Summer of Jonah 2019 Part 2, Episode XV: God Saves The Vile

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 ministry, it's Mike Abendroth, NOCO Radio. Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

That's what we're after. Trying to get you to think, think through the issues, propositional truth, black, white, right, wrong.

So much so that in our day, even 40 years ago, Francis Schaeffer would have to say, true truth.

Let's talk about true truth. And so, for those of you that don't know the show, Mondays, sermons,

Tuesdays, Pastor Steve and I, Wednesdays, I try to interview folks, Thursdays, something positive, you know, here's a truth about something, and Fridays, maybe woodshed stuff.

People say, well, you know, you're after people and you're really mean, and I didn't know

I was after people and was mean. I think if you put stuff out that's not good, pastors should say, you know what, you ought not to put that in your mouth.

You know, all of us to some degree are like kids, aren't we? Watch kids. I have older kids now, and so I have other things to deal with, like car insurance, college bills.

But when they were little, you know, one thing I'd made sure that wasn't around the house when the kids were playing on the living room floor, well, let's put the stuff there that I liked.

We had these big wooden blocks. I played blocks. I fell asleep for hours playing blocks, but I put big wooden blocks on the floor, still save them in case

I'm going to be a grandpa someday, but I pick up the marbles, the shards of glass, fish hooks, you know, those things were all picked up from the middle of the living room.

Why? Because kids just put everything in their mouths, don't they? And so we too do that.

We like the way someone looks. We like the way someone talks. We like this, that, or the other. They make us feel good.

Everybody else is reading it, and the list go on and on. And so I just want to try to do what Titus chapter one says

I must do. I must teach sound doctrine, and I must refute those who contradict.

And so that's what we try to do on the radio show. Teach sound doctrine, here's who Jesus is, isn't he great?

And teach against those that contradict. Why? Because that's what's right.

It's right to do. Oh, it doesn't feel so good. Here's where it especially doesn't feel good.

If you like Joyce Meyer and then someone says you ought not to listen to her, and they say, it's not even good, better, best.

It's not even, well, you know, they're in the realm of, within the realm of orthodoxy, but just not the best for you.

Pick somebody better. It's not like me saying, you know, I wouldn't listen to Charles Stanley, I'd listen to Sinclair Ferguson instead.

It's not like that. It's like this person's got the wrong view of Jesus and the atonement and their word faith and words have meanings and all that stuff.

Don't do it. But, but, but see, here's the thing. We all struggle with pride.

And so, hey, I like that. Now they're saying it's not good. Maybe I've got a pretty, what are you telling me?

I don't have a, you know, I don't discern well. And so there's all kinds of stuff like that that happens.

And so anyway, we'd love to have you come to a church service here, a worship service, if you don't have a home church at 830 or 11 o 'clock in the morning.

And I don't know, I probably won't, probably won't be any woodshed moments there. Maybe, maybe not.

But my guess is maybe not. So we'd love to have you come or you can come at six o 'clock on Sunday nights, hear one of the other pastors preach away.

Well, today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking about Jonah, or as we say here in New England, Jonah. And I think this is part three on Jonah.

And we've got to the second verse. Well, we're actually in the third verse. Jonah, as I've studied it again, has so many great things to talk about that I just thought we're going to have to do some no -co shows about Jonah.

And one of the things that I came to when I was discussing and thinking about Nona, Nona. Okay. So for those of you that don't know, my name is

Mike Ebendroth. And I had two grandmas. One was named Erna. Her real name was

Hedvig. But her second name was Erna. And I had another grandma named Nona.

And Nona, I can't remember her real last name, but her married name was

Anderson, S -O -N Anderson, Nona Anderson. Carl Otto Anderson and Nona Anderson were my grandparents, loved them.

And I just must have thought of Nona somehow. I can't figure out how to do it because people won't know it well enough and I can't start some hashtag thing, but grandma would answer the phone.

Nona would answer the phone by saying, not H -E -L -L -O, hello.

She would not answer the phone that way. She got older and then she was blind and she came to live in our house and she listened to the radio all day after she couldn't watch the

TV all day. And she would answer the phone, H -E -N -O, H -E -N -O, so my brother and I, if somebody is going to teach some kind of weird doctrine or say something funky, you know, not quite right theologically, we look at each other and say,

H -E -N -O. So if I could, if I had the footprint of a larger station, if I had the followers and Facebook friends of a larger ministry,

I'm not jealous of Todd's 45 ,000 Facebook likes or Brandon's 15 ,000.

We could start a trend, but you could do it. There's a few like inside Gnostic NoCo listeners and you can be in on the trend.

The next time you're just sitting there and you hear someone say something kind of funky from the pulpit or from the lectern, from the platform, from the stage, you just look to your wife or your friend or your comrade and you just go,

H -E -N -O. It's the best. And see, nobody will know what you're talking about.

So they're not going to say you're mean or crude or vulgar or it's inappropriate. They'll think maybe it's a different language, right?

It's Deutsch or something. And you just look at your friend and say, you know, somebody says, well, you know,

Jesus didn't learn and didn't, you know, grow in wisdom and stature and all that. You just go,

H -E -N -O. Where's Steve when

I need him? So I gotta, I gotta get back off of this deal. So Jonah arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, call out against it for their evil has come up before me.

But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, found a ship going to Tarshish.

So he paid the fare, went on board to go with them to Tarshish away from the presence of the

Lord. S. Lewis Johnson. He watches what

Jonah does and everything seems to be perfectly put in place.

It's ordained by God, isn't it? Every door's open, isn't it?

He's going the opposite way. Remember, he doesn't want to fulfill his mission as prophetic proclaimer.

He knows God's in Tarshish too. It's not the omnipresence of God. That's not the issue.

It's his official office. So he's quitting and he's going to run the opposite way. Instead of going up to Iraq, he's going to go down to Spain.

But when he goes there, everything seems to perfectly match up to what he wants to do.

And Lewis S. Lewis Johnson calls this satanic providence. I have enough money to go.

Circumstances are favorable to Tarshish. By the way, what is precise, precise fare? Well, the precise fare is so -and -so.

Well, isn't that striking? I happen to have the exact change in my pocketbook. And so he takes it out and puts it on the counter and takes his ticket.

He walks off and he has no peace down within, but his mind is thinking and constantly rationalizing over and over and over again, trying to justify himself.

You know, I've come down to Joppa. It just so happens there's a ship going to Tarshish. And I was thinking about Tarshish on the way down.

Not only that, I have enough money to pay for the ticket without asking for a clerical discount. And I got down there.

I had the precise amount in my pocket. This must have been what? God's will.

This must have been God's will. And we, we define circumstances and we say, this is how

God guides us by all these open doors and closed doors.

And we're divining circumstances and we spin them to say, you know what? This has got to be

God's will. Is that right? How do we work through these things?

Trying to figure out God's will. I know we've talked about this a lot, but I just have to say, as Lewis talks about this as satanic providence, that all these doors are open, but it's exactly the opposite of God's will.

And the opposite of God's will would be Satan's will. If there's an open door in your life and you say, well, here's an open door and I go through it.

Well, there's nothing wrong with that. Closed door, you don't. But primarily using open door and closed door as figuring out what

God wants us to do. You have to read, Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung.

Great approach to finding God's will. Open door, God's given me the opportunity, this is opportunity.

God wants me to do this. See, that's what we don't want you to do. We don't want you to say, there's an open door to go to Tarshish.

God wants me to do it. God has given me this to do.

If you say there's an open door, here's an opportunity for me to do something that God's already shown me to do in scripture, that's another thing.

But DeYoung says, plus whatever bad idea that they've already decided to do, I know my marriage is in shambles.

My wife wants me to round more so we can work things out, but God's opened a door for me to get a big promotion.

Work will require me to travel 30 weeks a year and be away from my wife more than ever, but God must be leading me to take the job or else he wouldn't have opened the door.

Hey, there's an open door to Tarshish. Circumstances seem to be perfect. I've got enough money,

DeYoung. If God opens a door for you to do something you know is good or necessary, be thankful for the opportunity.

But other than that, don't assume that the relative ease or difficulty of a new situation is God's way of telling you to do one thing or another.

Remember, God's will for your life is your sanctification, and God tends to use discomfort and trials more than comfort in these to make us holy.

Open door, closed door. Hmm. Well what else?

I'm thinking about Jonah. What are the themes of Jonah? What's in Jonah for us?

What's in it for the church member? Well, when I'm thinking about Nineveh and these wicked people,

God sends a preacher there to go preach to the Ninevites, and he's going to save really, really wicked people.

He's going to go save sinners. He's going to call those sinners to repentance. And God, as it says in Jonah 4, is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster.

And God, by character, is good and gracious, and therefore, by action, he's good and gracious.

And Jonah is called the John 3 .16 of the Old Testament. Did you know that? That was worth the show today, wasn't it?

That was worth the show today. For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life, including

Gentile Assyrian Ninevites. God forgives

Gentiles? God pardons pagans?

God, through preaching, forgives sins? Now, how bad of a sinner could you be before God says, you know what, you are irredeemable?

You are unredeemable. You have sinned so much, there can be no redemption for you.

And I think the Assyrians, as we look at Jonah and the Ninevites, help us because I can't think of people who are more wicked.

Now, I'm not saying self -righteousness isn't wicked. I'm not saying pride isn't wicked. I'm not saying any of those things.

I'm saying the external manifestation of wickedness found in the

Assyrians was cataclysmic. Now, I've picked some testimonies, some of the commentaries about people from Assyria.

Some of the victims were held down while one of the band of torturers, who are portrayed upon the monuments gloating fiendishly over their fearful work, inserts his hand into the victim's mouth, grips his tongue.

By the way, if you've got kids listening, here's a little no -co moment. Now, you might want to just turn it down.

I wouldn't turn it down if it was my kids listening because I'd want them to get it. Nothing inappropriate. It's just, well, it's like watching a television ad.

It's what it is. It was last night. I was doing something, and my wife and kids were watching

MasterChef, I think. They're watching it online. All of a sudden, I hear the, you know what this is, don't you?

La la la la la, na na na na na na. Because they don't want to hear what the stupid commercial is.

They're just watching some cooking show. That's all. Wrong lady one, too, as far as I'm concerned.

Grips his tongue. Wrenches it out by the roots. In another, pegs are driven into the ground.

To these and other victims, wrists are fixed with cords. His ankles are similarly made fast, and the man is stretched out, unable to move a muscle.

The executioner then applies himself to the task. Sharp knife makes its incision.

Skin is raised, inch by inch, till the man is flayed alive. These skins are then stretched out upon the city walls, or otherwise disposed of, so as to terrify the people and leave behind long -enduring impressions of Assyrian vengeance.

So here's what happens. How do you get the masses to obey you after you've conquered them?

Well, you can leave behind a large force, but if you don't want to divide your armies out too much, and you don't want to split up your resources that much, get watered down, then what do you do?

Then you do some really bad things in public so that people will realize, I can't mess with them.

For others, long sharp poles are prepared. The sufferer, taken like all the rest from the leading men of the city, is laid down.

Sharpened end of the pole is driven through the lower parts of the chest. The pole is then raised, bearing the writhing victim aloft, and is planted in the hole, dug for it, and the man is left to die.

I mean, could God save those kind of sinners? Pyramids of human heads mark the path of the conqueror.

Boys and girls were burnt alive, a reserve for a worse fate. Men were flayed alive, blinded and deprived of hands and feet, ears, noses, while women and children were carried into slavery.

Let's, as Assyrians, conquer a city, pick the best citizens, the leaders, slaughter them.

Let's slaughter them, and just mutilate them.

Could any one of these kind of people, I mean, I don't even want to think about it that much.

How could God save them? How could God save such a cruel people? Such a wicked person?

How could God ever save a Jeffrey Dahmer? How could God ever save some sinner?

And then all of a sudden I think about my own sin, and the wickedness of my own sin. Could God save pagans?

Could God save moon worshippers? Could God save blasphemers? What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh?

What do we say about Abraham? By the way, Abraham, before God saved him, wasn't a

Jew. He was a moon worshipper. And I love Romans chapter 4, because even though the rabbis would all say

Abraham kept the law of the Most High, that Abraham performed the whole law before it was given, we know differently.

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

If he was declared righteous by doing something, he could brag. He could get to heaven and brag all he want, but not before God.

For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.

He believes God. He has a saving faith that's more than intellectual, that's more than emotional, it's a willful, and it's reckoned to him as righteousness.

God says, Abraham, the pagan moon worshipper, sinful, is righteous in my sight.

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. You're in those.

And here's the verse I'm after in Romans 4, 5. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

So if godly means what God does,

I do, he's righteous, he's just, he's holy, he's impartial. Ungodly means the opposite.

If God's righteous, ungodly is unrighteous. See, without worship, without being like God, no fear of God, no reverence for God, that's the

Assyrian, that's the Ninevites. No fear of God, no reverence for God, I want to be exactly opposite of God.

Forget these people are made in God's likeness and image, let's fillet them. Ungodly, I don't want you in my life,

I don't want you in my affairs, I don't want you to mess with me, I don't want you to make it seem like I'm gonna depend on you for existence.

Spurgeon, he saves wicked men and receives to himself the vilest of the vile. So when

I read Jonah, and I think God's gonna go save these Ninevites, because that's what happens at the end. If God can save them, he can save anyone and he saves them through preaching.

He saves them through evangelism. And if you've got wicked friends, you ought to preach the gospel to them because God saves sinners through preaching.

If he justifies the ungodly, if he justifies the sinner, if he justifies the pagan, then he's a

God who loves sinners. God saves sinners. They're helpless, powerless, guilty, murderous, blasphemous, vile, but God saves them anyway.

He saves sinners. Isn't that really Pauline gospel summed up?

God justifies the ungodly. That's what Denny would say. And then

Paul goes on to say, blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Not counting our sin against us.

That is amazing. The message comes to repent and they repent.

So, my name's Mike Avendroth, Snow Compromise Radio. What else do I see? What else is going on in my mind when

I think about this, where I just have to kind of stop and just let it all settle in? It's a message of judgment. It's a message of judgment.

The call to repentance contains a warning of judgment. You know, we're all about God's love in our proclamation today.

I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about God's love ever, for God so loved the world. But there's a message of judgment as well.

And for Jonah, for what we have in the scripture, it's a message of judgment. That's exactly what it is.

Go to Nineveh, call out against it. Chapter three, what was his message?

Yet 40 days Nineveh shall be overthrown. Now, who wants to talk about judgment?

Who loves judgment? Who is like, oh, I love to talk about judgment? I think probably some immature people, they're all about, that's it.

I only want to talk about these subjects. Hell, damnation, judgment, double reprobation, reprobation, supralapsarianism,

I mean, whatever. That's all they want to talk about. Every one of those things should be talked about to some degree, even if we're arguing, is it in for a supra?

But when you only want to talk about those things. Here we have judgment. And I remember, first lie in all the

Bible was about judgment. It was about divine judgment. You're not going to die. God really say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden.

You shall not eat of the tree, fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden. Not touch it unless you die.

That's what the lady said, but the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. You will not surely die. So don't forget,

God saves pagan people, sinful people, blasphemous people, white collar people, outstanding people in society through a message of judgment.

And that judgment that we can talk about ends up being God the Father's judgment of the

Son in our place. So you've got to have judgment. It's like to have peace, you've got to have war.

And there's a war going on between God and men right now. And the only way we can have peace and have things brought back together and have the reconciled relationship is through talking, through preaching, and the talk of judgment.

Flee from the wrath of God. It's a terrible thing to fall in the hands of a living God. God's so holy,

He can't allow sinners into heaven without all the sin being paid for. There's a lot of different ways to talk about it.

But when we're just leading with love, love, love, I think Jonah is a good reminder for us.

The city's going to be overthrown. Consider your soul. It's a fearful thing to fall in the hands of a living

God. One day you're going to die and stand before God and then comes judgment. Many will say to me on that day,

Lord, Lord, why do you call me Lord and don't do what I say? And the list goes on and on and on.

Those that practice these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Hell passages are real.

And so we want to talk about the saving nature of God, but we have to talk about this, that God is angry with the wicked and there's the wrath of God and He's kindled and He's got

His bow bent back. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

Best of Israel, February 17th, nocompromiseradio .com. Israel, 2015.

Link. God bless you. 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 10 .15 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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