Don Green Oct interview

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.

Relevance to God Rather Than Relevance to Men

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I think we need to change the slogan from �Always Biblical, Always Provocative, Always in that Order� to �Always Missional, Always Authentic, Always in that Order.

Yeah, Mike, I�ve got to go now. Pastor Don Green is on the line, our monthly guest on No Compromise Radio, Don Pastor�s Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, and I know you as listeners are getting to know Don better, and I want you to go to his website when you can and listen to him preach verse by verse.

And I think the side benefit of you listeners listening to Don is you�ll think that I�m not the only crazy one out there, so it�ll help me too.

Well, hey, Mike, I�ve got to tell you, we have a couple that�s become very faithful in our church that found us through No Compromise Radio, so it�s just amazing the reach that God has given to your radio ministry, and I�m grateful to God for that.

As much as we joke around on the radio, I think to myself, �Lord, that you would use this show in anybody�s life is amazing, and if you would use this show to bring people to good Bible-teaching churches, that would be wonderful and I just rejoice that the Lord would do that through a person like me and how he works through a person like you.

It�s amazing. He does get the glory when you watch the Old Testament accounts and you read them. Okay, let�s see, Israel, you pick Saul. He�s tall and handsome, and you look on the outside. Now, let�s see, I�m going to pick someone on the inside.

Okay, all Jesse�s sons. Nope, nope, nope. Samuel, none of them. Well, there�s no other sons left. Oh, yeah, there�s one out there we didn�t even really count almost as a son because he�s out there watching those lambs, and his name is David, and that�s how the Lord does things, by picking the weak vessels so he might be shown strong.

Don, I look at Christianity Today, and it says, �Take me to the church. It�s a little gleaning from LifeWay Research. They surveyed 2 ,000 Americans, and these Americans don�t usually attend church, but they were asked what would draw them to a church.

I will just read you these eight things that would draw them, and then I�ll just get your gut response. 62 said a meeting about neighborhood safety would draw them to church, 51 a community service event, 46 a sports or exercise program, 45 a concert, 45 a neighborhood get-together, 35 a worship service, 25 a recovery group, and 24 a seminar on a spiritual topic.

Well, you know, that�s good to know, to know what people are thinking, but I always go back to what John MacArthur said many years ago, Mike, you know, he�s not concerned about being relevant to men, he wants to be relevant to God.

And I want to be relevant to the Great Commission, where Christ said, �You go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And I believe that if we�re faithful to the Great Commission, God will bring people to us without us having to prostitute ourselves by asking people, �What can we do to make you come

You know, it reminds me of what Martin Lloyd-Jones said as well, that if he got up and preached in a swimsuit, he�d get a lot of people to come and watch him preach, but it would be an utter travesty to the Gospel.

And you know, the whole premise of that research is mistaken. We go to Scripture and ask, you know, �What does God want us to do And then trust him to bring the men to gather around that. So there you go, Mike, that�s my gut reaction.

That is why we have you on No Compromise Radio once a month. There is certainly nothing wrong with having an evangelistic concert, and that would draw people in because our people from the church, as a matter of fact, we do that, just like Grace Community Church.

Here are some tickets for a wonderful Christmas concert, and then I get up and preach the Gospel. But that�s something completely different than serving the community and saying, �What do you want in a church

So what do pagans want in a church? They probably want to get paid money, free oil changes, a 12-and-a-half-minute service, and make their conscience assuaged that they�ve given God a little Mickey or something.

So I don�t know how that works, but we�re not going to try to change anything we do for the unbelievers because we want to honor the Lord in our worship services.

That�s right, Mike. I�m not even going to ask that question, let alone pay attention to the answer that�s given by people who have no interest in the things of God.

What would you like in the church? Well, I�d like MMA.

I�d like a hog roast. Yeah, and the funny thing is, in our area, Mike, and I�m sure it�s true in yours, there are literally churches that will do that. We had a church, a major church in our area not long ago, that actually turned their worship center into a rodeo field and brought in the pastor, I think, came in riding on a bull, and it was bull, but not of the kind that he intended.

I remember when, I believe it was Ed Young Jr., he rode into the �sanctuary�, auditorium, on a tank, an Army tank, and then stood up on it and said something from Ephesians 6. The question that I had immediately was, �What do you do next week

If you�re going to win them with bull, you�ve got to keep giving them bull.

Yeah, that�s right, and there�s just no credibility to it. I don�t like to harp on these things, and I try not to in the pulpit, but that is the natural outcome of asking people what do they want, what will bring you into a church.

You have to bring the world into the church to get the world, if you�re asking the world what they want. You become worldly by definition, and that�s why I�m glad that we can be completely separate from that.

We can be different from that. When we give ourselves over to God�s Word and say, �Let�s just do ministry the way God wants it done, to do it to His glory rather than to the applause of men and we�ll wait for the reward from God, regardless of how men respond to us in time.

Isn�t it amazing to think, if we just honor the Lord and do what He requires and expects of us in a worship service, everything else will settle out properly, and don�t we, like John MacArthur, when he said, �Don�t we want with Him when people walk into a worship service, wouldn�t it be good if they said, �There�s nothing like this in the world.

Wouldn�t that be a good thing for them to say?

Yeah, absolutely, and that�s what you would want, if you�re a servant of Christ. We�re preaching an eternal kingdom, we�re preaching something that�s otherworldly, we�re preaching unseen rather than seen things.

And there should be a distinction when somebody walks into a biblical church. And one of the great encouragements that I hear from time to time at our church, someone told us recently, said, �There is no other church like this that we have found.

And I trust that that is because they�re seeing the distinction of a Bible-centered ministry as opposed to those who are trying to bring people in through worldly means. And you know, not that we would commend ourselves, but we want to be different, we don�t want to be like the world.

And when people recognize that, it�s an encouraging sign, too.

A Distinctive Worship Service for an Unbelieving World

Don, just think for me for a moment with our listeners, what must an unbeliever, you know, what goes through their mind when they walk into a church, let�s say they don�t have a church background, and they say, hmm, alright, the greeting part at the beginning, I see why people greet.

Now some guy stands up and gives a call to worship, �Okay, everybody, worship. And he reads some scripture. Then they sing some songs about Jesus is the only way, a bunch of blood, wrath, propitiation, we�ve got to be reconciled to God.

Then everybody stands up and there�s this long reading of scripture, and then they give their money, the guy�s not begging for the money, it�s just an offering. Then one guy, monologically, not conversationally, does some preaching for 45, 55 minutes, and then they sing a song, and then they come back next week.

I think if an unbeliever walks in who doesn�t have a Christian background, they would think that was weird, and rightfully so.

Yeah, it�s something different. And you know, my confidence in that, you know, you pretty much just described our order of worship with a few little tweaks. You know, and my confidence is, if an unbeliever walks in, what I want him to say is, �This is something different.

And I�m going to trust the Holy Spirit to work in his heart to say, to draw him to that and say, �Why is this like this, when it is so different from anything that I see anywhere else in the world

And by standing out, even in the way that we conduct our worship service, and being distinct that way, I think there�s a testimony that says we�re preaching something that is beyond this world.

Don, in light of that, we have a truth that is a transchronological truth. It�s the eternal truth, and it will last forever, and it affects cultures from a thousand years ago to a thousand years in the future, English-speaking, German-speaking, Swahili-speaking, and the list goes on.

Isn�t it fascinating that worship services today, with language as the only difference, should be able to be replicated all across the globe in terms of Scripture reading, singing, preaching, and this is how we worship, because this is how God has prescribed worship.

In other words, if you�re in a church, a listener, you could say to yourself, �Could we take this worship service and transport it to India, and have people still say, �You know what? This is a worship service that gives honor to the Lord.

It�s transcultural and transchronological.

Yes, that�s very true, and I like to prepare my sermon notes in a way that I can pick them up and preach them if I was in Singapore, or Canada, or South America, or Africa. You know, you just open up the text and give the people who were created in God�s image and who bear His image, and have a conscience that testifies to their heart, give them the Word of God that addresses them and the reality of their humanity and their need for Christ and if they�re Christians, in their union with Christ, and God will use that.

I don�t need all of this geographic-specific or time-specific or social-specific stuff to make myself relevant. God�s Word is by definition relevant to those who are made in His image.

And I think that speaks to when we pick up an older book, and that book speaks to us to use the modern nomenclature, because it�s talking about God�s Word, and then the Spirit of God is illuminating that Word to convict us and to encourage us, and there�s nothing like picking up a book, John Calvin�s Institutes, and we always think of Calvin being stuffy, but you read the Institutes and the worship of God, and you�re drawn up into the worship of God with him, and that was 500 years ago.

Why Streamers and Other Performance Elements Distract From the Word

Oh, Don, I did want to, I don�t know if I needed to rebuke you or correct you, but you said your service is like ours, with a couple tweaks. What�s the, like, the dance team streamer ministry thing that you�ve got?

Can you explain where that comes from?

Well, that�s one thing that we don�t imitate you on.

When years ago I got a bunch of Master Seminary fellow students and we drove down to Anaheim to the vineyard there when John Wimber was still the pastor. He was sick and on oxygen, but still there, and I said to the guys ahead of time, �Let�s see what he preaches on.

It�s either Acts or 1 Corinthians 12 or 14. And I wasn�t a prophet, but I was right on that one because it was just an easy guess. But they had to start the service, kind of a streamer ministry, where they had these 15, 16-year-old girls in tight dresses with streamers, like dancing down the aisles and all that stuff.

And I thought, well, for elders you have qualifications, deacons you have qualifications. For the streamer ministry, I guess it�s just tight, form-fitting dresses and some streamers. That�s all you need.

Yeah, it�s hard to make people take the Word of God seriously when that�s the way.

You introduce it, isn�t it? And I have to say that I�m not a fundamentalist, nor am I a legalist. And if you want tight, form-fitting dresses and streamers, I just call that like your honeymoon or something.

Right? There�s a time and place, but it�s not in a worship service. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Time and place for everything. Don Green, Truth Community Church. Don, tell us a little bit about discipleship and how important discipleship is.

What is it? What do you do at the local church there? I know you�ve been together as a church for four years. What is discipleship?

Discipleship as Teaching the Whole Counsel of God

Well, you know, when I think of discipleship, I go to what Jesus said at the end of the Great Commission, at the end of Matthew�s Gospel, to go and make disciples, baptizing them, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.

And lo, I�m with you always, even to the end of the age, that you would bring the full counsel of God to bear upon someone so that they develop a uniquely Christian worldview. They view their life through the lens of Scripture, through the sovereignty of God, and that whatever happens is an unfolding of God�s plan for them.

And in the midst of that, you teach them that your responsibility is to just be faithful and to obey what Christ has commanded, to observe that, and to walk with Him through those ups and downs, those valleys and mountaintops experiences, making it your goal to be faithful to the revelation of God, and that one day you will give an account to God in your life for what you�ve done.

You know, Mike, when I�m preaching, and in some ways at our church I feel like my pulpit is an avenue of discipleship for the people that come to us on a regular basis, I�m always mindful that as I�m preaching to these dear people who are so faithful and so godly and so loving, that this window of time is going to pass quickly, and they and I individually are going to stand before Christ and give an account for our lives, and He will reward us according to our faithfulness.

And so, in one sense, you know, in a very big macro perspective, I�m wanting people to look forward to that day when they stand before Christ, and then bring that back into the present so that they live in light of eternity and in light of God�s Word.

Mike McDonald Since you�ve talked a little bit about when you were preaching, isn�t it true that when we preach, we�re trying to show our congregation, of course, what the meaning of the passage is, who Jesus Christ is, the good news, but aren�t we also teaching our congregation how to study?

In other words, if we give a cursory sermon every week and we don�t dive in very deeply, our congregation will probably say, �Well, that�s how you study. But if we just go through the passage verse by verse, and we dig deeply, ask questions, doesn�t the Father then say to His family, �Well, we have to have a Bible time, or we should have a Bible time.

Maybe we should do the same thing. Doesn�t He just kind of catch that? Isn�t that tied together?

David Martin Yeah, you�re illustrating Bible study by the way that you preach, and as you show how one verse relates to the next, how it relates to the immediate and broader context and the theological truth that you would draw out of the passage that you�re studying, you really are illustrating Bible study, even if you�re not directly teaching.

This is how you study the Bible.

Mike McDonald. It�s time for a little no-compromise hymn. I won�t sing it, but I�m going to just read a stanza, and then I�ll just let you comment in any way, shape, or form you want, since you�re the hired gun.

We are climbing Jacob�s ladder, we are climbing Jacob�s ladder, we are climbing Jacob�s ladder, soldiers of the cross. Climbing up from earth to heaven, climbing up from earth to heaven, climbing up from earth to heaven, soldiers of the cross.

Every round goes higher, higher, every round goes higher, higher. Any comments?

You�re taking me back to my childhood days of singing that when I was three or four years old. I�ve got to be honest with you, Mike. We have not included that in our hymn rotation at Truth Community Church.

The idea in tying it to the Bible study, Jacob�s ladder and soldiers of the cross, mixing the old and new dispensations. I�m at a loss for words, Mike. I did not see this one coming when we started the program 15 minutes ago.

Well, I could have said I�ve decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. That would have been easier. I think of John chapter 1, and then I think of Jacob�s ladder, and here we have Jesus. He�s the one that comes to save us.

We can�t climb up that ladder. I think it was George Whitfield that said, �Trying to save yourself is like trying to climb a ladder made of sand to the moon. I mean, you�re just never going to make it.

We need a Savior. We don�t need to climb the ladder. Every round goes higher and higher as we ascend the Tower of Babel.

Yeah, that�s right. You cannot work your way into heaven. You cannot climb your way into heaven. Christ had to come down out of heaven in order to save you, and it was Christ coming down that saves us rather than us going up to heaven on our own effort.

Church Discipline, Purity, and Gospel Clarity

Now it seems like it was only 35 minutes ago where we had What�s In Pastor Don�s Craw, but really it was last month. So Don, I know things kind of get stuck in your craw once in a while, and you�ll see something out there, and it�ll just kind of bother you a little bit.

Is there anything these days that is stuck in your craw?

Well, the thing these days that comes to my mind again, not so much in my craw that I�m upset about or that is throwing me off my game but we had an occasion not too long ago to exercise church discipline on a man in our congregation who got into very deep sin and created a number of problems that we�re still dealing with.

And it gave opportunity for some of our people for the first time to see church discipline exercised, and for someone to be dismissed from membership because of sin. And you know, there are people who push against that, who think that that�s unloving, unkind, and it kind of sticks in my craw that the people have that mistaken view of church discipline.

We're not doing this out of an attitude of superiority. Our desire is to maintain the purity of the Church and to give clarity to the Gospel by saying this kind of conduct done over years is inconsistent with a claim to salvation.

And by dismissing somebody from membership, we help bring clarity to the Gospel, we maintain the purity of the Church, and we teach people to fear sinning lest they would come to a similar public accountability for their life.

And I know that you embrace the concept of church discipline, Mike, and that's kind of one of the things that's in my mind as we're talking together this month.

Going back to what we first were talking about, and an unbeliever walking into a church service. Can you imagine when an unbeliever walks into a church service and says they're naming people by name because of sin, and it seems like they're talking in a way that's breaking their hearts and they want that person to be restored, but there's no restoration?

That is an amazing thing. That has some parallels back to Acts chapter 5 with Ananias and Sapphira. And after they found her dead, they carried her out, buried her beside her husband, and then Acts 5 .11 states, and great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.

Right, right. And that's what happened. You know, we had an older man who's not often at our church, and he told someone else after witnessing that, he said, wow, this church is for real. He saw the distinction, even though he's not very biblically literate, he realized that this is something serious, it is real, that there are spiritual realities being manifested before a congregation when biblical, loving church discipline is exercised that you find no place else.

And you know, we just give honor to God for that. You know, I say we, and not just our church, not just me, but the people of God give honor to God that He has instituted this means of testifying to the purity and the consequences of the Gospel and accountability.

You know, we do these things because we love Christ and we love people, and we're not willing to let people just go off and sin and act like that doesn't matter.

Good words from Pastor Don Green, Truth Community Church. I often say, Don, I think I put it in the Bump book, where a child could read Matthew 18 and outline the four steps of church discipline in verses 15 through 19, yet it takes a man, a man of God, an elder, to enact such discipline because of how difficult it is.

Yeah, and it makes you grateful to have godly elders around you to, you know, so that this isn't just a pastor doing this, but there is a consensus of leadership that with broken hearts say, yes, this is what we need to do, this is the right thing, and to not simply ignore it and let that get embedded into the life and mindset of the church, that I can sin greatly, I can sin publicly without consequence.

We don't want people to think that, because that is not reflective of the true Gospel of Christ.

Amen. We're thankful for our week—excuse me, our monthly guest, Don Green. Don, thanks for being on No Compromise Radio. You can go to truthcommunitychurch .org and listen to Don. Have a great month, Don.

All right, Mike. You too. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 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.