Making Ourselves Christian

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

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�

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

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the

Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Pastor Esteban, it�s been quite a while since you�ve been in here.

Many, many months, a couple weeks. What happened? You were in California for a while, right?

What were you doing there? Putting out wildfires. Okay, that�s not true. No, we were there for the

Truth Matters conference, and then we stayed a couple extra days and saw my folks. Oh, that�s right. I forgot that the additional reason for your going is,

I heard about the Grace Community Churches, the elders there are trying to work on strategies when

John finally retires or goes to be with the Lord, and they�re looking for backups and stuff. Sacrificial lamb.

They said, �Steve, we think you�d make an excellent transition pastor, the first guy that we fire.�

Steve, the other day on Facebook, somebody was whacking us together that we�re all mean and if somebody disagrees with us, we�re all harsh and da -da -da -da -da -da.

And so� What was the problem with what they said? Well, I just responded back with all caps, yelling. You idiot!

I think we�ve gotten nicer over the years. Well, I�d like to think so.

You know, I�m mellowing. Uh -huh. I think between age, hopefully a more nuanced, mature theology, even of sanctification, and cancer in the family, right?

Your wife, me, and some deaths in our extended family, I think those all are used by the

Lord to make us softer. No joking aside. If I�m getting softer... I know.

And you�ve lost some weight, though, so you�re not getting as soft, you know, in terms of... Do you go to the gym still? When, you know, when

I�m not... Because your biceps are a lot bigger than mine. Mine are just all kind of, you know, I put my arm up for the bicep and now the underneath the arm where the tricep used to be, it just sags.

But, you know, it�s funny because I�ll tell my wife, I go, you know, the funny thing is about being a biker, which you are, you know, you don�t want upper body.

Right? Because it�s just hauler... It�s just... Extra weight. Extra weight to haul around, right? Especially if you�re going uphill.

It�s like, forget that. You watch the Tour de France. Those guys had no arms whatsoever. They don�t get arms until they retire.

I know. I�m sorry to say that look, the body type, I don�t really appreciate it. I don�t really like either, but if I was a pro racer,

I�d do the same thing. Right. They have to. Yeah. Yeah. So here on No Compromise Radio, we try to talk about all kinds of things, including...

Body types. Yeah. Body mass index, including things that we might not talk about in a sermon, right?

You�ll preach for me this coming Sunday. I think a side benefit of No Compromise Radio has been we don�t have to jam current events into every sermon.

The sermon can be about the text and the Lord, and then we can talk about whatever Beth Moore stuff on...

Yeah. We talk about whatever is in our gullet over the radio. Yeah, I know. I know. You saw the

Christianity Today. We�ve got a copy here today of an older version. There's a newer version of Christianity Today. I zipped through it.

It seemed to me to have zero no -co -fodder, but sometimes I don�t examine things properly. What did you see?

You know, you missed the outer wrapping, and maybe it was because my subscription was expiring.

They sent it and they said, you know, this is your annual bogus issue. Oh, you know what? There are some things that you get, you know, the annual

Bon Appetit. My wife gets Bon Appetit for cooking, and it's that extra special Christmas one, yeah.

Yeah, the holiday, you know, thing, or like I used to get a gaming magazine and have the top

X number of games for the year or, you know, Rolling Stone back in the day, back before the

Billy Idol interview. So a long time ago, but I, you know, top albums of the year or whatever, so yeah.

And so, this would be the theological bogus issue. And what did you find from memory since we don't have it in front of us?

Yeah, you know, and it's a bummer that I don't have it in front of me, but there was one article that started out, you know, where the guy was saying that I think

I'm a Christian, he said. At least I'm trying to be. And I just thought, I'm going to underline that and bring it in because there's a great article starter.

It's a great conversation starter. Why? Because the very fact that somebody would say, I'm trying to be a

Christian, tells me a lot about their grasp of the gospel. Steve, let's talk about it a little bit more because I think it's fascinating in two fronts or maybe more than two fronts, but if they meant,

I know that I'm sinful. I know that I have, my best deeds are like filthy rags.

I know that I'm an enemy of God and I would like to be reconciled to God. I'd like to stand before God, forgiven and wrapped in the righteous robes of Christ.

And therefore, I'd like to be one. And you know, I want to read the Bible and sit underneath gospel preaching on Sundays.

That you wouldn't be against. Right. What I'd be against is if they think there's a certain standard of behavior or conduct, you know, that constitutes what it means to be a

Christian, you know? Well, there might be people listening even today and they want to be a

Christian and maybe they've had Jesus accepted in their left ventricle 5 ,000 times, right?

Maybe they've gone up front at a Michael Card conference several times, right?

Steve just put his hand up and closed his eyes and squinted. Tell us about the means to the end.

So if someone is not a Christian, what are the means that God uses ordinarily to help people understand who the

Lord is and then save? Well, I think I could tell you what he doesn't use. He doesn't use dreams.

Okay, good. Let's start there. He does use his word and, you know, it could be like for me,

I mean, I think I'd say the moment of, I don't know if I'd call it conversion.

The hour of decision. The moment of realization. I don't know. It was just when the, you know, the love of God overwhelming was me reading the word on my own, right?

And it could be like that. It could be at church where you hear a sermon. It could be a friend preaching the gospel to you or relaying some gospel truths to you.

And for the first time in your life, you know, the Lord opens up your ears and you hear it and you believe it and you want more.

I think all those things are possible. What I don't think is, you know, really credible or extra biblical means, you know.

These days people have all kinds of almost Anabaptist weird things. They'll have warm feelings.

Right? When's the last time you had a warm feeling? You know, it's funny that you mention that because we just had,

Janet and I just went out for Mexican food not too long ago. Oh yeah, it was while we were in California in Bakersfield.

We had some really good, really good Mexican food. Did you listen to Dwight Yoakam while you were there? No, I, you know,

I just grabbed, the only CD I grabbed on the way out the door was, and we didn't have XM radio and we were in Bakersfield, but we didn't do the whole thing.

All I had was Tom Petty, so. Okay. Well, when people would like to get saved and they're not, of course they could pray.

I think of the prayer in Luke 18, Lord have mercy on me, the sinner. I recognize I'm a sinner and there's nothing

I could do to make myself a Christian. Therefore, if I'm going to be a Christian, you're going to have to make me one, right?

You must be born again. How do you bear yourself again? What a great analogy that the Lord Jesus uses with Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel.

This is, you know, you don't bear yourself, right? How many grandkids do you have again? Seven. Were you in on any of those births?

Absolutely none. Okay. Were you in on any of your other births, your other children?

Was I, you know, I actually do, I believe that I got to apply the clamp on the umbilical cord.

The C clamp to the gizroid. Well, one of the things I noticed when I've, I've watched five babies being born, four of my own.

And then one, when I was working in a, um, oh, it was a, they were going to do a

C -section for someone else. And they were going to use my cotter unit. What I noticed is when everybody is yelling the famous push, push, push, push, push, push, push, right?

That was also from a twilight zone. Remember the guy was working all the time and his boss kept forcing him to do things.

Push, push, push, push it in terms of worth that work ethic. I think in this other view of salvation, everybody's yelling at the baby, push, push, push, push, push, you know, climb out, climb out, climb out.

But of course that sounds stupid. We're telling the mother push because you are not burying yourself as a baby.

You are being born. It's something done to you. What we call the passivity of regeneration, redemption.

And just for clarification, I want to say, he's not saying bury yourself. He's saying bearing, you know, you don't bury.

Well, that would be bad to bury yourself. Yes, that would be real bad. For some reason, I can't talk. I think it's a hangover from Sunday, where you just get up and you go, uh, what did

I just say? Sometimes, Steve, when I do public scripture reading, and then

I say to myself, you know what, I did that without one mistake. Then my sermons usually have mistakes.

If I can read, is this too loud for you? No, no. I was just waiting for you to say, well, and so I intentionally make mistakes during scripture reading, so my sermon would be better.

I should do that next time. You get to the very end. Sometimes if I make a mistake and it's minor, and if I say the or something,

I'll think to myself, well, they just think I have the newer edition ESV. Which I sometimes do, by the way, because they've made so many revisions,

I can't. So, therefore, if you're not a Christian and you'd like to be one, you could pray, you could read the scripture, because Romans 10 says, faith comes by hearing a message about Christ.

In this particular case, you're not hearing, but you're reading, right? You have to know something about Jesus in your own sin in order to believe.

We're not talking about faith and faith, right? Right. And I, but I just find that a very odd thing to say, right?

I'm trying to be, because when I read that again, I'm just like, well, what does that mean? I'm going to church,

I'm doing, I'm doing all the things that Christians should do, and somehow I don't feel like a Christian. I don't even know what that, you know,

I don't know what that means. Well, let's take it from a different angle. There are many people, maybe some are listening today, and they say,

I know the claims of Christ, and I would assent to that. I know that I'm a sinful person, and I would assent to that, but I'm not really going to trust.

I'm not really going to rely on the Lord Jesus with saving faith until later, because I've got a girlfriend that I like to be physical with, or I've got a boyfriend, or I want to achieve this in my career.

I want to have autonomy. So, they're going to wait, right? And then they think, I'll get to the very end of my life, and then

I'll believe. You think there's quite a few people out there like that? I'm sure, but I think it's like the rich man who tore down his barns and built new, you know,

I had to build bigger barns and everything else, you know, you fool, this very night, your life will be required of you.

And the tragic consequence to that kind of thinking is simply this.

Ephesians 2 says, for by grace you've been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

So, it is a false way to think. I will wait to the end of my life, and then I will believe, because guess what?

You don't have control of that faith at the very end, because it's a gift of God. So, you ought to be asking

God for that now, and trusting now, because you can't wait to the end to manufacture it.

You can't make yourself a Christian. Pete Well, and you don't know when the end of your life is going to be either. But you know what it is?

It just reminded me so much of, that's what I would call, dare to be a Samson. You know, just wait. I'm just going to wait to the end.

I'm going to ignore God's grace until the very end of my life, and then seize the moment. Mark Dare to be a

Samson. Pete Dare to be the thief on the cross. Mark Yeah. Pete I double -dag dare you.

Mark I believe it was Spurgeon that talked about deathbed conversions, and he says that every person that was on their supposed deathbed, they thought they were going to die, and he would come in and preach the gospel to them.

They would say, everyone that said, yes, I believe, and I'm going to have to trust in Jesus, and there seemed to be a dramatic deathbed conversion.

Every one of those people who said that, and then got better. Some died, so we don't know what happened.

But everyone who got better did not get plugged into the local church. Just, you know what?

I'm better. Foxhole theology. Can you imagine? Pete I'll wait till the next time. I know. Also, when you think of deathbed conversions, they do happen.

The thief on the cross was converted late, and the Baptist preacher Spurgeon said, since we're quoting him, or since I'm quoting him, or paraphrasing him,

I was going to say paragraphing him. Ever paragraph anybody? Mark Period paragraph.

Pete There's only one deathbed conversion in the scripture, so that A, you might not be presumptuous, so believe now, and B, so that you might not be hopeless.

Mark Hmm. I mean, there always is that hope, right? No matter what. I mean,

I've known people who've died, and I'm like, well, all I know is they heard the gospel. What God, you know, what

God did or didn't do, you know, in those last few moments of their life, I have absolutely no way of knowing.

Pete Kind of nice that we don't know. Mark Yes. Pete Right? Because when we get to heaven, we'll be rejoicing, and God knows anyway, but if we knew tragically that they didn't, that'd be harder to live, and I think that's a kindness of the

Lord too. We have loved ones that make a profession on their deathbed, and then we just hope. We hope that God's word did its work.

Steve, I've been in hospital rooms before with dying people, and as a matter of fact, there was one particular person who was brain dead, and the family had not unplugged everything, and they needed to get all the family, you know, from out of town and everything there so that they could be in the room when the life support was going to be disconnected, but supposedly brain dead, and I just read,

Kim and I were there, and we just read chapter after chapter from the gospel of John, and then we prayed, and I said to the person who looked alive in terms of pink skin and their chest cavity going up and down breathing, but it's all life support stuff,

I just asked the Lord to save, and I thought, ordinarily, people have to process who

God is and everything else, but could God make their brain work for moments to understand who

Jesus is through the reading of John 1, and 2, and 3, and 4, and 5, and I thought, you know what?

What else am I going to do? Pete Well, let me ask you a question, because you're the medical expert on the show.

That's why they call me doctor, doctor. Do we really know what brain dead means?

I mean, we understand that it means it's no signs of life, etc., etc., but do we know for a fact that a brain dead person cannot hear a thing?

Pete Well, I technically don't know. Pete And see, that's all I'm after. You know, like, let's suppose, I like to do these let's suppose, let's suppose we're around for 200 years more.

Do you think they'll have a better idea of exactly what brain dead means and what it doesn't mean? And I think the answer is probably yes.

They're always learning things, right? So, I mean, brain dead just means it's not functioning to the point where it would keep the human body alive.

They're having to keep the human body alive by artificial means. That, to me, that does not mean, and it means that the person's not able to respond physically or whatever.

It doesn't mean that there's nothing going on in there. There's just not enough to where they can measure it or, you know.

Dr. Peter Salgo And if I looked at the oscilloscope, you know, or whatever it was that shows a flat line for brain activity, since salvation is a supernatural work anyway,

God could do a supernatural work to make that person cognizant enough. I mean, he can do whatever he wants.

My point is, I just thought, what are my other options? He can't say yes.

He can't say, read me the Bible. So, I'll just sit and read the Bible, ask God to save him. And actually, the family didn't, only some of the family knew what

I was doing. And I got there early. We did it. We left and that was that. And that's the right thing to do, right?

I mean, we, in all these situations, we always trust the Lord to do what's right.

Whatever that is, we know that he does right. Everything he does is right. And so, we do what we're commanded to do and we trust him.

Chris And then later, we feel pretty good about it. Dr. Peter Salgo Of course. Chris Because we try to do, even with a heart that might not be perfect in its motives or anything else, you know, like tonight,

I have a wake and somebody wants me to speak at their loved one's wake. And you know,

Steve, if it's a funeral, it's a lot easier because you've got some hymns and some scripture reading and there's a set time, 1030 at the church.

And when you speak at a wake, people are coming and going, they're lined up, you don't know who's going to be there.

Dr. Peter Salgo Super awkward. Chris And then you're like, okay, everybody kind of like come around and I don't like it and I don't prefer it.

And what am I going to do? The service, the technical service is at a Roman Catholic Church. They're not going to get any truth there.

At least it's not going to be truth that centers around grace alone through faith alone. They might talk about grace, but they'll talk about it like the

Roman Catholic Church does, that it's a medicine, right? It needs to be infused versus credited. Therefore, I'm just going to go tonight and I'm going to,

I don't want to do it. It's three o 'clock. I got to leave in about two and a half hours. I'm not going to want to do it.

I'll go do it. And then later I'll think, you know what? The people looked at me like I was weird and I'll go home and I'll sleep better.

Dr. Peter Salgo Well, and they're not, they don't want it. It's just like, I mentioned in an email the other day, when we were coming back from California, we took a van because it's just cheaper than paying for the parking and everything else at the airport.

So, we took a van home and the guy is like, he's fallen asleep. He's been up since six o 'clock in the morning and it's getting close to midnight.

And he's like bouncing off the curb and stuff. And my wife's like, say something to him, talk to him, you know? And I'm going, what am

I going to talk to him about? And I go, okay, well, gospel. And so, he, you know,

I go, hey, you go to church and Roman Catholic, oh, when was the last time you went? Last December, you know,

Christmas. And so, off we go and talking about salvation by grace alone, through faith alone.

And he has no idea, you know, I'm just talking to him about the Bible says this and the Bible says that. He doesn't care.

But I thought, you know what? This is good because he's either going to start getting mad, which will help him stay awake. Win -win.

Or, you know, he's going to be listening and interested, which is going to keep him awake.

And I go, either way, either way, I'm staying alive. So. Steve, when I just said win -win, which

I think that scenario is, I don't know, and I was thinking about chicken dinner. Did you know on November 3rd, some type of spicy

Popeye's chicken sandwich is going to be reintroduced? And I thought, I've not been to Popeye's for 30 years.

I think I'm going to go. Are you really? I think I'm going to go. Are they like sponsoring the show now?

No. This moment brought to you by Popeye's chicken, with over 2 ,700 franchises. After all this

Peet's, I drink Peet's most every day in my life and I enjoy Peet's coffee. I ran out of Peet's coffee and I was at BJ's.

We normally go to Costco and they have these, you know, multi -pound bags of Peet's coffee and other coffees. But I went to BJ's and they didn't have

Peet's coffee. So I got the French roast, Starbucks, four pound bag, whatever it is. I thought it tasted great.

Oh, of course. That was great. I had some this morning. I thought, wow, that is amazing.

Score one for Starbucks. Yeah. If you're listening today and you think you're going to try to become a Christian, we don't think at No Compromise Radio, even though we're softer and nicer and sweeter, the

Christian's not trying to be good or to be moral or something like that. The point of Christianity is since you aren't moral enough and good enough,

Jesus, the moral and good one, had to come to rescue said sinners like you and like me, right? Why send

Jesus if you could be one on your own? I'm going to try. Well, I mean, it's like, you know, when

I was in the Sheriff's Academy and to get a max PT score, you had to do 28 second 220.

And I'd never done 28 seconds in my life, you know, and I think the first one was like 31 or 32, but I had a really bad gait, you know, and I, and I just, and I just thought,

I'm just going to focus on G -A -T -E or G -A -I -T, you know, and I just thought, I'm just going to really focus on how

I run and really, you know, making sure that I stay straight and, you know, and all that. And I got down to 27 seconds.

I was like, so I could try to do that, right? But I cannot try to be a

Christian. Not if what the Bible says is true, which is that it's by grace through faith.

Standards too high. Yeah. Right. Do you think about what does God require? Perfection, that's all.

Yeah, I know. I always think about that, you know, how deceived I must have been when I was an unbeliever.

If God, kind of like a grandpa, right, we're going to date ourselves with, oh

God, with George Burns and a little senile and, you know, you can kind of do a, you know, half -baked obedience.

As long as there's a little sincerity, you know, we'll cut you some slack. God's grace will make up for your half -hearted obedience.

And I thought that is a wrong way to think about it. Well, this guy, his name happened to be Mike, by the way.

As I was, as I was talking to him, I said, what do you need? You know, what do you think God's standard is to get in heaven?

He goes, oh, I don't know. You know, probably do more good than bad sort of thing. And it is pervasive.

Well, and I'm just like, this is perfect, you know? And I go, I go, would it surprise you that Jesus said you have to be perfect?

And he was like, well, yeah, that wouldn't surprise me. So, I asked him, I said, well, do you think Jesus was perfect? And he already said, no.

And I'm like, what kind of Catholic church do you go to anyway? You know, this isn't even a good Catholic church.

I was reading Francis Turretin last night, and he was talking about the Vulgate. And Vulgate, the

Roman Catholic Church says that Jerome was translating the Greek into the Latin. And they, according to one account, found 80 ,000 mistakes in the

Vulgate. So much so that Leo, Pope Leo, authorized a new Vulgate to be written to make up for some of the...

That'd be Vulgate 2. Vulgate 2. Anyway, one of the, I think the original

Vulgate translated Genesis 3 .15 about he will crush the serpent's head.

It was she in Latin. And therefore, they were saying it was going to be Mary who would do that. So, there's quite a few things that we probably need to reform in the

Roman Catholic Church. Pete Do you think? And if you're out there using the

Vulgate, stop it. I know. How many people I wonder do? Probably not that many. I think that was the basis for the message.

Yes. Jerome's in a cave. His name's Eugene. He happens to be in his wood shop.

Well, anyway, this is Mike Ebendroth. I'm with Steve Cooley. Don't forget, we, NOCO Radio is going to go to Israel, February 2021 with Pat Ebendroth.

Are you going to try to go to that one? Maybe. All right. I think I might bring my wife or maybe Haley or something like that.

Not this February, but the next. Enough time to save money. Save your shekels now. I don't use shekels.

I use my American Express. I think it's four shekels. There's another plug. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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