Rest-ology (Part 2)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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

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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.�

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

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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

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King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio.

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I almost said, �Welcome to Bethlehem Bible Church.� I should probably start off the show that way. My name is

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Mike Abendroth and the slogan here is always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. I�m trying to get you to think about who

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Jesus is. He�s the one that never compromised. I want you to think about the cross, at the cross justice and grace, neither were compromised.

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In light of that, I don�t want to compromise. I�m sure I do, but I don�t want to. What else do

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I know about the show? I�ve been going for eight years. It was a brainchild of, I don�t know who, who started this whole thing.

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I filled in for a local radio host here in Worcester eight years ago, and then the station said, �You want your own show?

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It�ll cost you.� I think I did that for four years, and then the last few years, it�s just a podcast.

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So we are just a podcast. So if you want to send me your review books, we�re just a podcast. But we have zillions of listeners, zillions.

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I think we were on a roll for quite some time, and then I got sick, and for about six months we had reruns, and I think we�re now just trying to catch up and get our fan base back.

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You know what I mean? The fan base. All right, what else do you need to know? If you want to go to the website, nocompromiseradio .com,

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you can email us. You can see our CVs there. You can order books.

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You can, I don�t know, you can do all kinds of things there. But probably the best thing, and the guys have been really great at this, is they�ve got a search engine for the 1800 shows, and if you say

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Creflo Dollar or Tim Keller or Substitution or something, pull that up, and you should be able to find whatever you need, including, let�s just say,

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Luke Abendroth, NoCo Jr. His interviews will be there. Luke and my daughter Maddie will be home from college,

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Lord willing, if LAX is not up in flames next week, and it�ll be fun to hang out with them.

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And I�ll bring Luke on the show. Last time we did it, I didn�t even tell him what we were going to talk about, and he was talking about the

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Merrill Controversy and the whole Christ and stuff like that. For a 20 -year -old, I was very pleased. If you want to go to the church website, it�s bbcchurch .org.

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I�m preaching through Hebrews. Steve, Tuesday guy, is in the 1689 Lombard Confession, and he�s going through the confession and what does the

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Bible say at our Sunday school class. And here

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I sit alone today on a day before the 8 inches of snow is going to arrive, first of the year, 2017.

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I saw a couple sprinkles, you know, a week ago, two weeks ago. Are they called sprinkles? Are snowflakes ever called sprinkles?

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Well, in my world, they are in the NoCo world. I�m talking about rest, and I�ve been in Hebrews, and Hebrews 4 talks about rest a lot, and that made me think of the rest passage that our

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Lord Jesus talks about in Matthew 11, �And I will give them rest.�

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Right? You come unto me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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While the Israelites were looking for rest, Cana, promised land, and they didn�t get it because of unbelief.

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We have rest because Jesus has obtained that for us by His work.

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We get rest by His work, the work of another. Jesus, the last

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Adam, could do what Adam failed to do, and Jesus, that means

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He kept the law, and He was born of a woman, born under the law that He might redeem us from the curse of the law,

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Galatians 4. That's really the Christmas message now, isn't it, the incarnation message?

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I'm working, by the way, on my sermons for the next few weeks, and I don't want to leave

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Hebrews 4 for the Christmas Eve service, right? Sunday is Christmas Eve, and that's the 24th, and I imagine we'll sing some, you know, �Hark the herald angels sing ,� or something like that.

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And the thing is, I don't really want to go, you know, go to Matthew 1. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with Matthew 1, but I've just been having such a good time in Hebrews.

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But see, even I, even me, even us, royally speaking,

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I was in Hebrews 4, but then I was thinking about Matthew 11 with Jesus. And so, let's go back to Matthew 11, and remember those kids were playing a game in the marketplace.

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Actually, they were playing how many games? Two games, while we play Red Rover and Red Light, Green Light, and I guess now what games do kids play in the marketplaces today?

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Angry Birds, Minecraft. So that's a little bit different, but back in the old days when you actually had to play, they had different games.

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And Jesus is comparing the generation, of course, led by the Pharisees and scribes and false teachers.

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He's condemning. Jesus is condemning that generation because they're rejecting John the

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Baptist, who was the precursor, the forerunner to Jesus, and they're rejecting

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Jesus as well. So when they turn their back on John and Jesus, He sees how fickle they are, how selfish they are, how much like children they are, childish, not childlike, but childish.

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And Jesus then uses a little game illustration, an illustration to teach a point, and that's what we left off last time.

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We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We sang a dirge, and you did not mourn. Jesus is saying this generation of people is like, you know, they're like these groups of children playing these games, and they would play wedding and they would play funeral.

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Both games stem from real -life situations, of course. I mean, Ring Around the

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Rose, he did too, right? With the plague. But what happens is you have weddings, and there would be a huge amount of fanfare back in those days for weddings.

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I mean, you've got a very hard life, a difficult life, a blue -collar, aggregarian type of life, and you would take time out for special occasions, and when you did, you made them big.

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And there would be processions involved with weddings and through the streets and days of feasting, etc.

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There was also lots of people who died back in those days. I mean, I think the same percentage of people died in those days that die in these days.

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But even farther back, you have some exceptions. Some people had to die twice, Lazarus and the people

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Jesus raised from the dead and those who came out of the tombs walking around after the death of Christ.

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And you've got people that didn't die, Enoch and Elijah, that type of thing.

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But generally speaking, you know, everybody dies, that's true, but there were a lot of deaths earlier on in those days because they didn't have penicillin or anything else, and there would be processions through the streets as well.

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And the children would think, okay, this is a big deal. There's the wedding game, and then there's the funeral game.

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And they would play those games. And Jesus talks about that a little bit. The first game, we played the flute for you, and you did not dance.

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You know, parents, they had the wedding in real life, and then now the children say, oh, this is a very public thing, this is a very social thing.

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There's a big parade, and everybody has their place, and you'd get swept up in it, right?

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You were on the side of the streets, and there's a big wedding, and there's a big celebration. I mean, life is hard back in those days, and hey, come on in, join the procession.

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And weddings? Hey, who doesn't want to go to a wedding? Upbeat, happy time, celebration. This is a treat, especially back in these days when life, as I said before, is hard.

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You can just imagine all the kids saying, all right, well, you be the bride, you be the groom, you be the maid of honor.

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Okay, who's the best man? Who's the preacher? You can just imagine how kids would divvy those things up.

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But you know what? People didn't want to do it. This generation didn't want to be involved with one of these festive things.

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We sang a dirge, and you did not mourn. Well, what's as inevitable as a wedding?

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Well, it's a funeral, and it's public, social, processional, like the wedding, and they would have the funeral, right?

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You lift the body up, and you carry it through the streets as you're off to the cemetery. Remember back in those days, they'd do something a little bit different than we do.

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We were very full of repose and solemn and quiet with our mourning. But what did they do in those days?

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They'd hire people, they'd hire women to wail, paid wailers,

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Bob Marley and the wailers, moaning, lamenting, beat themselves, as it were, striking themselves.

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Why? Just because, well, that was their culture, but you could know this is sad.

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Well, you know what? This generation of people who didn't like Jesus or John, they didn't like the wedding game, they wouldn't join in.

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They didn't like the funeral game, they wouldn't join in. I remember what one man said, you know, as the children did the wedding game, you'd be the groom, you'd be the bride.

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What about the funeral game? I'll be the funeral director, and you'd be the corpse. They didn't want to play that game either.

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We played the flute. Hey, this is, when you play the flute, hey, let's dance. It's like the banjo.

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And then when you play the dirge, you didn't want to join in for that. You didn't want to lament.

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Now, there's a tie -in here. Here's the tie -in. John the

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Baptist and Jesus had different approaches to ministry. They had the same message, repent, right?

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But the tie -in between these games is, each one reflects a different style of ministry that God has provided in the forerunner and the

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Messiah himself. Funeral game was John the Baptist. That was like John the

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Baptist. For John, verse 18 of Matthew 11, came neither eating nor drinking, and they say he has a demon.

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What was John's life like? Well, of course he ate. Of course he had to drink water.

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But he was very much ascetic. He was serious, and he had certain dietary restrictions, right?

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And what did those people do when they saw this very serious, kind of stringent man?

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Oh, he's got a demon. He's got a demon. This asceticism and his style of dress and where he lived and what he ate, you know what?

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How do we describe that? How do we think through that issue? You know what? He's got a demon.

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That's it. John comes in funeral mode, austere, camel's hair, eating locusts, some wild honey.

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I don't think he had a lot of good buddies. I don't think he watched Monday Night Football.

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Kind of hermity, hermitage. What's hermitage again? What's that mean? What's he talking about?

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You know what? Axes chopping things down. He was serious.

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He was a voice crying in the wilderness. That's the funeral game. They didn't want to join in, the people, the generation didn't want to join in.

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What'd they do instead? He's got a demon. He is completely off his rocker.

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You know, it's like those demon -possessed people, the demon -possessed man with full of legions of demons, a legion of demons.

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He was running around in caves out there in the middle of nowhere, probably lived next door to John. John, he comes with the solemn message of repentance.

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And everybody says, he's got a demon. Let's play funeral.

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Now, there's another tie -in here, and that's Jesus with the wedding game.

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Verse 19, the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

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Hey, we don't like John, we don't like Jesus. Well, you've got a problem because John is the forerunner of Jesus.

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Now, what happens here? John is out in the middle of nowhere, socially kind of an outcast, right?

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He's just sincere and austere. But Jesus, what's he do? He's known for hanging out with sinful people, riffraff, unclean people.

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And so, what do they say about him? Wow, isn't it nice that Jesus hangs out with normal people, sinful people, needy people, sick, socially,

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I mean, spiritually sick people. What do they say about him? He's a glutton and a drunkard. Hey, John the

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Baptist has got a demon. Jesus is a glutton and a drunkard. What's the point?

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Well, they didn't want to follow along his game either. I know Jesus' ministry is not a game, but you see the comparison.

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We're not going to follow John the Baptist. We don't like funeral game, and we don't like wedding game. We're not going to join the procession.

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We are not going to join the profession. We're Pharisees, and Jesus says, well, you know what?

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That's how you're acting. That's childish. Call to repentance by John, ah, he's demon -possessed.

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Call to repentance, call to forgiveness found in Christ Jesus alone, ah, he's a drunkard.

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He's a tax collector. He's a wine -bibber. He's a glutton.

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It's wild. The childish generation, they're easily irritated or annoyed.

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That's the definition of peevish, incorrigible. Hey, the sad game, we don't like.

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The happy game, we don't like. We don't want to follow anybody except ourselves.

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We don't have anything to do with you. We don't want anything to do with you. We're critical, we're bitter, and just move along.

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Look, even that language, look, scorn, gluttonous man and a wine drinker.

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Hey, Jesus is the opposite of John the Baptist. John the Baptist said no to these things, and Jesus says yes to those things.

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He hangs out with socially, the social outcasts. Now, the

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Pharisees, the religious mucky -mucks, they didn't hang out with the people that Jesus hung out with.

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You might get defiled after all. And now we know something about Jesus.

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Well, John the Baptist, he acts like that crazy guy. But Jesus, you know what, aren't you kind of, you know, birds of a feather?

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You're known by the company you keep, and Jesus hangs out with these people. Jesus was a man of the people.

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Eating and drinking. He was just going to people's homes. He attended social activities. He's gone to a wedding.

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He's been at funerals. He's in the synagogue, goes to villages.

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He's in a boat. That's the wedding. That's the wedding mode, some people call it.

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Why don't you fast like we fast? Matthew 9. You know, fast when there's a wedding.

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See, it's celebration. The Son of Man is on the earth. The God -Man right there walking in Jerusalem.

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Isn't this sad when it comes to unbelief? There's always a reason. People find an excuse not to believe.

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But then the text goes on to say wisdom is justified by her children. See the fruits of John the

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Baptist's ministry? See the fruits of Jesus' ministry? See the righteousness of John the

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Baptist? Well, not perfect, but he was a righteous man. Because of the work of God and Jesus, the righteous, as 1

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John 2 calls him. Hey, you know what?

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By the fruits, you'll know them. So you've got these games.

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People didn't want to play these games. And God, has he not, over the centuries, through prophets and ultimately his

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Son, offering grace by faith alone in a variety of different ways.

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Different prophets, different times, different formats. Some harsher, some kinder in their delivery.

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And people turn their messages away and off.

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They won't repent. They won't believe. They won't listen to God's prophets and preachers. What happens to them? What happens for people that when there's a flute that's played, they're not going to dance.

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And when there's a dirge played, they're not going to mourn. You know what? They're going to perish in judgment.

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Just like these cities do. And that's what Jesus goes on to talk about in Matthew 11, verses 20 and following.

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There's a consequence. Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done.

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Because they did not repent. Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

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But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.

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And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to the heaven? Will you be brought down to Hades? You will be brought down to Hades.

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For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you."

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Well, Jesus is there and he's done all these miracles. And these people will not believe. When you think of all the miracles recorded in the book of Matthew, especially in Capernaum, there are a lot of them.

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Chapter 8, verse 5, When he had entered Capernaum, the centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, saying,

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Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly. He heals that man.

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He heals Peter's mother -in -law. He casts out demons. He heals paralytics in chapter 9.

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Raises a dead girl. Gives sight to two blind men. Cast out demons of a mute person.

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All in chapter 9, all at Capernaum. And they're not going to repent.

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So, if John the Baptist comes in his funeral, and Jesus comes in his wedding, and you don't want to listen to either, and you see the authenticity of the miracles, which then authenticates the miracle worker, and you still turn your back, then this kind of judgment is going to be for you.

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Even Las Vegas is going to be better off on judgment day than you. These notorious cities.

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And so, he denounces these cities where he had done this work, and he gives them woe.

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It says in verse 21, Woe to you. It's going to be terrible. It's going to be awful. It's going to be nasty.

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You know, and he's saying, hey, Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented. What about you?

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What about you? By the way, he uses a language more bearable. It doesn't mean they're not going to be punished, but it's going to be less fascinating.

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Didn't God destroy Sodom with sulfur and fire, raining out of heaven, overthrowing those cities?

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The answer is yes. So, in verses 20 to 24, the condemned are described, those that won't listen to either message, funeral, or wedding.

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Now, left to ourselves, we would never repent, we would never believe, and we need help and intervention.

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For everyone who believes, for anyone who believes, it's going to take the work of a triune God. And so, here in the next set of verses, 25 to 30, all leading up to this rest passage, the curtains are pulled back and you really see some neat insight between the

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Son and the Father. These are the verses that hardly anyone reads when they go to Matthew 11, 28.

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They don't read the verses beforehand, and they don't get to see this little prayer that's offered, this wonderful prayer, this gracious prayer and communion between God, the

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Father, and the Son. We're going to have to look at that next time. No Compromise Radio.

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What can I tell you about NoCo Radio? Well, we have a desire to come alongside of churches and just help.

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There's lots of other podcasts you can listen to, and we're not claiming to be the only one.

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What podcast do I like to listen to? I personally listen to Heidelcast.

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I like listening to Heidelcast a lot. It's weird, though, when I talk to R. Scott Clark in person, he sounds like he's slowed down.

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It's 1 .5 speed. I like to listen to Crisis Center.

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See, then I get kind of Westminster, Escondido, and Westminster, East, West, and East, you know, as I listen to the two different sides, you know, as we talk about Union or Law Gospel.

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What else? I don't know. I listen to The Forward, but that has nothing to do with Christianity.

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I'm just rambling. I'm coming up to the section, verse 25 of Matthew 11. The thing is,

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I don't want to start it because I'm not going to be able to finish it. So if you want to write me, and it's a personal thing, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

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If you want to just ask Spencer something or donate some land, then that's info at No Compromise Radio.

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I guess that happens to people. I'm just wondering about that. We probably need to switch NoCo around a little bit, because I am going to need to retire one day, and I don't know what

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I'm going to retire on. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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.

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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.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.