Preaching James

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. Bon chance. Do you speak any language, Steve, besides English? I speak two-year-old. Does that count?

Yeah. What are you up to now? Fourteen grandkids? Working on it. Working on it. Although, you know, I got a note from one of my daughters the other day. I want to identify her, Kristen, but she said she'd listened to one of the shows and said, you know, well, if you're going to get 19 grandkids, Steve and Megan are going to have to combine for, I think she said, 12 or 13.

So I go, well, that means you're going to have five or six or whatever it was. So I thought, well, that's pretty good. So maybe she said 13 or 14. So anyway, she was five or six and I go, well, that means there's a couple more for the fish family here.

So pretty exciting.

I think that'll work out pretty well. Well, I'd like to have some grandkids, but all in due time, all in due time. Yes.

No child before it's time. That's correct.

Leave no child behind. Steve, sometimes we get tricked here at No Compromise Radio with outlandish things on the internet because we don't snope everything we find, right? I do.

You do well. I snope everything. Even if you send me an email, I'm like, I snope it because I'm like, there's about, you know, a 5 chance that it might be wrong.

Yeah, because sometimes I've been snoped, snopefied, snopefication. I got this thing the other day. Who knows who sent it, Ryan or someone. We've got these email stalkers that send us stuff all the time.

Yeah. For whom we're very thankful. You know, no disrespect intended by the whole stalking thing, you know. We hold you in the highest regard, you stalkers.

I can start using that again because, you know, not that long ago, somebody really was stalking someone that I know. Oh, yeah. And it wasn't so funny then. No, it wasn't. Yeah. So here it says, welcome on the, here's a website.

I'm just looking at the website, a copy of the website. It's got some columns with some, I don't know if those are Doric columns. Or Ionic. Ionic, yes.

Or Corinthian. I don't know. I don't think there's really enough there to really tell. I don't think so.

And it says, welcome to the dead. That could be a show right there. Yeah. But it says, welcome to the dead raising team. I didn't say raisin. It's the dead raising team. So tell me a little bit about the power team.

And maybe this is the new version of the power team.

Well, of course, the power team were a magnificent group of power lifters who did it all for the glory of themselves. But like to say that they were doing it for the glory of God. Because I can do all things.

Through Christ who strengthens me. And you know what, right away, I have the theme song from this. Bruce Springsteen, The Rising. Come on up for The Rising. So I think that'd be perfect.

Welcome to the dead raising team. Come on up to The Rising. Steve, I think that's excellent. But I was hoping for the soundtrack and the background music, the intro, first song for the rap patrol. Oh, well.

I don't know how that goes, but I like it already.

I was going to say we could just like dub Raising instead of Rising. Come on up to The Raising. Come on up to The Raising.

The dead raising team are the DRT. What's the DTRs? That's something if you have withdrawals, right? Yeah, that's not good. Yeah. It's just like the DTRs, except it says DRT. For a second, I thought it said DTS.

But I don't know if they have this at Dallas Seminary. Maybe in the women's department they do.

Things are changing all the time down there at Dallas.

Offers a service of support to any family that is grieving the loss of a loved one. In addition to giving the bereaved spiritual and emotional support, our team, by the way, I got this from a tweet from Phil Johnson, of trained ministers will offer prayers of resurrection on behalf of the deceased.

Come on up to The Rising.

You know, we'll just raise them right up. I just, you know, if you want to really have people lose all kind of not only hope, but sanity, then this is the kind of thing that you put forth. And you know what?

Recently, when you deal with death, sadly, as often as we do, isn't it wonderful to see somebody who actually, you know that they're saved and they can hardly wait to go be with the Lord and you just know it's time and they're kind of excited to go.

Much better than this kind of thing. Imagine if you were in the presence of Christ and somebody could raise you from the dead. You'd be like, um, I don't want to go. Yeah.

Can you imagine? Because it says here, we'll spend time in prayer. We'll stay as long as needed. And so we're going to pull people back out of heaven.

If I was in heaven, I probably wouldn't be very happy.

We've had 11 resurrections to date. That's not the Rat Patrol music. That's just Rat Patrol in color, Technicolor.

That sounded pretty, pretty spooky. Ominous. Yes.

So, you know what? I say, let the dead raise the dead. Well, and I'm sure they're trying.

That's what they were saying. They've got 11 dead people who are trying to raise the dead, 11 spiritually dead people.

Trust in Clergy and the Limits of Public Confidence

Steve, I'm looking at the Christianity Today with you here. We're sharing this news today. We're sharing. March 2014. It says, people Americans trust more than their pastor. Yeah, I saw this article. And so why do you think nurses, pharmacists, clowns, circus performers, doctors, military officers and police officers are ahead of clergy?

Well, I think there are a number of reasons. You know, charlatans, I would cite, you know, in the not so recent past, you know, what have we seen? We've seen the Roman Catholic pederast, you know, child molestation issues.

You know, and if your clergyman is, say, one of these TV preachers, well, then you've got a lot of reasons not to trust them. But, you know, I say 47 percent, well, duh, how many people even go to church, right?

So I mean, we're not talking about, if you're talking about nurses, well, 100 percent of people, well, are close. I need to leave out the Christian scientists and maybe the Jehovah Witnesses in some instances, you know, go see doctors and nurses and whatnot.

So of course, if you've got a larger, my point is, if you've got a larger pool of people, if 99 percent of the people will go see a nurse, then is it shocking that 82 percent would trust them? Now, how many people actually have ever talked to a member of the clergy?

And I would suggest that it's probably a lot less than 99 percent. You know, it's, at least talk to them in a more engaging way. But I think, what's the church attendance is less than 50 percent, isn't it?

Oh, it must be. And Steve, these kind of lists are helpful to me because then I just see who's lower on the totem pole and then feel good about myself. So with daycare providers, judges, and members of Congress underneath, then I just, I feel much better.

Well, it's really good because everybody is a member of Congress, everybody in the United States, you know. So if only, so that's a pool of 100 percent and only 8 percent of the people trust them, you know, then yeah, I really feel good.

And when you think about it, if they're, let's say, now here's something, think about this, let's say 40 percent of Americans go to church on a regular basis, and that's probably being generous, but 47 percent trust the clergy?

I'd say that's pretty good. In other words, that would mean 7 percent who don't even go to church trust the clergy. Steve, I think you should be...

I'm on to something. I think statistics are right up your... Dude, you know what?

And so is political spin. I think I've just spun my way out of a hole there. I think so. Okay, let's get to the Bible. Back to the Bible. It was like a wrestling reversal. You know, I got two points now.

What do you think of me now, huh?

Yeah, what do they call that when it's a wrestling reversal? They call it a reversal. Do they? And you get two points for it. Well, oh, I know why I didn't understand it. I was still stuck back in Nebraska.

It was a rassling reversal. Rassling. All right, there's the book of James in the New Testament. Now, Luther didn't like James being in the New Testament.

He said it was a right straw epistle.

Yeah, so how can we say that in a New England way? It was a right strawberry epistle because, of course, Romans chapter 4 versus James chapter 2 was in his mind. They're not verses. They're both there for different reasons.

Yeah, he had this idea that, you know, maybe they were opponents, but they're not opponents. They're opposite sides of the same coin.

Correct, and so now we have five chapters. James, and there's lots of imperatives, hardly anything about who Jesus is. It does say early on in chapter 1 that God brought us forth by his own will, by the word of truth, and it does say hold no partiality, show no partiality as you hold your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, and besides that, Steve, there's not a lot of other indicatives and discussion about the Lord Jesus Christ, and so how does that help us understand New Testament preaching today, and how do we preach with the gospel of Mark, the epistle of James?

What do we do?

How do we work through this? Just load people up on imperatives.

Yes, and so, but what I would say, Steve, and I'm all for this is who we are in Christ. This is union with Christ. This is the gospel. These are the indicatives, law, gospel, paradigm. I'm with all that, but there are so many imperatives in James.

If, in fact, this is like a sermon, or it was a sermon delivered back in those days, how does this fit into our paradigm?

Well, I do think that, you know, it's often, we often leave church with really nothing to do, you know, and so it's good to have, it's good to be edified. It's good to be encouraged, but sometimes we just need to be slapped in the face and shown that we're not doing what we ought to be doing, you know, and what should we be doing?

These are the things that you ought to be doing, you know, so.

Steve, Michael Kruger says in his blog that... Not Lon Kruger. Yeah, no, he used to be zone defense promoter, but then he switched to a tough man-to-man, or like a... With zone principles. Yeah, like a box and one sometimes he uses.

Okay. He has a book written about the canon, Kruger does, several, and he says, James reminds us that one can offer extended moral exhortations without being a moralist, and so these are, in fact, moral imperatives that come from the pulpit.

Steve, how about this one? I love this. Remember Jesus Christ. It's a good imperative. It's an imperative thinking about what Jesus did, though, and all of his indicative, indicatival work.

Is there a moment in life where that would not be an apt command?

And the answer is no. So it kind of puts the two together, Steve. I think that in the worship service of the saints today, in a church, that there should be all kinds of indicatives and all kinds of imperatives, and if you're going to have a lot of imperatives from the pulpit, then why don't you lace the service with indicatives of the gospel in hymns during the scripture reading?

For instance, if you read John 17 for scripture reading, and then preached from James, that would be a good balance. Sing songs about the cross. The cross isn't found in the book of James, but I would bet if I lived in Connecticut and could legally bet, then I would bet down at Foxwoods, because after all, I don't know if you know this, but I'm 1 800th Cherokee.

I didn't know that. Well, you could be in the U .S. Senate then.

But we do when we preach. Preaching means to herald, and when you preach the gospel and preach the word of God, preaching is by definition a proclamation, and it's good news, and by definition what you're preaching is good news.

I have a style that goes along with the message. Does that make sense? The way of delivery has to be commensurate with what I'm talking about, and I think God's a preacher. Jesus is a preacher. John the Baptist is a preacher.

You'll see imperatives all the time from those guys. What do extreme redemptive historical preachers do with the book of James?

Probably twist themselves into knots like they do in similar places.

Do you know what I think they do with it, Steve? I think they'll say something like this. James is the New Testament book of Proverbs. Yeah. And then I think they'll say, and as we all know, Proverbs chapter 8 is wisdom personified who is Jesus, and see, now we have...

So what you're saying is they preach it like it was an Old Testament book. Yeah. Well, okay.

Kruger, number two. James reminds us that Christians should also view the law of God positively because it says in James 1 .25, the perfect law that gives freedom. That's fascinating.

It is fascinating. I mean, we don't typically think of the law as giving us freedom, right?

Well, Kruger says, quoting Galatians chapter 3, that the law imprisons or it's a curse. And so James talking about something in a positive fashion.

So is it the same law?

No, I was hoping you're just going to skip over this right here. Problem passage.

Where's Dr. Roskopf when you need him? I don't think you should write on that passage, Steve. Okay.

Thank you, Dr. Roskopf. See, where are the Dr. Roskopf's these days? He is such a kind man that if he ever told you not to do something, you better listen.

Oh yeah, because it was definitely for your own benefit. In fact, I remember somebody really wanting to write, and I wish I could remember the passage. It's been a number of years now. Really wanted to write on a particular passage and Dr. Roskopf's like, I don't really think you want to do that.

He's just the kindest man, honestly, that I've ever met in my life.

It does say in James chapter two, verse eight, if you really fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You are doing well.

And who does that? You know, I mean, that's kind of like the, everybody, that's just a moment where you almost want to, you want to, you don't want to insert something, but you almost want, if that's a sermon, you almost want to say, now, if you really think you're doing that, let me give you a hint.

You're not, you know?

Well, S. Lewis would regularly say, if anyone wants to come up to the front here and grab this microphone and say, I've perfectly obeyed these commandments, then we'd love to have you come up. And then he would say, and what did Job say?

Here's this righteous man, blameless man, Job. I abhor myself in dust and ashes.

He must've had some really good ushers though, because we've had a few people who probably would have walked right up to the front. If you threw, you better not do that. Throw down the gauntlet and say, if there's anybody here who thinks they're perfect, come on up here and announce it.

Because we've had probably three or four people during our tenure here who would march right up there and say that.

So maybe the guy that approached me after the service and told me I was a liar. And I asked him, well, sir, why, why would you say I'm a liar? This is in front of everybody else too, you know, they're all hanging around.

But he did this in love. He did this in love. And per Matthew 18. He said, I can tell you're a liar because when you were talking about spiritual gifts that were signed gifts ceasing, you were sweating and you're sweating right now.

And so all liars sweat, you're sweating, you're a liar.

Sounds like Titus 1, all cretins, you know.

All right, number three. This is interesting in Kruger's Canon Fodder blog that I encourage our listeners to read. How do you encourage listeners to read?

Well, because they could both listen and probably read on different occasions.

James reminds us that it is fine, or maybe switch foot would say more than fine. It's fine to use Old Testament stories as moral examples. Well, they're illustrations, right? He lists when people are talking about, you know, don't be like Joseph, don't be like.

But what does it say in James chapter 5 with these moral illustrations? Let's see if I could find one. James chapter 5, I'm just going to the very back. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain.

For three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. And he's talking about the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

Now, what we don't want to do is get up and preach a sermon all about some character, and then be like that person, right? Because then we could end up using ourselves as an illustration, if that's the extent.

You know, I like to be on time, you should be like me and be on time. I read the Bible in the morning, you should read the Bible in the morning, be like me. If it stops with be like Elijah, we don't want to do that.

But I think Kruger likes it. I like it when he talks about these people like Elijah had a life of faithful prayer. And so why don't you follow that example? What's wrong with that? It's a great example.

I mean, that's a great illustration, right? What about Joseph when he flees? You say like Joseph fleeing Potiphar's wife, you should flee immorality. If that's the extent of it, where every sermon becomes just that, and nothing about who the Lord is.

I mean, certainly when you look at Joseph, is he really the star of Genesis 37 to 50? I don't think he's the star. But I think I could say to my son, listen, if you're ever in one of these kind of situations, and some girl's doing, you know, X, Y, and Z with her eyes and her words and her hands, and she's trying to grab you or something, run.

Yeah, he responds, rightly did temptation. You know, I mean, just as we could say, you don't want to be like Samson or, you know, or like David, you know, when they just kind of, they mulled over the temptations and they, they, you know, went towards them, you know, you want to be the opposite of that.

Kruger says, of course, we can look at these Old Testament characters as a type of Christ. They point forward to the ultimate Savior or Deliverer. But why must these passages be only preached as a type of Christ?

Why can't they not, why can they not be preached as both a type of Christ and a moral example? Paul states blatantly, these things took place as examples for us. 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 6. Do you think the pendulum is swinging too far to the other side where we can't use these folks in any moral categories?

Yeah, I think in some cases that's definitely true. But, you know, on the other hand, I listened to one brother here recently preach a message on Samson, interestingly enough, and he went to great pains to say that Samson was saved his whole life, you know, and I was like, well, that's, that's interesting.

You know, where would you come up with that?

That'd be called non-lordship theology.

Well, he, I'm sure he wouldn't want to put it that way. But yeah, it was, it was pretty shaky.

I was just listening to S. Lewis Johnson talk about Samson and just what he was going through in life, Samson, and at the very end of his life, and they're, you know, the bad guys are parading him around and the worshiping day gone.

And he says to the little boy, you know, could you just put my hands on the side of these pillars? And, you know, there's a couple that are close enough together. And Grace Johnson, who is now Grace Monroe, Lewis's daughter, said, you know, Daddy, what's going on with the boy?

And Lewis said, well, what do you think happened to the boy? And she said, I'm sure Samson said, run, run, little boy, run. I thought, well, you know what? Maybe. But I bet you there were other kids up there who had some day gone worshiping parents and tumbling down.

They went more dying at Samson's death than in his life. When the walls come tumbling down. Steve, you know this because you've taught Samson, but Samson, his name in Hebrew is Sonny Boy, little Sonny.

Yeah. And so what would make anyone think that he was some great deliverer? It wasn't his physique. I remember going to Samson's gym in Jerusalem and their t-shirts with all the muscles. You know, here he is probably some five foot person and he's wielding this jawbone and killing thousands of people.

And what made him so strong? There was nothing in the text that made it seem like it was because he was a Navy SEAL physique. He worked out or whatever.

No, it's the power of God. But, you know, it's interesting because the same sermon that I heard, this man said that he had a godly mother. And I was going, really? I leaned over my wife and I go, yeah.

And that godly mother named him after a local sun god. So, yeah, it was in Hebrew. Sorry. Right. Shemesh. But, you know, it's just a mess. His whole life is just a mess. Sonny. What's the song?

Sonny, thank you for the... Sonny. Yeah. Thank you for the... Yeah. Now, I've not heard Steve sing for quite some time. Because the Shepherd's Conference was so loud. But, Steve, you could probably do some special music on No Compromise Radio.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, next song, I'd like to... When you preach from James and you're just talking about counting it all joy, my brethren, and you don't get to chapter two about the Lord of glory, is it okay to say something about Jesus while you're talking about counting it all joy?

What would you end up saying, Steve?

Well, absolutely, it's okay. Why? Because you want to count it all joy because you know it's for the cause of Christ. You know, that ultimately, you're going through these things that you might be made more like Christ, that there's something in it for...

If we all belong to Christ, if we're created for Christ, if we're being formed into his image, then ultimately, that whole concept of considering it all joy has to be for Christ and for his glory.

Perfect. You could also say, aren't you glad, Christian, that when you don't count it all joy in your trials, Jesus did and his righteousness is imputed to your account? There you go. Aren't you glad Jesus fixed his hope and the joy set before him and he ran the race and he's the one that accomplished this?

Of course, we preach Christ while we're preaching James, even if we don't see him in the verses. He better be in the sermon. Amen. We've got news for people that don't preach Jesus in sermons.

I mean, can you imagine preaching James in such a way that a Jewish rabbi would go, oh, I sort of like that.

Maybe we should add that to our canon. There's enough of Gradanus' comments in our brain without the allegory stuff that we don't want to do that. No, we certainly would not. NoCompromiseRadio .com. And you can go to Israel with us if you'd like.

Shalom.

Pack your bags. February 17th. 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.