Pat Abendroth Interview (Part 2)

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 Ministry. Today, Patrick Abendroth is back in the studio for part two of the interview.

This is a bootleg interview. You have to, you get charged like a buck 99 to download it, so count yourself blessed.

It's on special vinyl, yellow vinyl. Remember those cutout albums where they would,

I guess they were discount albums and they cut the little corner? Cutouts. Cut the corner, yeah. I love those cutouts. Do you own any vinyl?

Zero, no turntable, no vinyl, not too hip. All right, I know you're a pastor now in Omaha, Omaha Bible Church.

You've been there for, my guess is, 15 years preaching? 15 years this weekend, so I'll start year 16. What's the best part about being at the same place for 15, 16 years?

And then I'm gonna ask you the inverse. Best part, you know who to trust.

People know you, they tolerate you. Best part, I don't know, that's not the best part.

Maybe the best part is you can't get away with things. You gotta keep studying, being fresh. Everybody's already heard everything, plus some.

It's good for you, good for the preacher. So true. How about, is there a downside? A downside is

I can't keep re -preaching things all the time. The downside is I can't get a part -time job on the side and just mail it in.

Well, it's amazing to think that our background, of course, same mom and dad, same education.

You went to Omaha Northwest, right? Go Huskies. Boy, that was a bad school. You know,

I actually, it had a surge, and now recently somebody told me it's not doing so great. Okay, well,

I never liked it because it didn't have a swimming pool. I wanted to be on the swim team. Looked like a prison, probably still does.

I had a good experience there, so I can't throw it under the bus. Is that when dad was living down in Tulsa or something?

That was when junior high, when I was suspended. Only once was I suspended from middle school.

Let's talk about that a little bit because I find it interesting. The influence of a father who's just at home versus the influence of a kind of a military tough guy, boxer, fighter, mean.

He's away, still married to mom, but he had to go do his temporary Northwestern Bell deal down in Tulsa, but he's gone, and now you've got a young guy, young punk, young pup, and he's starting to feel his oats a little bit, probably going through puberty, and then what happens?

What happens is when dad's out of town, you know he's coming back and you're gonna have to face the music, but you're just free to do things you wouldn't otherwise do, and you make a great point.

When dad is gone, there's trouble. Just having dad around the house. He doesn't even have to be an enforcer.

He could even be a bad dad, but he's there because you think potentially he could wallop you.

Potentially. Did you ever get spanked by dad? You remember? I never remember it. I'm sure I did, but I can remember our dad saying things, you know, go ahead and try that.

Go ahead and try doing those drugs or whatever it might have been. Just do that as soon as you think you can take me.

Our dad was about six foot four, 240. He was a fighter and boxed all the time and beat people up all the time, and he was a pretty tough guy, but he had mellowed out, of course, over the years, and I think, and Pat will disagree with me, but I think

I had the rough upbringing because you're always toughest on the first one. I was with my kids, and then it's by the time the second, third, fourth, or fifth comes along, you just let him kind of raise himself.

Probably a little bit of an overstatement. Yeah, I speak for a living, can't you tell?

Pat, the story I tell people all the time is when we wanted to go someplace in the car, we're gonna drive up to the cabin there at the

Missouri River, Gavins Point Dam, we'd all say, I call the backseat behind dad.

Do you remember why we called the backseat behind dad, driving up for the three -hour tour? Probably because you're out of striking distance.

It's so true. And he didn't hit often from the front seat while he was driving. Five total people, mom and dad in the front seat, and then whoever called the backseat behind dad, they didn't get the hair pull.

And so we would get the hair pull, he'd pull the hair that's on the top of her head, and then the whole trip up, you just slowly keep pulling your hair out because that was his form of discipline.

Now the good side of it is, I was never afraid of dad in a bad way. Never hurt us, always loved us, always knew that he loved you, and he always took care of us, provided never a question.

So I'm thankful to the Lord even for that. Super thankful. Pat, you have been a

Christian, how long? 25 years? About 25 years, probably.

Okay. Tell me a little bit about your testimony, the testimony of God's grace in your life, because I found it interesting that simultaneous to your being drawn by the

Father, I am as well, but through a different vehicle and channel, and the particular channel and vehicle that you were drawn through, a guy blows out.

So here's gonna be my ultimate point. If you're evangelizing someone today, and you're desirous of someone who, you know, you want them to be saved, you don't have to be the perfect vessel in evangelism for the powerful

Word of God to be taken by the sovereign Spirit to do its work. It's a great reminder that God spoke through Balaam's donkey, but he spoke the truth.

And so I have to remember that even though the person who preached Christ to me, who I don't even know if they're a Christian, it doesn't look like they are, that doesn't cause my faith to somehow waver or think somehow it's not right or good.

God speaks, and God uses broken people, and I'm thankful for that. Are you broken and wounded?

Perhaps, in many ways. Pat, tell the listeners the interesting story about the high school buddy you had who was a

Christian. And of course, we grew up just as rabble -rousers, and we went to church at the Lutheran church just because we had to.

Mom made us. And so tell us a story about the guy who saw you and the exhortation he received to pray for someone who needed prayer.

So let's call him Kevin because that was his name. You should have a radio show.

That's good delivery. It drives me crazy when sometimes, it's the counseling hermeneutic kind of thing.

We're going to call this person Lisa because her name is something else. His name's Kevin, Kevin Ullman, as a matter of fact, and I was so thankful to see this guy.

I was doing a baptism service and baptizing some people one night, and I saw this guy that I hadn't seen since high school,

Kevin Ullman, and it was like when time stops in your mind and everything slows down, and I'm baptizing and thinking,

Kevin Ullman, he was a Christian. That's why he didn't laugh at my bad jokes and all that stuff.

Anyway, jumping to the point, he told me later, he said, my Baptist youth pastor encouraged us to pray for somebody that we thought was unsavable.

He didn't have to say any more. Isn't that fascinating? Well, you were a popular young high school student, right?

Were you, what is it, king of the class, president of the class or something? I was king of Queens.

Yeah, I was a class officer and president of the student council and all that kind of stuff, and we had lunch together every day because of schedules.

We weren't buddies. You know, we'd gone to school all those years together, and he was just nice to me.

Now, I had to tell him, the only thing I'm upset with you about is you didn't open your mouth and tell me the gospel, but he prayed and God used somebody else.

Talking to Pat Abenroth today on No Compromise Radio. You can write us at abenroth .org. That's info at nocompromiseradio .com

if you'd like to hear Pat's preaching. He is an expositor. He's preaching sequentially through books.

What book are you in now? In Luke, although if you ask people at my church, they'd say, when was the last time we were in Luke? OmahaBibleChurch .org,

and soon you'll finish your Ligonier Doctrine of Ministry. Will you write down Dr. Abenroth after that?

Well, I think maybe Most Holy Righteous Reverend would work, but I'll be sure that it's on the church kiosk out front and on the letterhead, and when you call and call the church, it'll say, well, if you'd like to speak to Dr.

Abenroth. Of course I won't, just like you never would. Just like no pastor ever should thank you very much to all of our friends who have doctorates and like to boast about themselves.

Time to repent, pals. How about the emails that have the doctor written in there too? Dr. Brother so -and -so.

Dr. Brother. Well, you know what? I guess if you had a PhD or a THD, then maybe you would have a little more leverage, but if you've got a

D -min, it's just kind of like a baby doctorate, right? It is. It takes work, and I'm glad I did it.

I'm super glad for it, but I just think, what are we thinking? What are we trying to do?

Nobody else heard this, but I was just happy to hear it, and again, it was four years of my life, lots of study at Southern Seminary, lots of sweat and toil, and I learned tons.

It was a good supplement to my master's seminary education, but when they put the deal over me and -

The oil? It's called the, I think it's called the hood, because if you get a doctorate, you get a hood put on.

It kind of comes up and over your gown deal, and when Dr. Moeller handed me my

Billabong hoodie, and I said, I prefer Volcom, because Billabong's kind of not too cool anymore.

Well, they hooded me, then he gave me my diploma, and then he said, congratulations,

Dr. Abendroth. Honestly, I really thought, I don't need to be ever called doctor again, just hearing

Moeller say it one time. That's all I needed. I couldn't see his monogrammed shirt or anything underneath his cape, or whatever it was called, but that was the only time

I needed it. If they want to use it, of course, Pat, you go to India or you're traveling around and they put it on there, some other conference folks, then that's fine, but here at the home church,

I don't do the Abendroth doctorate. If somebody else wants to do it because that's helpful for them, fine, but we don't need to boast in ourselves.

What's the most fascinating thing that you've learned or you learned more in depth since you've been to Ligonier?

Kind of out of your circles, you're studying with some Presbyterians, OPC, PCA, lots of folks down there in Florida.

What's something that's popped into your mind where you thought, you know, I kind of knew that from before but now I really know it or I see its value more than I did before?

I think some of the things, well, the preaching side of things, for sure, reading some, just reading more broadly about preaching, what preaching really is.

There was a greater context. It wasn't just theoretical. So I'm thankful for Him We Proclaim.

That book is so helpful by Johnson, Dr. Johnson, maybe I should say. And in so many other ways,

I was really thankful and honestly thankful to relearn things

I was actually taught when I was in seminary. It's fascinating to think to yourself, I learned these in seminary, but until you've been a pastor, it doesn't seem like they're as valuable.

And so then you say, yes, now I see how valuable they are. For me, Pat, when I look back at master's seminary,

I loved a lot of my classes that I had, but it was the class outside the class that I think sticks with me the most, as I, with you, had

MacArthur, John MacArthur, as pastor, week in and week out, teaching the truth, no matter what kind of problem was internally driven, external, stand in the pulpit and pull the trigger, come what may, preach the word.

And so I was thankful for that on -campus reminder every Sunday, this is the gospel ministry.

Absolutely, super helpful to see it in the context of a local church. Now, when we were in the car with MacArthur, it was you and me, somebody else at MacArthur, and he was in Omaha and we were cruising around.

Also around here, before that, remember that? So I had you kind of pal around with me and John, John and I, and then you repaid the favor.

I was thankful for that because this is debtor's grace, right, I owe. That's right. And we were in your car driving around, and when your phone went off and it was

Switchfoot song really loud, da -da -da -da -dow, and John didn't bat an eye. Why do you think that happened?

I think maybe he had that on his phone. I think he did. I think he's a big

Switchfoot fan, back in the day. Remember when we were driving around New England with him, years before that, he was telling the story about how he was just offered free airtime on TBN by Paul Crouch, and how they were gonna provide the cameras and they were gonna provide everything, put him on for free, and then

John said, and so I said to him, no thank you. Remember?

I do not remember that, but I like the story. He said, no thank you, and I was sitting there in the car thinking to my naive self, well, why wouldn't you do that?

And then you could preach the truth to all those people, and John kind of burst my bubble and said,

I would never do that. You remember why he said? No, this is bad.

I need to ginkgo bilober. Come on, you're on the edge of your seat, just waiting for me to tell you. I know, this is called radio, this is called drama, this is called story time, where you make the people want to know the next sentence.

What he ended up saying was, if he is on that program and on that network, it gives legitimacy to it, and he wanted to give it zero legitimacy.

Well, because they don't even believe the Trinity? Is that why it's Trinity Broadcasting Network? Shows on there that are modalistic?

Pat, when John arrived at Logan, I remember I picked him up, Steve Nelson, I picked him up, and then later,

I think you arrived or flew in or something like that. It was about an hour and a half ride into central

Massachusetts, and I was talking to John, and he's like, how are you doing, give me the update, and I was pretty discouraged, and it's a hard road in gospel ministry anywhere.

New England seems hard. If I was Mark Driscoll, I would brag about Seattle's the most unchurched place in the country, and then

I think, well, what about New England, and pastor's graveyard, my pride starts to rise. Anyway, I was discouraged, and I'm telling

John, and then John just looked over at me, and he said, Mike, don't you think the gospel's powerful enough to save people in New England?

What was I to say, no? I just like, well, who's on baseball's top 20 view?

I'm not on baseball's top 20 view these days. All right, we're talking to Pat Abendroth today, omahabiblechurch .org.

Pat, when you think of the life of Christ, and we read about the life of Christ in the gospels, of course, and all kinds of things that he would do, fulfilling prophecy and healing, compassion, preaching, all kinds of things.

Why do you think the church at large, at least segments of the church, is downplaying

Christ's perfect life that is credited eventually to the account of all those who would believe?

People just say, well, you know, you have Jesus die for your sins, you're forgiven, but then you're kind of back to Adam, but you don't get the righteous robes of Christ.

Why are so many people struggling these days with this one -sided justification?

Why aren't they embracing both? I suppose we could talk about it on a practical level and on an academic level, but on the practical level, in my opinion, what we really see with Christ is his example.

So, oh, I like the life of Christ, and I'm just gonna be more and more like Christ. And on the popular level, we're not impressed with his perfect righteousness.

We lower Christ and think somehow we could actually follow him when indeed we can't.

He didn't come here, first and foremost, to be followed in that sense. He came here to provide redemption, to give his life.

And so, then there's the academic side. So, I don't know if you wanna talk about both. One, what are you thinking? Pat, when

I was reading Isaiah, Isaiah 28, 20, the bed is too short on which to stretch out, and the blanket is too small to wrap oneself in, as Judah is warned.

And so, my own righteousness, it's like I've short -sheeted myself.

I don't have enough. The blanket's not long. Have you ever slept with a blanket that's too short? You're just like, wait a second.

I slept in your son's bed last night. I'm thankful he gave it up for me, but it was a little short. Let's see.

And so, we think about our own righteousness. I think part of it is we probably think our own righteousness is pretty good.

We're glad to look at Jesus as example. And of course, first, Peter, Jesus is a good example of suffering, but he's more than just a good example.

And so, I think maybe it is we value our own righteousness more than we should.

Therefore, we don't really think that we need someone else's. Pat, I think you also, of course you know this, when you look at Adam and what

Adam was required to do, and now what we're required to do, do this and live, that's a lot of doing.

That's a lot of living. And who's going to do that? Who's going to live for us?

Who's going to do for us? That's why we need Christ who did it for us. I'm just glad for the

Renaissance and the resurgence of folks saying Christ's life, of course his death was important, but his life is very important.

I'm very much with you. And that brings us to the kind of academic side, why people are not talking about this, why they're not promoting it.

I suppose it's tied together with the whole debacle and disaster when it comes to the doctrine of justification.

So true. Pat, thinking about the law and trying to live under the law, you and I were just talking at home about churches that put signs up or churches that are known for certain things.

This is what we are all about. The plot line of a church, verse by verse preaching or something like that.

We preach Christ crucified. Fun for the family, all welcome.

People have all kinds of ways to get folks in the door. When churches have the sign that says what we're known for is loving the

Lord with all our heart, they just kind of shorten that a little bit, and then loving our neighbor. That's what we're all about.

What goes through your mind? What goes through my mind is that's a great half a statement in that they're saying we preach the law.

And we should, right, Mike? Shouldn't we preach the law? Well, that's right, because it's preparatory for something else.

That's right, it's so interesting. I mean, I rode my bike by the church and it said that, and I said out loud to myself, oh, the law church, the legalistic church, we preach law here.

You know, it's not very user -friendly. I'm gonna feel bad if I'm at that church for a long time, because I'm never gonna live up to it.

But you and I both know that if we went to that church and listened to the sermon, they probably actually wouldn't preach the law.

Well, that's true. Pat, what if people say we're all about living the gospel?

How do you do that? Problem number one, I'm a sinner, so I can't.

I thought the gospel was news. I didn't know it was a lifestyle. I think there's a -

Yeah, think about the newscaster. So imagine turning on the news tonight, and what they do, the cameras are rolling, and they're busy living out, they're dramatizing what supposedly happened.

I mean, and not using words. So they're mimes trying to explain the traffic accident that killed 20 people.

That's not what they're gonna do. I think mimes on the street corners of Santa Cruz's Pacific Garden Mall probably are closer to the gospel than some of the pastors that I know.

Faith comes by - Miming. Miming. I think it's - Living the gospel.

Let's make sure we correct Paul in maybe a Eugene Peterson -like way.

He solemnly is warned by Paul in 2 Timothy 4 to drama the word. Have you picked up the

New England accent since you've been here the last couple of days? I definitely have not. Pat and I rode - Enjoyed the scenery, though.

We rode our bicycles to the top of Mount Wachusett. It's about 2 ,000 feet up, and it's one of those barforamas when you wanna ride up.

It's very difficult to ride, but when we got to the top together, comrades in arms, brothers, it was a mountaintop experience.

It was a Keswick kind of feeling, Pat. It was all downhill from there. Ha, ha, ha.

I had to come down - 46 miles an hour, downhill. White knuckle. I always tell my kids when they say,

Daddy, we wanna skydive, and we wanna do the Alcatraz swim, and we want to do these wild sports and things, and I just say, just make sure you know you're regenerate.

Because if you are, then we're set. Tick, tock, tick, tock. This is

Mike Abendroth with Pat Abendroth on No Compromise Radio. I think Pat should be a regular guest.

Don't you listeners think that? Don't you need to write to Patrick at Omaha Bible Church or something? I see that hand out there.

I see that hand. Now, tell me - What if I said, this is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio? Just say it a little lower.

That's right. All right, Pat - Nine years lower. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio.

I've asked Pat to do a NoCo 90, so tell me what you think you're gonna do the NoCo 90 on. If you had to do it today, what would you do?

If I had to do it today, it would be the law church. I wanna talk about the law church. Well, of course, in New England, it's law.

Law, the law church. The law church, yes. Once I get a drink out of the bubbla, I'll be ready to talk about the law church.

It is so crazy that we somehow think we're some, when we hear the law, we think it's the gospel.

When we hear the gospel, we think it's the law and it's all upside down. When that moonie said to me, and I asked her how to get to heaven and she included to be good and I told her

I wasn't good at all, that doesn't help me to love God because I don't love him like I should.

To love my neighbors myself, I don't love my neighbor. I only love my neighbor till, you know, if I can get something out of them,

I need some good news about what God in Christ has done for me. Absolutely.

He lived the perfect life. He died a substitutionary penal death on Calvary and was raised from the dead.

He's coming back and I need to hear about him. That's why it's good to preach through Luke because every week you're talking about the master.

And so what ends up happening is you hear about the guilt coming from the law, then you hear about the grace and the gospel, and now you do want to love

God. You absolutely want to do this because now your heart is filled with gratitude.

As my little son Owen says, guilt, grace, and gratitude.

And see, the Heidelberg Catechism is for kids. That is the paradigm. Guilt, grace, big screen, multi campuses, and then gratitude, right?

Now tell me about the big screens that you guys use. You have like six campuses in Omaha. Yeah, I am such a humble person that we thought we would go ahead and start some other campuses so people could see my face.

What was the joke about these multi -campus deals with the big screens and stuff?

A multi -campus church for pastors whose egos aren't big enough for one location. I like that, that's pretty good.

Any good books you've been reading lately? Favorite book or two? We got 30 seconds. Got 30 seconds. Good book I've been reading lately, something about cycling probably.

Oh, that's nice. Tell me what's your view in 10 seconds or less of Christian music in general.

I think it's good. I'm all for Christian music. We should enjoy it. That's not the answer

I expected. Do you listen to secular bands at all? I do, only the good ones. To the glory of God.

Mike Ebenroth with Pat Ebenroth, radio .com. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebenroth 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 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.