New Episode! Bruised Reeds

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. My name is

Mike Abendroth, and it is November 23rd, Tuesday. Show number three.

This is the third show we're recording today, and for those of you that have been praying for me, thank you.

I hope to preach this Sunday. Hope to be there in person for a conference in New York City, December, I think, 10th, 11th, or 12th, something like that, with my good friend

Andy Woodward, and I think a lot of speakers are going to be there, Daryl Harrison, Josh Bice, a bunch of other guys.

And so, hope to be able to do that, and slowly recovering. I've been home for almost eight weeks now, and I think this

Thanksgiving, in two days, it'll be eight weeks that I'm home, riding the bicycle, not outside.

I mean, I was home for, I think, two and a half weeks, three weeks, just off of oxygen, and I thought, you know what?

I mean, I was struggling for breath. Walking up and down steps was hard, and I just took my bicycle, my

Bianchi, a road bicycle, and coasted down the street, and then

I had to walk it back, and then I had a quick set down to get my O2 back to normal. It was good for my mental health.

I did take my daughter's little mountain bike, she's got a little Trek mountain bike with the granny gear. I kind of rode around the neighborhood a little bit.

It's getting cold, I can't really breathe in a lot of deep, deep breath when it's cold.

But anyway, from high flow oxygen, 60 liters, to now being home, very, very thankful.

It's weird when they talk to you about respiratory failure. My sister's an ICU nurse, she just visited the last five days, and she's like, you shouldn't be dead.

Well, I know I shouldn't be dead, but, oh no, no, you mean talk about this? Yes, that's true, that's it.

So we were recording some shows, trying to get kind of back into the swing of things, three new shows a week.

I had to cancel a conference, a couple in Pennsylvania, one in Omaha.

Not that I didn't want to go to the ones in Pennsylvania, but I missed the one in Omaha for more than just an opportunity for ministry, it was going to be with my brother, and then

I could see my sister, and my nephews and nieces, and some old friends, and some old food spots, and we just missed all those.

I'm looking here, here in my study in West Boylston, Massachusetts, and the calendar is up, where it always is, and it says

August. So I have lost September, October, and part of November to COVID pneumonia, and some respiratory failure, just a little respiratory failure here or there.

Glad to breathe. By the way, every time I read a psalm, and it has the word, or anything in scripture, it has the word breath, he gives breath, and I, you know, let everything that has breath, that word

I zoom in on now, because when you can't breathe, it's not too good. I mean, I guess you could do certain things, right?

My knee hurts, my ankle hurts, you know, I'm on crutches, or this, that, or the other, but when you can't breathe, wow, and I see people on oxygen, and other things.

I guess the only thing I could use oxygen for these days is that I could get into stores that require masks, and if you're on oxygen, you don't need a mask.

So that's about the only thing I've got. Mike Abenroth, No Compromise Radio. You can write me, mike, at nocompromiseradio .com.

If you signed up to go with us to Israel, it's just chaos over there in terms of what they require for COVID stuff, so we're not going, and if you don't get your refund back, your deposit, let me know, and we'll make sure we get that to you.

I don't know when we'll go back. I don't, I mean, I care to go back, but I don't care at the moment.

Let all the craziness subside. Why is it that I only have tickets or plans to go to crazy places?

New Zealand, crazy, Europe, crazy, Israel, crazy, I guess they're all crazy, right?

It says in 1 Samuel 21, Akish, I believe, would David feign madness.

Do I lack madmen? This is going to be a podcast, Do I Lack Madmen? One of the things

I'm going to do here at church is I'm going to preach a couple more weeks and then I think I'm going to do Ephesians, but since I've already preached through Ephesians over time, although I'm sure

I could do a better job now I'm older, hopefully more wiser theologically, I'm going to do six weeks, six chapters, no more, no less, assuming

I'm alive, right? Six, so a chapter a week, big picture, we've got so many new people. I walk into church on Sunday and again, it's still not myself and my normal self would walk around and try to visit and say hi to every visitor, visit with and say hi to every visitor.

And I just was too, you know, I just don't want to do it, tired, it takes a lot out of me and I don't want to get a cold, right?

I went to the dentist today and the hygienist said, oh, tell, you know, how are you doing? I told her respiratory failure, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And told her everything. She said, well, I'm just getting, you know, just have to let you know, I'm just getting over a cold. I said,

I can't stay, I don't want to get a cold, I'm not concerned about COVID, my immunity must be jacked up for that, but I can't get a cold, so I don't care if you've got a mask on and a scuba suit like they came into my

COVID room with, we'll have to reschedule. That was a waste of time, but anyway, enough of that.

Richard Sibbes, you ought to read Richard Sibbes. I think that if you consider what you read and plan out a little bit, it might change your reading.

Of course, if you want to read a war book, right? I'm reading a Victor Davis Hansen book now on the kind of the world wars, fine.

It's okay. We can relax and we can rest and we can enjoy certain things. But in terms of Christian books,

A, I hope you read. There are a lot of people that just do not read. Some people

I know have a hard time reading, so they listen online or something like that. I'm talking about people in general.

I'm not talking about if you're dyslexic or you have a real problem reading or can't.

But if you can read, I want you to be able to ... Can you just read a book a month?

Wouldn't that be good? One book a month and think in 10 years, 20 years, how many books you've read. If you pick the right books, you keep those books.

Those are good tools to pass on to your children or have your spouse read or friend or something like that.

One of the books that you should read is a bruised read by Richard Sibbes, Little Banner of Truth paperback, or you can buy all the

Sibbes works and you can read him. He's a Puritan and you should say to yourself, so ...

And I'm glad you said that because I think sometimes we say Puritan and therefore when the pastor says he's a

Puritan, he must be good. There were a lot of good Puritans and the ones that wrote a lot and we have a lot of other things,

I think that they are good, right? If you think John Owen is a Puritan or ...

Sometimes my mind still is a little foggy with this COVID issue, but 10 volumes out now, not

William Ames, but somebody else, English Anglican. Anyway, there are books that you go, oh yes, he is good.

That's a good person to read, but Richard Baxter is considered a Puritan and he's awful. Don't read him.

That's the worst. Pretty much a modern day John Piper. I mean, don't do that unless you want to have no assurance and just get on the treadmill of works to make sure you're saved enough on that final day.

I cannot believe, I can't remember the guy who wrote the books. William, let's see,

I'm going to type it in now because we're going to need to do this. Puritan, William, I want to say

William, oh there, duh, William Perkins. How could I not?

I mean, there's, do you want to read William Perkins? Okay, great. But not some of these other guys, you know,

Joseph Alain, Alarm, I wouldn't recommend that. Matthew Mead, Almost Christian Discovered, I wouldn't recommend that.

But anyway, Puritan Richard Sibbes, I think you should read him and he's helpful because we live in a society today with a lot of preaching and a lot of schools that are pushing the law so much that they use the law for Christians, I think in an unlawful way.

So they've got a law, okay, love your, love, love your neighbor, okay, is that a good law?

Yes. Does it reflect God's holy character? Yes. Is it a summary of all the law, right?

Is it the second great commandment and along with the first great commandment a summary of everything else?

Yes. But if I say, first use the law, hey Christian, love other people, what do you mean you're not loving people?

You don't love people like you should with the right motives, don't love them like you ought to, you go see

Patriots games instead and you do this, you do that. You love them because they love you. How can you call yourself a

Christian? That's the first use of the law. Law, first use, you can number them different ways, but for the show today, okay, you're an unbeliever, the law shows you your sin.

Love other people. Hmm, I don't think I really do, well kind of, I kind of do as an unbeliever.

Love perfectly. Oh, well, I don't do that. And so it shows you your sin, so you go to the fleet of the

Savior. That's the first use of the law. The third use of the law is, well, now that you are a child of God, you are a

Christian, God made you alive, here's how you live your life. It's not rudderless. It's not do whatever you want.

It's not follow your heart. It's love God and love your neighbor. The law doesn't change, but relationship to the law changes.

Therefore, here's how you should treat other people. Should love them. Yes, but Daddy, I didn't love them perfectly.

I know, son. I know, daughter. But I want you to do that, and let's ask for forgiveness, and let's have restoration and all that.

Well, the problem, I think, in evangelicalism, since people don't know the difference, because any kind of law gospel, any kind of third use of the law, people are not taught historical theology very well.

They think it's somehow Lutheran only and not Reformed. There's lots of reasons behind why people don't want to do this, but it makes people who are

Christians in the congregation wonder if they're saved. It leaves them that way, because they're taking a law, don't complain.

They're taking a law, make disciples. They're taking a law, serve with your spiritual gifts in the church.

They're taking a law, and that's good. Good for us to do. It guides us. There are imperatives in the

Bible, right? Don't lie. Tell the truth. Don't steal. Work. Let no unwholesome word come from your mouth.

Those words are right and good and true. But if you make people who are

Christians, you know, I don't really do it like I should. How could I be saved? That's the wrong use of the law.

You are making the third use of the law, dear Christian, dear son, dear daughter, here's how you should live in light of who you are to honor me with your life of gratitude.

And since I accept Jesus perfectly, and you're in Christ, I accept you, and I'll even accept your less than perfect works, which all of them are, but now you've got these people up there.

If you aren't, I mean, I heard one guy say to his congregation, and I got on him after this, I got on him afterward, because he's a student of mine, and I was nice when

I told him, but I said, by the way, here's a law, count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various trials, right?

James 1. I said, you told the congregation if you don't always count it joy, how can you call yourself a

Christian? And left it like that. No, don't leave it like that.

No, that's not right. I said, I got a question for you. You're kind of getting called to task now by the professor.

I've got a question. I'll change his name. Peter. Hey, Peter, do you count it joy all the time?

Get in an argument with your wife, or have some stress at church? Do you always count it joy? And he looked at me, and I said, oh, see where we're going with this?

Always counting it joy? Well, you're not counting it all joy all the time, so how can you call yourself a

Christian? What are you doing? The law, if you want to say to a believer, do you always count it joy, knowing

God's sovereign over everything? Well, no, I don't. Or I think I do, and then you keep pushing the law more and more and more, and then people say, oh, well,

I need a Savior. If that's true, I need a Savior. But that's not how I talk to Christians.

That's not how I talk to Christians. And by the way, that's how a lot of people today talk to Christians. Whacking and whacking and whacking.

How can you call yourself a Christian when you do that? That's the end of the message. If you want it to be part of the message, okay,

I understand. But that's the message. And that's this message that if, you know,

God is not Lord of all these areas of your life to a certain degree, I guess to the degree that whatever celebrity tells you it should be or your own pastor, then how can you be a

Christian? Aren't we weak? Aren't we frail? Aren't we children that struggle with these things?

And don't we have the comfort of the Father? If I treat my children better than the holy

God of the universe does, according to some pastors, well, there's a major problem.

I, a sinful dad, if a child says to me, Dad, I've sinned in these areas and I haven't done what

I should, I know I'm an ebondroth, but I just haven't done these things. How do

I treat them? What do I do? Well, I love them.

They're my children. They can't unchild themselves. But pastors, a lot of times, preach in such a way where the congregation is just left wind knocked out of them every single

Sunday. That's not Christian preaching. That might be preaching. That might be law preaching.

That might be neo -nomism preaching. That might be gnostic preaching. That might be hyper -lordship preaching.

That might be a lot of stuff, but that's not gospel preaching. I have good news. Where's the good news?

You want to start off initially and give me the bad news, and then I'm convicted, and then the balm of the good news?

That's why I brought up Richard Sibbes, because he talked about assurance. How can you live

Christian lives without assurance? How can you be strong in the faith?

How could you be cheerful? How could you have joy? How could you be thankful unless you know your

God's, unless you're sure that He's your God? Always saying, well,

I don't know. God might unadopt you. What human parent would do that? Human parents don't do that.

Richard Sibbes said, there be many duties and dispositions that God requires, which we cannot be in without assurance of salvation on good grounds.

What is that? God bids us be thankful in all things. How can I know that unless I know

God is mine and Christ is mine? God enjoineth us to rejoice.

Rejoice, and again I say rejoice, Philippians 4 .4. Can a man rejoice that his name is written in heaven and not know his name is written there?

Huh. What are people thinking? What are pastors thinking? You say, ah,

I know what they're thinking. If we talk to people this way, no condemnation in Christ, it's okay.

God loves you. God may chase in you, but it's okay. If we treat people like that, they're going to go crazy.

And by the way, that's exactly what people think. That's one of the reasons why they preach the way they do, because they've got to control the hordes because they're going to run around and do a bunch of crazy stuff.

That's why they do it. It's a problem that's been around probably since, you know, the day of man, the dawn of man, but especially in the time of the

Protestant Reformation from the 1500s on, this is a big problem. The Catholics knew it.

If it's Romans 5, 1 to 21, think about it. You've got peace with God, access with God, justification.

Last Adam. Well, should we sin that grace might abound? That's the logical question.

If a God loves me like that, I do what I want, right? May it never be, Paul said, right? And then he goes on to talk about that.

You could, I guess, to some degree, before God chastens you, but you shouldn't. You must.

You can't. How could you? I can't control people. I can't give them motivation.

I can't do anything with the people here except give them a scripture. And the way God has ordained it is here, yes,

I love you. Matter of fact, that's what the Lord's Supper is showing. In spite of who you are,

I love you. I accept you. Christ for me. But now that means they might go do something and take advantage of God's grace.

They just might be licentious. They might just run around a little bit and do something that they ought not to do.

They might just take advantage of grace. Yeah, they might.

But I'm not going to change what I'm supposed to preach because someone might take a truth of God or make a bad implication from the truth of God.

I'm not going to do it. If I go to a worship service of the triune God, I give money,

I give songs, I give worship, I give attention to the preaching, I give attention to the prayers,

I pray along with the prayer, etc. But who is ultimately serving whom?

God is serving us with His Word and the sacraments. And this is the ordinary means of grace. Here's who

God is. Here's what He's done. And look at the riches you have in Christ Jesus.

Yeah, yeah, but they might go out and then do something bad. Well, listen, they are going to go out and do something bad.

I already know that. But what

I teach about the grace of God should not lead to licentiousness. It must not lead to it.

Well, you say, but people do, so therefore I have to change my message to make sure I keep them in check.

That's exactly what I stand against. The grace of God has appeared, Titus 2 .11,

bringing salvation for all people. What does it do? Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great

God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.

Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

Can you imagine? God is bringing salvation. You want to know what to do?

Do you want to know how to live? Here God is instructing. Some have called this training grace.

How do I live in light of what God has done for me and in light of His soon return, waiting for that great day?

How do I say no to sin and yes to godliness? What?

Grace? I thought grace is just going to make me go sin. Oh, I think you better relook at the passage a little bit and see what it's saying.

What's the point? The point is, if you're going to read, read good books, read Richard Sibbes, the

Bruce Read, and read him in such a way where you'll say to yourself, you know what? In 1630,

Richard Sibbes knew enough to instruct me. And this book has stood the test of time, unlike radical, unlike crazy love, unlike purpose -driven, unlike prayer of Jabez, unlike whatever it is.

Christ is our sanctifier, Sibbes said, as well as our Savior. Our Savior as well by the effectual power of His Spirit from the power of sin, as by the merit of His death, from the guilt thereof, provided these things are remembered.

First, the ground, the chief ground of our comfort is that Christ as a priest offered

Himself as a sacrifice to His Father for us. The guilty soul flies first to Christ crucified, made a curse for us.

Thence it is that Christ has right to govern us. Thence it is that He gives us His Spirit as a guide to lead us home.

Two, in the course of our life, after we are in a state of grace, if we are overtaken with any sin, we must remember to have recourse first to Christ's mercy to pardon us, and then to the promise of His Spirit to govern us.

Three, and when we feel ourselves cold in affection and duty, the best way is to warm ourselves in the fire of His love and mercy in giving

Himself for us. Feel motivated?

I'm going to go sin like mad because of that. That's not how it works, is it?

I'm cold in affection and duty, I warm myself in this fire of His love and mercy in giving

Himself for me. Christian, He gave Himself for you. So go home, love your wife, love your husband, love your kids, love your neighbors, love your enemies.

He loves you. Amazing truths.

My name's Mike Niebendorf, this is No Compromise Radio. We got through three shows today.

Three shows. So thankful, so thankful to live and to breathe. I know heaven's going to be great, but you get that fight to live, right?

You have that will to live. Every time they said, well, do this barometer, do this thing, do that thing,

I'm like, okay, you tell me to do something, I'll do everything I can. So I don't say to myself, well, I just would have done what the nurses said,

I could have lived. Anyway, thanks for all your support. Mike Niebendorf here. No Compromise Radio.

We'll see you in New York City. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Niebendorf is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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