Hebrews 11 and the Hall of Faith (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. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

I got the one button pushed for the Facebook Live, and then I didn't push the other one on the Morantz professional recorder.

It says low network connection. We have a slogan around here.

That's always biblical, always provocative, always massive icicles hanging from the roof at Bethlehem Bible Church.

Man, it is snowy out there. Not snow coming down, but just a lot on the roof.

If you hear an avalanche, avalanche, that'd be a fun church name,

Avalanche Bible Church, ABC. Maybe they've got some of those. Anyway, it's been a while since I've been here in the studio, and it's been a while since I've done some

Facebook Live, but it is Saturday, December 7th, in real time, 2019, and I like to come to the church building and just talk about what

I'm going to preach on, and it helps me kind of formulate things. So anyway, if you're watching,

God bless you. If you're not watching and you're just listening, great. I received an email this week.

I got it actually today, and it might have been one of the most, maybe it's the most encouraging email

I've received, besides that one that had the Pete's Coffee Certificate. I was just in California for Thanksgiving, and I think,

I don't know, I think we went to Pete's only once or twice. Anyway, here's part of the email I received today from Randy, Pastor Mike, I want to thank you so much for your podcast.

I grew up in a moralistic type church, and about 15 years ago was introduced to certain types of theology.

I just added that theology part. Over the course of these years, I've been a respected church member, but I can't tell you how much depression

I've battled because I could never attain assurance. Many times I've been angry with God, and mostly

I've hated myself because I just couldn't repent. I read Jerry Bridges some over the years, and I would tell myself, it's too good to be true, and I'm just not as spiritual as others.

I thought God was cruel since maybe He didn't elect me, but instead let me learn the doctrines of grace, only to rub it in my face that I wasn't one of the chosen.

How could I be? I hadn't repented enough, which means He didn't grant it to me. This has sent me on such a legalistic bent for years.

A little over a year ago, I started listening to your podcast, because you had a lot of free time.

I knew you from the days of Wretched Radio. Wretched what? What's that? I did get a text from Todd a while ago, but that's about it.

I'm not Ask On anymore. I think Phil filled the void in Too Wretched for Radio. Anyway, but I still am friends with Todd, I hope.

I listened to your messages on Assurance, and I am not a crying man, but tears welled up in my eyes when

I think about the first time I heard you speak about Assurance. I can't begin to describe what that was like for me.

Those messages have sent me down a new path exploring the Reformed Confessions and reading people like Scott Clark and others.

I love your podcast. It was a typo. He said, pad -cast. Maybe it's the pad -cast.

Oh, there's one of those stickers, by the way. No -co -stickers. Write us, send a self -addressed stamp envelope, and you can have one of those.

I love your podcast and your preaching, and I wanted to say thank you. The heavy burden that was there for so long is gone, and I feel born again.

Thanks for all you do. What a great email. That was very encouraging. So I emailed him back and said, what's your phone number, and then just called him.

One of the first things I said when I talked to him today was that I call people back unlike Todd, unlike Freel.

Anyway, thank you for that, Randy. I was very encouraged. And, you know, really when it comes to theological truths, of course,

I don't make any of these truths up. Someone taught me. I said the same thing almost, not verbatim, but pretty close to Sinclair Ferguson this

March when I met him, or I saw him. I've met him before, had classes with him.

But I just said how much his book meant to me, the Merrill book, which is called

The Whole Christ. And then I just pass it on to the listeners, and then the listeners pass it on to the people they know.

And it's just truths passed on a la 2 Timothy chapter 2.

Anyway, very encouraging. If you want to send an encouraging note, I just might read it after our sorter goes through to see if there are any checks in the mail.

Anyway, very, very encouraging, and I'm thankful for that email. And by the way, let's not talk about how

I can be encouraged, but if you have a Bible teacher that has taught you the truth, and you have been encouraged by them and grown under their ministry, why don't you do something nice?

Why don't you send an email? Why don't you say thank you? You know, we are very prone and very apt to complain to the complaint departments for companies and maybe even churches, and the

Scriptures teach a lot about encouraging one another. Actually, that's what Hebrews 10 talks about, how to encourage other people, and maybe you could do something.

A little note, I'm not talking for me.

If you're here at Bethlehem Bible Church, I'm not asking you for this. But if you're not here, then why don't you send your pastor something nice?

I think that'd be good, something encouraging, positive and encouraging. Well, we're coming to Hebrews chapter 11 now, and I've been trying to go through Hebrews for several years now on Sunday mornings.

Sometimes I get a little off track, and sometimes that off track is simply I'm on vacation,

I'm speaking someplace, I get cancer, you never really know what comes up in life. I do have an appointment in two weeks in New York City, so hopefully the follow -up will be good there.

And by the way, I also, who knows, I'll probably be able to do a lot more shows now since I cannot bicycle in the cold weather, and I have to get my

ACL repaired. That's in January, and I guess I'll just have to stay home and stretch and do the rehab and do the

Pete's Coffee stuff, so this is life. They're going to put in an

ACL from a cadaver, and there's a special name for that, a dead person.

No, but the cadaver ACL is called something, I can't remember. Or they could take a tendon from your leg, and I said,

I'd like to have a cadaver tendon ACL, but I want it from a high jumper. So the next high jumper that dies in an accident,

I think I'll probably be getting that ACL. Hebrews chapter 11, it is one of the most misunderstood chapters in all the

Bible, and isn't that just the way it goes? Our favorite chapters, our favorite verses, are oftentimes the one we don't understand properly.

Maybe if we understood it, we wouldn't like it as much. Maybe like John 3, 16, those believing in him should not perish, and we think, oh,

I wanted that whosoever in there. I don't think it's the same, though, here for Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11, if you understand it, it's actually better. You don't lose anything, you get things.

Anyway, Hebrews chapter 11, and what many people call the hall of faith, right?

That's what they call it, the hall of faith. And I want you to understand Hebrews 11.

That's my purpose for the sermon that I'll preach tomorrow, if I lived that long, and if I do what

I'm supposed to do in the next two, three shows, I think I'm gonna do three shows here today, I want you to understand

Hebrews better, Hebrews 11. And of course, the first thing you can do is, whenever I think of Hebrews 11, and you parachute into a chapter, you think of the book and what the book is about, and really the book is an exaltation of Jesus, the high priest.

The eternal son adds human nature, and he becomes the representative substitute, high priest.

He is better than angels. He's better than the prophets. He's better than Aaron. He's better than Moses. He's the one in whom the father is well pleased, the one that the father recognizes as obeying perfectly on earth, keeping the law, meriting righteousness for us.

And I like it when people talk about the book of Hebrews as the fifth gospel. Remember that old band,

The Fifth Dimension? What songs did they sing? The Fifth Dimension. I still don't like this light right above me.

It gives me, my head's not that shiny, but it sure seems like it with this. Maybe I can change this chair around a little bit and do it that way.

I don't know. I don't know. We don't normally do this. We have one watcher. Hey, did Baylor win today or did

Oklahoma? You know, I was rooting for Oklahoma this season because they've got that running back with the last name

Sermon. Sermon. I found some coffee at Verve in Santa Cruz.

It was also called Sermon. Oh, it's just me. Is that Spencer or is it

Ben? Ben or Spencer? Hey, Ben, by the way, oh, it's Spencer.

Okay. Well, Spencer, I just, I thought it might've been Ben and, but you'll probably like to know this too.

I just saw the American gospel sequel, the second one, Brandon Kimber's sequel, and there's some

NoCo footage in there. There's some, actually the last words in the movie are my words.

And I had a sign or a little release that my image could be used for public consumption or whatever.

So I was supposed to be in the first one. And Brandon was up in Ohio, I think, and he wanted to film some stuff and I just had received my radiation.

I was way too tired and I couldn't quite do it. Well, the good news is here on NoCo, we have at least one person watching and it's the staff.

Spencer is going to be on NoCo soon enough. I just have to figure out time to sit down and talk. And that'll be fun for you to get to know the man behind the curtain.

Anyway, they talk about Hebrews as the fifth gospel. And why do they talk about the Hebrews as the fifth gospel?

Well, as you know, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John talk about Jesus so much that here, this epistle is

Christ -centric. It is a Christological epistle. It is a sermon about Jesus from front to back.

And of course, there are implications that you will learn since Jesus is this great high priest, how then shall

I live? How then shall we live? But everything about this book is extolling who Jesus is as he is the

God -man. Perfectly God, perfectly man. Truly God, truly man. Oh, by the way, when the

American Gospel is out, you will see the old -school Eben Droth talking before I'm trying to be more refined theologically.

And I was talking about fully God and fully man. And that's just the way I was taught when I grew up theologically.

And I don't like those descriptors of Jesus when it comes to more quantitative.

I want qualitative descriptors. So quantitative would be things like Jesus is 100 % man, 100 %

God. Quantitative would be things like he is fully God, fully man. Now, those are true in and of themselves.

True enough. I think there's nothing kind of Arian or so Sinian or anything kind of weird there.

But I don't want the emphasis placed on quantitative. I want the emphasis placed on qualitative.

Therefore, along with the confessions, I would rather say that Jesus is perfectly God, perfectly man.

That's qualitative. And that he is truly God and truly man.

That's qualitative. But it is just part of my DNA to say fully God, fully man, 100 % man, 100 %

God. That's just the way I've always taught. And for 20 years, it's kind of hard to break the habit, but I want to.

But of course, I think the only time... They have my words on certain things, but I think the only time they saw my face is on the movie is when

I'm saying the wrong thing. I didn't want to tell Brandon about it because then

I'd probably be removed completely. So I did catch a typo on the rough draft.

And so I made that correction, but I'm not going to make this correction there. But for the record, and Scott Clark's in the movie too.

And I texted Clark and I said, I understand it's perfectly and truly not fully and 100%, but that's just the way it goes.

Anyway, here's what we're going to do. Hebrews 11, if you have some hermeneutical helpers, remember hamburger helper, tuna helper, some hermeneutical, how to interpret the

Bible helpers, I think you can get Hebrews 11 better.

So I've said that it's misinterpreted often, it's not understood often, yet it's beloved.

So I think if you really understand it, you're going to like it even more, Hebrews chapter 11.

So I'm basically going to give you a simple outline and that outline is how do you understand

Hebrews 11 better? And if you apply these principles to the rest of the Bible, it'll also work.

So it's a general template, how to understand the Bible better, but specifically in regard to, in regarding to, in regards to.

When anybody says towards, I always want to say toward. People say that all the time though, towards, turn towards me, turn toward me.

In regards to, in regard to. See how this works? All right. Maybe that should have been on the American gospel sequel,

Christ Crucified. Number one, how do you understand the book of Hebrews specifically chapter 11 or any other book of the

Bible, but we're going to apply it to Hebrews 11 and that is grasp the context. Now I know if you've listened to any, to any show, you'll, you'll understand that, but while there's no surprise here,

I want to make sure you, you see what's going on. And it is very important when it comes to Hebrews 11, because while it's a very familiar chapter, sadly, it's a chapter.

What do I mean by that? Because we're not helped by the chapter break because it flows from the previous chapter.

And for instance, Galatians chapter six follows five, duh. But I wish it was part of the same chapter because the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, attitude fruit, essentially.

And then the action fruit is bearing one another's burdens when they fall into sin. So that's another illustration of bad chapter breaks.

Well, this chapter break is a bad chapter break. And therefore I want you to think about what the context is.

And the best thing to do with context is you think about the book, to whom the book is written, what does the book say in general, and more specifically, what did it say just previous to this?

What is just previous to chapter 11? And that's the end of chapter 10.

And you can also say, therefore, then what is the beginning of chapter 12? Two questions solve the problem of context.

How did the previous section end? And then what goes on at the beginning of the next section? And if you can think of, and I can at least show the

NoCo Facebook people, here's 10, here's 12, and in the middle is 11.

And I would like to think of it as a sandwich. And the sandwich, the meat part of the sandwich is

Hebrews 11. And I just say that because that's in between. Maybe you're vegan, so you just put the hummus in between.

By the way, the jalapeno cilantro hummus at Trader Joe's, that's worth a bet. People have cultural moments on their shows.

Here's another one. So here's what I want you to think of. Hebrews 11 is the middle, and you've got

Hebrews 10 and Hebrews 12. And if you think about them together, that is 10, 11, and 12, it's really going to help you.

Therefore, you ask the question, what's the top part of the sandwich? The bun or the, I guess if you get a protein style, it's the lettuce, lettuce, meat, lettuce.

Kim and I went to In -N -Out Burger the other day in California, and I don't like a lot of the white kind of bread things for buns on burgers.

But if you have a, Spencer just said jalapeno syrup from Trader Joe's.

What do you put that in, coffee? You put that in the coffee, the Peet's coffee. There you go, or yes,

Mike is right here. You could have the 11th chapter of Hebrews as pillars. So one of the ways when

I think of pillars is, let's just say the five solas, we could do that. So the foundation is sola scriptura, and you've got pillars of Christ alone, faith alone, grace alone, with the arch, overarching panoply is sola

Deo gloria, to God alone be the glory. So that's a good way to think of the five solas. But I think Mike may be onto something.

Maybe I should do this kind of show more often before I preach so I could talk about the pillars of chapter 11, because 11 actually looks like pillars, right?

So you have the foundation of Jesus, the high priest, and then you have these pillars. That's why we don't do call -ins.

Somebody asked me the other day, and we're thinking about live streaming, maybe the church services, and they said

I could do live video streaming for NOCO. That means

I have to trust the audience. I have to trust you to give good feedback, and sometimes that doesn't work out so well.

All right. Chapter 10. Let's just go through chapter 10 at the end to get part of that sandwich, or for Mike's case, the pillars.

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured. He's talking about endurance here, remember, because they're tempted, animal -style fries or fallen pillars covered in sauce.

That is true. That is true. He's talking about endurance at the end of chapter 10, and he is going to then lead into 11.

Think about that word endurance tied into 11. Think about the need for these recipients of this letter to endure, because remember, they were getting persecuted, trials, and they were tempted to go back to Judaism.

Of course, for us, it's very applicable because we get tempted and tried and have a variety of temptations, and they might not be forcing us to go back to Judaism, but it might be forcing us to wonder, is

God good? Does he love me? Is he faithful? How can these things happen to me? What about all these trials and issues?

So it's very relevant for us as well, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction and sometimes being partners with those so treated.

For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has great reward. Here we go again, verse 36.

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised.

And then what the writer of Hebrews does is he quotes Hebrew scriptures, and that would make sense, right?

The Bible says, and what do you quote if you're talking to Jewish people in this time frame?

Well, you would quote the Old Testament, and he uses kind of a composite, a hybrid of Isaiah 26 and Habakkuk chapter two.

Yet for a little while, there's the Isaiah part, and the coming one will come and not delay. And now we get to the, do

I look like I'm a concordance? I think the Greek word is hupotasso, something like that.

Look it up on the thing. I'm trying to do a live show, Mike's asking me Greek questions. That was at my last show.

That was at my last thing. Hupomenem. Yet for a little while, the coming one will come and not delay.

But my righteous one shall, here's Habakkuk, shall live by faith.

There we go. Remember? The just shall live by faith. You can think of Luther, Romans chapter one, Galatians chapter three, and now here in Hebrews chapter 10.

And if he shrinks back, if he does the opposite of endurance, he shrinks back. My soul has no pleasure in him.

And therefore he's trying to tell these Jewish listeners and recipients of then the letter, the coming one, the title for the

Messiah, the messianic deliverer, he's on his way back.

And so hold the line, endure. It's not going to last forever, not much longer, just a little while.

This is language of a general who tells his soldiers that the war is going to end soon.

Just hold the line. Reinforcements are coming. This reminds me of Hebrews chapter nine.

So Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin to those who eagerly await him.

This Jesus who is going to return, chapter nine, he's going to come back. And I'm going to give you these scriptures to have them be used by the

Lord as a means to the end. The end is you will persevere if you're a Christian, but the means to perseverance is through lots of ways, including scripture.

And so he's using scripture to support this. And he says in verse 39, we're not of those who shrink back.

John Owen said, what is principally meant here is that characteristic of a righteous person that is opposite of pride and unbelief, which makes people shrink back from God.

The righteous one is humble, make sincere, submissive to God's will, waiting to do his wishes. Sincere faith will carry people through all difficulties, hazards, and troubles to the certain enjoyment of eternal blessedness.

Well, what's happening is he just got done talking about apostate. Remember those terrifying verses in chapter 10, verses 26 through 31?

He's saying, you know what, what's the opposite of apostasy? Faith. And it's not a temporal faith.

It's not a hope so faith. It's not a, I feel something faith. It's a faith that endures, right?

Saving faith that God grants you is a faith that will get you to the end. And therefore he can say easily,

I want you to endure no matter what kind of opposition, persecution, temptation,

Kistenmacher said the believer ought to stand firm in his faith. That's what's going on there. On the other side of the sandwich, and then we have to stop for the show, but I'll come back to the

Facebook people. Now they're up to six NoCo listeners. Therefore chapter 12, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside also every weight and sin, which clings so closely and let us run with endurance.

Got that? Endurance. The race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter or founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Anyway, my name is Mike Abendroth, there's No Compromise Radio. We're going to take about a three minute break. I'll be back on Facebook live shortly.

We're talking about Hebrews is better understood, especially chapter 11. When you think the endurance section at the end, endurance section at the beginning, that is 10 and 12, and you can understand chapter 11.

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.