Radio, Radio

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.

Radio, Memory, and the Early Appeal of Christian Broadcasting

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth and I am your host. We�ve been on the air, I don�t know, finishing five years now. That�s pretty crazy to think about. I think coming up on five full years later in the end of the summer, something like that.

So, we�re glad that you listen. We hope you tell your friends. You can access our, see that�s the Nebraska coming out in me, you can access our washing machine, our washing machine, washing, washing. First time I was on the radio, it was 1971-ish, and I won a contest in Omaha, Nebraska, via the radio station, for I think the station was K-O-I-L, COIL, and they played, who knows what they played?

They probably played Keith Richards or something like that, no, sorry, who plays, who did The Devil Woman? Cliff Richard, something like that, yes. And I won the contest, I went into the studio there, I got to put the headphones on and they had a microphone.

They asked me a couple questions, I�m sure I choked and couldn�t really talk well. I think that was about the same time we got the tour of the Red Barn, and the Red Barn was exactly that, a red barn, but it was selling burgers and fries like a McDonald�s or Burger King would, and we got to go in the back and flip a couple patties.

That was 1971-ish. I do remember earlier than that, listening to my little transistor radio, I can still remember what it looks like, and a little dial on the front, listening to the Nebraska Cornhuskers, Lyle Bremser was the announcer, and he was the equivalent of Johnny Most in Boston for the Celtics, or Chick Hearn for the Lakers in Los Angeles.

�I�ll let you sell the ball Man, Woman, and Child, was Lyle Bremser�s comment with Johnny Rogers scoring a touchdown. Man, Woman, and Child, he�s gone. And what was Chick Hearn�s? Put them in the popcorn machine, stuff like that.

Then I was on the radio, we�ll get to the Bible in just a second, hang in there. I was on the radio KZUM, KZUM 89 .5 on the FM dial in Lincoln, Nebraska when I was a college student, and Thursday nights from 7 -9pm we had a punk rock show, and I was with my friend Bill Stoughton, and we played, he was kind of the synth guy, maybe Depeche Mode, orchestral maneuvers in the dark, and I was the darker side.

And that was not technically a University of Nebraska sponsored station, just run by a bunch of bohemian, hippie, University of Santa Cruz slugs kind of folks. And so that was my background, and I have always appreciated radio, because I would be in the car, and my dial was usually set to rock and roll, actually it was a cassette that I�d usually have, and I would record some cassettes at night, and then I�d play them during the day as I drove around the streets of Los Angeles from 1993 until 1989, mainly listen to sports, some talk radio with George Putnam, and some other folks that would do political talk, and then I had the crisis in my life, and that crisis was, I realized that I had no answers, I realized that in fact my father was dying, there wasn�t anything I could do about it, I didn�t know how to walk through that.

As a Christian now, I think to myself when a loved one dies in someone�s family or in my family, there�s a set of ways to think, right, our emotions can run, our feelings can just kind of spiral out of control if they�re not captivated by and influenced by our thinking.

And that�s why it�s so important for you as a Christian, and that�s why I�m glad to have you as an audience listener, part of the BBC outreach here through No Compromise Radio, that you want to have your minds renewed, right, you begin to think thoughts biblically.

So in the Old Testament, if you called someone open-minded in the Old Testament day, that wouldn�t be a good thing, because that means their mind�s open to anything to come in, even wrong thinking, inappropriate thinking, irrational thinking, ungodly thinking, unbiblical thinking.

And that if you had a biblical thought in your mind that was lodged there, that if you�ve the simple man, this is the simple man that Solomon speaks of in the Proverbs. And so you want to not be open-minded in that biblical sense.

Of course, you know, this is radio and we have to do all of the courses where if you haven�t been taught a certain thing, you know, what does the Bible say about reprobation? Well, I don�t want to know, I�m close-minded to that.

Well, we should be, you know, teachable for what the Bible says, of course, but you get my drift. We�d rather have us, Solomon would rather have us, God would rather have us be close-minded. Maybe we could even say narrow-minded if you�d like.

Close-minded in what sense, Pastor Mike? Well, in this sense. Close-minded because we don�t want anything to leave our minds. We want the door closed to the truths that have been taught to us and that we have learned from the scriptures are through God�s ordained means of teaching us, often through not just your own Bible study, but Bible teachers, right?

Ephesians 4 where God equips and gives gifts to his church. He�s going to provide for his bride, isn�t he? Of course. He, the son, will provide for the bride and the father will provide for the son�s bride.

So you want to have a closed mind and you have a grid, a biblical grid, so things don�t come into your mind that are improper. And you say, no, that�s not true. This is true and that�s false. And you know, we live in such a society where I think people are afraid to say that.

So on No Compromise Radio, what I try to often do is to say, that�s not true. This isn�t right. This is incorrect. That has a lot of truth to it, but it�s not all truth. And if we�re not paying attention to the rhetoric and we�re soothed over by the four P�s of marketing, what are the four P�s of marketing?

Product, place, price, and promotion. At least that�s what I remember from the marketing days. I also remember IBM selling, and they took us to selling school in a weird place. It was a very weird place.

It was called New England, and I was living in Los Angeles at the time. And we went to this weird place in Connecticut and learned IBM selling. State the situation, summarize the idea, explain how it works, reinforce key benefits, close.

And so I never forgot that. I was quizzed on it. I had to role play for that. So we want to be back on topic here, close-minded, and to think biblically. So getting way back to topic, I�m driving around the streets of Los Angeles, and my father�s dying, and I have no idea to think biblically or properly.

I wouldn�t know up from down in life. I don�t have anyone to guide me. I don�t understand much. I mean, I�ve got a job. It�s a corporate America job. I guess I�m climbing the corporate ladder. At the time, I didn�t have a house, but I just had an apartment.

I was saving up for a house, living in a nice neighborhood fairly close to the beach, was healthy, you know, dabbled, more than dabbled with drugs and just, you know, licensed in life to do whatever I pleased because I thought I was God.

And then, like I said earlier, my father got cancer. Well, when you�re going to lose a loved one, there�s some soul-seeking. There�s only so much drink you can imbibe. There�s only so many movies you can go to, and you just can�t get that off your mind.

And so I remember picking up the Bible. In my room, it was Kiowa, 1829 Kiowa Ave. in Brentwood, right off Santa Monica Boulevard. No, right off San Vicente Boulevard, right off Sun Boulevard. And thinking there has to be an answer.

My dad�s 54. He�s my age now, 54, dying from cancer, a hulk of a man, a brute, a beast of a man. He�s a boxer. And my dad�s friend, after my dad died, would tell me the stories about the bouncing he�d have to do at bars and his skill as a fighter.

So, I mean, I never saw him fight. But anyway, I began to listen to radio. And so radio has just always been a part of my life. I began to listen to radio. My friend who lived down the street, who turned out to be my wife, she�s still my friend by the way, she said, �Why don�t you listen to KKLA.

I can�t remember what it is, 99 .5, something like that on your FM dial. We don�t have dials really much anymore. Remember with the radio in the car, if you wanted to preset something, you have to pull out the little knob and push it back in all the way.

That�s how you do a preset. Now you can�t figure them out. And so I began to listen to KKLA. And I liked Raul Ruiz the most. He was a pastor, still is a pastor of Calvary Chapel. In those days, it was in West Covina.

They took over, bought a Safeway grocery store. I think it�s in Diamond Bar now. And I began to listen to the radio. And I would listen to other people. There was kind of a stuffier guy in my opinion at the time, my naive opinion at the time.

He taught the Bible, but I didn�t really much care for him because I think I needed more of a� I think I was looking for something carnal is what I was looking for. But his name was John MacArthur. And I listened to Lloyd Ogilvie.

He was a pastor at Hollywood Press at the time. I listened to a guy I thought he was alive, J. Vernon McGee. I began to listen to the Bible Answer Man. I think Walter Martin had just died. I forget the date, so don�t hold me to it.

But Hank Hanegraaff then started that up. And he had some, I can�t remember the other guys, Ron Rhodes and others. I began to listen. And God began to show me that I was sinful and that my baptism as a Lutheran, the water that was sprinkled on my head when I was too little to understand what was going on, that my receiving of the sacraments of the Lord�s Supper with the bread and the wine in the Lutheran Church.

I think I�I don�t think I know. I went on a mission trip with the Lutheran Church, and I just had a faith that wasn�t saving faith. It was a spurious faith. There�s a faith that doesn�t save. I mean, that is a shock.

Show me someone in a Roman Catholic, a Lutheran, any type of system where you are regenerated through water. You know, that�s what they teach. It can�t really be, of course. But there�s a faith that doesn�t save.

That rocked my world. There�s a demonic faith. Even the demons believe and tremble. And the demons had better faith than I did. If I thought about hell long enough, I might tremble, but I thought I was going to heaven.

And so the demons believe. They have an intellectual ascent. They have a knowledge. They understand Trinitarian thoughts and the deity of Christ�s eternal sonship, the literal resurrection. They understand that.

And they have an emotional reaction. They shudder. The old rabbis would talk about demons being hairy ones. And why would they be called hairy ones? Well, the word �shudder� in James chapter 2 is the word that when your dog sees an enemy or is frightened, what happens to the hair on the back of the dog?

Hair of the dog goes up, right? It spikes up. That�s the word there, �shudder. And so they even have an emotional response. And so what was my response? My response was, I thought I was good. I had hell insurance.

So let�s live up this life. I mean, come on. Let�s have a good time. Hedonism ruled. And I began to listen to the radio. And I mean, it�s like when they had an altar call on the radio. I wanted to go up closer to the front windshield.

I wanted to go up on the dash. And I wanted to get closer. I wanted to do something. Now, if I went to a regular church service, I wouldn�t have gone up to the front. Too vain. Too prideful. Too self-righteous.

I wouldn�t want to do that. Hey, I�m already good. Thanks. And so I wouldn�t want to do that. But I�m thinking, I got to get saved. So fast forward a little bit. I get married. There�s kind of crisis in the marriage just with my anger.

God uses all that as I begin to read the Bible to save me in 89. So that was the radio. God using the radio. And there were other things. My wife was preaching to me. We were at the time, like I said, going to Calvary Chapel and learning.

And so get saved through a big part through learning the Bible, right? You�ve got to understand the object of your faith. One of the things you have to do when you�re evangelizing is teach people about Jesus, because people are so biblically illiterate.

They don�t know who Jesus is. So they don�t know that they sinned against a holy God. And they don�t even know who this God is. They don�t know who Jesus is. You know, they think he was just some fine chap.

And he was certainly. I�m drinking out of this Henno mug, by the way, today. And I decided to do some kombucha tea. I like the cold drink in the store. It�s quite pricey, but I like it. It�s, you know, only 50, 60 calories or something.

And it has kind of like a bite to it. And you, the retractor, would say, yes, Mike, that�s the alcohol content in it. Yes, but it�s minor, right? I think kids can buy it. So it must be okay. There�s got to be more alcohol in NyQuil.

So even though I might drink kombucha, that doesn�t count against my 25 years of not touching. I can�t say I haven�t touched alcohol. I drank alcohol through NyQuil. I�ve done that. Maybe the kombucha drinks in the store doesn�t really count.

You know, it�s negligible. And for communion wine, if I�m at a church that serves communion with real alcohol, I�ll do that. Actually, when I�m in a church that serves communion in a common cup, common chalice, I�m actually glad it�s got alcohol.

Grandma Evie, Missionary Stories, and the Early Radio Ministry

These days. And so we go from K-O-I-L to K-Z-U-M to K-K-L-A to then my grandmother-in-law, Grandma Evie Nichols, Kim�s grandmother who raised her, my wife�s grandmother. Kim�s parents died tragically when she was young.

I�m still trying to get her on the show to let you hear about her and from her. It�s a wonderful testimony of the grace of God in a young lady�s life. And so Grandma had a show called Heart to Heart with Grandma Evie.

And so everybody called her her grandmother. She probably started the radio show. She had done radio shows and TV shows throughout the �60s, �70s, I don�t know if in the �80s. And so she decided to start it up again.

And she would tell missionary stories to kids. Heart to Heart with Grandma Evie. And she would discuss the New Hebrides Islands and how John Payton and his wife went there to minister. She would talk about, I think the first time I ever heard of the Scottish lady who went to Calabar.

And her name was Mary Slessor. I think she rescued 51 sets of twins. I remember the people back then thought twins were demonic and they would just set the twins out in the middle of the jungle to be eaten.

And she rescued 20, excuse me, 51 sets of twins. I think they called her White Maw. And she didn�t take any, as we�d say in Nebraska, guff. So she, Grandma, would do the radio show. And then she asked Kim and I to be on the show once as we recorded it in Mount Hermon.

And I believe I talked about family worship and how we at our home would sit around the table, the dinner table, after supper. Do we call it supper? After dinner. After the evening meal, comida. And open up the Bible and go through Exodus, talk about the Lord Jesus, singing hymn, you know, that type of thing.

Or two or three. Some kid songs. And so I was on the radio there and I was playing on the Santa Cruz station, Dr. Stanley Monteith station. I can�t remember the call letters. So then you fast forward to 2000.

No Compromise Radio, Call-In Ministry, and the Use of Media for Good

I think that�s 2009, the fall of 2009. And we decided to do No Compromise Radio. Because earlier, remember, Tom Krause was on the radio here at WVNE from two to three for many, many years. And he asked me to fill in for him.

First I did an interview for my book, The Prince of Preachers, Jesus Christ. And then he asked me to fill in for him for a day or two. I was glad to do it. I was thankful for it. And then I think there was a two-week stint and I had to drive down to the radio station just north of Auburn.

It�s Auburn is how it looks, but it�s Auburn. And what�s that street name? James Street, maybe, is the station headquarters. And so we did some shows. I remember doing the call-ins and it was so, so difficult.

And I thought, man, this takes some getting used to because you want to be nice to people, but you want to tell the truth. And, you know, you have to cut people off if they are going off the deep end theologically.

And then that�s when WV &E offered me the slot from 3 .30 to 4. And so we�ve been on every day for five years. I think for a couple months we decided to go off the air as just a protest, you know, to protest the administration.

And so I say to myself, what radio can be used for? It is a wonderful thing. And, you know, just like technology. You can get on the internet and you can look up slutty stuff, pornography, or you can look up things to teach you about the triune God.

And so, you know, the internet, like alcohol, like guns, like sex, in and of themselves, they aren�t, you know, right or wrong. It�s how they�re used, right? So there are different degrees of that, of course.

I�m trying to correct myself theologically as we go. And so the main goal here at No Compromise Radio is I want you to learn and study about the character and nature of God. This is the God who, left to ourselves, couldn�t be found at all.

Yet He, in His goodness, in His kindness, says things like this. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways.

For my thoughts thin your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.

It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Now that is an amazing thing. I, more than anyone else, understand my faults, my sins, my propensities, the sin that dwells in me.

I mean, I get it. I understand. I�m sure I don�t understand the gravity of it because I need to have an increased view of the holiness of God and his transcendent glory. But God has words go out, and as revelation, general revelation would have no speech nor other words, right?

His voice is not heard. It preaches, though. That is the sun and the moon and general revelation things. It preaches, you know, that God is wise and has knowledge, proclaims his handiwork. But the specific things, God uses radio, so I�m just thrilled.

Isaiah 55 and the Power of God’s Word

Now, getting back to that Isaiah 55 passage that I just read, �For my thoughts are not your thoughts. That began in verse 8. Now, the first thing you should ask when you hear those words, �For my thoughts are not your thoughts.

How does that sentence begin? How does that verse begin, Isaiah 55 8? For, F-O-R. And so, there�s a link. It means you got to go back. You know, it�s good to start at the beginning of the chapter, and it says, �Come to me, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come buy and eat, come buy wine and milk, without money and without price.

And he works his way to get to chapter 7, and it says, �Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to Yahweh, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God Elohim, for he will abundantly pardon.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Can you imagine? God abundantly pardons, in spite of our sin, in spite of our depravity, in spite of Adam�s sin, in spite of our own then sinful nature as a consequence of Adam�s imputed sin.

We are sinful people, and we don�t love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We don�t love our neighbors as ourselves, but God is a God who abundantly pardons. My thoughts would be, if I had people in my realm that did not give me honor, I would not probably be a king who pardoned at all, let alone abundantly pardon.

And that is why God�s thoughts are higher. God�s thoughts are more loving. God�s thoughts are more generous and compassionate. And he has his word go forth, and he pardons through the word, in the sense that through the word you learn about who Jesus is, who the Messiah is, and you learn about his life, and you learn about his death, his substitutionary death, his representative life, and his joyous resurrection, joy-filled resurrection, his supernatural resurrection.

And so, we learn about God through his word. And so, to wrap things up, when it comes to radio, and CDs, and tapes, and A-tracks, I just think to myself that God would use these means. And of course, it takes then men and women to actually, you know, God doesn�t talk out loud anymore, so he uses instruments.

Who�s adequate for these things? Well, no one is, and so to God be the glory. That he would use radio, not only in my life, but I�m sure your life as well. You know, it�s kind of a thing of the past these days, because you can do the iTunes, and I downloads, and the Facebook, and all this, and a variety of other ways, tune in radio.

But still, that God�s word would go forth, and that he would build his kingdom. He would build his church. He would add to his church, no matter what happens. I�m thankful to be a part of it. So, to God be the glory, that he could take a man, and redeem him, and then give him a platform to tell other people about the excellencies of the Lord Jesus Christ and his word.