Rejoicing and Lent

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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 ministry. It is a Tuesday in Radio Land time.

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Steve, welcome to the studios here in downtown Burbank, just off of Buena Vista Street. It�s a good thing we don�t have

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No Compromise TV, otherwise people would see we�re in this shabby little office. It�s amazing, though, here in New England, on New Year�s Day, 55 degrees,

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I think, and I think last year it must have been, you know, with windchill five below. It�s actually warmer in New England than it is in parts of California.

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Super happy for global warming. Bring it on. I�ll be putting orange trees in the backyard anytime now.

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Orange trees. When I moved to California, we had in our backyard, the one in North Hollywood, an orange tree, a guava tree, a grapefruit tree, and a lemon tree.

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We had, when I was in the house I grew up in, we had lemon bushes in the front yard. We had grape vines in the backyard, avocado trees, you know.

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See, I wanted avocado, but then it was like, well, probably save me some calories, because, you know, what, 350 calories an avocado?

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I don�t know. I�m, you know, the funny thing is, I�m really not an avocado person, but make guacamole

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Oh, yeah. You can�t stop me. Hey, when I first moved to New England, we�d say something about avocado, and they�re like, what�s that?

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Then we go, oh, guacamole? Oh, yeah, sure. Steve, you know how you get these things in the mail, these little, they�re probably five inches by 10 inch little mailers, bulk mailers?

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They�re really awesome. I love them. And they�re usually two -sided. And here.

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Well, how would they be one -sided? Well, because there�s only one side theologically to this whole thing, and let me tell you, the front page says, the front part, what if Lent was different this year?

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So I just asked you the question, Steve, on No Compromise Radio, what if Lent was different this year? That would be different, because my

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Lent is, here, let me rhyme, my Lent is absent.

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I think Keith Richards actually wrote a song about Lent back on his

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Talk Is Cheap album in 1988. Yeah. What are the lyrics there? Ain�t got no money for Lent.

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Well, you know, this big kerfuffle with J .D. Greer and Steve Furtick and a bunch of these other super mega church pastors closing down on the

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Sunday after Christmas because they were so tired with their production stuff. I thought, actually, they were closing down not because they were tired of the

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Christmas Eve service and production, but they were needing extra time for their Lent sermons. Ooh.

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I thought maybe it was because it�s hard work going up and down chimneys, and so they were all tuckered out.

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Yeah, probably, yeah. Those blue light crews, you know, they have to swing those blue lights around so often.

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You have to have good delts for that. Who in the world? I mean, listen, we were talking about this before Christmas.

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You know that on Christmas Sunday, if you�re going to have, you know, and the one after, if you�re going to have visitors any time during the year, people who just randomly show up, it�s going to be during that time.

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So why would you shut down? Hey, pastor, I came by the church, I wanted to go to church on Christmas Sunday, and you guys were closed.

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Can you imagine that? And Greer, who I believe is the current

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Southern Baptist Convention president, our future one, I don�t know how that all works, they have nine campuses now, and they�re expanding to 12 campuses.

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So they can shut down more? Yeah, probably. Is that Camp I? You have 12 Camp I?

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Campus I. Yeah, but I mean, think about that. We�re expanding. We�re going to have to expand to 12 campuses so that when we close down for Christmas, it�ll be an even bigger disaster.

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A bigger letdown. It was the ultimate letdown. We have, oh, that�s good.

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Thank you. Uh -huh. I think Switchfoot is coming to Boston. The ultimate letdown.

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Uh -huh. Yeah, okay. So on the other side of this little mailer, Mike Abendroth, Bethlehem Bible Church, it says, �Rejoice in the

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Lord always, even during Lent.� Oh, man.

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I mean, prepare to get your somber face on, but rejoice anyway. Uh -huh.

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Now, I thought Lent was, you know, we got to suffer a little bit. Hey, Jesus suffered. We have to suffer. Jesus gave up things.

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We need to give up things. Cross needs more work. We�re here to serve. I usually give myself the cat -and -nine -tails on the back.

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Mm -hmm. Yeah. Self -infliction. Self -infliction. You know, I�ve met people, they�ve given up chocolate for Lent, they�ve given up Facebook for Lent.

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Did they give up Lent chocolate for Lent? I gave up Lent for Lent. Well, if it�s Mr. Lunt and the

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VeggieTales, maybe he gave up Lent chocolate, as Mr. Lunt did, for Lent.

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Lunt gave up Lent for Lent. I see a children�s book coming.

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Can you imagine many Christians think of Lent as a season of self -sacrifice and spiritual chores?

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And by the way, coming to a Protestant church near you, just like Matt Chandler�s.

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Just imagine, boys and girls, you could have purgatory right here on earth. Hey, if you got to go to purgatory, you might as well live it up a little bit on the earth.

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Come on. But this year, what if Lent was different? What if we approached Lent with a spirit of joy?

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Because of this, I Rejoice is a six -week study of Philippians that explores what Paul teaches about joyfully practicing spiritual disciplines.

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You know what? I think these folks here at Upper Room Books in Nashville, Tennessee, they�re on to something, and here�s what they�re on to.

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We�ve got a whole new audience, and that is possible buyers in the

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Protestant realm, because Protestants are too dumb to know about Lent and how dumb

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Lent is. What do the apostles give up for Lent? I don�t know.

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It�s like when Luke was over in Israel for a study tour. Not the study tour, but Ibex, and Maddie, my daughter, just got back there.

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Great time studying, doing all that. But there�s a little bit of Messianic Judaism overflow into that culture still, and worship on Saturday and stuff like that.

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Well, anyway, they were both over there for Yom Kippur. And what they do is things that college students do.

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Let�s go lay on the highway and take pictures of us laying on the highway, because there�s nobody driving, right?

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Sure. You�re not allowed to drive, so that�s kind of a cool snap. You know, you�re in the middle of the 405. Unless there�s some pagan, you know, rolling down the road.

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Some Muslim. Anyway, they�re supposed to, you know, fast and stuff, because it�s

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Yom Kippur and look real sad and everything else. I said to both my kids, �Kids, you�re

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Christians, and Jesus has paid all this. He�s earned your salvation for you, and your response is supposed to be gratitude and making merry and having celebrations and all that.�

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And I said, �They�re going to go all eat rice like they were in some, you know, Day 39 of Survivor. Go have a nice, big sandwich on me.

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I�ll buy it.� Day 39 of Survivor. Anyway, more spiritual disciplines.

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I mean, we�d hate to just have the, you know, reading the Bible, communion, baptism. Okay, let�s just call it what it is.

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That�s not spiritual discipline. It�s self -flagellation. Spiritual flagellation. I mean, I wonder if that would sell, you know, this 40 -day course and how to�

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Rejoice in the Lord always, even during self -flagellation. Key features, by the way,

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Steve. A reading for Ash Wednesday, one chapter for each week of Lent, and a reading for Good Friday.

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Oh. You know those Good Friday services? You show up, and you know, it�s 2 ,000 years after the cross, but you know, you show up, and there�s a black draped thing over the cross, and you can�t really have fun.

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No snacks afterwards, no ice cream or anything, because we�re all like, you know, super sad. Jesus died today.

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I think they should, like, keep you there for 36 hours, and then have the reveal, you know, and no eating, no going to the bathroom, no nothing for 36 hours.

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When I grew up in the liberal Lutheran church, they put the black tarp, whatever the thing was, on top of the cross, and we had to walk out quietly and with, you know, very�

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Somber. You had to be staid, somber, and then Sunday morning for Easter, Resurrection Sunday, there was all these, like, it was like eight -pound test line all tied to it, and then the pastor would say, �He is risen, he�s risen indeed.�

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But they didn�t quite have the pyrotechnics down and the stagehands down, so he had to use the scissors with the test line.

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And then the thing came off, and he�s risen, he�s risen indeed. I said he�s risen.

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I know. Yeah, that�s right. Sometimes those scissors were a little sharp, or if the deacon, he put, like, 20 -pound tests on their test line.

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Who�s a smart aleck? I told you guys about the 20 -pound test. Daily readings, reflection questions, and by the way,

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Steve, especially for pastors like me, Upper Room Books, save 20 % if you use promo code

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CHURCH2019. So that�s something you could use for a special year.

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So for our listeners, there you go. We just saved them money. Bookstore .UpperRoom .org.

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Uh -huh. And I think the code for 80 % off is self -flagellation2018.

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It's so last year. 80 % off. I think he just made an offer that, okay.

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One of the things you get to do as a Christian is you do get to rejoice, and you do have � we were talking about this, at least

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I was talking about it at the concert, you know, just for the quick intro. We don't have to go to hell when we die.

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Jesus has paid everything. And we can, of course, there are trials and there's persecution and there are difficulties and it's a fallen world and we do dumb things, but there are seasons, right?

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You can think of Ecclesiastes, of merriment and seasons of joy and seasons of feasting.

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And the Lord gives us everything. He didn't spare his own son, so why would he make us say, you know what, now to please me have to eat certain foods?

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You must have stated, yeah, you can only eat fish on Fridays during Lent and you can only �

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I was reading. What if Lent was different this year? Yeah, I'm just going to indulge. Okay, how about this one right here?

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Let's see if I can find it. I was just reading it. Oh, yeah, right here. Hebrews chapter 12.

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See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled, that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.

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For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he had no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

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That's not what I want. It's a good passage, though. It's a great passage.

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I think I was thinking about chapter 13. Let's edit the tape. That is so funny.

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You ever do that, by the way, when you're teaching? I'm sure everybody who teaches and who's listening to the show today, you think that certain passage, you start reading it and you go, oh,

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I don't think this is it. You know when that happens the most? When I was using your old FOF notes,

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I'd be reading it and I'd go, what does that have to do with anything? I think, oh, wait a minute, typo.

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You know, it was actually chapter 13, you know? Thanks, Mike. That's what

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I think. I wouldn't say it during class. Thanks, Mike. Sometimes when

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I'm doing that, Steve, and I think, wait a second, this might be the wrong reference, but then I say to myself, wait, if I just keep reading, maybe it'll kick in.

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Yeah. Either my thoughts will kick in and match up, or— Because the hermeneutic, right? Keep reading.

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Okay, here it is. Hebrews 13, verse 9, do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them.

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And I think when it comes to, if you'd like to rejoice always, maybe rejoice in grace incarnate, the

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Lord Jesus Christ and what He's done, instead of you've got to give up things to essentially tell the

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Lord that what He did was an example and not for you, or, you know,

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He needed a little work for His cross. Don't you think we should identify with Christ and His sufferings?

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Isn't that the point? So my suffering could be giving up chocolate for Lent? Yeah, like that compares to assuaging the wrath of God.

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I mean, isn't it absurd? By the way, Steve Cooley is now laughing like I do.

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That was one of those, that was like an asthmatic laugh. Steve, how long have you been smoking

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Camel Nun filter? I gave him up for Lent. No, we're not, you know, we're not.

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That was a delayed answer.

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Christian, of course, if you want to give up something because if it's a health reason, right, and you've got to cut back on cholesterol or something like that, fine.

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If you want to go on a special diet, fine. That has nothing to do with spirituality, right?

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That has nothing to do with you're more pleasing to God. You can't be more or less pleasing to God, the

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Father Christian, because you are as pleasing as the Son is because you've been united to Christ by His work, and you receive that through faith.

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We'd like to help you, though. If you want to give up chocolate for Lent, send it to me. That's right.

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So, Steve, I said on the show a while ago that I was drinking bad coffee or something because I, you know, drank too much or whatever, and I get these two pounds per month from Pete's Coffee, and they ship them out, and they're newly roasted and everything.

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It's kind of fun, but the two pounds didn't last very long. Well, I needed some other coffee, and I thought, you know, I used to get free coffee sent by NoCo listeners, but I was always thinking, you know, here's what

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I said. I said, you know, I didn't know if they, you know, might have been enemies or something. They laced some of it with arsenic, and so I said,

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I'd better give that to Pastor Steve. Nice. Very nice. By the way, it was all very good, and I did survive, but it did have a strange aroma of almonds.

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Uh -huh. Yeah. They tell you that on the packaging now, you know, it tastes like chocolate or it's got a...

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They don't use the word whiff. What do they use? Is it aroma? Yeah. Subtle aroma. Yeah.

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Uh -huh. It's just a bouquet, I guess, that'll be the... Okay, nice. That'll be the wine.

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That's a lot different than the word whiff. Yeah. Here in the Message Bible...

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It's got a floral bouquet. I wonder what it says in the Message Bible. Are we allowed to slam the

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Message Bible after the death of Eugene Peterson? Absolutely not. Or do you have to wait till Lent's over? Yeah. Yeah, we gave up slamming

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Eugene Peterson for Lent. Okay. Okay. He does say here, appreciate your pastoral leaders who gave you the

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Word of God. Take a good look at the way they live and let their faithfulness instruct you as well as their truthfulness.

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Hey, that's pretty good. You know what? To be fair, because we like to do that in NoCo Radio, some of the verses that he translated are good kind of summaries of maybe some of the truth, a nugget of the truth, an application point of the truth.

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But as a translation, it is not. No, it isn't. Not is. It is... Well, it's really not a translation.

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Right. No. Let's see what they say here. Honor marriage and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband.

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God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex. Except the problem is, you can talk about, well, what's casual sex when it's two people who aren't even married?

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Illicit, though. Well, that's true. So, I don't think it's, you know, again, that's not that bad.

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I mean, from time to time, while we've been reading the Message Bible, you know, you'll come upon a verse and you'll read it, and I'll go, that doesn't even sound like anything in the

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Bible. You know, it doesn't sound remotely related, but that's not bad. Okay. Well, here it says, don't be lured away from him by the latest speculations about him.

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The grace of Christ is the only good ground for life. Products named after Christ don't seem to do much for those who buy them.

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What? You made that up. I did. What were you saying again about how sometimes he gets that right?

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Well, like I said, sometimes it's kind of, you know. If you don't see a barcode on there and a seal of housekeeping, a good seal of approval, you don't want to buy those things.

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Well, I mean, sometimes it's like listening to the Message Bible is like buying a used car from a guy on the corner named

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Lenny. You know, you get what you pay for. I know. Steve, in the book of Hebrews, you have all these

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Old Testament quotes, obviously, because he's writing to Jewish people and he's using their Bible to instruct them about who the

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Lord is and how he's better than everybody, including angels. Well, anyway, he regularly talks about Psalm 110.

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That is the key Psalm. That's the Melchizedekian Psalm. And as some have said, even

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Dr. Barak, I believe that the entire book of Hebrews is an exposition of Psalm 110. Well, there's the one other

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Psalm that is quoted so much and so often and elsewhere quoted in the New Testament is

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Psalm 2. And here is that great messianic Psalm, Psalm 2, and here's one of those shining moments.

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Here's what Eugene says in Psalm 2. Let me tell you what God said next.

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This is the father talking about the son. Are you ready? Now, I'm going to predict something in my mind that you're going to do, and I will tell you if I got it right or not.

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I won't lie. Okay? I'm predicting in my mind something you're going to do. Okay, ready? Now, let me read this, and then you can do what you'd like to do that I'm predicting.

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And God, the father, said, you're my son, and today is your birthday. What do you want?

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I know what you predicted. What? What? The Beatles. I did. But I'm not going to do that because I correctly predicted what you were going to predict.

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I am just going to say that is a sterling example of why we do not recommend the message and why

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Eugene Peterson is not our preferred theologian. I mean, there are dead people we love to quote.

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He's not one of them. It's interesting to me because, let's say people want to defend that translation, quote -unquote translation.

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What do you do when you get to the New Testament? When you see in Hebrews or you see, let's see,

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Acts 13, you see that use, today you're, you know, you are my son, today

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I have begotten you. When you see that kind of language, what do you do? What do you do if a

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Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon comes to your door and you go, well, let me prove you wrong, buddy. And you get the...

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Today it's your birthday. Let me just show you what the word of...

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Okay, that's really not a good translation. Let me go get a real Bible. So today on No Compromise Radio, we've talked about lent a little bit, lint a little bit, lunt a little bit.

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Is there anything else? Are there any... A lute? Is there any lute we could talk about? Sally, lunt bread. Oh, okay.

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Yeah. Did you get any special Christmas presents that had fruitcake in them? No. You know, funny story though about fruitcake, years ago, somebody sent me a fruitcake and, you know, it just kind of sat around probably for, seriously, for like two years or whatever.

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I took it out and I had a bite of it. It was good. It was great. Well, you know why, Steve? Because it turned into alcohol after all that time.

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It was fantastic. So it turned into rum cake. You didn't even know it. It started off as...

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I didn't drive anywhere, but... Where do they make rum from? You know, I should know that.

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I don't know that. Because I should know that. I don't think it's sugarcane.

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I should know that. Okay. When you say sugarcane, why does it go into my mind, C &H?

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Pure cane sugar from Hawaii. But I know, you know, it comes from the Caribbean down there and so many of the countries down there focus on sugar and that's why

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I was... I don't really know what it comes from. We should Google that between shows. Well, here's what happens,

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Steve. Someone is going to email me, we'll play this show in like three weeks, they'll email me and they'll say...

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Why are you pagans talking about rum? They'll say rum comes from such and such, you know, novacane, sugarcane, something like that.

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And then I'm going to go, I don't even know what we were talking about. Why were we talking about rum? Because it was lent? I mean, I don't know.

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It's like four weeks later. I have no idea what we were talking about on the show. Because we were talking about fruitcake. Yeah, I know. And what happens when fruit turns into alcohol?

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What do they call that? It ferments. That's what I was looking for. Well, you have never smelled anything in your life until you smelled what the inmates used to make alcohol.

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Okay. Now tell me a little bit about that because the mind is a very interesting thing and I've heard they've even made alcohol from hand sanitizer since that's alcohol -based.

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See, I wouldn't know about that, but what they used to do was they would stock just any kind of fruit they could get.

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Well, they called it pruno. They would steal bread and sugar and some fruit and they put it all together in these plastic bags and hide these plastic bags.

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And every once in a while, the inmates would actually get it to ferment and then drink it.

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Oh, man. Oh. Oh. Steve, according to Google Rum Wikipedia, rum is a distilled alcoholic drink made from sugarcane byproducts, such as molasses, are directly from sugarcane juice by a process of fermentation and distillation.

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What do I win? The distillate, a clear liquid, is then usually aged in oak barrels.

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I actually got that right. I know. That's pretty good. It's pretty shocking. T -Total are like you. Shocking to me.

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I know. Although I do like, I must confess. Okay, here we go. I do like rum cake. Yeah. Yeah.

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I mean, I really like rum. With real rum though. Yeah. Yeah. How long do you have to cook off the rum before you're a fundamentalist?

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Well, a real, a genuine fundamentalist buys his own intoxilizer so he can make sure that there's nothing in there.

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Well, that's right. Uh -huh. Because it's, it's, it's beyond me. Well, you can't have any of that demon rum, you know.

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Demon rum. What else do people put in? Do you have to put wine in certain things? Some kind of fondue recipe?

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Does that have to cook off as well? I don't know if people use wine in baking so much.

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I mean, usually that's in cooking and, you know, stovetop things. But I think for the most part in baking, you're using ...

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Harder alcohol. Yeah. What do you have to do if your, your wife says, Steve, go down and get me some rum for, for the special cake.

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What do you do? Where do you go? You're asking me?

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T -Totaling, Steve? You know, funny story, because I, I really, I don't drink. You've got 30 seconds.

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I actually went into a package store. They don't have those, like, so much anymore, but I went into a package store and I, I looked at them and I go,

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I haven't been in a liquor store in years. Can you show me, you know, where the beer and the, and the rum is?

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Because I've been sent to buy this stuff and I have no idea. And he said, oh, Pastor Steve, good to see you.

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And I, you know what? I didn't feel guilty at all. Mike Abendroth, Steve Kooley, No Compromise Radio.

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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 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 six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.