Nate Pickowicz Walk In 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.

A Surprise Visit and a Church Plant in New Hampshire

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry. My name's Mike Abendroth, and I think we have a first. In the six years of doing the show, the daily show, I had someone come up to the door today at the church building, and I thought, you know what?

When you just drive up on a Friday, then I think I pull you into the radio show and then talk. Nate Pickowitz, welcome to No Compromise Radio. Hey, how you doing? So you're pastoring up in New Hampshire.

You've been on the show. You're a friend of the ministry and vice versa. What are you doing here?

I took about an hour and a half detour. I was just driving around looking for something to do.

That is perfect, because when you pulled up, I said, this is our church growth parking lot. Rick Warren would say, you've really got to make those parking lots nice to get the people to come.

That's right. No, no, no. I'm actually heading down to see a friend of mine, friend of our ministry, Jovan Rivers, who is planting a church in Fall River, Massachusetts. So I was heading down to see him, and I thought to myself, Wes Boylston's not too far away.

So I called Mike and said, can I pop over and harass you? And he says, I guess so, and here I am.

Now, I have my solar pope in front of you in case you need the blessing. Oh, goodness. He must not be getting much sun because his hand's not blessing you. Apparently not. All right. Tell us about the ministry that the Lord has given you.

Again, Nate, let's start off with the church first. Yeah, Harvest Bible Church.

It's up in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, which is outside of Concord, right in the center of the state. We planted that church about three years ago, and it's been good. I mean, we're just getting rolling, and it's good.

I don't know what else to, how do you describe how a church is going? People say, how's it going? And you say, good, I think, you know?

Maybe the best way to do it, if we want to, and I mean this with sincerity, give a godly response. Maybe a good way would be to say, I'll use Bethlehem Bible Church as an illustration. We're going through the book of Hebrews now, verse by verse, and I'm excited about showing people the supremacy and superiority of Christ.

The people are all fired up about it too, and we're just going verse by verse, and it's a good season in our church. How's that? That's a good commercial.

Because it's true. It is true, it is true. Well, I will say then that we are going through the Gospel of John. We've been there for a few years, and we are, again, going verse by verse through the text.

We're actually hitting chapter 18 into 19, 19 next week. So we're going to be in the Passion for quite a while. We're going to have a chance to talk about the Atonement, justification, all these important doctrines.

So that's the life of our church right now.

The Pericope Adulterae and Textual Criticism

Nate, to back up two years, what did you do when you hit John 8 and the account where Jesus is drawing in the sand? And did you preach it as the Bible, or did you say this would be true of our Lord, but it's not in the best manuscripts?

Do you remember what you did? Well, what did I do? See, now I got to think back a little ways here. No, what I did is I went through, I consulted the commentators. I looked at the history of it. I looked at some of the textual criticism issues, and it seems to be that the scholars can all agree that this is likely not in the original manuscript.

It was an addition somewhere else. However, it seems to me that the scholars are all agreed that this is likely something that could have happened. It seems doctrinally to fit the gospel itself and the things that Jesus would have said and done.

So I preached it as this is something that's beneficial to the church. This is helpful. I don't remember exactly what I said. I don't believe it's necessarily authoritative as scripture, but I, you know, the Lord has sought to preserve it for the last 1800, 1900, or however long, years.

And I think it's beneficial, but we just kept it in light of the entire gospel and didn't want to lose sight of Christ. And I really tried to use synthesis and bring in other verses and try to communicate, you know, other texts that were helpful to give illumination to that text.

So, but you know, I might have to go back and listen to it and make sure I'm not lying because I don't remember everything I said, but.

Writing, Book Reviews, and the Best Book Series

Nate, let's also talk about the ministry with the blog. And I know you like to write. Here's what I like. I like it when you write something that this is, and I don't know the exact words, but something to the effect your blog would be why Hebrews is my favorite book.

And then you encapsulate some of the highlights of the book of Hebrews. And then the next week you have another article, why Joshua is my favorite book.

So, the website is entreatingfavor .com, Entreating Favor. It's Landon Chapman's blog, and he was so kind enough to bring me on. And he always tells me, he'll get a kick out of this, that you can leave anytime you want.

He always says, you can just, you can up and just, you know, leave. You don't have to be obligated to stay. He tells me this every single week. And so I think he's trying to send me a message to leave.

But no, the Leave the blog or leave your church? Pick one. Pick one. Just leave, Pickowitz, leave. So, no, he's great. He's a great guy to work with. He's a blessed brother. He's a good guy. But yeah, the series I'm currently working on, we do a lot of stuff on the site.

We've got a podcast and whatnot. But the main thing I'm focused on right now is the best book series. And I started off just thinking to myself, you know, we do book reviews and you're all, you know, you do a book review and you want to highlight why it's so great and why people should go out and buy this book.

And you do it to help people. You do it to give, you know, give people ideas about good material that's out there. So I thought to myself, you know, what if I could do a series of book reviews for individual books of the Bible?

Because, you know, to be honest, Leviticus doesn't get nearly as much play as it should. People are always busy reading Romans and reading Isaiah, which is wonderful. But you know, Leviticus is a fantastic book.

You know, Nehemiah is a fantastic book. So to go through a project of doing reviews and basically trying to encourage people to get in and study individual books of the Bible and to fall in love with the word itself.

So first weekend, I wrote a blog post called Why Philippians is the Best Book in the Bible. And I had a whole bunch of people write back and say, Philippians isn't the best book in the Bible. Romans is the best book in the Bible.

I said, just wait for it, okay? So we go through week by week and I do a blog post on each individual book and do an overview and pointers and help.

Well, you'll be encouraged listeners if you go to the site. I read before I preached Hebrews and preaching through Hebrews, I read your article, your blog post on Why Hebrews is the Best Book in the Bible.

Which is probably why you came on to our show and said you have to straighten out some theology. Probably. That's exactly right. How did we meet? Was it through Twitter? I think it might've been. Yeah, I started following you on Twitter and Facebook and whatnot.

And then you, I think someone like dared you to have me on your show.

Well, I think that was cash on delivery.

Yeah, my church was wondering why a whole bunch of money went missing out of the till and went to Abe Amdroth, you know?

New England as a Hard Mission Field

So Nate, tell our listeners a little bit about your passion for New England. So let me play the kind of your foil. How many men have come to New England, planted churches, tried to preach the word, and pretty much nothing has happened on the scale of the six New England states?

So now something's gonna happen up there in New Hampshire?

Yeah, that's, New England is the graveyard for pastors. That's what I hear all the time. And so many people come up and they wanna do great things. And I, you know, it's hard to know because I think, you know, God has New England in the palm of his hand.

He knows what he's doing, but there just seems to be, and I had a pastor friend tell me this, and I think this is right. It's not that New England is fallen off or is behind the rest of the country in terms of the faith, Christianity, the church, but actually we're the future of where an apostate nation is going if we don't start to repent and trust in Christ.

And so when we talk about the vitality, the life of the church, we just don't have as many believers, it seems, up here. And I think what's so painful about it is that New England, I mean, we were the hub of world missions at one point in history.

I mean, we had missionaries being sent out of New England around the world, sermons, writing tracts, writing books, seminary. We were just the hub for the church for a long time. And then we've just went south.

We just, we turned on the Lord. We embraced false doctrine, you know, easy believism, Charles Finney did not help us at all. And we just walked away from God and our churches just started folding up and preaching liberalism.

And it just went bad, really, really bad. And so now there's a few of us, it seems, I feel like Elijah sometimes, I'm the only one left. And God's like, no, there's more, don't worry. I've got more guys, but it feels empty.

It feels dead. And so I think it's just a matter of trying to be faithful, slug it out, work hard and trust God with the results. That's how I feel.

Nate, that's, excuse me, Nate, that's probably why we get along because the Lord has taught us both that same kind of philosophy, where 1 Corinthians 4, what does God require of stewards? To be faithful, that's it.

I mean, what else can I do? What if we had to save people? What if we had to turn our towns right side up? What if we had to make sure political action groups and all these other things were right? I mean, we could not do it.

I think of Isaiah, he sees God's holiness. He understands his sin. He receives sovereign grace and cleansing. And then he's like, Lord, I'll go wherever. And he doesn't say, Lord, I'd like to go on a two week mission trip, short term.

God gives him a message. And here's his message. Go and say to this people, keep on hearing and do not understand, keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes.

Now I say to myself, Nate, and I'm sure you do the same. Lord, if you would give me any ministry, I would be pleased, right? To be saved, redeemed, forgiven, based on what we've done in our lives, that you would use me as a soldier for gospel ministry.

I'll do whatever. And if that whatever is, I see a thousand people come to faith, Lord, I'd be wonderful. But why don't preachers these days, gladly accept, at least it doesn't seem like they gladly accept a ministry of hardening.

What if this is our ministry here in New England, where we don't see a lot of results. Certainly the saints grow and they're maturing. We're into that kind of church growth. But what if our ministry is this ministry of judgment and why can't we just say, thank you, Lord, we have a ministry.

Right, right. Yeah, I mean, you think about how many faithful pastors, preachers, teachers did not have a, from our standard in this country right now, a successful ministry. Was it Jeremiah had one convert?

I think it was. And there's been tons of pastors over the years that have not seen numerical growth. They haven't seen, you know, flashing lights, you know, billboard kind of growth. But again, the Lord is the one.

He owns the harvest. He's the one who sends laborers into the harvest. He controls it. So, you know, we, I agree. We need to be thankful. I mean, I'm thankful right now. I mean, we've got a small church.

It's a church plant. You know, we're just getting off the ground and we've got a nice little group of people and they're wonderful. I love them. And when I see individual people fall in love with the word of God, love the Lord himself and their affections for Christ, I gotta tell you one of the best compliments I've ever gotten ever in ministry.

I was talking to a lady in her church and it was funny because bless her heart. She says, you know, you're not my favorite pastor. She said, you know, so-and-so at my last church, he was my favorite pastor.

And she said, but, she said, going through John with you, she said, I've never come to love Christ so much as going through the gospel of John with you. And my heart just melted. I said, well, first of all, that's a hit to my pride because I'm the second of her favorite preachers.

But no, that she was growing in her affections for Christ, that she wanted to spend time with him, to study his word, to love him, to understand his precepts. And it's like, man, if that's the fruit, that people love Christ and glorify his name, then what else can you ask for?

Isn't the Lord kind just to give us a little encouragement or a lot of encouragement just at the right time. And so even though New England's tough and even though probably, Nate, my pride would swell up when I'm talking to somebody in the South and their church is 1 ,500 or 2 ,000 or whatever.

And then people ask you the question, well, how big is your church? And I want to tell them, listen, a hundred people in New England's a mega church. That's right. Oh, it's true. It's totally true.

I think it's a 10 to one ratio. I really, really do. So in New England, an 800 person church is mega church. That's like an 8 ,000 person church in the South. So That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think I heard a pastor say one time, it takes four times as long, it costs 10 times as much to get ministry going in New England. And at first I'm like, I have no idea if that's true, but I'm starting to believe it.

It's hard. It's just tough ground, but there's a huge opportunity that we have. We don't have a church on every corner. We're not fighting every, you know, wind of doctrine. People don't even know anything up here.

Some of people are hearing the gospel for the first time in a generation. So, I mean, in some cases it's hard pack soil, but I feel like in other cases it's fertile because it's like you're in an unreached people group.

So it's exciting actually.

Gospel Clarity, Patience, and the Work of Evangelism

Just getting back from Tennessee, watching Christianity there, and most people probably through Baptist churches, they understand the gospel generally, and they say they believe and they don't even believe.

So it's kind of nice being here because most people would say, oh, I'm not a Christian, or, oh, I'm a Catholic, or I'm not this, that, or the other, you know, kind of get out of my face. And the nice part about New England, you pretty much know where people stand.

Yeah, they will tell you. They're very honest, you know? And that's why I think I'm here because I'm too ornery and too mean to be in the South. So this is a perfect fit. Nate, I was thinking about what you said earlier, Salem, Massachusetts.

When I say that word and play word association with people, what pops into your mind? Automatically they say Witch trials. Witch trials. And I say, you pagan. I cannot believe that you don't think Christianly about Salem because from Salem and in the harbor today stands a statue of a man named Adoniram Judson, who was the first missionary sent from the United States, what would come to be the United States, soil, and off to Burma he goes.

And so when you think of Salem, I mean, can you imagine? This is where we would send people from and now we need to have people from China come here to evangelize our folks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Second Timothy chapter two, it talks about farmers.

It is the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. And one of the things about gospel ministry, and even if you're listening today and you like to evangelize people or you've planted seeds of the word of God into some of your loved one's minds and you think, well, what's going on?

You ever plant a seed and then just stand there and stare at it? I mean, you can just imagine kids. You put a seed in the soil and you put it up on the little windowsill and you just stare and you think, you know what?

I can stare all I want, nothing's going to happen. And I think that is a great motif for gospel ministry. Just work hard, put your head down. God gives the growth.

There's nothing we can do about it. You know, and the other thing too, this is something I've been thinking, I'm a young guy. So I'm young, I'm impetuous, I'm impatient and I want things to happen fast.

We live in a day and age where people want things to happen fast. Right now, instant gratification. God works in decades. He works in months, years, decades. I mean, he works over the course of time. And, you know, I think about the people who were praying for me before I got saved.

They might've been waiting for years thinking this kid's not going to, he's not going to turn out right. He's not going to get saved. And now I'm a believer and you have to think about how long it takes for somebody.

So just because you share the gospel with someone today doesn't mean they're going to get saved tomorrow. There could be growth that's been bubbling up. They might have to hear the gospel 10 times. I don't know.

But we do have to be patient with people and be faithful. But God is the one who's in control of that. I mean, he causes the growth.

Nate, when I read something by Arthur Pink that talked about two reminders when it comes to evangelism. I mean, sometimes I get, I'm afraid if people love Pink too much because he had some hyper-Calvinistic tendencies.

But when he said, remember these two vital facts when you evangelize, it really did transform my thinking. He said, number one, don't preach for conversions. Don't evangelize for conversions as a primary goal.

Your primary goal should be the glory of God as you represent his son rightly. And then number two, don't forget about total depravity. Because if people aren't really depraved, you can use other means to get them to be saved.

But since they are depraved, the only thing that can cut through their recalcitrant hearts would be the gospel. And so stick to the word. And isn't that nice to know for those listening who like to evangelize or for the two of us here in New England?

Let's preach for the glory of God. If people like it, fine. If they don't, fine. Soon, I'm 55, I've got 20 years on you. My picture will be up in the hallway, probably this church building. And I'm just a nobody.

But I want to be faithful and I want them to bury me saying, he had a lot of faults, but when he stepped in that pulpit, it was all about Jesus. Yeah, amen, amen. Tell us what's going on with your family.

I know you have, is it three children? I have two children.

Two children, but one on the way? No, no, no, don't say that. Okay. Well, actually my wife and I, we were babysitting our niece last night. And so we had three kids from five to two years old in my house and it was insanity, but it was a blessed insanity because they're all great and vibrant.

No, I've been married 10 years and I have two kids, Jack and Izzy. And they're tiny and they're awesome. And I mean, what else is there to say?

I miss the days, Nate, where I'm on the ground, kind of wrestling around and balancing the kids. And I'm too old to get down on the ground.

And be able to get up. They're going to have to be carrying you around pretty soon.

I remember when grandpa would take me to the Six Flags kind of place. And I thought, you know what? Why don't you want to go on the roller coaster? Now I know.

Writing, Revival, and a Future Book on New England

So you like to write. Are you going to write a book one day or what's your philosophy? Yeah, I love to write. I'm actually working on a project right now that is tentatively called Reviving New England.

And we've actually chopped it up a little bit about that title because again, when you say Salem, you hear a certain word. When you hear revival, people hear revivalism. They think of Finney, they think of all the big tents.

But in truth, there's a lot I've been reading from Ian Murray who talks about true revival being a surprising work of God. It is a work of God, a work of the Spirit. And basically this book is going to be a call for pastors and churches to return to the Word, return to faithful ministry.

It's kind of, someone told me, it's like a nine marks book for New England or whatever it's going to be. I have no idea, but I'm writing right now. And if the Lord decides to see that thing through and get it doing something, that's great.

But regardless, I do like to write about it. And it's something that's near and dear to my heart, for sure.

When you travel on vacation and you say to your We're supposed to have vacations? I don't know exactly.

When was the last time you took a vacation? Oh, let's see, my son is five. I don't know.

How far away are you from Bethlehem Bible Church driving?

I think I was about an hour and 45 minutes. I'm on vacation right now. And then I'll be off vacation when I go home tonight.

Well, we need to send some pulpit supply guys to give you a break, because if I were on the elder board, I'd force you to take a vacation.

If they're listening to this, they might actually push me a little bit to do that. I actually, it gave me two weeks last year. I took one in February. I forgot to take my second one.

See, as the older grandpa kind of figure, I'd say you're forced to take that. Yeah, yeah.

My wife, when she figured it out, she was not excited about that. She says, you, Picklewits, need to take your vacations. And so I love to preach, I love to write, and I keep busy. I've always got these projects in my head, but we need a Sabbath, we need to rest.

Later this year, I think I'll be taking a sabbatical. As I'm talking to the elders, I said to them, when I coach other churches and help them, I say, about every seven years, you should give your pastor a sabbatical, he can rest.

And I said, this year, I don't really feel like I need one, but they said, well, you need one anyway, because you'll probably need one later. So resting, pastors, and I don't think an hour and 45 is that far, so we could send somebody up and preach the word while you're gone.

Oh, man, that's awesome. No, we just do a little switch. You can come down here. Yeah, oh yeah, that'd be wonderful. Perfect, tell us about the Shepherds Conference. We've got about two minutes to go.

What's your favorite thing about the Shepherds Conference?

The Shepherds Conference, Pastoral Camaraderie, and Worship

Oh, man, you know, I used to tell people when I would go, oh, I get to go hear John MacArthur, and I'm excited about that for sure. But the last couple of times I've been, what's been really a blessing to me is spending time with 3 ,000 pastors.

That's really cool. You know, you get to walk around, it's an open campus, so you get to walk around, you meet guys from all over the globe. I had lunch with a church planter from India last year, and it's just such a blessed time.

Guys are happy, they're encouraged, they're excited to be there, you get great teaching, wonderful food. It's just, it's my home away from home, I like to think of it. But just to be with so many faithful guys that are in the trenches with you and understand, so when you talk to them, it's almost like you can almost communicate with glances.

You know, how's your church going? And you kind of give them a look, and they, oh yeah, I know that look. And you can kind of talk that way. It's great.

So there's nothing like it, really. The other thing, Nate, is I know there are general categories of people and congregants and sheep, and there's maybe 15 different kinds of people. So if I'm saying, you know, I'm struggling as I try to minister to such and such a person and then you, the other pastor at the Shepherd's Conference will say, oh, I know that person, they just have a different faith.

Yeah, that's right, that's right. There is that wonderful camaraderie and a co-laboring aspect. I was so humbled one year when I met a Russian pastor who had spent many years in jail for preaching the gospel, and he was released after the curtain went, you know, down, and then somebody provided him an opportunity to go to the Shepherd's Conference to freely worship, and I just thought, Lord, I don't know if I'll ever have to do that, but could I just please be faithful and still have joy knowing that you've called me into something like that?

Something else too that's really neat, and this is the last thing I'll say about it. Worshiping God, singing with 3000 guys, that sound is very cool, and to be able to do that with men and offer our praise to God, those guys know how to belt it out, and it's really, really great.

So a wonderful time of worship too.

Nate Pigwicks, thank you for coming to the studio today in beautiful downtown Burbank, California. I appreciate that. God bless you and your ministry, and give us the website one more time for the church.

Harvestbiblegilminton .org.

All right, see you soon. Thank you. 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 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.