Gospel Profiling

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.

Opening Reflections and a Listener Email

My name is Mike Abendroth, and I�m not sure I�ve even said hardly anything today. You know how when you get up and you live your life and then you realize now it�s 11 o�clock in the morning or it�s the afternoon and I haven�t said anything practically all day?

So, it seems like my voice has got to get warmed up a little bit. I was listening for fun. I try not to listen to too many of my own shows. My kids bust my chops if I�m ever working out in the garage and it happens to be 3 .30 and I turn on a WVNE, so I have to secretly listen sometimes.

It�s painful to listen to yourself, by the way, but I was listening to Entitlement Society and Grace because I actually, I kid you not, I wanted to know what I was going to say about that because I forgot the show because that was before my Europe trip.

Well, I was listening to it and I thought, �Man, you�ve got to wake up. Someone has to write in and say, �Abendroth, have some coffee. Have some caffeine. Have an espresso dopio. Something�s got to go on.

So, today I�m going to try to have a little more energy, a little more, as we say in India, �jakta� when I got some potato chips with some funky spices on it years ago. I think it�s said with �jakta so I almost said �conjakta but that would be Spanish, or �mitjakta that would be German, but here is �jakta with �jakta so I need this.

Maybe that�s why our Facebook followers have tanked. Maybe that�s why my Arbitron ratings are no longer where they should be competing with Bill O�Reilly. Actually, I compete with Bill O�Reilly. No one listens to that guy.

So, I recently had the privilege to go to Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria, and one of our writers, let�s see here, here�s Kevin, he said, well, I�ll read the first part, �Mike and Saturday Steve, we are a small herd of listeners who live in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada, which is located 50 miles north of North Dakota.

Last week, we listened to the podcast of your show while we were driving through North Dakota. Does that count as a listener in North Dakota? And are you still buying listeners with NoCo and Saturday Guy t-shirts?

We would wear them at the next Montana Reformation Conference. What do you say? Eh? Eh? Kevin and Mary and Elizabeth, Alex and Eric. So, I don�t know how many folks there are who live in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, but I wrote back and said, Kevin, what a great email.

I�m so glad you�re listening to NoCo. I�m in Germany now, et cetera. I�d love to have your t-shirt. I�d love to send you a t-shirt if you have your size. Mike, my shirt size is large, but my admiration for all things NoCo is XL.

Now, see, my own flesh and sinful vanity loves that kind of thing, and see, that blinds me to his real reason he�s buttering me up, because he wants a free t-shirt. �My son-in-law and his family are at the Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary.

He is thriving, swimming upstream while many of his classmates are being swept away by every wave of doctrine. I share with him often the positive, confident, loving example of unapologetic Reform life.

You, your church, and Saturday Steve share with us each week. Wasn�t that nice? So, oh, this is the part that led me into all this. �You have been very helpful in helping us establish a firm foundation for ministry.

That�s nice. I appreciate that. �Have a great time in Germany. You are blessed. Germany, then Greece. Did Ed Young lend you his Lear Sincerely, Kevin. He didn�t write �sincerely� even. It just was �Kevin.

�No, I don�t have his Learjet. I never actually got to ride on a Learjet, almost. I actually got to almost ride on the Gideon Blimp one time. My friend had passed us to ride. We went down to the Long Beach Airport in Southern California.

They prepped us on what to do and what not to do, and it got so windy they had to cancel the flight. I was on the tarmac. I was on the runway. I was on the liftoff area in the Luftwaffen. I don�t know where I was, but I was close.

I could see the thing. So maybe it wasn�t meant to be. Today on No Compromise Radio, I�d like to just give you a quick update and try to motivate you and encourage you in the topic of evangelism. Obviously, the Great Commission is God the Father sending the Son, and the Son willingly accepting that mission.

One God, one essence, one nature, three persons. We know that as the Great Commission, the covenant of redemption, the pact, the agreement. But we call the Great Commission Matthew 28, where Jesus said that I�d like you to make disciples by going, by baptizing, by teaching.

Of course, he encouraged them by saying, �Lo, I�m with you always, even to the end of the age. So I�d like to talk to you a little bit about evangelism. Evangelism is giving people the good news, and you have a responsibility and a privilege to evangelize if you�re a Christian.

You�ve been given the Great Commission, along with every other Christian. You have Jesus Christ as a great example. Of course, he�s more than an example, but in this particular case, what a great example.

Christ Jesus proclaiming good news. I think of Isaiah chapter 61 and how he proclaims these things, he fulfills that prophecy. Jesus Christ was a preacher. He was a preacher of good news. Remember Mark chapter 1?

They wanted to basically confine him and put him in the straitjacket of a healing ministry, a healing minister, and Jesus went off in the middle of the night. Remember Peter and the disciples, �Everyone�s looking for you.

They wanted to capture him. They wanted to contain him and make him a healing minister. Well, Jesus knew, obviously, as God incarnate, that people can be healed of their diseases and still go straight to hell, so the good news must be proclaimed.

So we have a command to go out and preach the gospel. We have many great examples. Christ Jesus, Paul. Think of Paul in front of Drusilla, in front of Felix, in front of Festus. Think of Stephen. Just read the book of Acts and you'll see the high priority of preaching the gospel.

Good news that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, cloaked himself with humanity. Man plunged us into sin, Adam, and man, the God-man Jesus, must rescue us. And so Jesus' perfect life, his substitutionary death, Jesus' life as representative, his death as substitute, and then resurrection from the dead, confirming and vindicating his work.

So we tell people, in light of their sins, you have one Savior and flee to the Savior through faith, by faith. So we have a great privilege to preach the gospel, and I'm also very glad to think about Christ Jesus when it comes to him bearing my sins for my cowardice and for my lack of preaching the gospel or for saying wrong things.

Isn't it good to know that Jesus Christ's perfect righteousness is imputed to our accounts because of grace alone? That is a good thing. That motivates you to evangelize better. So while I could give you the, why aren't you evangelizing shtick, and so that's fine to do.

You ought to be. When was the last time you preached the gospel to someone? You ought to think of your neighbors and your family members and your friends and your postman and your postwoman. People in your life are there as neighbors and are there for a reason, and you have responsibility and privilege and duty to preach the gospel to them, to tell them the good news.

And whether they accept it or reject it, that's not the issue. Whether they accept you or reject you, that's not the issue either. And so I believe it was Spurgeon who said, Terry Flood, I think he had that shirt on in my office here when he came to visit from Holy Toledo, Spurgeon's quote, you're either a missionary if you're a Christian or you are an imposter.

Evangelism on the Flight to Germany

So Germany, Christian Andreessen is there, and he is the leader of EBTC, European Biblical Training Center. And then I went to go visit Lance Roberts in the Czech Republic with Pastor Loiza there. I was training some men.

Preaching Ephesians was the topic in the Czech Republic. I had two days and a translator. And then I went to Berlin to teach a master's level class on preaching, kind of a finishing touches of preaching.

So I made the guys get up and preach a lot, videotaped, critiqued, and all that stuff. Well, I had a flight from Boston to Dublin, then Dublin to Berlin, as they say there, and then Berlin to Dublin, and then Dublin back to Boston.

Fifteen days early, I went one day early because of Hurricane Frankenstorm, Hurricane Sandy. But I was very thankful for the men there, for the ministry there. But here's my point, back to No Compromise Radio today, talking about evangelism.

So I get into the airplane, and I always say to myself, I would prefer, Lord, to have no one sit next to me, that I could have the entire aisle, that I could stretch every muscle of my leg out so I do not all cramped.

But these international flights now are busy and packed, and so I sat down, and a lady came walking down the aisle of the airplane, an older lady, and I said, well, and I could tell she wanted to sit in the window seat next to me, in the aisle seat.

I said, can I help you get your bag up there? Put her bag up for her. Hi, how are you? My name's Mike. And we began to converse. She had a slight Irish accent and said she was living in Boston, going back for a funeral with one of her family members in Ireland.

Well, we began to talk a little bit. She asked me what I was doing. I'm going over to teach the Bible. How'd you get into that? And so then I began easily to talk about what the Lord has done at Calvary and what he has done for me, and here's what I thought.

Now consider me profiling or not, but this is called, oh, this is the name of the show, Gospel Profiling. I never really know what to name shows, so this is called Gospel Profiling. So, she had kind of red hair, she had an Irish accent, she lived in Boston, she was going back to Ireland, and so I didn't think it was a stretch if I talked specifically in my testimony about sovereign free grace, and then made a few comments about sacraments.

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. So I said things like, when I grew up in the Lutheran Church, I thought I was fine, and that I would be saved and have my sins remitted if I had water poured on me as a baby.

I, as a Lutheran, grew up thinking that if I had communion, and I got the wafer, and I got the wine, that that would grant me forgiveness. I grew up knowing that Jesus was God in the flesh, that he died on the cross for sinners, that he was raised from the dead, and the Bible was the word of God, and I grew up that way.

And then when I started studying the Bible, I found out very quickly, this is what I'm saying to the lady, and it's over an extended time period, and you know, a little breaks here or there, and I said, I came to find out when I started reading the Bible, I said I was fascinated to find out that there's nothing in the Bible that says the way to be right with God is to do something.

We can't do anything. Everything we do is tainted, and Jesus must do everything for us. And so I learned that baptismal waters, those didn't help me as a baby. Those wouldn't have helped me as an adult.

Receiving communion, I said praying over beads, praying to saints, none of those things would help me. I come to find out those things aren't in the Bible. And so that's the way I went about it, because if she said, well, I'm not Catholic, and you're a gospel profiler, that would have been fine with me.

She could have said I grew up, and I was a Protestant, and I was, you know, in the battle of the Catholics and the Protestants in Ireland, I'm Protestant. I mean, it wouldn't have mattered to me if she would have said that, and I tried to be super kind, and I was trying to use my capital that I had tried to earn when I put her bag away, just trying to be nice.

Prayer, Turbulence, and Works Righteousness

So she said, oh, that's very interesting. That's good to know, and I'm glad it works for you kind of thing, right? So she said that, and then the plane began to have some turbulence. Those are always fun, aren't they?

And some shaking, and then you look on the map, and the map that's the GPS map in front of you, it shows that there's no islands anywhere near you, because you're now in between Canada, wherever that last little section of Canada is, and Greenland, and you're far from Iceland, and if there's problems, you're going to die, basically, you're dead.

So what does this lady do next to me? She gets out her rosary, and she begins to pray the rosary. Now I'll give her credit, she's kind to me, and then she didn't care that I said those things or not, it's time to pray, let's get some action going here.

And then she got out a plastic baggie, a little baguette, and she pulled out a bunch of prayer cards with saints on them, and began to pray these prayers through. Well there's certainly nothing wrong with prayers, there's everything wrong with praying to Mary or a saint or having some beads, of course, but I was very thankful that my gospel profiling was correct, and that it could have been anything else.

When you talk to people, here's the point, you should talk to them in such a way that you use your wits, but that you also realize they live in a works society. It's like a goldfish in water, it doesn't really know it's in water, it just eats it and breathes it and does other things in it as well.

But for us, we live amongst a people who, going back to that show, Entitlement Society and Grace, they think they're entitled. Now you add that with a pinch of depravity, and a pinch of selfishness, and a pinch of satanic deception, and a dash of works righteousness that's built into the human heart because of Adam's fall, consequently our own sin, our own nature.

Talk to people about how what they do, and their religiosity, and their spiritualism, and their good deeds, and their prayers, and everything else, how they don't save. The one who saves is Christ Jesus.

And so, think about Galatians. The Galatians were buying into, not necessarily, Jesus is only one God out of many. Jesus didn't die on the cross, he just lived a good example, and then he was revived in the tomb.

They weren't saying things like that. The people that Jesus, excuse me, that Paul was after, they would have said Jesus is God. Jesus died on the cross. Jesus was raised from the dead. They would have affirmed those things, but where they went wrong, where they would go wrong is when they would decide, okay, and we receive those benefits of Jesus through faith and circumcision.

To make it more modern day in regards to the airplane evangelism, we receive the benefits of Jesus through faith and sacraments, through faith and infant baptism, through faith and sacraments. And so, Paul gets out the bazooka and blasts away because it denigrates the work of Christ.

It means that Christ's work was not adequate. His work as prophet, priest, and king was lacking, and you need to add something. And so that was a great opportunity, and I'm very thankful that the Lord gave me that lady to talk to.

A Second Conversation About Evolution and Abortion

Well, then I went to minister in Germany and in Czech Republic with a quick swing through Vienna just to see Freud's house and to see an Ephesus museum. Of course, the Austrians learn from the Germans who learn from the British.

You go to places and steal all their loot. So Ephesus isn't in Austria, but they have a lot of loot there. So whoo. And then I paid the loot to get in to see the loot. I think it was 10, 14 euros to get in that particular museum.

And so now I'm flying back and I'm next to a young man. My guess is 28, 30, very polite young man from Dublin to Boston. And so we began to talk about a lot of things, and at the very end, figured out he was a scientist and he asked me what I did, and I said I was a Bible teacher.

And so politics came up because what do I think of these issues with people on TV as congressmen or women and senators or people who want to be senators and rape and incest and no abortion for even those things, and what did I think of that, et cetera.

Well, it was a good opportunity for me to talk to him, and I said, as we got to it, he asked me about evolution and everything else. And so the moral of that particular story is I said to him, what does it matter, morality anyway, if it's survival of the fittest, if we are evolved?

I talked about Christ's view of the Old Testament, affirming Genesis, affirming Adam, Noah, Lot, Sodom and Gomorrah. I talked about those things, but I said, you know, the thing is, everybody, even Mormons know, there's going to be a resurrection of the dead and you stand before God, and then what?

You can't hide behind evolution, and science contradicts faith, then if that's the case, if I'm right, the Bible teaches you have to stand before God and have to pay for your own sins because you aren't forgiven, it will be a nuclear winter.

And the young man said, ooh, that would be bad. So it was a different approach with this particular person because he was asking some questions and how do I see evolution and fossil records and carbon dating.

But again, I tried to get the conversation steered back to, I think you believe in God, and I think your conscience bears witness to that very fact. And what I don't want you to do, maybe this is more pride than real evangelism, I don't want you to see crazy Christians on TV, whether they're political Christians or Benny Hinn Christians, we talked a little bit about that, the TBN Christian mentality and TV Christianity, and then say, well, see, that's all a big load, that's a big bunch of bunk, that relieves me of actually doing business with my soul, considering my soul, thinking about God who created the universe and Romans 1 attributes that he shows with wisdom and power.

I said, you know, that's just, I guess it's the easy way out is to say everybody's like that, therefore I don't have to consider my soul. So today on No Compromise Radio, my name is Mike Abendroth. You can write us info at nocompromiseradio .com.

Closing Announcements and Ministry Information

The deadline was November 30th to get your money in for Greece, the initial down payment, but if you'd like to send that in with an indulgence, I think you can probably do that. You can write me for the brochure, and I don't know if there's a fee or not, but you can go ahead and write me, not for the brochure, but for just being late.

We hope to go April 17th, 2013, and we would love to have you go with us, and we'll go see the real Ephesus. We'll go see Patmos, we'll see Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth, and Crete. I think that would be great.

I'd like to go to Crete with you and find out if these people are, in fact, evil beast lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. So you can do that. Also, Pastor Steve is on Saturdays now, and it's an extended podcast.

Steve Cooley, Tuesday guy, is now on Saturdays. He's not on WVNA on Saturdays. I think the Seventh-Day Adventist guy took a slot. But you can podcast it, and you can go to Facebook, and I believe that's already up and going, and you can hear Pastor Steve talk.

I heard his first guest, because I was his first guest, but then he'll—I don't know if he'll have guests. He can have them if he wants. You can listen to Pastor Steve pontificate. I also just got an email for the first time.

I've done some other Speaking for No Compromise radio, but someone in California has asked Steve and I to come to a conference. So more on that later. Steve and I. They said that they would pay for my flight, but Steve had to pay for his flight.

Somebody's got to carry my bags, right? I like to fly with Evian water and green M &Ms, and I'd like to make sure there's a carbon fiber bike there waiting for me, 58cm. And what else would I like? Pete's Coffee.

Yes, see? Where is the Pete's Coffee? Oh, I did bring Christian Andresen, our missionary in Germany. I brought him some Pete's Coffee, and he put it in his stash. They have a special stash, so I never got any of that, but I did have some great coffee.

He would add a little bit of salt to the French press and a little bit of cocoa powder. Not enough to really taste the chocolate, but it gives it an interesting flavor. He used to be a chef, and so that actually was pretty good.

If you have questions, please write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. We would love to answer your questions. We just got one on suicide and some other things. We'll try to address that soon enough.

Back to the question at hand. How about you? Why don't you pray, Lord? Can you give me an opportunity, please, to talk about Jesus Christ and his life and his death, and would you allow me to speak well of your son to someone today?

I think that would be good. When we fly to California for the Shepherds Conference, we have something called airport evangelism, and it's ACDF evangelism. Not ACDC, it's ACDF. What is ACDF? Well, we don't want to put all six people in one row from Bethlehem Bible Church, all twelve people taking up two rows.

No, you put people in A and C. That means if a pagan sits in B, he's double-teamed. He's surrounded. Stereo evangelism. And then there's D and F. We put our people there, and then the poor person sitting in E, it is...they have to believe.

They're forced to repent, in other words. So, now we have the new kind of evangelism. Maybe that would sell, but I'm not sure the big publishers would like it. Mike Ebendroth here, No Compromise Radio.

We will hopefully have the new No Compromise ever, episode two, playing within the next few weeks, and so you can write us if you'd like more information about that. I'm just trying to stall here at the end.

Don't forget, we have services at the church at 830 in the morning, 11 o 'clock in the morning, and 6 p .m. Mike Ebendroth here, No Compromise Radio. Lord, give us souls that we can preach to.

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 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.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.