What Makes Preaching Relevant?

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.

Relevant Magazine, Beth Moore, and the Problem of “Something Called No Compromise Radio”

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. And it is, I believe, what day is it today? It is January 5th. January 5th, 2019. It�s a Saturday. It�s balmy here in New England. Well, not quite balmy.

Anyway, it�s cold and wet and raw. And I am in the church building, and we�re doing some shows, or I�m doing some shows, the Royal We. And I was going to talk a little bit more about Hebrews chapter 7 and Melchizedek, but before I do, NoCo has hit the big time here.

We are in Relevant Magazine. A couple people emailed me yesterday. I usually don�t look at Relevant Magazine for lots of reasons. But I was sent this article, �Reminder from Beth Moore. Spending time with the Bible doesn�t equal spending time with God

Relevant Magazine, January 4th, 2019. The famed Bible teacher�s tweets have kicked up a dust storm. And then they give the picture that you can see here. I�m doing a simulcast today. This is NoCo Radio, but I�m also doing a Facebook for the Closed NoCo Group, because you get special dividends if you�re in the NoCo Closed Group.

Anyway, here�s what the article says. �Beth Moore has spent most of her long, immensely influential Bible teaching career� it has been immensely influential, sadly� �steering clear of controversy. Really?

Like when she was preaching to men at whatever the Second First Baptist Church was at nighttime? �But she�s been courting a few haters in recent months. I mean, can anyone call Bethlehem Bible Church�s No Compromise Radio a hater?

Come on. Hey, haters. Isn�t that for Stephen Furtick? �Generally, this has been for her expressing her gentle but firm opposition to President Donald Trump. But some new tweets have created a little kerfuffle over her thoughts on quiet times.

It's not a religion. It's a relationship. No, she didn�t say that. Anyway, she's got the quotes listed here. And then it says, �The first tweet kicked up some negative reactions, which sparked the following two.

And I think there should have been a colon here, but they�ve got a period. That�s okay. And here�s the best line. This will go down in history. Something called, quote, �No Compromise Radio end quote, tweeted.

Something. Now, all they would have to do, Relevant Magazine, is just click one time on the NoCo Twitter account, at NoCo Radio. And they would see, this is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church, or Mike Abendroth and Steve Cooley, et cetera, et cetera.

One little tweet. But something called, I guess now it is the name of a person, place or thing. So they had one-third of a shot getting it right. Something called, �No Compromise Radio tweeted that, �When Beth spends time listening to her husband talk to her, too bad that does not count as spending time with him end quote.

I don�t know who would ever do that, but that�s who they quoted at No Compromise Radio. I think maybe Ben did that, or maybe Pastor Steve did. Now, Relevant says, �The argument here is that since talking to people is the same thing as talking to God, reading the Bible is the same thing as spending time with God.

Then, I did put this snarky quote in, but I knew they wouldn�t get it. No one except you listeners would get this. Remember the first NoCo video? 20 ,000 views, I think, that�s not bad. By the way, where is Beth Moore�s husband?

The tweet added a particularly nasty insinuation. A site called Reformation Charlotte also took issue with what Moore�s tweet, that�s what it says here, who also took issue with what Moore�s tweet and included something about Marxism in its takedown, question mark.

Who knows? So, there�s another paragraph. It doesn�t even matter what the paragraph is, but the last paragraph is worth it. �Moore, who spent as much time studying the Bible as just about anyone, certainly knows that.

Who writes these things? �And if some of her critics took their own Bible reading a little more seriously, they would, they probably would too. Well, there you have it. So today, welcome to something called No Compromise Radio Ministry.

And by the way, we have a new endorser here. It's called Super Coffee, protein plus MCT oil, zero sugars, 80 calories, 10 proteins. I mean, can you imagine? You get appetite suppressant, you get calories minimal, you get some protein, and you get coffee.

I mean, come on. Got this at Wegmans. So, I can just hear the trucks over there loading these things up. Oh, I was told never to drink anything on the radio, but this is simulcast. What are we supposed to do?

So anyway, I have tweeted Relevant Magazine, and I�ve said, �If you would arrange a debate with Beth Moore, that would probably help your ratings, and I would love that, and we could talk about who really knows their Bible.

But I�m sure that�s just my flesh. That�s something called Mike�s flesh. Now, the other thing I found today when I came to the church building was this Pastor�s Resources, ChristianBook .com. And CBD, many of you know, throughout the years, was fairly influential.

They got a big, what do they call those things, warehouses up in Peabody is how I would say it in Nebraska or California, but it is Peabody, Peabody. And they are now pretty much relegated to these kind of specials and selling by bulk because everyone goes to Amazon.

By the way, if you have to order books, of course Amazon is a good way to go about it, but by far the best publisher is Reformation Heritage Books, and they ship their books cheaply. It takes just a few extra days than Amazon Prime, but Reformation Heritage Books, you can almost buy anything in the catalog and it would be good.

That�s hard to say for almost any other publisher. And if you go to Westminster Seminary�s website for the Philadelphia branch, it�s not a branch, but the Philadelphia Seminary, they have free shipping and lots of good books.

But anyway, Pastor�s Resources. You know, I always need good resources, and so if I have a resource that helps in ministry, I�m always welcoming that, right? And here on the very front, that kind of gives a little insight, it�s Letters to the Church, and I thought, �Oh, that�s good.

That probably is, you know, Revelation 2 and 3, the seven letters, by Francis Chan. And the other book that�s selling on the front is Timothy Keller, The Prodigal Prophet, and I can�t really see because these are bad reading glasses, Jonah and the Mystery of God�s Mercy.

You�ve also got It�s Not Supposed to Be This Way by Lisa Turkist, and then the Gospel Transformation Study Bible. And so anyway, before I get into Melchizedek, I�ll probably save that for next show, I just want you to know, if you�d like some resources, you can open up to the first page.

This is the first side, inside, and what do you get? You get Francis Chan, Crazy Love. You get Forgotten God DVD curriculum by Francis, and you get the basic series by Francis, and You and Me Forever.

By the way, you can type in You and Me Forever, and you can see Francis and his wife singing in a little video. Ben is watching, Ben Mercedes, and he does great work filming, and I think we�ll be filming this Tuesday some special NoCo videos, and he does weddings and other things.

If you need his help, I�m sure he would help you. But Ben, I think we should do a You and Me Forever video, and we can make it some kind of spoof, some Saturday Night Live thing, and maybe it can be like carpool theological karaoke, and I can ask you a Beth Moore question, and you can answer like Beth would, which would be in a biblicistic way, which, i .e., biblicism, not in a systematic way, a Reformed Confessions way.

She would answer in a mystical way, and that�s my biggest problem with Beth Moore, and she would answer in a way that would reveal probably her inner Angloid, since that�s big for Beth. You know, you�ve got to make sure you quote all the non-white people and study them, even though she�s friends with, you know, Joyce Meyer and Cain.

But maybe they self-identify as black or something, like that one lady does. One lady who does, who said she was black and she was in the news. I think she�s back on her, she�s behind on her taxes, so.

Anyway, you can write me, Mike, at NoCompromiseRadio .com. The other thing I want to talk about today is five steps toward more practical and relevant preaching. I saw online how to be practical in your preaching, and this particular article is written by Rick Zell, but lots of people talk about it, and you can ask yourself the question, is your pastor practical when it comes to his sermons?

Do you want practical? Ask yourself this question. When your pastor stands up to preach, what are you expecting? What are you expecting him to do or her? I don�t think we have many listeners or watchers who have a �her� pastor, but if you do, you have a pastorina or a pastorette, what do you want them to do?

Obviously there�s no such thing as a woman pastor, but do you want practical? Are you expecting relevant? I just talked to a man today in our church, and I asked him how he was doing. He has brain cancer and has had his baseline MRI today after some chemotherapy and surgery and radiation, and they�ll look at his brain every two months now via MRI.

And I said, �What is getting you through the day? How are you doing spiritually was my quote. Just my question to start. And he said, �I�ve been reading Milton Vincent�s The Gospel Primer and rehearsing the truths about the gospel and who Jesus is and how he loves sinners like me and what I deserve and what I get, i .e., mercy and grace.

And every day I just think, you know, today could be the day, and so I want to live in light of eternity. We talked about Psalm 90, �Teach me to number my days. You know, we like to number years, birthdays, numbering days.

And just enjoying every day as a gift from God. And I said, �Well, tomorrow I have a sermon for you, and it�s about the Lord Jesus Christ as a great high priest, and I�m not going to talk to you about four easy steps, three ways of communication, two keys for marriage, three easy steps for, you know, how to get up when life�s got you down and all these other things.

I mean, more practical and relevant. And I think here�s what these kind of articles betray. They betray this, that doctrine is not relevant, that doctrine is not practical. Now, the old Puritans used to say, �All of my doctrine is practical in my preaching and all my practice, duty, devotion is doctrinal.

You want to have people preaching doctrine to you, and if you don�t think doctrine is practical, then that�s part of your problem. But we are so used to these seeker-sensitive churches. I mean, how many times do you see the really cool graphic, �Behold Your God� or something, and it�s really black and blue and cool-looking, and you�ve got eight-week series in light of that.

I mean, they�re not going verse by verse sequentially through books of the Bible. And by the way, you�ll never hear a sermon about Melchizedek in those churches. Why is Melchizedek in Hebrews chapter 7 so important?

I mean, really, when you think about Old Testament characters, people in the Bible, people in the Old Testament, I can�t think of many people who are more important than Melchizedek. But that just doesn�t make us, you know, respond with, �Oh, I can�t wait to hear about Melchizedek today and how that relates to me.

Except if you are a sinner, third-class conditional, since you are a sinner, since I�m a sinner, we�re going to stand before God one day and meet Him, and we�re going to have to approach God and His holiness.

�Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. How are we going to stand before God? Could there be a more practical, a more relevant, a more timely message? �I�m going to die one day and stand before God.

Can you help me I mean, you think about Psalm 49, �Man in his pomp will not remain. He is like the beast that perish. This is the path of those who have foolish confidence, yet after them people approve of their boasts.

Listen to this, �Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol, death shall be their shepherd. Everybody has a shepherd. For us as Christians, we have the Great Shepherd, Hebrews 13. We have the Good Shepherd, John chapter 10.

We have, �The Lord is our shepherd Psalm 23. But if you�re not a Christian, you have a shepherd, somebody�s going to lead you, and that particular person isn�t a real person, it�s just a metaphor here, death personified.

As a person, as a shepherd, �Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol, death shall be their shepherd. And I�m 58 now, and while my health concerns are a lot less than the man I talked to today, I�ve never thought more in my life about one day I�m going to stand before God, and it�s going to be sooner than later.

What one year? Maybe I�ll die from the super coffee, this protein plus MCT oil, who knows, you can die for anything. But it�s coming. A couple times when I was younger, I sadly don�t ever do this unless you�re regenerate I jumped out of an airplane with a parachute on, and I can just remember that ground when I was approaching those cornfields in Nebraska.

It was just coming, zooming at me. And they tell you, �Look at the horizon because we had those old parachutes that were not kind of floating down, you know, double-mint gum kind of things, lightly, you know, and you stand.

These were the Army Reserve kind of chutes, you know, Army surplus. And you hit hard, and you had these weird kind of moon boots on with this spongy insole, and you�d want to crouch up because you could see the earth coming.

Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, and so you want to ball up and scrunch up, but now you�re going to really get hurt, so you want to be loose and limp, and you want to look at the horizon so that when you hit, then you can roll onto your ankle, then you roll onto your calves, the side of your calves, and then you roll onto the side of your hip, and then you roll onto the side of your glute, and then you kind of just hit and roll kind of thing.

I mean, death is coming. Death is the shepherd. And Psalm 49 says this, �Truly, no man can ransom another or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice.

And he�s talking about rich people. They can buy anything. Rich people buy anything they want as often as they want. They love to buy that stuff, and they just run around and whatever they want. I mean, can you imagine going into a store anytime you want, buying anything you want?

That's why for years we would go to the dollar store when the kids were little, and I�d say, �Okay, you get three things in the store, and they can pick whatever. And Luke would always pick the little G .I. Joe kind of army guys, you know, little bazooka guys, and the girls would pick, I don�t know, glitter or something.

But it was good to walk through a store and just pick out anything I wanted and put in that shopping cart slash carriage. Well, the one thing that the rich need to buy but can't buy is eternal life. They're going to die, and of course the poor die too.

But there's something that you can't buy. You can't ransom. Because other people can't ransom it for you since they're sinful, and they need their own ransom. Yet God in His mercy, two great words, and I think of Lloyd-Jones back in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 4,.

�But God. If you've not heard Lloyd-Jones preach that sermon, but God you ought to. And here we have Psalm 49 verse 15, �But God will ransom my soul from the power of He will receive me. Do you think the Old Testament talks about resurrection?

Right there, Psalm 49 verse 15, Psalm 49 verse 15, a friend of mine said that his church member was on his deathbed, and he said, �Preach Psalm 49 on my deathbed. And when you read Psalm 49, you're going to go, �Oh, I didn't even see this here.

You've got to have somebody redeem you, but no one can. And you're going to, like a beast, perish. And then what? And stand before God. And you can't buy this. And what you need is the Lord, Psalm 49 verse 15, �But God will ransom my soul from the power of He will receive me.

Now I ask you the question, is there anything more relevant than that? Is there anything more practical than that? Of course, the Bible has practical sections, but if you look at the book of Hebrews as I'm preaching through the book of Hebrews, 13 chapters, and 12 of them are doctrine.

If you want to say 10 and a half, okay, fine. The bulk of the practical application is found in chapter 13, right? Don't love money, marriage bed's undefiled, remember your teachers, that type of stuff.

Be content with what you have. Remember the prisoners. Those things are very practical, but they're at the end, because here's the theme of the book of Hebrews. Since you're going to have to stand before God, if we want to use the Psalm 49 language, you've got to stand before God and give an account of everything you've said and done, and everything you haven't said and haven't done.

You need someone to be not just a prophet who tells you what you need, although that's important. I never want to undervalue that. You not only need a king who reigns supreme over everything, and I would not want to minimize that, but the book of Hebrews' focus is not on Jesus as prophet, although that's wonderful.

It's not as Jesus as king, king of kings, although that's wonderful, he's wonderful. The focus is Jesus as high priest. You've got to have this high priest to stand before God, because this high priest makes intercession for you, but primarily, when it comes to justification, when it comes to stand before God, he has assuaged the Father's wrath in your place.

He has atoned for your sins. He has bore those sins on His body on the tree as the high priest who offers sacrifices. He is the sacrifice. He's the priest to end the sacrifice. So how relevant is that?

Probably, people that say Hebrews is not relevant, doctrine isn't relevant, I don't think they've been to funerals very often. They haven't been to rest homes very often. They haven't been to wakes very often.

How relevant is it then? By the way, when those kind of things happen in your life, a death of a loved one, or you get the cancer diagnosis, or something else bad goes on, all the other things, I mean, and again, my cancer is not that big a deal.

And just back from New York two weeks ago, doctor said, looks good, come back in a year for a biopsy. So I could be out of the woods, I mean, die from something else. But when you get that phone call, and I remember, I was in this room when I got the phone call.

I just sat right here and did Wretched Radio for Todd Friel. I went over to my phone, and I was thinking to myself, this is kind of cool. I just did, essentially, national radio hosting for Todd. Why hasn't he had me back, by the way?

Hey, Todd, I'm gonna text Todd, by the way. Oh, I can't text. I'm using my phone for this live cam. And I went to my phone, and then the phone was a voicemail from the doctor in Boston. I just had biopsies there, you know, a few days before.

And just before Christmas, my kids were in town. And you know, here's what you do if you're a doctor, and the person doesn't have cancer. Hey, we just, they don't say, hey, hello, Mr. Rabendroth. My name's Dr. So-and-so, and we've just looked at your slides.

We've got them back from pathology, and they look good. Have a great holiday season. If you'd like to call me, here's my number. That's how they do it. So when I walked right over there, a few feet away, right over there to that desk, right there, and the doctor on voicemail said, hi, this is Dr. So-and-so.

Please call me when you can. By the way, when I got that note, that voicemail, I didn't think about four easy steps to financial freedom. I didn't think about three better ways to communicate with your neighbors.

I didn't think about two steps for a happy life. I didn't think about one way for financial freedom and prosperity. I didn't think about five ways, you know, what's the old Paul Simon song? I don't know, 50 ways, but like, oh, now I know the name of it.

I can't use it. I didn't think of any of those things. I was thinking, Lord, help. I was thinking about the person and work of who the triune God was. That's what I was thinking about. So when you're face-to-face with the death shepherd, the shepherd named death, is there any hope?

Am I going to make it? Will I be resurrected? And here, even in Psalm 49, there's a resurrection of the dead. But there's someone, the God of the universe, who ransoms souls. And this God, the triune God, ransoms souls as the Father has sent the Son, energized by the Spirit of God, to be the Son is the ransom.

How practical is that? I hope when your pastor preaches doctrine and the person and work of Christ, you tell him, pastor, I'm so glad you're talking about doctrine. I'm so glad you're helping me understand who God is.

This will be my lifelong, my eternal lifelong desire and goal to understand the person and work of God. And when you do that, then you understand how to love your neighbor. Nobody has to tell you. If you're not loving your neighbor correctly, in other words, then you need a better view of God.

When I, 25 years ago, was really struggling in my marriage, I remember talking to a man and he said, Mike, how can your relationship with the Lord be right if the relationship with your wife isn't right?

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. I did not want to hear that. But that man was right, and I am thankful that that man confronted me in that. Well, it's 24 and a half minutes in, so the show for NOCO show is 2430, and you want to write me, info at nocompromisedradio .com, you can.

And I'm going to stop the live feed for a second, and I'm going to do another part in about three minutes.

Ministry Resources, Doctrine, and the Relevance of Preaching Christ

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