Clay Miller Interview

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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 divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her
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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry. My name is
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Mike Abendroth and I'm your host today. As you know, we have a theme here at No Compromise Radio. Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.
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And the way we like to work it is like this. Mondays, it's usually a tape sermon of mine. Tuesdays, Pastor Steve Cooley, also known as Tuesday Guy.
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We talk about issues in the local church. Thursdays, I try to teach something positive, kind of positive,
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K -love Thursday. And then Friday, we like to go after people. You know,
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Seventh -day Adventism, our emergency elephant room, or something like that. So today, it's
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Wednesday though, and on Wednesdays, I like to interview authors and friends and pastors, those in ministry.
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And today's no different. Today, we're going to be interviewing Clay Miller, an old friend of mine, Pastor Clay Miller, who pastors
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Santan Bible Church in Arizona. Clay, welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry.
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Hello, Mike. It's a blessing to be here. Clay, give us a little background.
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When I met you, you were a big shot at Grace Community Church. I think you were trying to take over for MacArthur, weren't you?
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Well, I certainly wouldn't class on myself as a big shot, but yeah, it was a tremendous blessing.
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So I was at Master's Seminary for four years, and then I was on staff for a couple years as the outreach pastor, and it was a definite blessing.
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My wife and I loved it there, but I went there to get trained, and so after a certain time, it was time to move on and do what
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God had called me to do. And it didn't look to me like they were going to offer me John's job, so I thought
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I'd better go out to some greener pastors. Well, ten years later, he's still there, so that was probably a wise decision.
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Clay, you've even taught a seminar or two, maybe more than that, at the Shepherds Conference. And so it was, if I recall,
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Church Growth Gone Mad. Wasn't that the title of it? Yeah, I had the privilege to do a few different seminars.
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That was one of them, and then a few others related towards evangelism. But yeah, that was one that people seemed to resonate with,
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I don't think because of me, but because of the topic. Did anybody get mad at you at what you said?
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Yeah, I did get some flack for it. I actually got a 13 -page letter from the pastor of a very large church in Southern California that apparently
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I found out after the fact he had paid the full price for the Shepherds Conference tuition just to come to that one seminar.
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And then he wrote me that 13 -page letter, and I wrote him a half -page letter in response, and I just said, you know, thank you very much, appreciate your thoughts and concerns.
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Something along the lines that I can tell were kind of coming from two different philosophies of ministry, but pray that God will use you where you're at, and appreciate that you pray for me.
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Well, that sounds like John Newton's response in controversy, so very good, see?
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On staff at Grace Church and acting very kindly, like John MacArthur himself. Good job.
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Tell us a little bit about your ministry now at Santan Bible Church. People can listen to you at santanbible .org.
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Tell us about the ministry there that the Lord has given you. Oh, sure, Mike. And I tell you what, I feel so very blessed.
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My beloved wife and I, Margie, we sometimes will jokingly ask if there's going to be rewards for us in heaven, because we feel like we're so blessed, and we have such great reward here with our beloved church,
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Santan Bible Church. So our church is about five years old, and I've been here for four and a half years.
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It was actually kind of interesting, Mike, because as you know, I was pastoring a church on the East Coast, and when
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I finished the work that God had called me to do there, and I was coming back to Arizona, back west,
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I should say, and was going to land in Arizona, and right about the same time I was wrapping up my ministry on the
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East Coast, there was a wonderful group of families from a large church here in the Phoenix area that were going and starting what would be
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Santan Bible Church. And God, once we landed here in the Phoenix area,
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God brought us together, and it's just been a tremendous, tremendous blessing. So we've been growing spiritually for really much, pretty much from the beginning, and then
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God's been blessing us just recently in the last year or so with some wonderful and numerical and giving growth as well.
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But I have the same philosophy as you do, Mike, that our focus is and always will be on the spiritual growth. Clay, where is
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Gilbert, Arizona? What's a big city that it's near, or where would that be? Gilbert's a suburb of Phoenix.
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So Margie calls it Mayberry Chic. It's often listed as one of the safest and one of the nicest places to live.
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Not from a standpoint of affluence or anything like that, but it's just very family -oriented, very safe.
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And we've lived in a few different places, and we, again, consider it very much a blessing to be able to raise our family here in Gilbert, especially in the context of Santan Bible.
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Tell us a little bit about your preaching philosophy. If someone were to come to Santan Bible Church and they were to listen to you, do you teach topically, textually, expositionally?
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I know the answer, but tell us what they should expect if they would come. Definitely they should expect expositional and expository preaching.
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So I'm not very clever, not very great at myself, so I can't even imagine trying to come up with topics or to preach topically.
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I just don't have that much creativity in me. And that, of course, lines up with my philosophy of ministry, which
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I know is what you share as well, Mike. And for the most part, I just want to let God speak for Himself.
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So we go through passage by passage, verse by verse, and I had not long ago finished
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Mark and spending a couple of years there, and then right now I'm right in the middle of James.
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So that's basically the philosophy. And at the beginning at Santan, there was a little bit of struggle and a little bit of discomfort.
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We lost some folks, but no real bitterness or anything like that. It was just, you know,
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I could tell that people—you know, there's some folks that said, well, it's not really for me. But God really has been blessing it, and it's exciting to see the lights come on in the eyes of the sheep and to just see
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God do His work through His Word and see people grow in their appetite and hunger and thirst for the
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Word. We're talking to Clay Miller today, pastor of Santan Bible Church in Gilbert, Arizona.
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Clay and I have been friends for many years. Even though you abandoned me here on the East Coast five years ago, we're still friends.
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Clay, maybe some of the folks would be encouraged to hear you talk about God's faithfulness in the middle of your wife
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Margie's battle with cancer. I think of 2 Corinthians chapter 1 about the
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God of mercy, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our affliction.
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I know how important wives are in gospel ministry, and then to have your wife as your main ministry as she is going through cancer.
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Walk us through that. I'm sure people are listening today, and they have a loved one who's sick. And tell us a little bit about God's faithfulness in your life and in Margie's life.
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Well, Mike, it's one of those things where, you know, no one, no man would ever choose this path to see the wife that they so dearly love go through the kind of suffering that I've had to see my beautiful wife go through.
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But it's something that from the very beginning, I think I might have mentioned this to you before, Mike, in a different context, that Margie has said from the very beginning that she believes that God has handed her this trial on a silver platter.
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So Margie was diagnosed in April of 2010 with advanced breast cancer.
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And so she had a radical bilateral mastectomy four or five days after her original diagnosis.
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And then in November of 2010, she was diagnosed where we had realized that it was discovered that the cancer metastasized onto her spine.
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So she was diagnosed with bone cancer on the spine. And again, four or five days after that diagnosis, she underwent surgery where they removed her destroyed vertebrae and the cancerous tumor.
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And then it's been, you know, some people would say kind of a cancer roller coaster since then. From a physical standpoint, she's gone through two different treatments of radiation.
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She right now is actually right in the middle of aggressive chemotherapy. And certainly we would appreciate everyone's prayers towards that.
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But through this all, it's just been a fantastic platform for the gospel. And Margie has,
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I remember times more than once where we've been sitting at the kitchen table or somewhere else with tears streaming down her face because of the excruciating pain that pretty much she's just had to learn to live with.
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And where she, you know, tears have been streaming down her face. And she has said that if this gives a platform for the gospel,
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God would be glorified through this. If she can be an encouragement to anyone through this, that she will take it all.
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So, Mike, it's been an incredible, and it has been and is an incredible challenge. But at the same time, it's been a wonderful time of deep worship and rich blessing.
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Absolutely. Clay, you have two sons and a daughter. How have they responded in light of Margie's sickness?
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And how has the Lord used that sickness in their lives spiritually? Mike, I mean, that's a great question because as a husband, as a father, my concern is for my wife and it's for my children.
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And that's Margie's concern as well at the human level, first and foremost. And so from the very beginning, we've been praying for them.
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We've been praying that God would use this in their lives and to draw them to himself. And that's really what we've seen happen.
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It's been a tremendous time where our wonderful church has just come alongside us in a great, great way.
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Certainly, our children are very familiar with good and sound doctrine. And by God's grace and by God's mercy, both
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Margie and I have been able to, not perfectly, but generally speaking, we've been able to really demonstrate the theology that we've been trained with and to demonstrate trust and confidence in the
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Lord. And so the children from their doctrine, from the environment we have in our household, and then from the wonderful love and support and encouragement that they see from our church, from our
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Christian community, and from our Christian friends all over the world. And really, Mike, even from unsafe people outside the church, through my workplace, and through other situations as well, have also demonstrated tremendous kindness.
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So it's been a great, great way to see God at work in their lives through this. –
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Clay, I imagine as you're preaching verse by verse through James, and you told me off -air you're in chapter 3, when you got into chapter 1 about counting it all joy, what was going through your mind as you began to tell the folks, this is what
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God calls you to do, yet you knew deep down, here's what you're going through with your wife.
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How did you process all that? – Well, that's a very good question, and, you know, we know that Scripture is timeless, it's above us, the truth is outside us in Scripture.
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At the same time, we realize that while it's timeless, it's eternally relevant and applicable.
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So as a preacher, and I know you know this, Mike, that as we are taking in the
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Word of God and seeking to understand it more and more so that we can relate this to our congregation, we personalize it, and it has tremendous meaning.
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And so in a situation like I have with Margie, and especially through a passage like that, it certainly jumps up and is very loud in terms of how this text applies to that.
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It's actually interesting because I have to be careful to not bring in Margie in the situation too much.
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Margie will always remind me that, you know, okay, it's about God, it's about His Word, it's not about me. At the same time, though, there's a great blessing there because, you know, this wonderful flock that Margie and I feel so blessed to be part of, you know, they see my love for Margie, they see
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Margie's tremendous faith, they see, by God's grace and mercy, the truth of God's Word being worked out in our lives, and even as that becomes real, and how
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God has chosen the foolishness of preaching, you know, which I would be the prince of fools in many ways, in my own estimation, at least, as I would handle the
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Word of God, as they see the human element of it through the preaching, I think
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God uses that to work in their hearts as well. Clay, I know there'll be some listeners who have gone through tough times, and maybe they've said to themselves or said to God, I'm angry with you,
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God, or I'm mad at you. God, how could you? What kind of advice would you give as a pastor who knows both the
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Scriptures and then has lived with this kind of situation, with his wife being sick?
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What would you tell someone who, because of sickness or suffering, is mad at God or angry with God?
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Well, Mike, let me first answer that question as, if you would, as a theologian, and then let me follow up with answering it as a pastor.
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Answering it as a theologian, which I would say any pastor is a theologian and needs to be a theologian,
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I would say that we have no room whatsoever to ever even consider being angry with God.
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I really believe that's a blasphemous statement. So that's how I would answer it theologically, removed from shepherding someone.
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Now, as a pastor, if someone came up to me, I wouldn't, of course, go right for their juggler in that fashion.
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I would just lovingly tell them that I would really go towards just the holiness of God, and I would go towards them with a reminder of what we as Christians or we as human beings ultimately deserve.
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And when we understand God's holiness, when we understand the magnitude of sin, then really where we have to end up is that we are reminded that what we deserve is judgment and condemnation, and any grace, any mercy, any comfort that we receive from God, even in the midst of disappointment, is beyond what we really deserve.
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So I think if we take our eyes and our focus off of what our disappointments might be, because things aren't lining up the way we would want them to be, and put our eyes back on a reminder of what we deserve, which is judgment and condemnation, when we do that, then we'll be pushed towards praising
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God and being thankful to God for the joys and the comfort and the encouragement and the anticipation and the realization of our hopes that we do get.
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We're talking to Clay Miller, pastor in Arizona, just outside of Phoenix. A friend.
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How long have we been friends now, Clay? 15, 20 years, something like that? Yeah, absolutely.
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I don't think that we had a direct overlap. I think you had graduated and maybe even moved on when
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I first landed at seminary, but absolutely from the very beginning when we first met, and I think we met through a gentleman named
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Todd Swift, who if I remember correctly is at your brother's church out in Nebraska.
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Right from the beginning when we first met, I think I understood that we're something of a kindred spirit, both theologically and philosophically, ministry -wise, but even how
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God has wired us. Tell us a little bit about a story that you observed
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John MacArthur in behind the scenes, and something that we wouldn't know about John, but you know, and you think, you know what?
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It just makes you think John MacArthur, by the grace of God, faithful in the pulpit, faithful behind the scenes.
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Give us some MacArthur scoop, in other words. Well, Mike, it's interesting because a lot of people, especially if they don't know
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John personally, the persona they have of him is from his tremendously strong,
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God -blessed, God -given preaching. And what they might not realize is that the personal level, he's just tremendously gracious.
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So when I look at John and the time and Patricia and the rest of his family and wonderful fellowship and friendship that Margie and I enjoyed when we were there in person, to be sure, but even since then, just his graciousness and his concern and his patience and long suffering with people is something that really stands out for me.
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A recent blessing that Margie and I had was at some point after Margie had been diagnosed and after even the cancer had metastasized,
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John and Patricia flew out from Southern California and they came in to spend a day with Margie and I. And you know, as well as I do,
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Mike, there's such tremendous demand on John's time that for them to be able to take a whole day and come out and spend it with Margie and I was a wonderful blessing.
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I'll share a quick story that was somewhat humorous. He came out and he was also out with his daughter,
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Marcy, who's very good friends with Margie. And we went into my, at that time,
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I think she was 11 or 12, my 11 or 12 -year -old daughter's classroom to pick her up from school after school.
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And John came in with us and the teacher at the Christian school. She said, oh, class, you know, this is Pastor John MacArthur and he's going to do a quick Q &A for us.
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And so just on the spot, he did a Q &A for the classroom and John's daughter, Marcy, came over to my wife,
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Margie, and said, you know, he's never done a Q &A for my children. And actually, the first question he got was a little guy raised up his hand and said, how long did it take you to write your
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Bible? And so we got a little bit of a chuckle out of that. And John let him know that, well,
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I didn't write the Bible. If I did that, I'd be in trouble. And then he answered how long it took him to put the study Bible together.
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See, I like to ask Grace Church folks for some MacArthur scoop. And I think you gave us the best scoop that I've ever received on No Compromise Radio.
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So good job, Clay. Let's change it up a little bit. Sometimes Steve and I have what we call the message moment.
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I know you're with friends with Steve Cooley as well. Let me just read you a passage from the message paraphrase, and then we'll talk about it.
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If a fellow... They actually have a paraphrase of the message, so that's like a paraphrase of a paraphrase. Okay, that's good.
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If a fellow... I can't even imagine what that would look like. If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him.
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Work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you've made a friend. If he won't listen, take one or two others along so that the presence of witnesses will keep things honest.
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And try again. If he still won't listen, tell the church. If you won't listen to the church, you'll have to start over from scratch.
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Confront him and the need for repentance and offer again God's forgiving love. Now, if I only had the music to go along with it, but since we're a small radio station,
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I can't insert the music. Obviously from Matthew 18. Clay, I'm thankful for your ministry and the courage
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God has given you, both where you're at now and in Delaware. Walk our listeners through, what is church discipline?
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We only have about five minutes left, but what is church discipline, and why must we as churches do what
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God says no matter what the outcome is? Well, Mike, first I have to commend you for your tremendous grace and mercy when you use the word obviously, because when
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I add that that's obviously from Matthew 18, because when I listen to what you said, it took me a long time to realize where it's coming from, and I would say that it's not obvious that that's from Matthew 18.
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And coming from you, Clay, you might not be the most creative guy I know, but you just might be the most smart, the smartest, most intellectual man
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I know. So you had to be really bamboozled with that message translation. Oh boy, let's reel this back in.
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So yeah, so with church discipline, you know, look, I think Scripture is very clear on this. This isn't rocket science.
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In churches I've been at before, I've had opportunities to talk to pastors from other churches about this.
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I had an opportunity about a year ago here in Arizona where there was a situation where different churches were involved, and I was like, guys, look, this is not rocket science.
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We don't have to have a PhD in Hebrew and Greek. This is plain and clear and simple, and God gives us this black and white truth, and what we need to do is just be obedient towards it.
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So from the standpoint of the purpose of church discipline, it's fourfold. God has told us to work to exercise biblical church discipline, and there's a way to do it,
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I would say number one, for the glory of God. Because He's told us to do this, when we do it, when we do this form of worship, it is glorifying to Him, and I do say it's a form of worship.
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It's something that isn't pleasant. We don't like to do it. Our heart breaks when someone gets to the point of where you're at step three or step four, telling it to the church, but it is a form of worship.
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So the first purpose, as is really the first purpose of everything that we do from the
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Western to Catechism, is to glorify God. The second purpose, I would say, is the ministry to the church.
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It's for the purity of the church. First, Timothy 5, 17, those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all so that the rest may be fearful for sinning.
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And so it's a measure and a means that God has given us to keep the church pure.
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You know, from one standpoint, from removing the sin and the toleration of the sin from within the church, and then to provide a strong motivation towards sanctification.
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It's the best ministry to the one in sin. So the one that we're seeking after with biblical church discipline, and I've told my church just recently, actually,
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I just, in the not too distant future, had the first case of biblical church discipline at step three in San San Bible Church, and I had a similar experience, well, did a church discipline in the church and on the
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East Coast as well. And as I told the church there, it's not an act of love to tolerate and to ignore serious sin in the life of a believer.
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It's an act of self -love. So the purpose is to restore the sinning brother, and that's the best ministry we can do for them.
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And then the fourth purpose, I would say, Mike, is if there's a case where there's one that's being sinned against, it's in the case of a wife or a husband whose spouse is committing unrepentant adultery or who is deserting them, it's for the vindication and the protection of that person.
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And I would put that under the umbrella of the rest of Matthew 18, where Christ tells us that where two or three have gathered together in my midst, he is there in our presence, which is in the context of church discipline.
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Whatever we will bind on earth will have already been bound on heaven, and whatever we loose on earth will have already been loosed in heaven, and that's in context, again, of church discipline, where you have godly leaders of the church that, by virtue of the position
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God has put us in, we're making these judgments, and we're reaching these conclusions before the
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Lord according to his words. Well, we're talking to Clay Miller, pastor of Santan Bible Church in Gilbert, Arizona.
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You can go there to the website and pull up times and location and all that stuff. And if you attend on Sunday and he's preaching
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James 3, you can find a new way of doing church with seeker -focused worship or maybe seeker -sensitive worship, right,
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Clay? Maybe in an alternate universe. All right.
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Well, Clay, thank you for being on No Compromise Radio Ministry. May God richly bless you and your wife and your three children as you serve our
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. No matter what happens to us, he's a worthy king, isn't he? Amen.
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Thank you very much, Mike. Welcome. God bless you. NoCompromiseRadio .com. 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 unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.
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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.
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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.
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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.