Crazy train emails and letters

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, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. It has been quite a while since I have done a show.

I have all kinds of exciting things to talk to you today, even if you�re listening at 1 .5 speed.

In real time, it is March�what day is it ?�10th, snowing here in New England, beautiful downtown

Burbank. It is not too late to go with us to Germany and Switzerland, Reformation 2017,

May 20 -30. Mike Gendron and I will be taking a group of,

I think between his group and my group, I want to say 50 people, 50, 60 people, and it�s through Living Passages, info at livingpassages .com

or you can go to the website, nocompromiseradio .com. Tell them you�re with Mike Abendroth and No Compromise Radio.

We will be in Berlin, Wittenberg, Leipzig, Erfurt, Wartburg, Buchenwald, Nuremberg, we�ll be at the castle there,

Bern, Lake Geneva, Zurich, and it should be exciting. My wife will be with me, maybe some kids of mine, and we will hang out and talk about Sola Fide and Christ alone.

All right, what do we have here? This is crazy. I think I�m going to entitle this show � where�s my pencil?

There�s got to be a pencil here somewhere. There it is. I�m just going to title this show right now.

I always write down the name of the show, Crazy Train. I just have all this stuff that I�ve accumulated in the last two weeks since I�ve been at the

Shepherds Conference. I have a flyer from someone, �2020 Vision, Year 2020,

Acts 2020, House to House.� Anytime anybody ever does that kind of thing, you know, 2020

Vision, let�s look up every verse that says 2020. So we�re going to do that right now.

I�m going to look up John 20, 20, because it�s kind of messing them up. They�ve got Acts 20, 20. What about John 20, 20?

I sure hope there is 20 verses in John. Oh, yes, of course. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. All right, 2020, in the year 2020.

Man is still alive. �How I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public ,�

Paul said, �and from house to house.� And then it says here on my little flyer, �2020

Vision, Year 2020, Acts 2020, House to House, Stop!

Terrorism, Teach the Love of God, Download Free Books, Every Home for Christ, BFAM at www .bfam

.org, 1 -800 -423 -5054.�

The number to call is BR549. Well, you can always write us, info at No Compromise Radio, and some people do.

And here we go. Here�s one of the emails that I received recently from one of you listeners.

Now, this is from Mark. He lists his last name, but I won�t. Real, this is when you�re glad you�re me.

�Mike, I have tried repeatedly to listen to your programs because the subjects regarding apostasy and false teachers are of particular interest to me.

Since the subjects you deal with are very serious and of supreme importance, why the sarcastic attempts at humor?

Who are you trying to entertain? Everything is a joke to you.

Why are you trying to be so hip and cool? It really detracts from a program that could be a real asset to the people of God and the lost.

I love good humor. Your program dealing with such vital topics isn�t the place for a third -rate stand -up comic.�

Wait, I have comments, but I�m trying to get through this. �Please consider what I say.

I have been a Bible teacher and pastor for over 40 years, as well as a radio preacher. You are quite good with the word once you stop trying to entertain.�

Ephesians 4 .15. I don�t know what that means with Ephesians 4 .13,

so 4 .15, we better read Ephesians here. I have my ESV study Bible, of course.

Speaking Handy. I know the part, �Speak truth and love ,� but what else is in there? �Rather, speaking the truth and love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ.�

Well, Mark, number one, thank you for writing. Number two, don�t listen to the show anymore.

It�s very simple. If you like straight -up Bible teaching, you can listen to bbchurch .org

sermons, or I guess you could only listen one day a week. That would be Monday when there�s a repeat of one of my sermons.

This is radio. A long time ago, I thought to myself, if I�m going to do daily radio,

I�m a real idiot. If I�m going to do daily radio, it can�t be a sermon.

Now, there are many people who are on daily radio that they just play their sermons. I get it.

I understand. And, you know, grace to you, John�s a great preacher, so, you know, people listen.

That�s fine. That�s great. But I�m not John MacArthur, and I�m not, you know, James Boyce or S.

Lewis Johnson or Sinclair Ferguson. So, how do you carry this? What do you do? And am I adding anything?

What would I be adding? If you want to have more sermons, just go to Sermon Audio. And, by the way, when you go to Sermon Audio, this is a free plug for them, even though they want to charge me a lot to be on.

There are pastors and preachers that you�ve never heard of that are excellent expositors that really do well with the text, and they preach high view of the

Scriptures, high view of Christ. They talk about faith in Jesus, responding with faithfulness.

I mean, they�re really good. You don�t know anything about them. God just strategically building

His church with these nobodies, right? We�re all nobodies. But for me,

I thought, well, what do you do? If I�m listening to the radio, and I don�t like the show, and it�s not interesting, fast -paced, humorous, etc.,

I am going to turn the channel. Turn the channel, fool.

Turn the channel. I don�t know if you remember who said that, but you can write in. If you know who said that,

I�ll send you a free book, �Things You�ll Go Bump in the Church.� Anyway, also, if you� well, that�s a different subject.

So that�s what we do. Who am I trying to entertain? I guess to answer your questions, Mark, since basically the email back to you was just don�t anymore.

Sorry. Sarcastic attempts at humor, who you�re trying to entertain.

Who am I trying to entertain? I�m sitting in this room all by myself. When Cooley�s in the room, I guess it�s Tuesday guy and myself.

And for me, it�s me. I�m going to have fun with the show. And some shows are very serious, and some shows we laugh and joke, but there still is a point to be made.

And the point is, whatever we�re talking about at that particular moment, I think

I try to take the subject matter, very important subject matter, I want to take it very seriously.

But I�m really trying not to take myself that serious, that seriously, that adverbatively.

That�s not what I�m trying to do. So I mean, I know some people don�t like the show. I get your emails.

But I�m just trying to do my bestest. I�m glad that I�m a third -rate stand -up comic.

Would that make Brian Regan and Steven Wright first -rate? Yai, yai, yai, yai, yai.

How would you like to be married to him, ladies? How�s that for third -rate comedy?

Oh, Mike Abendroth here. No Compromise Radio. I have another letter. Crazy train.

Here comes Crazy Crane. Okay, if you want me to preach a little bit, here�s what

I�d like to preach. What about you? When you are living your life, you think, you know, I want to take the

Lord and his word very seriously. I do a lot of dumb things, but I know when

I stand in that pulpit, I mean business. But in our regular life, how do we act?

Is it serious all the time? You probably don�t know this as a listener, or maybe you do. Fred probably knows.

But I have lots of goals, and here�s a little sub -goal. It�s not really way up there, but it�s just a sub -goal.

I want people to think you can have joy as a Christian, happiness.

I have a great life. I mean, I�m living the life, living the dream, well, except for the radiation part.

But besides that, seriously, if you want to, you know, all right.

I want people to know that the people that can have the most joy or should have the most joy are

Calvinists. God is sovereign. God controls and God ordains and God establishes and God appoints and God anoints and God decrees and God predestines.

He foreordains. God is a great king, a compassionate king, a benevolent king, although a despot, a benevolent despot.

You can get a book. I think I�ve written a book about that. I don�t know. I�m going to write a book about being a third -rate comic.

There�s something about standing up in front of a room and telling jokes that�s appealing to me, although very frightening, but I won�t do that.

I don�t tell jokes. We don�t joke here on No Compromise Radio. What�s the difference between Benny Hinn and a dog?

A dog can heal. Of course. That�s so obvious. Greetings, Mr.

Ebenroth. The enclosed material, although addressing Brannon House, is as much for you as it is for him.

Thanks. I appreciate my association with Worldview Weekend.

All right, here we go. Talk about somebody you don�t want to be married to, somebody with this kind of attitude.

This is James, by the way, respectfully, James, handwritten. I heard you speak on Mr.

House�s radio program not long ago. You were talking about your new book. It is one reason

I have written what I have and sent it to you. I also heard about your son surfing the streets in California.

What a life and what a Christian example, as it was stated, surfing for Jesus.

I don�t think I said that. If I did, it was a joke. And then he says, �The joy of the

Lord is our strength.� No, he didn�t say that. It was all very embarrassing to hear as a believer.

A worldview of Christ, question mark, wow. It�s where the term �cheesy Christian� comes from.

See what I was just talking about, joy, and just, you know, if I was going to make the point today, it�d be this, shalom, peace, the

Hebrew worldview, where because God has established peace with us through the finished work of Jesus Christ, the risen

Savior, because of Christ, we have peace with God. I was reading Hebrews 4 today, and the refrain of rest, rest, rest, rest, rest.

We are worker bees, and we think we�re going to work our way up to heaven like the

Tower of Babel, and we work and work and work, but our works are defiled. But Jesus has worked.

His faithful works are credited to us, and now we can rest. And since we can now rest, we can have joy.

No joy in Mudsville. No joy in Worksville. No joy in Merrittville. Can�t do enough.

And even if you did enough, it�s not enough, because you�ve already sinned one time. Even if you stopped sinning today and then did everything perfectly afterwards, too bad, right?

The fall of Adam was awful, and consequently our sins are awful.

But we have rest now, because we have been saved, and we�re trusting in this Savior, and we can have joy.

And when I watch my son in three inches of water skimboard down streets of Los Angeles, that�s pretty trick, that�s pretty nice, because two weeks before, we�re sitting here in the studio, and I told him,

I said, �We�re just going to go, and you follow my lead. You don�t need to prepare anything.� And I started asking him questions, and he sits there, a foot away from me,

I�m looking at the spot right now, and he has his Bible open, that�s it. And he�s talking about the Merrill Controversy, Thomas Boston, Sinclair Ferguson, he�s talking about when they preached repentance in the

Bible, some believed, and when they preached believe, some repented. And working through antinomianism, the

Merrill Controversy, the Arthur Creed, I�m just thinking, isn�t this great? It�s wonderful.

And then you can just hop behind a car and surf. It�s not an evangelism thing, surfing for Jesus, it�s a joke, it�s fun.

This is why we do no -compromise radio. When I�m the pastor preaching a sermon,

I am very serious. And when I�m the dad, well, I act like a dad.

When I�m a husband, I act like a husband. When I�m a radio host, are we going to have some fun? You know we are, because I have to sit here by myself four days a week,

I�m going to have some fun. Anyway, here�s what

James also says, he lives in Wisconsin, by the way, �We differ in many areas of Scripture and doctrine.�

That�s good to know, glad he told me, I would imagine that. The enclosed epistle material addresses those things.

Now, here�s the interesting thing, here�s where we differ, James, maybe you just misunderstood me about surfing for Jesus and having fun and everything else.

By the way, my daughters, not to be outdone by their brother, they put a video together when we got two feet of snow a while ago and went to a parking lot and they actually played some

White Stripes music for their theme music as they were snowboarding behind the truck that my wife was driving, making jumps, ramps, stuff like that.

That would be snowboarding for Jesus. If you�re a German, what�s a snowboarding for Jesus?

Here�s what James says, there�s only one truth, okay, so far so good, and it is revealed by God, okay, so far so good, to those who are worthy of it.

All right, let�s just think about that for a second. God is a revealing God. That is true. Romans chapter 1, he reveals his righteousness, verse 16, actually it�s 17, 16 and 17 always go together in my mind, and he reveals his wrath, verse 18 and following, is that correct in Romans chapter 1?

I believe that�s correct. We�re glad God reveals himself, what if we didn�t know the great unknown and we�re always seeking and we can never find him at some mission to Mars and we�ll never know, but God is pleased to disclose himself.

Think Moses tucked in the crevice of the rock and I want to see your glory and God�s goodness passes by and his sovereign,

I have mercy upon whom I have mercy, compassion on whom I have compassion. God reveals himself, and we know, technically speaking, theologically speaking,

God reveals himself in nature, and he reveals himself in scripture, natural revelation, specific revelation.

Now he reveals himself in natural revelation to everyone, sinners of all stripes.

They�re certainly not worthy because we believe in the fall. We aren�t Arminians, semi -Pelagians, or Pelagians as this man seems to come across as.

Special revelation only to those who are worthy of it. Well, we would be shut off, and even the revelation of the incarnate son on earth for those 30 -some years, 33 -some -odd years, 30 -odd -six, stand -up comedians, third rate.

That is actually pretty good. I�ve been to the improv and other comedies deals when

I was Pagan, when I was worthy of it, when I was worthy of the name Pagan.

I posted, by the way, not something from this letter on Twitter last night, but I posted some stuff from the email

I just read, so we�re rallying the troops. My friend, he said, �Are you okay ?�

I said, �Yeah, of course I�m okay. This makes, you know, you�re going to fill radio slots with something. Giving is down.�

Actually, you can give to No Compromise Radio on the website. The four people that are signed up to give, thank you,

I appreciate it. I tried the whole scheme, you know, don�t give unless you�re a millionaire, and still waiting.

Well, maybe James is a millionaire, or what�s the other guy�s name, Mark. There�s only one truth, and it�s revealed by God to those who are worthy of it.

Christian listener today, No Compromise listener, you five people, aren�t you glad God revealed himself to you even when you weren�t worthy of it?

Doesn�t that give him more credit, more glory, more praise, more thanksgiving due to him?

Oh, now we�re worthy. We�re married. See, this person doesn�t understand grace. I�m sure he uses it, and it�s in his vocabulary, in his nomenclature, in his vernacular, in his lingua franca.

But to understand grace, grace gives to those that aren�t worthy. That�s amazing. That�s an amazing concept.

This isn�t amazing grace that he�s talking about. This is deserved grace, which isn�t grace at all, Romans 11, verse 6, crazy.

Seeking and knocking, I do not pretend to know everything, as some do, but will always stand up for what has been shown to be true.

One of us is in trouble, as one of us is wrong, that�s true, and misrepresenting

God and his word. One of us will have to humble themselves to God, Psalm 51, and repent.

I pray God opens your eyes, and I�m not the one, James said you are, to the material which follows, if it be

God�s will. Now, to his credit, he really wanted to make sure I understood, and so he writes,

I would commend him for that. Oh, he does say that he is a white male, 64 years old, retired construction worker.

Here�s what he says in his epistle that he writes to Brannon, but he included me. I have been rightly dividing God�s word for well over 20 years.

That�s a good claim. I am a seeker, a preacher, and a teacher, as called by God.

Hmm, interest. I am a God -fearing man, and have humbly submitted myself to God and God�s will.

Wow. I rightly divide the word. I am worthy of his revelation.

I am called by God. I fear God. I humble myself to God.

I submit myself to God�s will. Crazy.

Crazy train. That�s why this show is called Crazy Train. My personal Bible is the King James Version. How did

I know? How did I know that? But I also own a Catholic NRSV Mastigative Study Bible.

Those words shouldn�t go together. The Book of Mormon, the

Koran, New Age cults and religions, the lost books of the Bible, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, to name a few of the reverence -only materials

I use. You can just see where this is going.

I have never belonged to men�s religions nor the countless denominations of Christianity as I am seeking truth,

God�s truth. I, in other words, am a loner, and it shows.

Well, I guess at least he wrote. He wrote to try to set me straight and Brandon straight.

I don�t know. Brandon probably needs more than I do. And then to think, it was

Christ�s sacrifice and doctrine that gave us all that opportunity. And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all of them that obey him,

Hebrews 5, 9. Once the transition at the cross was complete, we were at that moment sinless perfect.

How long we stay perfect will differ from convert to convert, yet we are told not to go back to our vomit.

Well, he doesn�t understand justification. He doesn�t understand the difference between judicial forgiveness and parental forgiveness.

And this is what happens when you don�t belong to a local church and study and hear the word. And then all my joking, all my laughing, all my ha -ha -ha -ha crazy train stuff, it�s just sad.

All the reference materials, and then you are now a Wesleyan perfectionist and you think you are made perfect and you got to keep yourself that way.

God made you perfect, the son did, now you keep yourself that way. I reject that. That�s Galatians. That is foolish and that is nonsensical and that�s sad.

So, don�t listen to No Compromise Radio, but listen to somebody, listen to John MacArthur or someone.

This is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio, you can write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com. 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.