Divine Comfort

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.

Comfort, Consumer Advice, and the Limits of Self-Help

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry, my name is Mike Abendroth, and I thought I would do another show here in the NoCo bunker. It is probably 10 .17pm Eastern Standard Time, so if you�re on the West Coast, it�s 7 .17pm.

Now normally, since I just made that mistake, I would probably just restart it, but I can�t since it is FaceTime live, and I just have to go with what I know. I don�t know if you need comfort at all, but I was studying the topic of comfort this week, and many people need to be comforted.

So if you need comfort, where do you go? Maybe you have comfort food that you like. I read this week about comfort food, and it�s kind of overrated, and it�s high calorie usually. Here�s what I found online for comfort.

When people need to be comforted, where do they go? What do they do? This is guidepost .org, I think it�s a Catholic organization, relatively Christian. This is what they say, if you need comfort, what should you do?

Number one, you should have comforting smells. Lavender, rose, cinnamon, vanilla, essential oils, it helps signal your brain to relax. So if you�re having a hard time, maybe you have some essential oils.

Number two, childhood objects. This lady said, turn to simple items like blanket, a blanket stuffed animal, or even an action figure. Remember Action Jackson? He used to have GI Joes, he was like a GI Joe.

If you need comfort, according to Guidepost, number three, go out into nature. You can feel awed by nature, and it can make you feel better. Now that�s got a little truth to it, because of course, God�s natural creation and his revelation.

Number four, if you need comfort, reliable reads. My go-to is my collection of Kathy comics. That�s not my go-to collection. If you need to have Kathy comments, I think that�s going to even be worse than Kathy comics.

Number four, reliable reads. Read your favorite books. Number five, instrumental music. Number six, soothing self-talk. Also, if you need comfort, and by the way, I�ll get to the real stuff here in a second.

This is just a little bit of a laugh. You need to stretch your body, take a shower, visualize a peaceful image. Here�s one. Speak compassionately to yourself. You have to be kinder to yourself. Reach out, ground yourself, and what they mean by that is you�re supposed to take your shoes off and walk outside in the dirt, because that�s kind of a connection.

Practice mindfulness, move your body, zoom out, and then maybe my favorite thing. This is going to be a new thing on No Compromise Radio. I�m sure we�re going to get lots of big givers and donors because of this.

That is practice alternate nostril breathing. Nostril breathing. I wonder if S. Lewis Johnson, maybe he�s a nostril breather, or maybe Machen, he might be a nostril breather. Maybe Keith Matheson, he might be a nostril breather.

Or maybe even Dennis Johnson, what if he�s a nostril breather? That�s all I have here for props at No Compromise Radio Ministry. By the way, this is fun. Back here on my desk area at night, I have books that have really influenced me over the last few years.

Let me give you three of them. This is Hard to Get, Covenant Justification and Pastoral Ministry by R. Scott Clark. He edited that. That is a book that is very valuable to me. The one that has come out recently that you should read is Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund.

He took Thomas Goodwin�s book about Christ, I think All Love Excelling or something, and redid it. Excellent read. And then one that is super important, The Whole Christ by Sinclair Ferguson. I did not know, Ajay, that alternate nostril breathing comes from yoga.

That�s interesting. The Whole Christ. I don�t know if I�ve told this story on No Compromise Radio before, but I saw Sinclair Ferguson a couple of years ago, and I�ve met him before and I�m taking classes, and so I went up to him and said, �Dr. Ferguson, good to see you again.

Thanks for the message. I want you to know that The Whole Christ book has changed my life. I think it�s changed my ministry, the way I preached, and I just want to thank you because it really, really has changed my life and ministry.

And then he just grabbed me by the hand and kind of held my hand like, �Oh, isn�t that touching? Thank you. That�s wonderful. And so anyway, I appreciated that. So just some books, and you know we�re ADD on No Compromise Radio, OCD�did I shut that door?

Nahum as the Book of Comfort

What do you do for comfort? Well, I�m thinking about the book of Nahum, how to receive comfort from God versus comfort from food and other things. I don�t know if you�ve read Nahum lately. Three intense chapters.

Chapter one is kind of like a prelude to war, and then chapters two and three you experience that very war. I haven�t preached Nahum in my life. I�m 60 years old. I�m not getting any younger, so I thought I would try to preach Nahum for many reasons.

One, I hadn�t preached it. Two, it�s fast-paced. It�s like when I used to ride a motorcycle as a kid, and you just turn the accelerator wide. We call it wide open, full bore, and that�s what the language is like.

It is racing. It is fast-paced. I wanted to preach Nahum because I wanted the church to understand how does a Christian read Nahum. That�s kind of loud. That�s a furnace over there. As a matter of fact, I don�t think that man over there, I don�t think he nostril breathes either.

You can�t see him very well maybe. Martin Luther, he�s not a nostril breather. This is why I don�t do many shows at home. Let�s see. Alternating nostrils now. Alex said, �Good. Daniel Ray Comfort says, �To ground yourself on a wire that is tapped into the ground.

I guess you could do that. Maybe that�s why it�s called grounded. I also wanted to teach Nahum because it�s the sequel to Jonah. I mentioned last show that let�s say about 100 years after Jonah went to Nineveh and gave them the message of repentance that Assyria as a country, Nineveh as a city, they had not kept up their repentance and they had spiraled back into what they were doing.

It was a very bad deal. Their repentance was short-lived. Here is a fascinating no-co fact that I did not know and I�m going to be glad to tell you. If you read your Bible in the Septuagint, that is the Greek version of the Old Testament written in Hebrew, and so we have the Greek version of that Old Testament, the book that follows Jonah is what do you think?

Yeah, that�s right. Isn�t that fascinating? The book that follows Jonah in the Septuagint, including in Eastern Orthodox churches, is the book of Nahum, which means comfort. If you take Nehemiah and contract it like we do here in New England, we have Leomenister or Leicester and we contract those into Lemenster or Lester, then we have Nehemiah contracted into Nahum, like Capernaum, where Jesus ministered, and it simply means Yahweh is my comfort or Yahweh is comfort.

And so the people in Judah need to know that God is going to comfort them by coming in and taking care of his business, as it were, justice for the Assyrian oppressors. And so I think what I want to do tonight with the time that I have, which is twenty-four and a half minutes, that�s our show time.

By the way, if you ever ask the question, �Why do we do twenty-four and a half minutes It�s because it was a thirty-minute show for the radio station. We�re only on one radio station now, and that is up in Alaska.

Who knows if anybody listens? Maybe they�re out there hunting grizzly or something like that in Alaska. Where do you go for comfort? Well, the first thing I think I want to tell you tonight is that if you�d like comfort in these oppressed times, and that�s essentially what�s happening with the book of Nahum, God�s people are oppressed and they need comfort.

Where do they go? Answer, what you�re going to have to do is you�re going to have to embrace all of Scripture. If you want fleeting comfort, then you go any place besides the Bible. If you�d like real comfort, you�re going to have to go to the Bible.

The God of Nahum and the Problem of Sheila-ism

Now, of course, to be on No Compromise Radio, a special Gnostic group that you�re in, I know you already believe that. I think what some people end up doing when they read the book of Nahum, it is so blunt, it is so wild, it is so �God is jealous, God is avenging, God is vengeance on His enemies.

I mean, it really is one of those books, when you read it, I encourage you to read it tonight, you might almost be embarrassed. You might want to say, �You know what, I don�t know. My God is a God of love.

By the way, don�t you hate it when people do that? �Well, my God would never send anybody to hell, and my God is a God of love, and my God would do such and such. I mean, your God is a God of your own imagination.

It�s an idol because the God with whom you have to do is the God of Scriptures. He reveals himself generally in nature, and specifically in the Bible. Now, there�s a little phrase that I have always loved.

I think I first heard it on The White Horse Inn with Michael Horton, and it is �Sheila-ism. And for Mr. Reddy, it�s not Sue Sheila-ism, it is Sheila-ism. But Sheila-ism came about with a man named Robert Bella, and he wrote a book called Habits of the Hearts.

And here�s what he says, that there was a lady that he called Sheila, maybe it was a different name, but she said this, and she was a nurse, by the way, �I believe in God. I�m not a religious fanatic.

I can�t remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It�s Sheila-ism, just my own little voice. It�s just try to love yourself, be gentle with yourself, you know, I guess take care of each other.

I think God would want us to take care of each other. So Sheila has a religion, not external, not from the outside, not something that�s objective, not something revealed from God, but it is from the heart.

It�s what I think. It�s called Sheila-ism. And by the way, if there are over 200 million Americans, guess how many religions there are if Sheila-ism is predominant? And it is. Probably over 100 million different religions in America.

We�re not talking about India here, we�re talking about America because Sheila-ism goes to the inside. Sheila-ism is forget external authority, forget some kind of norm, forget something that�s subjective and reproducible and from the outside, and it goes to the inside.

Sheila, according to Don Cayley, has a code of ethics, but it is no longer connected to a sacred text or an observing deity. It�s personal, and here�s the part that I like, and unpublished. Sheila abides by Sheila-ism.

Sheila-ism is good for Sheila, but it doesn�t build a community. Nobody but Sheila knows what the codes are of Sheila-ism. Often Sheila doesn�t know herself until something doesn�t feel right. And so I come to the world, and I think I�m going to interpret it the way I want to, and it�s called �Mike-ism.

And you come to the world and it�s called �YouTube-ism or it�s called �Connor-ism it�s called �Daniel-ism. Or what if it is �Nahum-ism Can you imagine when you read the words in Nahum 1 .2, �The Lord is a jealous and avenging God.

The Lord Yahweh is avenging and wrathful. Yahweh takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. I mean, you can feel the pacing of this, can you not? �The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.

I know many people. I don�t think you do, but I know many people that would literally cringe to think about a God like that. I mean, a God who isn�t love, love, love. All we need is love. My God is a God of love.

My God is this. My God is that. I never hear those people say, �My God is a God who has wrath. My God is a God who has vengeance. My God is a God who is just. Why don�t we talk that way? Did you know Nahum 1, verses 2 -8 is a praise psalm?

It�s a song about God. What does the oppressed person want? I�d like relief. And before relief is given, and it is, the nature and essence of God is revealed in this song. I know all of you believe this, but just to remind you that our ideas of God have to be based on what Scripture teaches.

They cannot be based on what we think, feel, say, do, polls, opinions, etc. Otherwise, we will fashion a God that is profitable for nothing, Isaiah 44, 10. We can�t just come up with our own idea of who God is because it would be an idol.

God has to reveal himself, and we have to listen to his self-description. All Scripture is read by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. And the only way we know about God is by what he tells us.

He�s the one that informs us. So I just want to make sure that when you come to the book of Nahum, it is a good antidote for people that say, �Well, you know, the Old Testament God is a God of wrath, and the New Testament is a God of love.

This is a good antidote for some people who say, �Well, you know what, I�m only going to believe in the red letters of the Bible. When you read the Minor Prophets�minor meaning only, shorter, not because they�re insignificant�when you read Nahum, you�re going to have to come to grips with who God is.

Could it be, dear listener, that the only reason people are unfamiliar with Nahum is that it is so wildly I don�t know what the next word is. Who talks like Nahum? When�s the last time you heard a song that contains the theology of Nahum?

When�s the last time you heard a preacher preach Nahum? When�s the last time you heard a preacher preach on hell, wrath, or justice? I know faithful ones do, and many of your pastors do, but these things are rare.

If you like comfort, the only way you�re going to get comfort is found in the nature of God. It�s not in who other people are, and it�s not found in you. Let�s think about this for a second with the nation and politics.

Some trust in horses, some trust in chariots, some trust in the election is going to be overturned, some trust in, well, potentially President-elect Biden will care about people outside the womb more than Republicans will, and the list goes on and on and on.

For most people that are listening now, probably you�re more conservative, and you�ll say, �Well, what�s going to happen within 100 days of the new President-possible-elect Biden You�re going to have all kinds of transgender issues, you�re going to have all kinds of religious deals, you�re going to have a Supreme Court that could go from 9 to 15 easily, you�re going to have a filibuster in the Senate, go bye-bye if the two people come, if the two Democrats win the Georgia Senate races, where are you going to go?

What are you going to do? And so, the where is going to be the person, the where is going to be the who, where can I find comfort? It has to be in the person and the nature of God. And by the way, I�ve talked to somebody even recently, and they said they rarely read their Bible, they�re a Christian.

So I want to remind you that you ought to regularly read your Bible, because if you want comfort, you�re going to find comfort in the character and the nature of God. I�ve said many times that when my mom was sick and dying of cancer, I think she�s been dead now for 13 years, she would just rehearse the attributes of God, A through Z, or if you�re British, Zed, and she would start thinking, okay, A, Almighty, B, and she�d have to think of something, well, God is beautiful, God is bountiful, God is bold, God is something that starts with a B.

Can you think of something with a B? C, God is compassionate and caring. D, God is a deliverer. God, E, He is, you know, F, G, and by the time you get to X, you�re already thinking about the problem properly through the lens of God.

What would you use for X, by the way, if you had to describe God? Xenos or something, like He�s foreign or something? I don�t know what you would say. If you want comfort, Nahum is the book that drives you to say, I can�t go within, I can�t go without, I have to look up and say, you know what, it�s going to have to be God.

It is the Lord Jesus, remember, who said, �Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father�s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you, and I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am, you may also be.

The place to go for comfort, you all know, and I know as well, is to the scriptures. And whether those scriptures teach of God as a wrathful, avenging God who is jealous or a God who is, what Daniel said, �God won�t use my bones as a xylophone at resurrection.

Well, at least you�re thinking, right, at least you�re thinking along those lines. 2 Corinthians, for instance, I regularly think to myself, chapter 1, about the comfort of God. How many times do you hear the word comfort here?

I mean, where are you going to go for comfort? Comfort food? Comfort nostril breathing? Comfort, okay, the answer is scriptures. Listen, �Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

For we share abundantly in Christ�s sufferings, so through Christ we shall share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation, and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.

Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. So Nahum is one of those books that drives me to, you have to be regularly reading your Bible.

I regularly read the Gospels. If you ask me what I do on a typical day, for instance, this morning, I got up, I made some coffee, I sat down with my Bibles. This is going to sound like I'm bragging, but I read a section in the Greek New Testament.

Today I was reading Galatians chapter 1 about God's pure gospel, and even if an angel comes and teaches a different gospel, let them be anathema in this great God who delivers us from this present evil age.

And then I read Proverbs chapter 5, because I believe today is Proverbs 5 day, that is the fifth of the month. Then I began to read Exodus 15, because that's our scripture reading, and so I'm just reading the Bible.

Then I was getting dressed and I was listening to, on my ESV study Bible app, John 5 and 6 and 7. I'm just trying to read the Bible. I'm not that smart, I'm not that wise, I just know that my mind has to be reprogrammed, brainwashed, washed, to use the language of Romans 12, to be renewed.

That's what I need. I don't think I've ever shared this before on No Compromise Radio, but when I first got saved, I thought to myself, I don't know this Bible, but I'm going to know this book. It was almost like a pride thing.

I'm going to get to know this book. When my dad died, the pastor, I was not a believer, handed me the Bible and said, the Lutheran pastor said, what do you want me to say, Mike, about your dad from the Bible?

I don't know. I don't even know what's in that book. So I just said, you know what, you just pick what you think is appropriate. I'm kind of hurting now. But on the inside, I said to myself, I'm never going to say no to that question again.

I'm going to know what's in that book. Well, that's just all pride. But on the positive side, if you'd like comfort, it's found in the scriptures. That's the only place you can go. And so I'm going to get on your case for a second here.

You watch too much Fox News. You watch too much Gateway Pundit. You watch way too much Newsmax. You watch way too much Breitbart. You watch way too much, I don't know what you watch. Not that I'd ever watch any of those.

But if you want comfort, it's not found in those places. If Donald Trump gets back in, is that going to solve all the problems? Well, I may want that. That's not the real issue now, is it? Well, my name is Mike Abendroth.

This is No Compromise Radio. 24 and a half minutes goes by quickly. So we'll see you real soon next time.

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.