Outrageous Things People Tell Pastors (Part 2)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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

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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.�

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

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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

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. It happens to be a Tuesday. What is

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Tuesday in Spanish? Do we know? No. We�ve got �Lunes,

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Martes, Miercoles.� Yes, it�s like in German, we�ve got �Mittwoch, �midweek.� Martes, is it?

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�Lunes, Martes.� Yeah, okay. Yeah, �Miercoles.� �Huevos, Rancheros.�

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Si, como no. Anything happening in your life or ministry or you�ll stick around for a few more years?

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What�s the scoop there? Well, at least for the next six months, it looks like it, yeah. That�s kind of how

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I plan things, every six months and I just say, okay, should I stay or should I go now? Make Jones kind of thing.

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Somebody just emailed us a while ago, Steve, and they said, �We�ve been listening. We heard about your show through Worldview Weekend and we like the punk rock references.�

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Do they really? Yeah, new wave, new age. What do we care? Well, you know, maybe someday we�ll do a, you know, like a top 10 album show, you know.

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That�d be very helpful. Well, we get the spiritual implications of some of these top 10 albums and, you know, people think we have the same theology, but then when it comes to musical taste, then sometimes it veers off.

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Get happy. Remember the old � Elvis goes home. �the old veer offense? Yes, I do. Uh -huh. Wishbone veer?

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Well, I think the veer only had two running backs, but we digress. I think

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Vermeer put that in at UCLA, actually. The Wishbone that Barry Switzer�s Oklahoma Sooners used to run in the 70s with Marcus Dupree and Billy Simms.

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To their shame. To their shame. And who was that quarterback? Jamal somebody? Jamel Holloway.

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Yeah. I think they had � Man, they were so good. Yeah. It was insane. They were. Then what happened?

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I think, you know, some kind of � well, Switzer got in some kind of trouble, but then he wound up at the

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Cowboys, and so I don�t remember the whole thing. Did you watch that ESPN 3030 on Brian and the

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Ba�s or the Ba�s and Brian? No, not a big Ba�sworth fan. Well, he was in the storage unit going through his old clippings with his son who�s in high school, and he was saying that the

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Ba�s took me over kind of thing, and I let myself be someone I didn�t want to. And he was looking back with regret on the stuff that he did.

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So super arrogant, full of himself. Maybe he should run for president. Well, maybe.

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I was just thinking, you know, I�d love to see Brian Ba�sworth become a Christian. That would be good.

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Right? Because then the kingdom could really come in faster because we have celebrities who have a larger platform. Survey said.

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All right. Last time we were looking at Tom Rainer�s funny things, basically weird things, super arrogation things that pastors were told and church leaders were told by congregants.

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And it was kind of funny. We were trying to teach some spiritual truth as we went through the list, right? Like what kind of truth were we trying to go for?

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I think we were kind of Bible -lacking last time. Only people who are only men who preach in suits can be saved.

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Yeah. Well, it�s just – it�s somewhere in the Bible. I think if we use the

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Bible like Grant Jeffries used to with the signature of God and you put things through the binary vortex.

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The search engine to prove whatever you want. Yeah, you can do that. Well, if you take every 13th letter until you get to the 13th chapter and then you switch to �

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You can do that with the Koran, can�t you? Yeah, you can. Or Moby Dick or whatever. Yeah.

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I�m fascinated by the way with whaling in Nantucket and Martha�s Vineyard, New Bedford, and I�m reading a new story about some whaling ship that went astray.

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So I can�t remember what it�s called. It�s so good. It just had me riveted.

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It was so good. Okay. We left off at number 10 last time. Number 10 is �Your wife never compliments me about my hair or dress.�

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And on a parenthetical note, there could be a reason for that. �Your wife never compliments me about my hair or dress.�

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I mean, what an odd thing to say, you know, the pastor or, you know, a church leader. �Hey,

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Pastor, your wife never compliments me about my� Now, I would presume this is a woman.

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�But about my hair or dress.�

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Well, I mean, really, seriously, who is concerned about such things?

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Well, maybe we could insert a Brian Reagan �Welcome to you planet� or something like that.

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Now it�s all about you. I mean, come on. Well, I will say this because I�m not a pastor�s wife and I do have a desire to stick up for pastor�s wives.

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Why is it, do you think, that pastor�s wives take such a beating?

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Not in every church, many people are kind and sweet to the pastor�s wife and they treat her like they would just another sister in the body.

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But why is it, do you think, that pastor�s wives regularly, sadly, they get the verbal beatings?

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Well, because they get treated instead of like a brother or sister, well, a sister in Christ, they get treated like they�re an employee, you know.

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I mean, the same reason the pastor gets beat up, because you can, right? He�s disposable.

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But see, the interesting thing to me is, if a pastor has to take his or her lumps, just kidding, if a pastor has to take his lumps, then okay, fine.

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You know, he�s the one that gets paid and I understand all that and sometimes it doesn�t feel good, but this is just the way it goes.

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But unless the wife is on the payroll, then shouldn�t she be treated like anyone else at the local church who just serves because they�ve been loved by the

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Lord? Well, yes. But it doesn�t work that way. So maybe,

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I guess, if you want to criticize the pastor�s wife all the time, then maybe we should put her on salary. How would that work?

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I don�t think that would go over really big in a lot of churches, but you know, I think the other thing is sometimes it�s just like, you know, maybe we�ve said all that we can say about the pastor, so now we need another target that�s going to kind of hurt the pastor.

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So let�s shoot at his wife, too. You know, why not? Yeah, I think it�s open season.

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Don�t you need a license for that sometimes? Rapid season, duck season. Steve, you missed number nine, though.

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I developed cancer because you don�t preach from the KJV. Oh, I did skip that. Oh, yeah, sorry. I developed cancer because you don�t preach from the

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King James Version. Now, that can�t be true. I would like to have some context for that one.

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You know, I mean, could it be a joke? I guess it could be. But, you know, I developed cancer because you don�t preach from the

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King James Version. Okay. I see some of the crazy stuff with King James Only folks online once in a while, and I just try to ignore it because it�s so crazy.

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But, Steve, when I was in Branson and I was speaking, I preached on the doctrine of hell and how we should be thankful that we�re not going and that we should be evangelistic so other people don�t go.

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And a guy came up to me afterwards and I was on the little note card and we had some books and Kim was there and other people were coming in just saying, �You know,

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I don�t like that tie you have.� And they were just there. They wanted to talk afterwards. And the guy came up and said, �What version do you use ?�

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And I thought, �This is in front of everybody.� And I said, �Well, today was a mixture of the

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New American Standard and the English Standard Version. I assume you want the King James Only, right? No, I want the

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Message. And I said, �Sir, I will not continue this conversation unless you can tell me one time the

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New American Standard or English Standard Version was in error in its translation compared to the

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King James in the doctrine and in light of the doctrine of hell. The Texas Receptus was inspired.

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And he couldn�t come up with an answer. So I said, �Basically, next, I want to talk to somebody who actually is not so mild and myopic that it�s

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King James.� Yeah, I mean, I�m sure the guy was sitting there with his Greek thesaurus, you know, just kind of Greek dictionary just kind of going through and picking out the inaccuracies of the

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ESV. Maybe this is the guy that talked about the cancer and that was going to be his next statement, but I was interrupted by myself.

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Terrible. I mean, that�s a really odd thing, number nine. Okay, number 11. Not enough people signed up for the church golf tournament.

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You have poor leadership skills. Now I can actually hear that one, right? I can believe that.

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It�s the pastor�s fault that people don�t sign up for stuff. Why is it that if there�s a sign up, not many sign up, but if the pastor does call for an announcement, whatever, that�s fine and I�ll do that.

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We can make announcements from the pulpit, we can put it in the bulletin, but the best way to make sure somebody signs up for whatever the event is is to have somebody out there in the lobby putting the glom on people.

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You know, that�s a great ministry, putting the glom on people. Glom, metal, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Well, you know, I know Titus says that elders and overseers should be hospitable, lovers of good, self -controlled, upright, wholly disciplined, and other things including good golf tournament leaders.

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Well, I mean, getting back to the point, there�s a general call that goes out to the church.

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There�s a general call that goes out to the church to a pastor who married interrationally. Wow. You are living in sin.

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You shouldn�t be married to each other. And it says, you know, in parentheses, that one is not worthy of commentary.

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I think it is, because that�s shameful. I mean, that�s really shameful.

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That person, I mean, maybe you don�t want to give them a two by four there in front of everybody, but they need to understand what the

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Bible says. Steve, I�m trying to be serious here, no more kind of Tuesday humor.

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I think when someone talks like that, maybe we need to explain the doctrine of justification and how

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Jesus, the God -man, right, there�s one mediator between God and man, I think we work through that, but isn�t there a time then when you say, you know what, if you have to keep thinking this way and talking this way, today should be your last day at the church.

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I would agree. I mean, somebody who, I mean, they need to understand Galatians 3 .28, they need to understand

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Genesis 1 .27, they need to understand a lot of things, right? But if you have in your mind the idea that, say, blacks and whites can�t be married or Hispanics and Asians can�t be married or whatever, you�ve got a real problem and your problem is you don�t understand the truth of God�s creation, you don�t understand the truth about sin and redemption and there are a lot of things you don�t understand, but yeah,

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I would say if that�s your issue, especially if you�re going to, well,

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I mean, if you�re going to think about anybody that way, but if you�re going to talk to the pastor that way, it probably does need to be your last week.

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I mean, this country, you know, to bring up something like that in this country is offensive because it basically just denies the last 150 years of cleansing ourselves from that, but biblically, it�s just worse than that.

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You really have a problem. I just cannot believe people would actually say it. It makes me think, can this actually be true that somebody would utter those words to someone else?

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I don�t know what to do. If you�re willing to say that, you�ve got problems that I don�t think

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I can help you with. Steve, years ago, my wife Kim, we were married 26 years ago.

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We had to fill out some form and she needed a social security card reduplicated or whatever, duplicated, and so the people in charge said you�ve got to have your marriage license because you couldn�t find it.

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So we lived in North Hollywood when we first were married and they didn�t have any records.

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So we thought maybe when we got married, we didn�t file the forms technically and so we�re technically not married, but here

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I am as a pastor at the church and everything else. Come to find out, it was registered up in Santa Cruz and so we found it and all the paperwork was done in the afternoon after church service so we could finally get married in the eyes of the government.

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That would have been fun. Some good rumors. How about this one? This happens a lot.

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I don�t like the brand of donuts in the foyer. Some people don�t like it when we have donuts. Here�s the problem.

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People will just complain about nearly everything. I don�t like the donuts you get.

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I don�t like the coffee you get. I don�t like the fact that we do have coffee or that we do have donuts. We need more fellowship.

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I don�t like the fact that people hang out in the foyer. It�s like Goldilocks and the

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Three Bears. Everybody wants to complain about something. So let�s talk about, biblically, if we have problems with complaining,

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I know I do at times, then what�s the replacement theology? I don�t mean

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Israel, lack of Israel, but what do we do instead? Paul says you�re in Christ in Ephesians 1 -3 and then don�t steal, work, don�t lie, tell the truth.

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What should we do if we�ve got a problem with complaining and running our mouths? These are funny, but I can find myself getting in the same mode except instead of me, complaining about the preachers, then

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I can complain about the congregation. Yeah, use your tongue to edify people, to build them up, to say things that are going to encourage them and point them in a positive direction.

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That�s the essence of Ephesians 4 and listen, it�s easy, read through James, it�s easy to not control your tongue, it�s hard to control your tongue.

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It�s easy to say whatever�s on your mind, it�s hard to actually think about what you�re going to say and purposefully say my goal in what

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I am going to say is going to be to build people up, to help them think rightly.

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You know, I always think this whole idea of being critical, how about just do all things without grumbling or disputing?

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How about just having a happy attitude about things, a positive thing in light of being forgiven for all my sins, being spared from eternal hell and eternal judgment and the wrath of God.

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Maybe I should have a positive attitude about things. Do you think that spills over into how we parent our children as well?

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Our children, they�re born sinners, right, and Adam�s fall and consequently they�re

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Adam�s nature and let�s say they�re not saved so they have no Holy Spirit to help them do anything and then, you know, all the things that the kids don�t do are things the people do.

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Yeah, and you know, fueled by the media, I think men and husbands in particular in Hollywood, they get blasted all the time and so I want to make sure on the flip side, when was the last time you said something nice to your wife or said something nice about your wife to other people?

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I never want to hear someone tell me about all the things their wife doesn�t do because let�s go back to the cross, pal, preaching to myself, go back to the cross, what do we deserve and what do we get?

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Shouldn�t we be the happiest, most joyful people in the world and if God has in His glory overlooked a sin by technically punishing the son in our place, shouldn�t we be happy?

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Yeah, well, think about this, complaining about your spouse, that�s something you expect to hear in the workplace.

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You know, that�s something, that�s a secular thing, it�s a sinful thing. So, you know, you�re about to say, is it going to edify, is that what

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I really want to say? And I think people would say a lot less than they actually do.

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Well, you know what I�ve noticed, Steve, and I�ve tried to implement this in my own life, if you talk a lot about the

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Lord Jesus, I think of Acts 1, the witnesses, you�re going to be my witnesses,

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Jesus said to those men, so let�s have some talk about what

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God�s done in our life and who He is and what we�ve been reading and how compelled we are to study this

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God -man who�s going to return. I think that would be helpful. I�m just thinking about be thou my vision, you know, thou my best thought by day or by night.

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And I just think, you know, if you�re thinking about Christ, you know, let�s just put it this way, if you wake up in the morning and your first thought is about the gospel and about how blessed you are that you�re not going to hell and what a great

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God He is, I think that can certainly change your morning.

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And I think, you know, if you do that periodically during the day, if you just think about the gospel, I think it�s a great way to start the day.

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First Timothy chapter 3, Paul says, �Great indeed we confess.�

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We all together agree with this great statement about the mystery of godliness.

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�He was manifest in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.�

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And when the focus is that God -man, then it�s hard to sin but I do want to talk about number 20, �You don�t have ashtrays in the fellowship hall.�

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I love that. Yeah, and I like what he says in the parenthesis there, �Yes, we do.

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They are right next to the spittoons for your chewing tobacco.� Now, we�ve had this conversation before and probably on No Compromise Radio.

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I actually think that if you smoke a couple packs you try to quit.

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But when you first get saved and you still are smoking cigarettes, that�s the least of my worries. I actually want people to drive up in the church parking lot, put out their cigarette and then walk into the sanctuary because I don�t think, at least in the vice list that I�ve seen in Galatians 5,

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Revelation 21, 1 Corinthians 6, and Romans 1, I haven�t found tobacco in there yet.

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I don�t smoke. I mean, we could debate that, but I just think, for somebody to actually complain about that in the church, �Look, you can�t even smoke in most restaurants these days.�

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Maybe this is a European church. You know what I thought we should do, Steve? Let�s get some cigarette ashtrays, the ones that have the sand on the top.

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Remember, you�ll see those with the �M� signature for the sand, so it�s fresh in the morning and it�s got the

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Marriott symbol on the top, and we could do that for like NoCo and smash down the NoCo thing and people could put their cigarettes out in the

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NoCo logo. That�s just beautiful. BBC. No.

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Alright, you pick one. I picked the last one. Okay, let�s see. Yeah, here we go. No. 21.

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�Did you see me waving in the back of the worship center? You preached too long. It was time to eat.�

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True story. I came back from vacation and looked up when

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I was in the pulpit, and there is a massive new clock above the soundboard room area.

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That�s pretty impressive. Well, it�s handy, or I�ve been helping some men at the

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Master Seminary in their D -Min program, the Doctor of Ministry program, critiquing their sermons, and I pretty much regularly have to tell them, �Steve, preach shorter sermons.�

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We all think, �Oh, I preach 55 minutes, I preach 58 minutes ,� and sometimes you just need to finish the thought and I get all that, but I think the number of sermons,

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I�m not sure, but I�d rather have people want more. I can�t wait until next week to see what else the text unfolds, and I want that, versus here we go again.

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But you know, I�ve been to Bruce Springsteen concerts and he�ll play for three hours. If people can take that, he�ll play in front of the

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Xbox. Probably three days. I know, yeah, he wouldn�t even have to go to the bathroom, so it�s selective attention and there�s no disorder here, there�s just other issues.

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Okay, number 23, because we�re going to keep on the preaching thing. Okay, we got 40 seconds.

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Oh, do we? Okay. You don�t look at our worship center enough when you preach. It�s 40 seconds worth.

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Rainer said in parentheses, that�s because you were on that side. Well, you know, eye contact is important, but what�s more important is faithful delivery of the word, and when you can get a pastor who looks up once in a while, then

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I think that�s when you appreciate that.

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Please pray for me. Well, Mike Abendroth, Steve Cooley here, 25 Weird Things, maybe you send us the weird things you said too.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to the gospel.

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We�re right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org

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or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE if staff or management.