Lights out for NoCo

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 ministry.

Mike Hafferhorf here with Tuesday Guy, Steve Cooley. Steve, welcome. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Steve, tell me a little bit more about your Saturday show for a podcast only with the gift of any amount.

My Saturday show, which is available, as you said, for a gift of any amount, including zero, is really my own personal, private prayer language that I share with the

Saturday -only listeners. Now, when you share with those listeners, yes, and you experience the presence of God together, do you get a lot of responses from that?

I've received literally one response. I think the guys over at Crisis Center, they love it.

Guys like Carl Truman, Rick Phillips, I think they're digging it. Yeah, I'm sure they're all tuned in to the

Saturday show. I think when No Compromise first came out and we got one like on Facebook or something like that, we were all happy.

And then we got 10, we were happier. And then we got 100, and then we went out and we celebrated with Kentucky Fried Chicken or something like that.

Well, it's funny because I looked at it one day, and Kelly Slater, the surfer, said he liked it.

And I was all happy. I thought, you know, my family loves surfing. Kelly Slater, world -famous surfer.

He likes No Compromise Radio. Where will this go? This is really exciting. Come to find out, my son just made up a

Kelly Slater account and clicked like. It was Luke. He totally dogged me.

It's all prideful. Kelly Slater's rocking to No Co. Oh, yeah. We got the, you know,

President Obama, he's listening now. And that turned out to be Gracie. Yeah, that was

Gracie. Steve, you may remember this. You have a good memory. Back at Bible study days, what people maybe don't know is you used to attend the

Bible study that I taught back in North Hollywood, California in the mid -90s.

Way back in the day. Those were the days. We had some interesting people show up to that thing, didn't we? We did.

Very, very interesting people. Mahatma Gandhi. Margaret Thatcher. Why didn't I get my picture taken with them?

One person came and she said she was buried alive, that somebody buried her alive.

She was in some satanic deal, buried alive, and the last minute they rescued her. And now she's afraid of being buried alive again, and we told her to stop it.

Thank you, Newhart. That was funny. Stop it. That was very clever,

Pastor Steve. Thank you very much. William McDonald wrote this little concise, capsular type of technique for soul winning.

Okay? Yeah, soul winning. So you'd like to cut down your soul winning to a basic few questions.

These are the questions. Just one or two. I gave you these things at the home Bible study.

Okay. You pretend like you're the sinner and I'm the preacher, okay?

Okay. I'll try. You know, it's going to be hard. Do you believe you are a sinner? Hmm. You're supposed to say yes.

Oh, okay. Yes. Do you believe Christ died for sinners? Why, yes, I do.

Will you receive him as Savior? Sure. Why not? It couldn't hurt. Then you're saved. I am?

That's right. He knew it. Yes, the Bible says you are saved. Do you know how long that was in my

Fundamentals of the Faith notes? You know? I was in mine too as a classic thing.

Your notes were my notes until I took all the mistakes out of them. All the verses where I'd go, what in the world is this?

How does this relate? You know, for a while, honestly, in class, I used to like – Dog me. No, I used to just like make up a connection, you know?

I mean I'd like sort of really stretch it out and then I just realized you had the wrong reference or whatever.

Well, you know what? Some of it was because the first systematic theology book I think I used was Louis Burkhoff, and Burkhoff's got some great stuff in there.

But some of his references, I think an angel section or something, had nothing to do with the angel.

Will you receive him as Savior? Yes. And you're saved. I am? And so what's wrong with that approach?

What's right with that approach? Is this how we should evangelize, Steve? Is this the way of the Master? You just want to – here's,

I think, just taking right off on that. Once somebody has accepted Jesus into their heart, no matter whether they meant it or not, like what did

I say? Well, sure. Why not? Then you just want to give them assurance of salvation, give them a hug and welcome to the family of God.

Well, I think it maybe stems out of love, hoping all things, believing all things, desiring the person to want to get saved, happy that they don't say.

Of course I don't believe that rubbish, glad that they would say something. But it's not our responsibility to give people assurance, is it?

No. So Holy Spirit's responsibility comes right out of John 8, 16, and we don't want to usurp that to ourselves.

But I can remember a world -famous evangelist, a world -famous evangelist, I should say,

Tony Miano, a friend of mine. Speaking of home Bible studies, he came to the home Bible study once.

He did, and he was like, we don't have anybody at my church who could teach like that. That was years and years ago.

So Tony's at a different church and everything now, and I'm sure Tony could probably teach like that now. But anyway, so Tony and I were just a couple of knuckleheads.

I was really a new Christian, and he was not where he is now. And so we went over to somebody's house who had a brain tumor, and we basically talked him into the kingdom and then assured him of his salvation.

We did everything that you're pointing out here, you know, in that document basically. And it was wrong.

It was just wrong. We had no idea whether that guy was saved or not. Jesus talks about this issue in Luke chapter 8 when the soil sometimes is the wrong kind of soil that doesn't produce fruit.

And when the seed of the Word hits that particular kind of soil, they receive the Word with joy, but they just fall away later.

And so just because someone receives Bible teaching with joy—I always think, Steve, when I'm preaching, someone who's a visitor, they come up.

I love the sermon. I'm really happy to hear it. I don't say to myself, oh, then they must be saved, because even unbelievers like good

Bible teaching. Franklin liked to listen to—Benjamin liked to listen to Whitfield preach and even say

Mesopotamia. So preach the gospel and let the Lord harvest the souls as He pleases.

I just remember when I was in the Army, I was a Mormon, and there was a guy named

PFC Westcott. And this guy was—I presume he was a Christian. What did

I know back then? But this guy would just evangelize everybody all the time, and eventually somebody, quote, unquote, got saved.

And he turned out to be pretty much a clone of Westcott for a while. And then one night he was drunk in the barracks, and I said—the guy's name was

Jeff. I said, Jeff, what happened? He goes, well, I guess it didn't take. And it's that—the rocky soil.

He shot up super fast, and it seemed like, well, this could be the real deal. And then it just wasn't.

Different subject, Steve. Kim and I and the kids are regularly in California. And Santa Cruz, probably the most conservative bastion in all of California.

Wouldn't you say? Berkeley and Santa Cruz, very conservative, straight -laced. Santa Cruz and Berkeley are the most conservative, non -communist places.

You know, they're more conservative maybe than some areas of Holland.

Right, right. But other than that— And so we see quite a few transgendered people there. And remember

Carl Truman? We brought him to Northampton here in Massachusetts, former home of Jonathan Edwards.

And there was a transgendered person in Starbucks. Steve, I read a verse like this, and I say to myself, hmm,

Genesis 127. And so what do we do with a transgendered person?

And they say, well, I think I'm really a woman, even though I've got a man's body. Did God make a mistake?

Did the fall cause all this or something? Oh, the fall caused it, all right, because sin entered the world.

And so people's thinking is just—it is sinful.

It is deficient. It is wrong. Their minds are at best foggy. But the truth is they're in rebellion.

So when we have somebody who says, you know, I feel like a woman trapped in a man's body, well, stop it.

You know, let's go back to the Bob Newhart hermeneutic. Just stop it.

The problem is their sinful mind. You know, they're trusting their heart, as it were.

You know, it's a Jeremiah 17 .9 situation. Well, certainly what happens in light of that,

Steve, Romans 1, when you begin to think that God didn't create everything and you begin to worship the creation instead of the

Creator and not give God honor that He's due and thankfulness that He's due, the text says they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and then God gives them over to all kinds of lusts.

The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is a good organization that talks about roles being different, yet we are equal in Christ.

They're complementarian in their viewpoint of the sexes. And, Steve, I read something the other day that just put to rest in my mind once and for all, if God made you a man, you can do anything you want to your body or put on a dress if you'd like or have some weird surgery or inject yourself with hormones.

If God made you a man, you're a man. Oh, there was a debate going on in your mind about that? Well, you know what?

I started to say that, and I said, that's stupid. But I just kept talking. Yeah, but I wasn't going to let it go.

Thank you. I've always known it. Surgical accident of a young boy. He was receiving a circumcision, and there was an accident.

And that's about all I need to know, but it was a bad accident. The New York Times columnist

Natalie Angier, in March 1997, discussed. Studies suggest gender identification cannot be taught.

And here's what happened. It was in 1973 when this happened, and they didn't know what to do.

So they said, all right, the boy's best interest would be raise him as a girl. Since there's been, you know, a problem, there's been something excised.

Let's treat him as a girl, and let's surgically alter him a little bit and give him some hormones.

And so the thing is, he hated wearing girls' clothes. He played with guns.

He wanted to stand on top of the toilet when he needed to go to the bathroom. And at 14 years old, he went to his father and basically said, do you know what?

His name, I think, was John, but they changed it to Joan. And he said, do you know what?

Basically, from the sounds of it, he wanted to try to tell his dad that he was gay because he didn't like boys.

He liked girls. I mean, that's a nightmarish scenario, you know, and they did this all wrong.

But, I mean, I have many unbelieving liberal friends now, and they'll post things, you know, like Lego has this girl -friendly

Lego thing or whatever, and they're like, well, that's just wrong. Gender identification, you know, in toys. What are you teaching these kids?

You don't have to teach them anything. I've been fascinated to watch, you know, my grandchildren now.

And the difference between, because it seems like all my nephews these days, the younger ones, are all male.

And just to see the difference between them naturally. I mean, from a very young age, by the time they can crawl, you know, the boys want to whack their heads into stuff.

And the little girls are just, they're more nurturing, more, they care more about pretty things.

Nobody has to teach them that. They just learn it. Or, you know, it's just part of who they are. I shouldn't even say they learn it.

It's just who they are. This lady, the mother of this boy named

Joan, tried to get him to put makeup on, and instead he just wanted to put shaving cream on his face and shave like Dad.

And, you know, here's the really neat story. That man is now married. And I don't know how well adjusted he is, but I know if God makes you a man, there's nothing you can do about it.

You're a man. But, you know, I'm trapped in a – and listen, I dealt with for years people who went through the hormonal therapy because I was in, you know, in the jail and so the taxpayers had to pay for all this nonsense.

And I would meet these guys. These were some of the most depressed, ostracized, you know, just isolated people that I've ever known in my life.

And it was because of their sin. Right. Well, if God made you a man, then you're a man.

And so what do you do? Many things in life you just have to accept. And you say, well, yes, but my mother treated me this way or father treated me that way.

I think I pretty much had enough of that subject, Steve. Okay. So moving on. Steve, tell us a little bit about your philosophy.

When people begin to learn difficult doctrines from the Bible, but there are other doctrines that seem to contradict this, but they know that God doesn't make a contradiction

His Word. Two parallel doctrines in their mind, yet not in God's mind, like sovereignty of God and human responsibility are deity of Christ and humanity of Christ.

Tell the audience who's listening how they can just accept both of those so they don't have to try to tie up every loose end with their finite, fallen mind.

Well, I think you just kind of—you're starting to get right there. The problem with us is we don't have the infinite mind of God.

I mean, we read the scriptures and God makes it pretty clear that His ways are not our ways.

You know, His understanding is infinite. And so when we come to these difficult doctrines, it's not our responsibility to try to understand everything perfectly.

I don't have to understand how it is possible that Jesus Christ is 100 percent God and 100 percent man.

I don't have to understand that. I just have to believe it because the Bible says it. I don't have to understand that God is sovereign and yet man is responsible.

I don't have to fully comprehend it. I just have to believe it. Same with the Trinity, don't you think? Yes. It's very, very clear.

There's one God. Old Testament, New Testament teach it. Both Old and New teach that if you are a polytheist, you're a pagan and denying the only true

God. Yet the Old Testament and the New Testament teaches that we have the Father person, the

Son person, the Spirit person, and we have God in three persons, right?

God subsisting in three persons. And it's just, what are you going to do? Acts 5, the Holy Spirit's God, and Jesus, and Romans 9, 5, and Titus 2, 13,

Jesus is God. We just have to accept it. And don't you think it's a sign of maturity that people, as they grow in Christ, learn to accept more of these things?

Absolutely. So listen to this, Steve. Ebenezer Gay, G -A -Y, 1696 to 1787.

One pulpit, one church, 69 years of preaching there.

That's not bad. That's not bad. He started off loving Puritan theology, loved

Calvinism, and he turned in to be the first Unitarian minister in all of New England.

That's bad. And you know what he said? He said, I cannot accept something if I can't grasp it.

In other words, let me quote him, I can't grasp it. It can't be true. So federal headship of Adam.

What do you mean, God credits to my account Adam's sin? Ebenezer Gay said,

I would not have eaten the fruit if I was in the garden. The Trinity rejected. I can't understand it.

Well, here. God created everything out of nothing. I reject that. I can't really get it.

See, where does it stop? Let's see. God holds me responsible for Adam's sin. Throw that out.

You'd have to get rid of a lot of the Bible. See, for me, federal headship, besides being true,

I'm really thankful for it because if it ended with the first Adam, well, then, of course, we'd all have a bunch of bad news.

But we have the last Adam, Christ Jesus. And even though I wasn't in the garden, I didn't eat the fruit.

I didn't disobey God. I didn't do what Adam did. God gave me credit for it.

But on the flip side, I didn't earn salvation. I didn't die on the cross for sinners. I didn't do any of the other stuff.

And so I'm glad that we have the first and the second Adam. Well, how about this? How can you possibly think that someone else can pay for your sins?

So, therefore, how do you reconcile that? I'm responsible for my own sins.

Totally. How can we reconcile this? I don't like it that you have to kill an animal as a substitute and shed the blood, include the death as well, for sins.

That's a dumb rule. Oh, you sin and somebody's got to have some blood let? Yeah. So just ignore it.

So I can't do it. Unitarian Universalists, whenever I drive by one of the churches, by the way, there's one down by the

YMCA in Worcester. It's by Bancroft School. Unitarian Universalists, they have some pretty neat signs.

Oh, yeah. Some pretty neat signs. I can't remember what they say, but talk about if you won't believe something you don't believe anything or whatever the slogan is.

It is horrible. If you don't want to fall for anything, stand for something. Yeah. Something wicked this way comes.

I don't know what it is, but they are hilarious, and I always point it out to the kids. What's Unitarian mean?

Well, no Trinity. What's Universalist mean? Everybody goes to heaven. Okay. Run. It's like stay away from KOA.

Well, you know, I think I'm going to do a Saturday show on UU because it is kind of foolishness.

I once asked a Unitarian Universalist, how do you get to heaven? And he looked at me just kind of bizarre, you know, like what kind of question is that?

How do you get to heaven? What's heaven? Heaven is where your heart is.

I don't know what it is. That's why I can't understand, Steve, when I first moved to New England. I still can't understand it now.

All right, let's see. Well, we're in town. We needed to have a church in town, a congregational church, so we could have a city.

And so we've got that. And, you know, then the Baptists came in, so we've got a Baptist church. And, of course, the Universalists are around too,

Unitarian Universalists. So we've got that. But you know what? Times are tough. Don't really have enough to pay for three.

So now we've got a town hall for one building. We've got the VFW for another. And then we'll put all the other churches together and federate them into one,

Baptist, Congregational, and Unitarian. Nice. In Omaha, Nebraska, I saw within the last two weeks that they've got a new building, which has a

Protestant aspect to it, Muslim aspect to it, and Jewish aspect to it. My guess is the

Protestant section is in the middle. Where's the Catholic section? Well, maybe it was just Christian and it wasn't

Protestant. Yeah, we probably don't want any kind of protestation going on. Steve, what about this?

What about—oh, let's see. I don't know if I—do I have enough time for that? Anything else on your mind? Well, is there anything else on my mind?

Well, I'm just—no, really. Nothing. All right. Kurt Daniels, cheap objections to unconditional election.

So I'll give you the cheap objection. You give me your comment. Cheap objection. So these would probably be worth what?

Between $0 .50 and $0 .75. Absolutely. Okay. It's not democratic. It's not democratic.

Well, you know, there's a lot of things in life that aren't democratic. Listen, it's not democratic.

Well, of course it's not democratic. God is the king. It's his universe.

The rest of us are just living in it like we all should get a vote. I think krat means power, powerful one, autocrat, self -power, demo, people, people power.

I feel like I want to start singing something on Ronan Martin's laughing right now. How about solocratic?

Solocratic. Kurt Daniels says, who says it has to be God is a king, not a president?

That's what I said. Yeah, I know you did. Kurt Daniels, he's a pretty smart guy. But you know what?

I think it's Kurt Daniel and not Daniels, but it's like Keith Richards or Keith Richard.

I think I might have already done a show on this. You know what? I think I probably did. On Keith Richards? Yeah. You know, his riff on—

Well, his name was first Keith Richards, then Keith Richard, then he changed it to Cliff Richard, and then he had a hit single,

A Devil Woman. Cliff Richards, actually, I think he makes a profession of faith.

Does he really? Yes, in the Lord Jesus Christ. I think so. Wow, the king of British pop.

Now, how do you take Devil Woman and then Christianize that? She used to be a devil woman. She's got exorcism in her eyes.

I don't know. I'm trying to think of some of the—I mean, he did a duet with somebody. Carly Simon?

No, he never did a duet. Your so Richard? No, he never did a duet with Carly Simon. And not

Mick Jagger either. So who did he sing with? Olivia Newton -John?

I think so. I think it was Olivia Newton -John. Yeah, I think they were two Ps in a proverbial Casey Kasem pun.

Was it Fly Away? Oh, no, that was John Denver. Fly Away. All right, let's see.

What else do I have here? Now, this I want to save for next show, Steve. So let me read this. It was in the

David Wells book as he quoted David Myers. The American paradox is that we are better paid, better fed, better housed, better educated, and healthier than ever before with more human rights, faster communication, and more convenient transportation than we have ever known.

But we have the highest divorce rates, teen suicide tripled, violent crime quadrupled, numbers in prison quintupled, illegitimate children sextupled.

The number of those cohabitated has increased sevenfold. So what kind of paradox do we have?

Well, I think it's pretty simple. I mean, as life has gotten easier to live, we kind of just make it more difficult on ourselves because we're never satisfied.

I mean, why are the crime, why do people steal as much as they do? Well, mostly because they can.

You know, why do people not get married? Well, because marriage is hard work. Why worry about pleasing somebody else or, you know, kind of subjugating your own interest for someone else when you can just shack up for a while and then move on to the next person?

You know, and who cares really what happens to the kids? Well, you say you do, but you don't really. You know, all these things are true.

Life is easier, and I get so – really I get kind of tired of listening to people complain because if you go to any number of other countries and you look at how poor people live there, you would be the richest man in that country, even if you're impoverished here in the

United States. I think when you read the New Testament, you notice it talks about rich people. You ought to say to yourself,

I'm one of those people. Amen. Compared back then, even if you're the poorest here in America. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth, here today with Steve Cooley, talking about a variety of subjects.

If you want to email us, info at nocompromiseradio .com, or it works now, Tuesdayguy at nocompromiseradio .com.

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.

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