Hold Fast Until The End

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.

Show Identity, Ministry, and Listener Offers

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Michael Lee Abendroth, and we have a little slogan here, �Always Biblical, Always Provocative, Always in that Order. That�s what we�re after and why the title �No Compromise Radio.

Well, number three, we don�t want to compromise, and we pretty much think that we haven�t compromised on the show. At least that�s our goal, our aim, our desire. Number two, though, these are ranked in ascending order of importance.

At the cross, God�s love, grace, justice, and holiness was not compromised. So we like to talk about the cross a lot, what Jesus did as a substitute. And number one, I guess one and two have to kind of be tied.

Number one, Jesus never compromised. So as representative, he never compromised, and we like to talk a lot about Jesus. So if you don�t like to talk about Jesus or listen to him being talked about, this show isn�t for you.

If you like smooth water downwards, I�m working on a new intro, outro, et cetera. If you want to write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com. I have some books here, �Sexual Fidelity. I have three sexual fidelity books for free.

If you write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com, I�ll give out to three different people and all you have to do is say, �My name is Jane Smith, and I have listened to every No Compromise episode in the last eight years.

If there was a rerun, you could skip that one, and it could be at 1 .5 speed. But I know there are some people, because I receive the emails and they�ve said, �We�ve listened to every show. So if you�re one of those three people that have listened to every show, or if you�re more, but it�s first come, first serve, �I�ve listened to every show.

I�ll take you at your word. There�s no little quiz or anything, �What�s my dog�s name, the NoCo mascot, or NoCo Junior�s name, or anything like that. I�ve listened to all the shows so far. You get a free book, �Sexual Fidelity and I�ll send it, media mail, $2 .63 to me.

Alright, what else? We�re going to Israel. That is in February 2018, the last 10 days, and you can meet us at probably Newark Airport, Newark, Boston, something like that. It�s about $3 ,300, unless you need to get there to Newark or Boston, maybe it�s a little bit more.

We�d love to have you go. It�s a Bible teaching trip, so if you want to have the Bible taught, that is for you. You can invite your friends, neighbors, relatives, saved, unsaved. You just need to tell them ahead of time.

There�s a bunch of people carrying their Bibles, and we�ll have Bible teaching at certain times. My brother, a Bible church pastor, Pat Abendroth, he will be there as well, and we love to first night swim in the Mediterranean, no matter what the temperature or waves.

It�s usually pretty wild, swirling waves, and then we swim in the Jordan River. We swim in the Sea of Galilee. We swim in the Dead Sea, so there you go. I will be with Pastor Donald Stevenson in New Zealand, October, I believe, 27th, 28th, and 29th.

My wife and I will be there. She�s going to speak to the ladies at a breakout session, and I think I do one session on sexual fidelity, one session on Jesus, the Prince of Preachers. Those are breakout sessions, and then the conference is on the five solas of the Reformation, and I will be doing Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia, Solus Christus, Sola Fide, and Soli Deo Gloria, and I can�t wait to do that.

So if you are in the northern part of New Zealand, New Zedland, we would love to see you there. I don�t know if we have any listeners in New Zealand. I know we have some in Australia, but that�s pretty far away.

Donald said to me, �Are you the typical American that wants to go see all the Hobbit stuff I think that�s on the South Island. I said, �No, I�m not really a big Hobbit fan. I mean, the guy could write, obviously.

Not the Hobbit, but Tolkien. And I said, �You know, if we live close by and you said, �Hey, do you want to go check it out I�d say, �Yes, but to go to the South Island to just Hobbit-hop There are other things we could probably do.

Surf, fine dining. If you are from New Zealand and you�re going to attend, please let me know. Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. I have been studying the book of Hebrews. I saw someone on social media the other day.

Hebrews as a Christ-Centered Book of the Bible

If they had one book on a desert island, you couldn�t bring the Bible, but you could bring one book of the Bible, which would it be? And he said Hebrews. And partly because it�s so Christ-centered, but partly because it contains so much of the Bible.

That is to say, there are quotes from the Psalms and the Old Testament, and it is just a packed book. And really, the whole sweep of redemption is found in the book of Hebrews, highlighted in the person and work of Christ Jesus.

And when you read chapter 1 and 2, and so far I�ve preached through those two chapters, I�m in chapter 3 now, there could not be probably two more Christ-exalting chapters ever written. Now, I�m not pitting it against other passages of Paul or John or something like that, but just those two chapters in Hebrews chapter 1, speaking of the exaltation of Jesus, the eternal Son, He�s God, and then chapter 2, He�s man.

It�s amazing. And we come now to Hebrews chapter 3, and lots of people are asking questions because of the warning passages. There�s been one in chapter 2. Can Christians lose their salvation? Can believers become unbelievers?

Will anyone who�s truly a child of God ever stop believing? You could ask these questions about can a Christian lose their salvation in a lot of ways. Has God ever planned to do something, and then He never finished what He planned to do?

See, that relates to salvation. Can you ask a question maybe like this? Jesus pays for sins on the cross, your sins if you�re a believer, and now will you ever have to pay for sins that He�s already paid for?

Can God justify people and not sanctify them? There are a lot of ways we could ask the question. What about final perseverance unto the end? That�s what we�re looking at today on No Compromise Radio, Hebrews chapter 3.

Perseverance, Assurance, and the Warning in Hebrews 3

Can you lose your salvation? Must you persevere? From God�s side, obviously, He cannot lose one of the elect. Salvation seen as received by men and women, man�s side, there is, there are, here even in the book of Hebrews, exhortations to persevere.

Now the question really is, is perseverance saving or is that a response to what God has done? In other words, when Hebrews chapter 3 verse 6 says, �But Christ is faithful over God�s house as Son He�s comparing Moses and Jesus, �and we are His house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

And then He gives the warning passage, �Don�t harden your hearts in chapter 3 verse 7 and following. So when you first read it and it says, �If indeed we hold fast our confession and our boasting in our hope well, what if we don�t?

Now there�s lots of ways you can look at this. One of the ways you can look at it is the audience. Is he writing to Christians only? Is he writing to people who are close to the Christian community and are on the edge?

Is he writing to people who have real professions of faith, false professions of faith? And that�s one angle that certainly needs to be addressed when it comes to hold fast, if you hold fast. So does your holding fast secure your salvation?

You�re justified by faith alone. Do you keep yourself justified by your holding fast? That is the real question. Man side, continue to believe, hold fast. Is this verse, Hebrews 3, 6, and others like it, meant to give you assurance or take it away?

Or is it designed to do something else? I submit to you that this passage, along with other passages, of course, if you�re not a Christian and you read this and you�re like, �Well, you know, I don�t know.

I haven�t even held fast to begin with. Okay, hold fast, believe. If you�re a person who has allegedly walked with the Lord and has believed, but it�s been a faith that doesn�t save, and you haven�t held fast, you�re not holding fast now, then you need to believe for the first time.

You need to become converted. You need to be born again. But for Christians who read this, and certainly there were some of each category that this sermon was addressing, just like when I preach sermons, I know I�m mainly talking to the Christians, but there are other people who are sitting there, and I don�t know their hearts, but it will apply to them as well.

This is not meant to drive assurance away for the Christian. If you�re not a Christian, well, you shouldn�t have assurance, and it will drive that away. But if you are a Christian, it is meant to give you assurance by making sure that you�re trusting in Christ alone, that your assurance, that your hope, that your confidence is in the object of your faith, not in what you do.

Furthermore, when you do continue, it is a proof that you have been saved. It�s a reality of your faith, the object to be believed. In the passage here, in Hebrews 3, Jesus is the faithful one. It says in chapter 3, verse 1, �Who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all his house.

But of course, Jesus is greater than Moses because Jesus is not just the builder of the house, he�s the son of God, he�s not the house itself, somebody has to build the house. Then it says in verse 5, �Now Moses was faithful verse 6, �but Christ is faithful.

So we have faithful, faithful, faithful, faithful. All this talk about faithful, and Jesus was faithful, and as Jesus is faithful, you respond with faithfulness, keeping your eyes on the faithful one.

Holding Fast, Christ’s Superiority, and the Call to Consider Jesus

Now O�Brien has a good commentary on Hebrews, it�s probably my go-to, it�s in the Pillar series, that is an excellent commentary series. The exposition then, O�Brien says, where�s O�Brien from? Is he from, no he�s not New Zealand, he�s Australia I think.

The exposition then is framed by an exhortation, verse 1, and a conditional sentence which indicates that their continuing membership in God�s household is dependent on their holding fast to the end, verse 6b.

Now listen, we don�t want to stop there. The latter has the effect of urging them to maintain their bold confidence so that they declare publicly their Christian confession and to hold fast to their boast in God with all that he has promised for the future.

I guess I could say Jesus said, if you continue in my word then you are my disciples indeed. There�s this condition. Well, I think what�s happened over the years, we just take this and say, well then you can lose your salvation.

That has nothing to do with this passage. So, we look at the book of Hebrews and we say to ourselves, it�s all about Jesus, the object of our faith, right? And as we look at the book of Hebrews, you see Jesus is superior to prophets, he is superior to angels, he is superior to Moses, he is superior to Aaron, he is superior to the old covenant ministry in every way, shape and form.

His death, his sacrifice, superior. Chapter 10. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemy should be made a footstool for his feet.

Jesus Christ, he alone, one sacrifice, paying for the sins of all the people. And he is priest, victim, offerer, and offering as one man said. And what�s driving this section in Hebrews chapter 3 is consider Christ.

We talked about that several months ago on the show. Consider Jesus, that�s chapter 3 verse 1. Think about him, meditate on him. When you�re struggling and getting persecuted or doubting, should I go back to my old religion here, of course Judaism, but it could apply to anything, application is very broad here.

What should I do? Well, just think about Jesus for a while. That�s the point, that�s the key verb, consider. Consider Jesus even, and that�s the humanity of Jesus, stressing there Jesus, it didn�t say the eternal son or it does not say the Messiah or the anointed one.

It says Jesus, consider Jesus, Jesus his earthly name. Remember, he shall bear a son and you shall name him Jesus and he shall save his people from their sins. This eternal son, meditate, contemplate, deliberate, I have these little synonyms here, muse, musiate, reflectionate.

I�m just looking around taking a break here, the books that I have and I�m getting rid of all kinds of books that I just don�t need anymore or like anymore, I�m just looking over there now, the Eric Matassas Bonhoeffer book, that�s out.

I read it, trying to make a saint, not a Bonhoeffer, obviously Bonhoeffer stood for things, but not the literal resurrection, that�s one. What�s going on here? Well, what�s going on in Hebrews is the focus should be on Jesus and now he�s saying, well, yes, from the human perspective, you have to keep believing until the end.

That�s not a ground of your salvation, that�s an evidence of, that�s a fruit of. Jesus is the apostle, Jesus is the high priest, Jesus is the faithful one, Jesus is the builder of God�s house, that�s all true.

And since that is true, you need to respond with, what, faith, that�s the issue, you need to respond with faith. The outcome of all this about Jesus in chapter 3, 1 to 6a is, hold fast, and hold fast to two things, our confidence and our boasting and our hope.

I�d just like to ask the listeners right now, what is that? Let�s just not even say we�re in the climate of the Hebrews, we are now just thinking about life. You�re a Christian, you struggle with things, what is your confidence and what is your hope?

The hope that you boast in, the hope that you have confidence in, what is that? Well, the better question is, who is that? Even you, even I know that what our hope is, is that Jesus is truly God and truly man and truly the great representative and the sinless substitute and the one who conquered death and said he�s going to come back for us.

He, yes, is our confidence and our hope. You profess, Hebrews, that Jesus is the Savior. Keep professing, keep professing till the very end. S .O .S. Johnson said, �Now the Christian who has believed in the security of the believer has always been troubled by the ifs of the Bible.

I have heard from very noble men, Johnson said, attempts to eliminate the ifs of the Bible, but we can�t do it. Whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.

You are in God�s house if you hold fast. You are not in God�s house if you don�t hold fast. What he is saying is simply this, continuance in the house of God, that is continuance in the faith, is the proof of the reality of our faith.

It�s not the ground, it�s not the cause. We don�t want to bring works righteousness into the idea of salvation and justification by faith plus evangelical obedience. If we continue, we have surely believed.

If we don�t continue, then we�ve not truly believed. Johnson said, they seem to be the reality, they seem to have responded, but there was no perseverance to the end, talking about Luke 8 and the parable of the soils.

I have assurance that he will preserve me, he will hold me because I belong to him. Yes, that is actually true. And I respond with, I keep believing. Again, it�s not salvific or anything else. The whole theme of this book, rest, trust, have confidence in, have faith in, believe, don�t turn your back on Jesus, there�s no other hope.

And by the way, if you turn your back on Jesus, there�s no hope for you. So hold fast to what you believe and in whom you have believed, that�s the point. So just to take a break here for a second, Mike Cavendroth, No Compromise Radio.

Personal Update, Health, and Encouragement to Listeners

If you want to write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com. We have been doing some new shows since I�ve gotten back from a sabbatical and extended vacation for health reasons. I go have a MRI in December down in New York City for a follow-up to see if the radiation has worked.

Many of you have said, we have been praying for you, how do you feel? I feel pretty good. This week I�m tired because at least the last three days I have ridden my bicycle. Not very far and not very fast, I think I�ve done 32 miles each of the last three days.

And it�s pretty slow, I don�t even want to tell you how fast it is. But it is nice to be back on the bicycle, I�m listening to an iTunes University lecture on the Reformation, RTS, Reformed Theological Seminary.

I�ll give you more of the details on that. It has been a great series, Luther and Erasmus and Calvin and Bollinger and Zwickau Prophets and Munster and the rebellion there, Radical Reformation, Counter-Reformation, Jesuits, the Roman Catholic Marines as it were.

Anyway, great series. So I�ve been doing that and I think I must be feeling better because I�m starting to count calories again. I couldn�t really work out that much and with the radiation and stuff like that I just was tired and just by the bathroom a lot, sorry to have to tell you that.

Mainly uncomfortable stuff, I mean it was an easy procedure compared to surgery. And I guess you just sit around and eat, right, there�s not much else to do. So I finally weighed myself three days ago, I didn�t like what I saw.

I mean I could already tell the belt, you know exactly how many eyelets you�re on now and where it should go. So I thought I got to start counting calories again. So the best way to count calories for me is if I ride the bicycle I can earn some calories.

So today is day four of counting calories. So that means I must feel pretty good because why starve yourself if you don�t feel good? Why starve yourself anytime? I guess the answer is vanity. I was preaching on Sunday and I know you�re supposed to button your coat when you preach.

I had a sports coat on and some slacks and I thought man this is tight and you can�t button your jacket, something�s got to give. So anyway, day three. So the way it works here around here, no compromise, the only way to lose weight is weigh yourself every morning, count your calories.

That�s it. So my lunch today, hold on a sec. Getting it right now across the room, coming back. I�ve got to see, here�s my strategy. I�m trying to stall for a minute and a half because I�ve got this point I want to make with Hebrews but it needs to be for the next show.

So here�s my lunch today. Bird�s eye frozen fresh vegetables. How does that work? Steam fresh, chef�s favorites, lightly seasoned Asian medley. Okay, so it says perfectly cooked in the bag and it�s just all veggies and it is three and a half servings per container and it is 60 calories so that�s about 200 calories for the whole thing.

It is 10 ounces. So you probably have almost all the calories with the seasoning but anyway, that�s what we�re doing. Thank you for praying. I really appreciate it and as I�ve said before, if you are a man and you�re listening, you have prostate cancer, you just got diagnosed, I understand and if you want to email me your phone number, I�ll be glad to talk with you and pray for you and give you any advice I can.

Or if you just have cancer, it�s a lot worse kind, I�d be happy to talk with you. I think 2 Corinthians 1 is true. I have been comforted by God and I want to comfort you.

Station Identification and Closing Disclaimer

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.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.