Current Events - the PCA, SBC and more!

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's good to be back in the studio. I was sick last week. That's why we had a couple reruns.

Thanks to Spencer for putting those up. I hope they were not too old, back when

I was a dispensationalist. Oh, here's this washer that I was looking for.

It didn't have to do with my microphone. After 12 years, this thing broke, so I had a jury rig it, a

Jimmy rig it. Was sick, thought I had COVID, got tested.

It was negative. I think it was probably just the 45 -degree weekend where it was pouring rain, and then it got to be like 90 or something.

Anyway, good to be back. Hope you are encouraged. As I survey evangelicalism, I see nothing but chaos.

I want to say, golly, it's crazy. You look at PCA and revoice issues.

Their general assembly is coming up, and I just don't see how that thing can stay together.

And that's the, for those of you that don't know, the Presbyterian Church of America.

And then you've got the Southern Baptist stuff going on, and all the backstabbing and power plays.

And I watched Al Mohler's video the other day about how, basically, in my translation, my opinion, it goes like this.

I'm the statesman. I'm the ambassador. I'm the theologian. I'm the guy. I'm the one. I should be voted for.

I was told by these others that I should be the president, and I want to serve. Yikes.

That's crazy. So the Southern Baptist Convention, churches leaving by the hordes, some because SBC is not woke enough, but many because it's

WBC, Woke Bible Church. Word biblical commentaries. What else is happening in the world?

People ask me about The Chosen, the documentary series, the docudrama, the fictional account, historical fiction of the life of Jesus, which more fiction than historical.

I didn't really know much about it. I mean, I'm more of a Second Commandment guy, and I don't really want to see what

Jesus looks like. I watched a clip for, I don't know, 60 seconds, and I thought, nope.

But then I just did a little more research because people were asking me questions about it. And they said, well, you know, what's wrong with it or whatever.

And I watched the guy Dallas Jenkins, I believe is his name. His dad was the co -author for many of the

Left Behind books with Tim LaHaye. And he said, you know what, it's the account of Nicodemus, doesn't take that long to read, so if you're going to have it for a series, you know, three -part series or whatever it's going to be for three episodes.

He said 95 % of the dialogue is not from Scripture. He said, that's plain and clear, and I don't make any apologies for it.

And then the second thing that he said made the first one more troubling to me, and one of the reasons why

I don't watch it, and I'm not going to watch it, and if you ask me, should you watch it, I'm going to say, if I were you,

I wouldn't, excuse me. But the guy said, when he was interviewed by some

Mormons, because I think the production company might be Mormon, and he was interviewed by a Mormon, that part

I do know, and he, Dallas said, well, you know, we have some differences with you Mormons, evangelicals and Mormons don't believe the exact same thing, but we're brothers and we believe in the same

Jesus. We believe in the same Jesus. Oh yeah, Lucifer's brother Jesus, the Mormon Jesus.

And once he said that, I thought, I can't trust him with the 95 % of the stuff that he has added.

I mean, if you're going to have Jesus walk someplace and say hello, well, okay, fine, shalom.

But anyway, it's just, it's a mess. It's a potpourri of stuff. And if I need to know about Jesus, I've got plenty to know about Jesus.

You know, it's kind of like, hey, throw your nets on the other side of the boat. Well, we fished all night, just cast it over there.

And then Jesus kind of gives the head nod, the like, hey, go ahead and do what I say. I don't know if he did that or not.

And I don't want that in my mind. I know it's not the exact same, but when it was the

Lord of the Rings, and you were reading Tolkien and you were reading about the black riders or whatever they were called, those spooky guys on horses, they're more spooky in your mind than when you actually see them.

And now forever, that's how I see them in the movie. Or some of the gargoyle kind of creatures or the ox or whatever they're called, or orcs.

But anyway, then you see them on TV and you're like, oh, that's what they look like versus your mind. Anyway, we have the scripture.

I don't need to have any violations of my conscience, nor the second commandment, nor a guy that doesn't know the difference between Mormonism and evangelicalism.

If you don't know that, I don't want you to watch a series about what you're going to do. And you know, churches that promote this and churches that play this and let's have

Sunday night services, let's rent out movie theaters, let's forget Sunday morning worship services. It's just all part of the chaos.

As one man said, all the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise.

What else is in the news? I don't know. Still a lot of scolders out there, a lot of scolding preachers.

I'm going to do a series on scolding preachers. You know, they have the woke preacher clips on Twitter.

If I was on Twitter, I think I'd do something about scolding preacher clips. That's what

I should do. I should start the Twitter thing up with scolding preachers and no one would know it was me.

Except maybe you. Okay, last thing before we get into our topic today. I finally started working again on the

S. Lewis Johnson Colossians commentary. I did the first one,

Romans, Discovering Romans. Zonderman said they didn't want the second or the third because they had dibs on it.

That's the way this works with series. And I finally have begun to work half hour, hour a day on Discovering Romans.

I have his journal articles and then I have his sermons and then

I have some of his notes from his lectures. And so I'm trying to put all three together and then maybe some discussion questions at the end of every chapter.

And then it will go out on Amazon, CreateSpace, whatever it's called now, and Kindle. I'm hoping that's out by the end of the year.

And I think you'd be encouraged. The stuff is from the, you know, 50 years ago, but he had a keen insight.

And really it was S. Lewis Johnson that propelled me into thinking about the covenant of redemption, covenant of works, covenant of grace, federal headship,

Romans 5, first Adam, last Adam, you know, covenantal theology, he's not the boogeyman, etc.

So anyway, you can blame S. Lewis Johnson if you'd like. But hopefully that will be out soon enough.

This summer I think we're going to have a couple of three weeks for reruns.

While I'm on vacation for a little bit, I will be speaking at Redeemer Church in Phoenix, Arizona.

John Benziger is the pastor there. Acosta Hint is the associate. I think that you may know his name more than John.

I'm going to do a two -day preaching seminar in August. And then for my friend Steve Meister up in Emanuel in Sacramento, Reformed Baptist Church, and a two -day preaching seminar up there.

And a couple of things coming up in the fall, but they're like one -day, two -day deals. And so maybe we'll make some announcements later.

You can always email me, Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com. For the most part, it's been really a fun ride the last 12 years.

I don't really think I'm going to quit anytime soon. But sometimes I think maybe the format should change.

I don't know how many of you listen every day. I guess at 1 .5 speed for 24 minutes, it's not too taxing.

But it is what it is. Like we need another hero, we need another podcast. Anyway, like we need another

Bible translation. I've been working through 2 Peter, as you know. And I will finish this

Sunday in 2 Peter, Lord willing, chapter 3, verses 14 through 18. So by the time you hear this, that will have been last week where I finished it.

And it's been very encouraging to me. I think there's 13 messages I preached in 2

Peter. And if I study 20 hours of message, that's 260 hours in the book of 2

Peter. And it's just been great. Lots of people think 2 Peter is about false teachers.

And really it's about the Lord Jesus and His return. And then what the false teachers say about that or don't say about that.

But the section that I want to talk about today is waiting. And what do we do while we're waiting for the return of Christ?

The false teachers are saying Jesus doesn't keep His word. He's not coming back.

Some have even said, probably, I don't know if these in 2 Peter. But some have said, you know, He did already come back, right?

That was an issue in one of the New Testament epistles. And just for fun, I pulled up online, what do you do to make waiting easier?

We have to wait for the Lord's return. So what do we do? How do you wait?

Are you a good waiter? Do you wait well? Are you patient? Do you have self -control?

Do you tailgate people who are in the carpool lane going too slow?

Well, here's a few things that experts say that are scientific. You know, you follow the science.

And how do you make waiting easier? W -A -I -T -I -N -G. Not waiters like, you know, at a restaurant.

But waiting in general. They say, the experts do, following the science. Turn on some music.

Did you know if you're on hold on the phone and there's music playing in the background, you will stay on hold?

You'll be willing to wait on hold 20 % longer than if there's no music. Did you know that? I know when

I call my doctor, I know exactly the music that they play. So whenever I hear that, I'm thinking, oh, something's wrong with me.

Oh, speaking of which, I got my blood test back for my annual prostate cancer post follow -up, which

I was diagnosed with in 2015. 2017 is when I had the procedure done.

And best blood work numbers yet so far. So I'm very thankful.

Don't have to be tested again for another year. Lease on life. I might die of something else.

But for now, happy, even though they left a big bruise on my arm when they took the blood out.

But I'm very, very happy. So if you have prayed for me, thank you. I got the test results and pretty much just broke down with tears of joy and stress relief.

And I was very, very happy. So I guess no Compromise Radio will be on for a while longer. Turn on some music.

Bring a friend. I guess you can talk a little bit while you're waiting. Accept that waiting is unavoidable.

I mean, you know, hey, that's just what you have to do. Take a deep breath. Did you know that lowers the amount of oxygen in the blood?

And it kicks off the body's relaxed response, lowering blood pressures and making you feel serene.

How do you wait? Well, the science says follow the science. Think of it as practice. So you're learning self -control.

We're talking about practice. If you don't listen to Office Hours and the

Huddlecast, you ought to. My friend Scott Clark does that. And I think you'd be really encouraged.

Probably out of anyone living, Scott has been the most helpful to me in my journey in Reformed theology.

There are some dead people that are influential, but Scott usually points me to those people. So a couple of Nebraska guys.

I've got the looks. Scott's got the brain. So, you know, we can go a lot of places together. And if he listens to this,

I did when we were in the Basketball Hall of Fame when we had a little pickup game. He didn't think we were keeping score, but I was keeping score in my mind.

And I want you to know I won a couple of backboard swishes. When I wasn't aiming for the backboard.

See those guys, you know, they're the top of the key and it's like backboard swish. They weren't even aiming for the backboard.

I mean, who shoots a backboard swish from the top of the key? How do you wait? Well, you can remember that the wait feels longer than it is, according to science.

How is that objective? I have no idea. Imagine the experience you're about to have.

Well, that almost lends itself to the soon return of Christ in 2 Peter in terms of eagerly awaiting.

Right. It's doom for the unbeliever. But for the believer, when your captain and savior and Lord comes back, that's going to be quite the experience.

You know, think about the best ride you've ever been on in an amusement park. I remember Disneyland years ago,

I don't know, decades ago now, when the Indiana Jones ride came out. And you're like in a roller coaster thing and it goes, you know, flat.

You see that big ball rolling toward you and then it ducks underneath it. And pretty amazing rides, you know,

Space Mountain type of thing. It's going to be quite the experience. That's certainly true. Pay attention, scientists, to anything but the wait.

Right. You don't want to watch the clock, in other words. And, you know, I guess some of these are pretty good.

Some wisdom there. But what can we learn from God's word, a word to the wise, when it comes to waiting for the

Lord Jesus' return? Well, we can go to the scripture in 2

Peter 3 and find some words from God. I have a word from God for you today, dear listeners.

I have a word from God. I just have to stress it again. 2

Peter is such an important book. And I know some people have neglected it.

Maybe they've thought, well, did Peter really write it? Most people in our circles don't think that.

Some people say, well, you know, I'm just tired of all the false teacher stuff. Every time I turn on the TV, there are false teachers.

Why do I want to learn about them? You know, that would be quite naive. But I just love it. If you just go through from the very beginning to the very end, it is about the

Lord Jesus Christ. It is about the God and Savior Jesus Christ. It is about Jesus our

Lord. That's just found in chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. Spurgeon said, And never preach again until you have something worth preaching or someone.

Spurgeon said that in 1876. And, of course, 2 ,000 years before that, approximately,

Peter understood that. And Peter understood, especially after being at the feet of Jesus, as a follower of Jesus, as a disciple, that he got that.

And whether you go to his sermons in Acts 2, 3, and 4, or you see his epistles, 1 -5 of 1

Peter, or 1 -3 in 2 Peter, that was his theme. His theme was the

Lord Jesus Christ. His theme was Jesus' life under the law, earning righteousness that we receive by faith because of the doctrine of imputation.

Anybody that hung out with Jesus never forgot that. Anybody that was with Jesus never underestimated what that was like to be with him.

Thomas said to Jesus, My Lord and my God. When you meet the

God -man, there are some ramifications. Paul said, For in Christ all the fullness of deity lives or dwells in bodily form.

And then for years, you've got people writing about Jesus and also singing songs about Jesus.

I mean, I don't know how many people have written songs about you and they sing your praises.

I don't think any have done that for me so far, but hey,

I'm only 61. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Hallelujah, what a friend. Saving, helping, keeping, loving, he,

Jesus, is with me to the end. J. Wilbur Chapman. Not many people name

Wilbur these days anymore. Wilbur? Wasn't that a horse's name or something?

If you're listening and your name is Wilbur, would you please write me? And if it's true,

I will send you a free book. If you have any Wilburs listening, you today deserve a free book.

Not mandatory, but woman -datory. Because we don't want anything with the word man in it. Jesus is the focus of 2

Peter. Chapter 1, verse 11. Chapter 1, verse 14. Verses 16 and 17.

This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. The Lord and Savior Jesus in chapter 2.

Chapter 3, Lord and Savior. Ends in chapter 3, verse 18.

With the doxology, to him be glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Obviously, the Holy Spirit is going to minister the word.

And Spurgeon said, the Spirit of God bears no witness to Christless sermons. Leave Jesus out of your preaching and the

Holy Spirit will never come upon you. Why should he? Has he not come on the purpose that he may testify of Christ?

That's fascinating to me. You have to think about that. If the ministry of the Holy Spirit is testifying of Jesus. Think of John 14 -16.

The gospel of Jesus according to John. If that's his ministry, testifying of Jesus.

What do you think the Holy Spirit does when pastors are teaching from the

Bible? So we have biblical words. And yet, Jesus is either assumed, forgotten, minimized, or just tacked on at the end after a 50 -minute diatribe, a couple minutes about Jesus.

If the Spirit of God testifies of Christ, what do we do with these law preachers, law -only preachers?

Obviously, I'm not against law. The whole book of 2 Peter is talking about this great Jesus who not only saves you, pardon, but also breaks the power of sin and allows you to live a, compels you to live a holy life.

And the false teachers would say, A, Jesus isn't coming back, and B, live like hell, do whatever you want. Lawless living is sinful.

Antinomianism is sinful. But I think it's also sinful if you only preach law.

If you're not preaching law and gospel to Christians, I actually think it's a dereliction of duty.

And I know about this all too well because I've seen it in others, but more importantly, I've seen it in myself.

And I don't like what I see. You ever get one of those mirrors that's like 20x with a rim around it that's got a neon bulb or something, and you're like,

Whoa, hello. Hello. I have so many crevices now in my face.

Yeah, I have to shave in front of the main mirror. And then after I get done shaving, literally,

I have to go to the magnifying mirror to see what I missed and where. Part of that is maybe

I buy cheap shavers. But part of it is just the way my face is.

And in addition, my eyes are bad, so I can't tell. You can't see. It was

Peter's joy to proclaim the excellencies of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul said, Him we proclaim. Peter does that very thing. And it cost him his life, by the way.

And I want you to know, and I've said this many times because this is a theme. And since I teach preaching classes,

I'm regularly thinking about it. And since I preach, I often think about it, like weekly, daily.

You need to serve the people, the riches of the Lord Jesus. And if you sit underneath a pastor that proclaims to you the person and work of the

Lord Jesus, you have to be very thankful for that. Moralistic preachers are a dime a dozen.

As a matter of fact, if you just ask an unbeliever, hey, what do you think happens in church? What do you think sermons are about?

I would say, for the most part, they would tell you it's just about being better, working on yourself, self -improvement, doing things in a nicer way, more loving.

And again, I just have to say it because there's some nimrod out there that thinks I'm an antinomian.

Of course, we tell people things about the law. But the motivation to keep the law is not found in the law.

There's not an animating force in the law. It's just a reflection of God's character. And for Christians, we're not under the law as a covenant of works, the first use of the law.

We're not condemned by God as a judge for not keeping the law. We have Jesus, the law keeper, in our stead.

And Jesus, the penalty bearer, in our stead. But we have the law of God now as a guide.

And it's a norming norm. It norms our life. And we want to do this not to be saved, not to stay saved, but because we're saved.

And we want to honor the Lord. And it's for God's glory that we keep these commands. And it's for our good and for others' good as well.

But if you're up there and you're just hearing people with just law only, and this morality, and this, here's what you just have to do.

And I even think these days, you know, people are like word study preachers.

And here's a word. It's not always wrong to say this, but here's a word. It's used 82 times.

These are the different meanings. I mean, words mean different things in different contexts because of syntactical sentence structures.

And what they mean, you know, you have a word, it means different things in different sentences because that's just, words have different meanings and nuances.

By the way, that's why the Amplified Bible is such a disaster because it just, it doesn't even take into account what meaning it is for that particular passage.

It just has them all in parentheses, all the different options. Peter knew the end times were at hand.

He wanted to talk about the end times. He wanted to refute the false teachers. But what Peter wanted to do is he wanted to make sure that people understood that the end times are about Jesus.

So when you look at the book of Revelation, don't forget chapter one. This is the unfolding, the unveiling, the apocalypse of Jesus Christ.

Every sermon needs to be about Jesus. You say, well, is every text about Jesus? Every sermon needs to be about Jesus.

If the text doesn't have Jesus in it, well, maybe you take a larger text. Maybe you then say, well, see, we're not living up to this text, so that's why we need

Jesus as Savior. There's lots of ways to get there. But if you teach the Bible to your children, to your wife, to your friends, if you evangelize, if you teach

Sunday school, Awana, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Sunday school, then you know your theme.

Your theme is Him we proclaim. Why should the Holy Spirit bear witness of a

Christless testimony? I have no idea. 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.