, but Resurrection Sunday.

You had an interesting take on the resurrection. What was the take? It was just a spiritual resurrection only?

Was that the take? No, I was just, you know, for whatever reason, I just decided, well, because I wanted a sure fire way to do the gospel.

So I was in Acts 2 and just talking about the power of the resurrection from a variety of angles.

Angles. Yeah. You know, first, though, just thinking about how it transformed Peter. You know, here was

Peter who just, and I cited several examples where he did, you were stumbling looking around for the foot -shaped mouth thing on Sunday morning.

How he did, he just constantly stuck his foot in his mouth, whether it was, you know, right after he makes the confession, sometime shortly thereafter, he says, you know, �Far be it from you.

You�re never going to go to Jerusalem and be arrested.� And, you know, he says, �Far be it from you all.

You know, basically, I�m never going to let that happen.� And Jesus says, �Get behind me, Satan.� So, you know,

Peter was constantly making foolish statements. And then, you know, here after the resurrection, even after he has basically abandoned

Jesus, the day of the Feast of Pentecost, Feast of Weeks, comes along.

And here he gives, I think, arguably the greatest sermon ever given by a mere mortal, right?

And at least certainly the way the Holy Spirit used it to convict so many and to see them come to faith in Christ.

But, I mean, here was a guy who couldn�t say anything right, and then he says everything right, right? Now, obviously, that�s by the power of the

Spirit, but pretty impressive sermon, in my opinion.

I was thinking about the resurrection, like you, and then what do I talk about in my message that I gave at the

Mountain Sunrise Service at the ski lodge while you�re drinking latte? No, but my big thing, like I said,

Steve, to the congregation, I was conflicted and convicted because if I skied on the

Lord�s Day on Sunday on the way down from preaching, would that be breaking the Sabbath? It�s a work of mercy.

No, you know what I was thinking about? How many places the resurrection is actually discussed? While some people forget the resurrection in their gospel presentation and they�ll talk about sin and Jesus dying on the cross, and those are very important, obviously, but without the resurrection, you think of 1

Corinthians 15, then there�s no hope, right? What�s the option? If Jesus is still dead, then he lied because how many times did he say, �I�m going to die and be raised from the dead ,� well, in Mark chapter 8, chapter 9, chapter 10, or he had to die for his own sins, right?

Because he was going to get punished for his own sins, that would be an option if he was not raised from the dead, but since he was raised from the dead, total vindication by the

Father, total, the work is complete when Jesus said, as S. Lewis Johnson said, when

Jesus said it is finished, the Father said, �Amen ,� by raising him from the dead. But everywhere you go, it seems like there�s talk of the resurrection.

And Peter even talks about in Acts 2, when he talks about the idea maybe that somehow

Jesus had sin, he doesn�t mention it directly, but he says in verse 29, �Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch

David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day, being therefore a prophet, and knowing

God had sworn an oath with him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the

Christ.� So, you know, even though he was dead, he was a sinner, he said, you know, you�ll not allow your

Holy One to undergo decay, all these kind of things, you know, referring to the Christ. So, yeah,

I mean, it�s definitely, the resurrection is central, and it�s central to a good sermon. And this sermon,

I just love it because there�s so much about the Lord in there, so much about sin, and the fact is, what happens at the end of it?

They�re like, �Brothers, what must we do ?� You know, they�re cut to the heart. They didn�t even hear from Peter directly.

No, and in fact, he made the most brutal accusations. He said basically, �You have the

Messiah in front of you, and you put him to death.� And they�re like, �You�re right. We did. We repent.�

Right? Now what? Yeah. They�ve changed their minds about who Jesus is, and they, you know, what do we do about it?

Sunday, I did the mountaintop thing, and then I had the service here, so I needed to have two messages that needed to highlight the resurrection.

I think I probably talk about the resurrection in one way, shape, or form weekly anyway, even if I would talk about the risen

Christ or something like that. So I had to pick two. And I, Steve, like you, thought to myself, �All right, where shall

I go ?� And then it was everywhere. It reminds me of Acts 17. Some of the

Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him, talking about Paul, and some said, �What does this babbler wish to say ?�

Others said, �He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities.�

Why? Because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. Paul talked about Jesus so much.

He talked about the resurrection so much. By the way, Jesus is a masculine name, and the word for resurrection is a feminine name grammatically.

He kept talking about Jesus and the resurrection so much, they thought, as they were listening, that Jesus had two gods he was preaching,

Jesus and resurrection. That's all he was talking about, so much.

And if you're a preacher or you're evangelizing somebody and you're not talking about the resurrection, you're not giving them the gospel.

What's good news if Jesus is still dead? Then it would be like Joseph Smith or Buddha or anybody else.

We are of all men to be most pitied. Why? Because Jesus didn't pay for our sins.

He stole the tomb. Standing in Israel, and we went to Gordon's tomb, and I don't think that's the tomb or anything like that, but you get an idea of what it must have been like with the little antechamber, and there's the garden, and there's the large stone, and you walk in there and you're thinking

Jesus is going to be there, and you've got myrrh and other kind of agents that will kind of get rid of the odor, and all of a sudden the tomb's empty.

I think it's funny because if you really study John's gospel, there are several times in it in which he basically says, you know what, when

Jesus first said X, we were stupid. We didn't get it. And it was only after the resurrection that we understood.

It was only after we had been blessed by the Holy Spirit to understand what he had spoken about that we actually got it.

The resurrection is really the, it's the central point of Christianity, I think it would say.

It's fair to say. And it really is, should be the central point of our gospel presentation.

Yes, we want to present the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and everything else, but if we don't stress the fact that Jesus Christ is raised from the dead, then we haven't done it.

We haven't presented the gospel because there is no one like Jesus, like you were saying. All these other religious figures, dead, buried, still dead, and not coming back.

First Corinthians 15, it talks about our first importance. All right, all the Bible's important.

If you had to categorize in order of importance, there is an order, actually, because we know what's at the very top, that Christ died for our sins according to the

Scriptures. He was buried, he really died, in other words. And he rose again the third day according to the

Scriptures. And if you want to know what the most important concept in all the Bible is, it's the

Messiah who dies not for his own sins, but for our sins, the elect's sins.

And this is not a new concept with Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. This is according to the Scriptures. It goes way back.

You can go back as far as probably Genesis 3 .15. Anyway, I had a great time thinking about the resurrection, and Steve, I know you have lost loved ones, and I've lost loved ones.

And to think about, I mean, everybody, you know, it's easier to think about loved ones that died in Christ, but every single person on that day,

I mean, those bodies are going to be raised up. There's going to be a resurrection for everyone, some to life and some obviously not.

But that's...how can you...what kind of mind could figure out how to get every molecule of that person's body?

Some, you know, are in cremated vases. Some are scattered over the ocean. Some are blown up by atomic bombs.

And then the power and the mind to put all those back together, the ability, that's pretty weird.

I think, again, this was Sunday with...Sunday afternoon with my son -in -law, Joey, we were talking about just the immensity of the universe and how with the

Hubble telescope being raised from the dead, that, you know, they're finding out more and more how big the universe really is.

And you just think, okay, God said, you know, let there be, and, you know, everything just kind of sprung into existence.

He created everything by the word of his power. And you just think the God who created that, the intricacies of the universe and even our solar system and how it moves through the universe and how the sun just sort of drags these planets around and keeps the earth on its axis and the moon and, you know, keeps the tides from going crazy and all these other things, everything down to the minute detail that causes life to be sustained here.

Can that God recreate somebody's human body?

I think the answer is pretty clearly yes. Is there anything too difficult for God?

No. He can take a heart of stone and give, you know, turn it into a heart of flesh. He can change our minds about anything.

God is all -powerful. Steve, I was hearkening back to Psalm 33 as you were talking.

I mean, you just read that, and if you really believe it, and if you just ponder for a moment, you just go, okay, what issues are in front of me today that are so great that God can't, you know, see me through those?

And even if he chooses not to remove them, then when I die, he's going to raise me from the dead, he's going to reconstitute my body, he's going to give me a better body than I've ever had, and I'm going to be in heaven forever, so what do

I have to fear? You know, when we talk about 1 Corinthians 15 and the resurrection and our hope, our hope is that God is absolutely in control, and that whatever is going on in this life, whether it's our best life or our worst life, you know, whether it's good or bad, whatever is going on, is ultimately immaterial, because we've got all of eternity in the presence of Christ.

Is that one of the pop songs or something, we're living in an immaterial world? I think it just came out a few weeks ago.

Oh, it did. And didn't the police sing something about, was that synchronicity?

Spirits in the, we are spirits in the material world. In the material world. Okay, yeah. Well, Steve, as you were waxing eloquently,

I just thought of Charles Schultz, the creator of Peanuts. I was told by his high school yearbook staff that his cartoons were not acceptable for the annual.

Now, of course, Charlie Brown is one of the most recognizable cartoon characters in the world, and so Joe Osteen would say, talk about a time when your abilities were underestimated.

Okay, let's make this more biblical, Steve. That won't be hard. Let's talk about times where we overestimated ourselves.

All the time. And our own righteousness and our own wisdom and our own ability. I think that was called

My Unregenerate Life from 1960 -1989, and sadly, even with hangovers of sin now.

So, if you're going to own the dash, I think that's the dash you must own. I mean, the whole idea of, you know, poor you, you just need to think more highly of yourself.

I mean, look at how they underestimated poor Charles Schultz and, you know. Steve, who comes up with this?

Elvis Presley may have been the king of rock, but to his high school glee club, he was no great shakes.

They turned him down when he attempted to join. Talk about a time when your abilities were not recognized. So, talk about me.

I have a special board game. Talk about me as much as you can, as fast as you can. Why is the timer even involved?

Why wouldn't we have a little hourglass? Because these are the days of our lives.

That was like Spurgeon, you know, on the way up to the pulpit. You know, he would say things like,

I believe in the Holy Ghost, I believe in the Holy Ghost, I believe in the Holy Ghost. And then he talked to a lady one time after he preached, and so the legend goes, the lady said,

Pastor Spurgeon, that was the best sermon I've ever heard in my life. And he said, well, I thank you, ma 'am, but Satan has already told me that on the way down from the pulpit stairs.

You're the second person to tell me. Really? I was first in line. But probably it wasn't Satan who was saying it.

It was his own flesh. Yeah. Man, I killed that. Do you ever say, truth be told, Steve, do you ever preach and think,

I think that was a home run. I think I knocked that one out of the park. There are times where I like it, you know, and then there are, you know, there are times where I'm just like, man,

I really don't want to look anybody in the eye right now. We have to stand at the door and say hello to people.

Yeah. And I'm just kind of like, hi, how are you? Glad you came. They're like, well, at least that's from the

Bible, right? You know, thanks for teaching me from the Bible today. Actually, I cut and paste from Moroni, sorry.

My Moroni. Whatever happened to that band?

The Knack? Uh -huh. The lead guy died, I don't know. He did? Yeah, maybe seven, eight, nine years ago.

Wow, I did not know that. Okay. Well, at least he was not any Elvis Presley, you know, impersonator.

No. Yeah, okay. Well, my name's Mike Ebendroth. Pastor Steve is here as well. The Tuesday guy, if you want to find him on Twitter.

And I think Steve Cooley's on Facebook too. Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, sometimes. All right. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth 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.