2021 Summer of Interviews: Pastor Steve Wetmore 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. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

My name is Mike Abendroth. And in the old days, it used to be no compromise because I didn't want to compromise, and I think that's still a good thing to strive for.

But as time has gone on, and theology has matured, we say we're no compromise radio now for different reasons.

Number one, because out of everybody that's ever existed, only the Lord Jesus never compromised.

He said in the book of John, I always do what's pleasing to the Father. And secondly, I like to talk about the

Lord's work at Calvary, because on the cross, can you imagine, dear listener, not one of his attributes was compromised.

And as Sinclair Ferguson says, every one of his attributes simultaneously on display throughout his life, of course, but especially we see that on the cross.

And so that's why we're called No Compromise Radio. Mondays, it's a sermon of mine. Tuesdays, I talk to Pastor Steve as we discuss issues here at the local church.

My pastor friend, Steve Cooley. Wednesdays, I interview authors, theologians, other pastors.

Thursdays and Fridays, it's kind of a book of Hebrews since I've been preaching that. Today, I have a special guest, and this man and I go back quite a ways.

We had a lot of fun together. We had a lot of discussion about the Lord Jesus and his word together, and it's been many years since we've touched base, and for whatever reason, our paths crossed again.

And I said, Steve Whatmore, you've got to get on No Compromise Radio. Pastor Steve Whatmore, Trinity Reformed Church, welcome to No Compromise Radio.

Well, thanks, Mike. It's good to be on here. Hey, Steve, tell our listeners how we met. I have my version, you have yours.

It's a postmodern world. Tell me, according to your feelings, how do we meet? What happened? Well, it goes way back, actually, doesn't it?

I was thinking as I was driving over to my office today that it's probably over 30 years now, and it was at the

Master's Seminary. We were working, I was a facility supervisor in the night after going to seminary, and you got hired on there to work too, and we just,

I think we met in, I mean, I may have known you in seminary, but I think we really met on the facilities department for Grace Church.

I think so. I think you were my boss. I was. It wasn't a great high position or anything like that, but it was more of, it was every seminary student was working there at the time, and so we worked at our theology pretty well.

It's amazing, you know, we would clean bathrooms and just talk about theological issues, right?

Talk about the Bible, and it would just be hour after hour, and what I loved about that job, Steve, is that it didn't require me to think about the job itself.

In other words, we could talk about theological issues and issues that were surrounding the Lord's Word while we were working, don't you think?

Oh, we hashed out everything. We worked out everything. I mean, we thought we solved all the problems in the world, but yeah, we had a great freedom.

We were working with our hands, but we could just think through things, and we were studying, you know, remember we were studying

Hebrew and Greek, and had our little note cards with us all the time, and getting ready for tests the next day, and it was a really great time.

It really was a school of Christ, too, I think. Well, what

I loved is working behind the scenes, and we'd get to serve, let's say, the Spanish ministry, and then after they were done with their

Bible study, and they'd give us all their tamales, you know, we didn't need that reward, but we sure liked it anyway.

Can you remember, Steve, that we would try to make theological applications? So you'd have to clean the bathrooms, you know, the toilets, and it's, you know, kind of a dirty job, but then we would think about Philippians chapter 3, and how

Paul counted everything as skubalon, and I thought, well, you know what, this is a good illustration of that, right? It certainly was a humiliating job, you know, you're low on the totem pole, and some people, even good

Christians, you know, they treat you differently when you were wearing your suit for seminary, and when you were wearing your custodial t -shirt, and yeah, it really was a special time.

Well, Steve, I have fond memories of those days, and I really, I appreciated your earnestness.

You really wanted to learn, and you wanted to know, and you wanted to be personally persuaded, right?

You just didn't want to have somebody tell you. You wanted to find out for yourself and dig in, and so I really appreciated that about you.

Tell our listeners now a little bit about the church you pastor. It's in Cape, is it Cape Coral, Florida?

We're down here in Southwest Florida, Cape Coral, Florida. Beautiful. We're a sister community with Fort Myers.

People may know us better by Fort Myers, and we're right on the border, and a lot of people who work in Fort Myers live in Cape Coral and vice versa.

Yeah, we're the only URC church until North Carolina, and then they're pretty,

North Carolina Sister Church is rather far away from other churches as well.

Well, Steve, I think this is going to be helpful for our listeners for several reasons. Probably most of the listeners that listen to No Compromise Radio, I mean, there's probably some

PCA folks, maybe some OPC, but my guess is Baptist listen, and Baptist listen.

I'm just kidding. No, I'm just kidding. But you know, out of OPC, PCA, SBC, others, you know, kind of master seminary people or whatever, mainline evangelicalism, a lot of people don't know about the

URC. Maybe they know a little bit through NOCO because of Chris Gordon. As I've promoted, Chris Gordon, I have him on the show a few times.

Tell our listeners about the URC, specifically, so I think if they're visiting someplace, and they're like, well, we've got to try to find a good church.

I mean, these days, if you just look for Baptist when you're visiting, you're out of town, it's not really a good gauge.

Tell our listeners what the URC stands for and why it might be a good church for them to visit sometime, or in a particular case, join.

Yeah, that's a great question because, you know, where do we fit in? We're really Presbyterian and Reformed.

Our government is very much the same. As a matter of fact, we just did a joint hymnal with the OPC that would give your listeners an idea of our connection.

We did a joint hymnal with the OPC, a beautiful new hymnal, and in the back of the hymnal we have the

Westminster Confessions, and we have the Three Forms of Unity, and people aren't familiar with that.

That's the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confessions, and the Canons of Dort. So that's kind of where we're very, very close to the

OPC in our teaching. URC is

United Reformed Churches of North America. You can find us on the website. It's a great website.

We're very conservative. When I came here,

I came out of the PCA, Presbyterian Churches of America, and when

I came to this URC Church in Florida, I really appreciated this local church.

It was very biblical, very serious about the Bible. They were confessional, but they were very pastoral.

We've been around a lot, and sometimes get burned in the church more than anywhere, and so the officers of the

URC Church that I was in invited me to come to a classes. That's a broader meeting, and it was of our eastern

U .S. churches, and usually that's a pastor and elder, a delegate, and so I got to meet many of our churches, and I was just so impressed that these guys are very serious about the

Bible, serious about following Christ, but very pastoral. Steve, as I kind of reflected on your bio a little bit, and I know you personally, but I forgot you were from Vermont, and so see,

I'm up here in Massachusetts now. Maybe that's why I like you, because even though I'm not a New Englander by birth, kind of my attitude is

New Englandish, and so I've got kind of that chip on my shoulder, and then, you know, it's cold here, we have to hunker down,

New England attitude. That's why I like you, because you had that same thing back at seminary. You know, we also had a straightforwardness, the

Northeast has a straightforwardness about it. It's got us in a lot of trouble. Well, you know what, Steve, when

I think about ministry and other things, of course, we want to be kind and nice, and there's a way to say things.

But don't you think, in a world today with all this postmodern, what does it feel like to you?

What does it mean to you? Let's put our finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing before we give an answer.

I personally appreciate a man like you, if I ask you a question, you give me an answer. Now, I might disagree, but you give me the answer.

Why don't men talk like that more often these days, just with a directness, straight aheadness, if you will?

What do you think's happened? Well, first of all, a principled man is so rare.

It is sadly rare today. You know, and being straightforward,

I am very straightforward, and I just always try to temper it with love, and I'm not always good at that.

But there's a—I think, you know, you're asking where that comes from and why we've lost that.

I think it is ultimately that we're more concerned with self and men than we are with God.

I mean, I love God more than anything. I love Jesus Christ more than anything, and so that's my first motivating factor.

And because God is a God of love and has saved me,

He's called me to proclaim Him. And so I want to serve Him, and in that service,

I want to love others. So that compels me to speak. It also compels me to kind of be careful how

I speak and the motive of why I speak, to be compassionate as well as forceful.

But yeah, we're very straightforward down here. I don't know if you've—you know, it's been many years, like we said, but I'm still the same old guy, and thankfully the

Lord has, you know, confirmed that and honored that.

Well, Steve, it reminds me of Galatians. I was reading some Machen on Galatians, and he talks about, just from the get -go, paulus, apostolos, and then the next word translated into English is not, or no.

And from the get -go, here's this book of no. You're going to add to the gospel chapter one, no.

Peter, you're going to say something out of line with the gospel, no. You're going to try to be sanctified by the works of the flesh only, no.

And I thought to myself, you know, there's a lot of yes -men in this world, but there needs to be some men who say, no,

I'm not going to do that. And I think one of the things both of us have learned throughout the years, which to me is freeing.

I mean, they're difficult things of ministry, but so freeing to me is when I get up on a Sunday or speak anyplace, for that matter, and open up the

Bible, I have a lot of problems in my life, and I fall short in many ways. But I am resolved to honor the

Lord when I speak, and if people at the funeral don't like it, then they don't like it. But I'm not going to change the message based on who's listening.

Amen. Amen. So, Steve, tell our listeners— That's the thing. Sometimes you've got to stand before people that they don't want to hear what you've got to say.

I just did a funeral, ironically, not even a week ago, and I knew there were going to be a lot of unbelievers there, and I didn't even have a lot of time.

I didn't have a lot of time, but I just—my outline was,

God did not create us to die, but death is not the worst that can happen to you.

And so the second point is, death's not the worst that can happen to you. Judgment. Hell. That's the worst that can happen to you, from God, facing a just God.

But Jesus Christ has conquered death for those who believe in Him. He conquered death

Himself, and He'll conquer it for you. So it is a message of love. And I had to say,

I'm not saying in a funeral message, you didn't come here to just be attacked, but I came here to tell you that there is life in Christ.

Good. It reminds me of John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress. He has the character Christian, that main character, and when it comes to Hebrews 9 .27,

it's appointed for man once to die and then judgment, Christian, I believe, said something like this through Bunyan.

He said, when it comes to appointed for man once to die, I don't want to do that, and then judgment, and I'm unable to do that.

So I don't want to die, and I'm unable, in and of my own self, to stand before God, who requires perfection in actions, words, deeds, etc.

Steve, you'd like this story, maybe. This is almost like, you know, our listeners today are just overhearing a conversation of two friends.

And this is how I think we talked even back in those days. I officiated a wedding a few days ago.

And it was a couple from our church, a dear couple. And our church building isn't very nice, so they rented another building downtown, an old congregational church, very old, very pretty, that's now a

Unitarian church. And so I said to myself, the first words out of my mouth,

I want to make sure I have down pat. And so this is what I said. I walked out. The bride came down, standing there with her father, and I said, today

I'd like to welcome everyone on behalf of our triune God, God the Father, God the

Son, and God the Spirit. And I made sure to put the definite articles in there, too, so nobody could accuse me of Sibelian heresy.

Steve Wetmore today on No Compromise Radio. You can go to a website, TrinityURC, is it .com

or org? You know, I think it's .com. Oh, yeah, .com, TrinityURC .com,

if you want to hear some of Pastor Steve's messages. I think you'd really be encouraged. Steve, in light of the other comment that I had or question about URC, tell our listeners, if they show up at the church building on Sunday for a worship service on the

Lord's Day, what would that look like? Does it look any different than maybe they think? Maybe they go to a

Calvary Chapel or some Baptist church. Tell us about the liturgy. That's a good question, because that's really,

I think, one of our strengths. Traditional would be maybe too broad, but that would start to approach.

We're so, we really feel like we're still in mainline, we're still following the path of the ancient church and following the path of the

Reformers and in our worship, and so that makes us very sort of radical today.

But if they came in, they would find a very serious worship. I'm not,

I'm kind of opposed to, you know, a worship service being a funeral service.

It's not, it shouldn't be like that, and hopefully that's not the impression, because we should have great joy.

I mean, we've been saved by, from death and from eternal judgment by the great

Savior. We have been given eternal life and everything that the divine mind can think of, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing, so it should be joyful too.

But there's definitely a seriousness and we're coming into the presence of God as a body.

We focus very much on liturgy, that is the form of worship, and we will begin with praise.

We will have a time of confession, corporate confession, where we might read the law, we might read something about commands of Christ for obedience, and we'll confess our sin together, we'll pray in confession.

Our songs will follow that. So if we sing a, if we have a song, if we have a confession time, we'll sing a psalm that is related to confession.

And then we'll have, the gospel will be proclaimed, and then we'll have a responsive time at the end where we'll, we believe that giving will be, giving is part of worship, praise is part of worship, those kind of things, and those will be part of the worship service.

How long do you preach for these days? I, I preach a long time, right?

About 45 minutes. Okay, which to me, that seems long for URC, right?

I think that's a long sermon for a typical URC, but maybe you've got kind of the... I think that's probably long for URC, yeah.

And if people say, you know, let's say somebody comes into the church service and will they, will they say, well, are you preaching through the book of the

Bible, or is it something else? Is there some other kind of format? Is it a sequential exposition?

You know, that's a good question, because we tend to preach expositionally, but we also have in the

URC, which I, I've begun to think is a very good practice, actually,

I was, I thought it was good practice when I came here, but I, although there's a debate on how to describe it, and I don't know if I want to get into that, but it's, we, we, we basically will preach thematically throughout a year through the confession.

One of our services will be, will often be through a book of the

Bible, whereas the second service, and we have two services, and a second service will be preaching thematically through confession.

So we might read the Heidelberg Catechism, and it say that it's on the deity of Christ.

We would preach a sermon about the deity of Christ. We'd read the confession, we might explain the confession a little bit, and then we would go thematically into the scripture and preach on the deity of Christ.

And that way, like, the confession is, is divided into 52 Lords a day, so that we will go through a year teaching our people the essential truths of, of the

Bible, the essential truths of salvation, the essential truths of who

God is. And I think it's a really good practice whether you do it through the confession or not. Every church.

Otherwise, you can, you can preach your pet peeve, you know, you could preach your, you could preach through a book, and you could miss, you know, the forest for the trees.

So that's, that's a very common practice. Matter of fact, we're sort of required to preach through the confession like that.

Okay. Steve, we've got a few minutes left. Let's make this kind of fast. I'm going to tell you a name or a topic, and then you just give me like a 30 -second response.

How's that sound? I'll try. All right. Law, law, but short, short, short now. Law gospel.

Okay. Any comment? Law gospel. Yeah. Crucial, crucial to understand the Bible. We need the law to reveal our sin, and we need, and we need the gospel of Jesus Christ to, to save us.

Okay. And if we, if we don't understand those two things, we're not understanding scripture. The Gospel Coalition.

You know, I, I... You're a URC. You don't even know who they are. That is so funny.

I, I, I will tell you that I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I am constantly reading

Calvin. I have more and more appreciated Calvin. I'm more than his commentaries. I often will read Luther.

Excellent. Yeah. So tell me, um, somebody walks in your church, we've got about a minute left.

Somebody walks in your church and they, and you know, they're kind of dispensational Baptist. What goes through your mind?

How do you kind of coach them through like, you know, the shock factor? First of all, um, we've had a lot of good responses.

I mean, we are made up a lot of, a lot of those backgrounds. Uh, we've had a lot of good responses. Um, we're very similar in the essentials.

And what happens is they start to find out a little later. They go, Oh, well, what do you believe about this? What do you believe about, um, you know, infant baptism and those kinds of things.

I, I, I really relish the opportunity because I've been through that. And I, I just hope they give me a chance to explain it.

And I try, here's what I do. I try to explain it biblically. I do not approach it first from our confessions because they come with the idea that, well, this is just, you know, your tradition, this is just your background.

We need to be able to prove everything we can from the scripture. And then the confessions we can, we can give later.

And, but most people and most people who are serious and all my Baptist brethren, very serious.

I have most of my Baptist brethren that I've known very serious about the gospel, very serious about following Christ, very serious about the family.

So, you know, we make that, we, we make the scripture, we make the, what we agree upon the essential thing.

And then, then we try to, and I try to prove it to them. I definitely try to go after them. I always, you know what I always say to them? I always say to my

Baptist brethren, I tell them about a little bit what I went through because, you know,

Mike, I, I was, I wasn't, I was 37 before I believed in infant baptism.

I, I, that was my holdout. All my children have been baptized as believers.

So I just say, one thing I say to them to get them hooked. So they'll, they'll, they'll think with me and maybe talk with me is no

Baptist has been able to answer Romans 4 .11. That's good.

That's good. Well, time is fleeting. I'm not changing. Everybody now is going, what's Romans 4 .11?

I know. Well, now you think I'm going to land the plane and turn you off because I don't want to answer it myself, but the show, the show, the show must go on.

I don't know. I wouldn't, I wouldn't expect that. Maybe another time, maybe another time we'll, we'll talk about that. That's right. Well, you know what? A good friendly discussion over that.

Steve, what more? I'm so thankful you came on the radio today, trinityurc .com. If you want to pull up some messages, if you're in the

Fort Myers area on the Lord's day, and you want to go worship with Steve, I'm sure he'd be encouraged.

Make sure you say, I heard you on No Compromise radio. Steve, it'll probably just be a matter of time now before you're the big shot celebrity

URC guy. So see, this, this is, this is. Well, after being on your show, yeah. Hey Mike, it's been a real great pleasure and I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thanks for being on today. 508 -835 -3400.