New Episode! I am a sinner...

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.

Why This Show Stays Focused on Jesus Rather Than Culture-War Topics

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and it is November 23rd, Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving. It does not seem like Thanksgiving week to me at all because I basically lost three months of my life.

Isn�t this summertime? I came home from California, I don�t know, mid-August, by late August, preparing for sermons and other things. I thought to myself, do a four-part series on who Jesus is, a sermon from Matthew, a sermon from Luke, a sermon from Mark, prepared my sermon for the congregation from John about Jesus, and then I got sick, so it has been, I think, 12 weeks, I missed 12 weeks of Sundays preaching.

I think, let�s see, I�ve attended the last three, two, something like that. Hope to preach this Sunday, John chapter 2. Thanks for praying. Thanks for the letters, cards, encouragement. I literally had people praying for me from all around the world.

I sat and did a lot of thinking, and it�s amazing to me, I thought, well, you know, if I wanted to blow up a ministry, to make it large, I don�t mean to decimate it, a lot of, you know, critiques and all that kind of stuff, and I guess that�s probably what I cut my teeth on, and that�s how I started the show, but a lot of that stuff, I mean, I just, to get bogged down in all that, I already know I don�t like it.

I mean, whatever�s out there now, in terms of kind of what people are debating, maybe I should be more involved, but I say to myself, if you�re going to promote Doug Wilson because you think he�s a culture warrior, and he writes well, and he says some things that are true, and so you�re a big Doug Wilson homie, homeboy, you�re not thinking.

I think if you listen to me, no-compromise listeners, you ought to be warned, don�t buy into, well, people are good culture warriors, but they deny Sola Fide, they�ve been, I don�t know if it�s technically a denomination or not, but I think kicked out of his denomination, write things in books about words describing women that I, this is the worst you can think of.

I mean, paedal communion, well, I could put up with that a lot more than I could these other things. I mean, when you deny Sola Fide, and this culture stuff, it�s just crazy. I guess I could do whole shows on that.

My point is on no-compromise radio, I don�t really, it�s not that I don�t care, but I can�t, if you�re on the Doug Wilson bandwagon, or promote him in any way, shape or form, that�s on you. I�m not going to do it, and I don�t even feel like critiquing it, because I don�t want to study all this stuff.

Same thing, if you say, well, I�m going to, you know, with Revoice, and PCA, and Greg Johnson, and all this other stuff, and that�s just tanking, and I know some people want to stay in to try to help, but it�s, the camel�s nose is in the tent, and so that thing�s over.

And so, I have PCA friends, and I want PCA to do well, but I think they�re going to have to do well by doing something else. I guess I could do whole shows on that. I could do whole shows on Karen Swallow Pryor, and, you know, what her views are, and all that other stuff.

And the Southern Baptist Convention, and Moeller, and now with the board, and people resigning, and what Russell, I almost said Russell Wilson, the quarterback of the Seahawks, I almost said Supersonics, Seattle Supersonics.

I just, I don�t know, that stuff doesn�t thrill me anymore, I�m not going to try to get involved with all these, and Voskamp, and everything else, it just, I don�t know, I�m just maybe too old, other people can do it, but the ministry here would be a lot larger.

I don�t know what kind of ministry this is, it�s just me talking. Anyway, I hope you tune in to this show. Well, I could put a full stop there. I hope you tune in, that�s true. I don�t do it just to hear myself talk, contrary to what some people believe.

But I hope you tune in, because you, I don�t know, want straight talk, blunt talk, New England talk, no funny business talk, I�m not trying to parse words, I�d like to be kind, I�d like to be considerate, and give people the benefit of the doubt, but this is just mainly a show about Jesus, because He never compromised, and I want you to think about Him rightly.

Law, Gospel, Conviction, and the Need for Christ’s Balm

I want to talk about things like law gospel, and assurance, and third use of the law, and how people not need to keep hammering people. The critiques that I do give, they tend to be in light of what I�ve been thinking about certain things.

For instance, when a pastor preaches, I�m all for conviction. He uses the word to convict, and to guide, and direct, and if it�s don�t complain, James 5, and let�s talk about your complaining, how it�s against the sovereignty of God and His providence, what He�s done for you, and all is good, and then all of a sudden you�re going to complain, let the congregation feel the weight of the law, and be convicted, and then present to them the personal work of Christ, our great Savior, our great Justifier, our great Sanctifier, as we say, duplex gratia, right, Christ for us, and Christ in us.

I am all for that. But then I�ll critique people who regularly just let people lie in the law, and don�t give them any balm. That�s why the critiques I do give now of people, they�re not the Doug Wilson types, they�re not the Al Mohler types, they�re not the Karen Swallow Pryor types, they�re the Paul Washer types.

They�re the type of people that I used to be, not because I think I�m better now, but I have learned, people have taught me, and I�ve learned the hard way. You know, it�s Rome that takes away assurance, and when people are up there whacking people all the time, I don�t know if this is true or not, because I can�t say what I did and what I was like, and transpose that on everybody else, but it�s self-righteous.

When you preach like that, I say to myself, that dude�s self-righteous, and he probably needs to be dealt with by the Lord. For me, the Lord dealt with me by scripture, that is, Hebrews, prostate cancer, and I obviously haven�t learned my lessons yet, because here I am with respiratory failure in the hospital eight weeks ago, and it was a big deal.

I mean, I�m still recovering, as you can hear, even my voice, and who knows if I�ll make it back to 100%. I have no idea. I�m glad to be alive. If this is it, if this is as good as it gets, well, I can walk, I can talk, hopefully I can preach.

Jesus at the Center of Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, and Cultural Critique

Anyway, everything these days just needs to swirl around the person and work of Jesus, and that�s why even when I go to Providence Baptist here for a big social justice, anti-social justice conference with Daryl Harrison and Virgil and who else is going to be there, Josh Bice from G3, I�m going to let those guys do the social justice stuff.

Yes, I�ve read the books about it, yes, I understand it, yes, critical race theory, social justice stuff, it�s law, it�s awful, it�s liberalism, it�s paganism, it�s not Christian, there�s no good news, it�s a different religion, they have their own nomenclature.

I mean, I understand it, but that�s just not, I�m going to go there to talk about who Jesus is, because we can�t forget about him in the midst of all this. You know, here�s the enemy, and then now we�re all consumed with this enemy and knowing the enemy and everything else and critiquing the enemy.

I�m not saying that those guys don�t do that, but I�m just going to focus on that. That will be my, I think I get two sermons, I think some of the guys only get one sermon, I get two. If you talk about Jesus, you get two sermons in New York City.

I�m looking outside, somebody just pulled up, I don�t know who it is. Don�t you want to hear about Jesus? Well, maybe you want to hear about law, maybe you want to hear about what you�re supposed to do, maybe you want to hear about TED Talks.

But deep down, I guess for people that listen to me, and deep down for everyone, we know we�re still sinful as Christians, right? We�re simultaneously Christians, that is justified, and we�re sinful people.

We struggle with sin, and therefore we want to hear about this Savior that we have, right? Luther, let us therefore arm ourselves with these and like verses of Holy Scripture, that we may be able to answer the devil, accusing us and saying, �You are a sinner, and therefore you are damned.

In this sort, Christ has given himself for my sins, therefore, Satan, you shall not prevail against me when you go about to terrify me in setting forth the greatness of my spirit. And so to bring me into heaviness, distrust, despair, hatred, contempt, and blasphemy of God, as often as you object that I am a sinner, you call me to remembrance of the benefit of Christ, my Redeemer, upon whose shoulders, and not upon mine, lie all my sins.

�For the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all, and for the transgression of the people was he stricken. Isaiah 53, verse 6 and 8. Wherefore, Luther concludes in his Galatians commentary,. �Wherefore, when you say I am a sinner, you do not terrify me, but comfort me above measure.

What do you say to that? No, no, no, I want to hear all the culture warrior stuff. And if I don't talk about culture warrior stuff, you think I'm going to do vax, non-vax stuff, mask, non-mask stuff?

You ask me my opinion, I'll tell you what it is. I don't know. Some of you won't probably like it. It doesn't really matter. That stuff is all in a different kind of stratosphere to me, and it's not a higher stratosphere.

It's lower. I know for years I didn't do it, but I've got some years left, hopefully now, and even before I got sick. If you ask me to come and preach, well, I'm going to talk about Jesus. If you don't want to hear about him because you want to hear about law and TED Talks and everything you need to do, then don't ask me.

And the congregation here knows, and now she is following the example, not of me, but of Paul, but of Peter. See Peter's sermon in Acts 2 after he quotes Joel? First word after, you know, men of Israel, here's the first word, Jesus.

If you want to hear vax, non-vax stuff, mask, non-vax stuff, I mean mask, non-mask stuff, all that culture warrior stuff, you don't need a pastor. You don't need a pulpit. You don't need a worship service.

You can get that from Ben Shapiro. Fine, go listen to him. I sometimes do. You can listen to Victor Davis Hanson, brilliant guy. I love to listen to the guy. But this is Christianity, and we're the men who are standing up to talk about who Jesus is.

Write a social justice book, well, let me hear about Jesus in the midst of it, so I know whom I'm defending, and other things like that. Well, Luther, this quote here, I mean, man, yeah, I know I'm a sinner.

Sin, Merit, Justification, and Why Christ Alone Suffices

I mean, my conscience all day long, every day, it's the covenant of works, and I am, you know, falling short at work because they measure things by merit. Seems like everything in my life is merit-based, merit, merit, merit, merit, merit.

And of course, my relationship to God is merit-based too, but it's obedience-based. Sadly, my public head, the public figure, the public person, Adam, failed, and God had enough wisdom to have me and Adam, and you too.

And so we failed, and we need somebody else to merit salvation for us, and that's why we talk about Jesus. Luther was so right when he said, when you say I'm a sinner, you do not terrify me, but comfort me above all measure.

And I just think when we talk about sin, and we should, and we must, and I don't know why I have to keep explaining myself all the time, well, you know, you're an antinomian. I'm not against the law. I'm against only law by people who self-righteously beat other people with it into submission.

And then the congregation's like, oh, I'm so convicted today, I don't even know if I'm a Christian. That's not Christian preaching. That's awful preaching. That's godless preaching. That's pagan preaching.

Anybody can do that. By the way, I know this might be tooting my own horn, as it were, it's hard to talk about Jesus. It's easy to whack people. Say, well, why is it hard to talk about Jesus? I mean, I guess every week you could just say death, burial, resurrection, which is good, life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, session.

I'm not against any of that, and I say that, but just to really, no pun intended, flesh it out, and what it means, and to expand on different themes and concepts of reconciliation and forgiveness and other things, it takes some time.

It's easy to pick up a Bible, look at the section you're going to preach, atomistically look at it, tell me word studies, it's not always wrong to do, but just kind of blinders, looking down and say, this is what the text says, this is what the text means, this is what's going on here, and never sitting back a little bit and telling me about the sweep of redemption, the swath of redemption, how this fits in.

And the way I was trained, I wasn't trained that way at all, and I'm afraid there are a lot of other people who are getting trained, they call it expository preaching. They blast and whack a lot of other people who do a bunch of topical, seeker-sensitive, exegeting the congregation, and they're no better.

They're basically commentary preachers. You know, in the old days, you could go online and you could look up, like, where'd the guy go to school, and you kind of get an idea of what's happening. It's the same now, except it's usually not very good, right?

It doesn't really matter to me what school you went to, because I know there's some exceptions and people have learned, but I need to hear about, I know I'm a sinner all week long. I get that. I don't need some special revelation for that.

Oh, to call it perversion and to call it iniquity and to call it missing the mark and transgressions and trespasses and all that. Okay, I need that. Don't misunderstand me. But I know I sin, but what doesn't come out of my conscience and heart and all that is words about the Savior.

I need someone else to tell me in an ordinary fashion, in a straightforward fashion, every single week. Here's the word, here are the sacraments, we're reminding you about Jesus for us and Jesus then in us, and here's what we're going to do and here's how we're going to encourage.

Where are the encouragers? I thought pastors were supposed to encourage people, yes, convict them first, but then give them encouragement. You have to be encouraged when you come before the Word of God, that the God of the universe would love you and give his Son for you.

You're like, well, no, I'm not encouraged by that. Well, half of the time it's your fault maybe, but the other half of the time it's your pastor's fault because he wants to so lordship you, so you know what, you're standing before God is based on your obedience.

That's so wrong, even if they don't mean to do it. I think Piper means to do it. You look at this initial justification and final justification and what is sufficient work in order to make sure I have a final justification, answer whatever Piper says, Daniel Fuller says, Norman Shepard says, Richard Baxter says, no.

The answer is no, no, no, no. I already know what my final justification is. It's my initial justification, no condemnation. I already know the future, not because of me, but because of what the Word of God says.

Either Jesus lived for me, died for me, or he didn't. And when I respond with good works, which I should, and sanctification follows justification, they are inseparable, but they are different categories.

I mean, how much do I really need to do in order to make sure I'm justified? And what quality of work must I do? Because I don't do anything with good motives, so I've got a bunch of impure motives doing a bunch of work that sometimes I do just out of duty.

Sometimes I do it because my wife forces me. Sometimes I do it because if I do something for you, maybe you'll do it for me. Sometimes I do it because I think, you know what, the Lord's worked in my heart and I want to respond with gratitude.

There's all kinds of reasons why I do things. God's not going to accept anything I do on final justification day or any justification day unless it's perfect works. See, that's the sad reality to all this, is if you're listening to people that are pushing you like Piper with future grace, or somehow, you know, you've got to do all this stuff, or else, it's or else.

Because God's not going to accept any of my works on my own because they're tainted. He only accepts my good works because of the work of Christ. And I've done this before. I've said it before and tried to focus people's attention on it.

Your kid draws you with a crayon and you look like a total, you know, like a Martian or something. I was always like a fat Martian when the kids drew me. I accept that and put it up on my wall. I have here in my study pictures of me up in the pulpit, drawn by children here at the church.

And I put them up there. They're not works of art. They're pretty bad. They made me look pretty bad. They made me look like, I don't know, not even like a stick figure, but something else. I accept the pictures because I accept them.

We are accepted in the beloved, and therefore, we are accepted, and therefore, our works are accepted. Luther, yes, call me a sinner. And when you do, I just want to, every time, think to myself what my benefit is that I've received by Jesus, the Redeemer, and where my sins all went.

You bring up sins, I'm going to talk about where they go. You bring up sins that I commit, Satan, my conscience, my spouse, my other people, that's all true. I don't want to do them. What Christian wants to sin, or when they do sin, maybe they want to and then they do, but afterwards, they're convicted.

Every time you think of sin, you think, okay, I'm going to think of the Savior. So, therefore, since we're sinners, we talk about the Savior a lot, because when you talk about sin, then you talk about the Savior, so just don't leave people there wallowing.

It reminds me of my experience at Calvary Lutheran Church in Omaha, Nebraska, at ELCA, LCA, it was whatever, ELC, it was before all the other kind of, you know, letter changes. Friday night, Good Friday, black curtain goes over the cross at the front of the church, and you're all to walk out quietly.

It's Good Friday. Sunday morning, Easter, Jesus is risen. He's risen indeed. Cuts down the 10-pound test line that kept up the big black curtain over the cross. It unfurls, Jesus is alive. Now, if you were there on Good Friday and you watched Jesus die, you'd be pretty sad, right?

You would be distraught. I understand that in time and place in history, but we already know what happens. That's why we call it Good Friday, and I think there's a lot of pastors that the black curtain goes over and then they're just left.

Oh, and by the way, then those same pastors say, we're going to have communion today, and did you live a life? Here's what they, they don't say it, but they mean it. Have you lived a life this last month or week worthy enough to take communion?

Black curtain, down it goes. Of course, we're not worthy, but we're told to take it, do this in remembrance of not even our sins, although we confess it, the passage is clear, but examining, and then we remember Jesus.

Yes, I'm sinful, but my worth is found in another. And every time, just like Luther says, you to call me a sinner, I'm going to have the remembrance of the benefit of Christ, my Redeemer, upon whose shoulders and not upon mine lie all my sins.

When you say I'm a sinner, you do not terrify me, but comfort me above measure. We're those preachers to talk that way, like Luther. I want to talk that way. I want to instruct the congregation, not in just to do stuff.

True Encouragement, Practical Christian Living, and the Need to Preach Christ

I've got a bunch of books here, and I've had my, I have a library electronically, which, you know, it's all be gone one day. I have a regular library here at the church, and then I have a library at home, and I'm trying to figure out which books do I want to keep here and which books do I want to keep at home.

And now, which books do I want to throw away? And like the counseling section, the practical section, putting, lumping those in the same, and all the overcoming anxiety and overcoming depression and parenting and marriage and one another's and all these other things, I think there's something to be said for that.

There are Bible verses, encourage one another, love your wives. There are certain things, yes, true, be anxious for nothing. The joy of the Lord is our strength. But a lot of the practical stuff, they don't tell me about who I am in Christ to even give me a motivation to do it.

They tell me what to do, but I don't know why I'm doing it, and I don't know how I'm doing it. I need motivation. I need to know the hows and the whys. Anyway, today we started off the show with just a random Luther quote and see where we went.

That's why sometimes I show up, and by the way, my voice, praise the Lord. I've got a little cadence now, and I think I'm doing better. Once I get going, I think I'm fine. Anyway, my name's Mike Ebendroth.

This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. You can go to the YouTube page. I have lots of videos. Ben said anytime my health is ready, we're ready to shoot some more shows. We want to do that. You can go to American Gospel, and I'm not in the third one, but I think I was in the second one, and do the Law Gospel series.

There's things you can get if we benefit or benefit to you, and if not, there's lots of other people that will teach you about the Lord Jesus, and I just want to fall in line and say, for the sake of our triune God.

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.