The Pactum, Michael Beck, and Mike Abendroth

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and today, a special No Compromise show.

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I was in Omaha, Nebraska with Pat Abendroth, Mike Grimes, and Michael Beck, and we did a

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Two -Age No Compromise podcast. Two -Age

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Sojourner is Michael Beck's podcast, The Pactum is Pat Abendroth's with Mike Grimes, and then

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No Compromise is moi. And so we talked about all kinds of things, but mainly we talked about preaching.

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So it's good to be in a room with people. I normally get the Tuesday guy, and that's about it. It was good to be in a room with Michael Beck, Pat Abendroth, Mike Grimes in a studio in Omaha, Nebraska.

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So I'm going to play that show now. It originally aired on The Pactum, and you've probably heard that.

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I think it was the week, middle October or something. You've already heard that, and with Pat's permission, I want to replay it because I thought it was a good conversation.

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My voice wasn't that strong, but that's fine. I'm stuffy still now. A few days from now,

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I'll start the leukemia treatment. So hopefully that'll be on the road to recovery.

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But I also wanted you to know about The Pactum, and I played other shows on The Pactum before, of The Pactum before to get you to know the ministry of Mike Grimes and Pat Abendroth.

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So here you go. This is The Pactum's recording of Mike Abendroth, Michael Beck, Mike Grimes, and Pat Abendroth talking about preaching.

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Here you go. Welcome to The Pactum.

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This is Pat Abendroth with Mike Grimes. What's going on over there, Mike? I tell you what, it's feeling a little bit like you're outnumbered here today.

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It's true. There are four of us. We have guests. We're talking about preaching, but not just for preachers.

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Preaching is important for everybody, right? Because how will they know without a preacher? So preaching is important for you if you're not a preacher.

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It's important for you if you are a preacher. And so today we have someone from the East Coast of the

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United States with us, Mike Abendroth, host of No Compromise Radio. What's up, Mike?

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It's the Mike and Mike and Mike club here. I am so glad to be in The Pactum studio, and I got a glimpse of The Pactum couch.

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So I'm excited. It's a sofa. It's a sofa just so you know. Okay. Sorry. And I was going to say I got the anointing, but around here we say we got the anointing.

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There you go. Did you sit on it? Not yet. No, because Pat told me I wasn't allowed. Okay. All right.

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We also have with us from the... Is it East Coast of New Zealand or not?

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Uh, no. It'd just be bottom of the North Island. I was trying to kind of make the connection.

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So Michael Beck, host of Two Age Sojourner, is also with us to talk about preaching.

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Welcome, Mike. Thanks, Pat. Great to be here. It's intimidating because opposite from me is

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Mr. Radio himself. And my goodness, you should see the professionalism going on here. Just if anyone cares, it's unbelievable.

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It's unbelievable. You can feel it through your earbuds if you're listening. So Mike Grimes, Mike Abendroth, Michael Beck, and I am outnumbered.

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It's kind of weird. And you have the wrong name. It's true. We just need to call you Mike. St.

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Patrick to you is what that is. So how about if we do this? We're going to do preaching principles, pitfalls, and pet peeves.

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On the pactum. On the pactum, right? For the public as well as the practitioner. Starting with the positive and then hitting the more provocative.

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Always alliterate. Well, your sermons, I find that I always just end up with P's. Whenever I try to alliterate, this is why

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I stopped alliterating. Because I just... P's. There are too many possibilities. We saw what you just did there.

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We heard that. P's and R's. And then it just got old. And I was like, you know what? No more.

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I've had enough. I don't alliterate anymore, ever. Even if I see it, I don't do it. I try not to do it. As the newbie preacher here,

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I would say I've tried a couple times and it was always P and R. Presbyterian and Reformed. Something about the brain just goes to P and R.

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Oh, it's just them old words. I don't know. Who knows? Wowzers. Let's talk about the positive.

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Let's start there and talk about positive things about preaching, things you like when you're listening to a sermon, things that encourage you, things that you would say that preachers should do or listeners should enjoy and appreciate.

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Well, it's interesting, Pat. When I think of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, these gods, not

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Israel's God, but the other gods, you could see them, but they didn't talk, right?

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And all of a sudden we understand who Yahweh is and you can't see him, but he speaks.

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And so that to me is like the baseline for all of preaching because we have a God who speaks.

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There could be a God who just is, but he doesn't speak. But since he does speak, it's important to communicate what he says to his people.

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And his will is to use frail people like us to communicate that truth. And so it's a great privilege to do that.

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It starts with a P, privilege. There you go, which we're not supposed to say, but we do. We say honor oftentimes because we want to accommodate everybody.

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So what's the deal with that privilege thing? Why can't you say privilege? Because we don't, right now in America, we don't like to say privilege because privilege means something.

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If you're privileged, it means you're somehow... In the Marxist ideology, you need to redistribute the wealth to someone who's not as privileged as you.

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I wasn't even thinking of that. I was thinking about blessed. I was thinking about preaching and all that stuff. We love the word, but it's just become toxic.

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So there it is. How about Michael Beck? Have you always loved preaching?

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That is a good question. Yeah, I still wonder about my relationship with preaching.

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It's sort of like asking a mother, do you love bearing children? Do you love the process of having a child?

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And of course, everyone loves the child and loves being a mother, and it is the highest privilege. Sorry. Blessing.

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Blessing, blessing. But it's painful from beginning to end, right?

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It's just pure pain. That's how I feel about preaching. I can appreciate that. How about from the vantage point of listening?

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So you appreciate and love listening to a good sermon, but when did that happen?

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When you were 15 years old, did you love listening to sermons? No, no, no. I was 100 % an unbeliever.

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I only became a Christian when I was 21, and I was not in any way, just completely on the opposite track.

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So preaching was what got me. So I've always... I suppose that's it. That's the thing. I remember very clearly, and I say it without hesitation,

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God spoke to me 100%. And that was through the sermon, properly exegeted, applied.

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There it was. The preacher was speaking to me, and I knew 100 % that this was God. And it wasn't a weird message.

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It was just like, if you die right now, you're going to go to hell, and Jesus has come to save you.

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What the heck are you doing with your life right now? And it just thundered through my soul. And obviously, he elaborated on all those ideas.

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But yeah, whoa, just night and day. I mean, I think I was converted under the preaching of the word. That's what happened.

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Faith comes by hearing. I love it. God has ordained the instrument. Sometimes I say to myself, dwarf.

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I say, Mike, but then there's too many Mikes. What changes are in my life since I've been a

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Christian? And with conversion and regeneration, what's different? And I think you were alluding to that,

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Pat. I didn't like preaching before. I mean, the sermons were too long, too technical. They didn't seem apropos to my life.

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I just hated preaching. And that was growing up in a Lutheran church with 15 -minute sermons. Right. That was with our sister.

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They were too long, right? Yeah. And then all of a sudden, when the Lord saves you, what you used to hate, now you love, and what you used to love, you now hate.

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And I think, I love preaching. And I go to conferences where I pay to hear preaching.

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And you think this is a highlight of my week to have the pastor get up and proclaim the truth of God. And so we've just fallen in love as Christians with preaching, because if you look at the greatest preacher of all time, it's not who you might think it would be.

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It's the Lord Jesus himself. He's the best preacher. You should listen to him. You should write a book about that. You know what? I tried.

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It didn't sell well. So would you rather listen to a sermon or a lecture, though?

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Is it just a, or if you're thinking about, I don't know, you guys are cycling, you're probably riding somewhere.

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True, true. And you've got a sermon choice, a podcast, I suppose. Podcast is always like cheating. It's too easy.

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Let's say you've got sermon monologues, I'm thinking, sermon or lecture. Well, Michael, you could also say, do you read sermons or do you read theology books?

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Everybody buys those big sermons by Spurgeon, and they never read another one. But to answer your question,

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I do both. I try to listen to some preachers. I love Chris Gordon's preaching because he doesn't shy away from handling narratives well.

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He does such a good job. And then I listen to podcasts as well. Okay. Yeah. What about you? I think I'm both and, but mainly it would be lectures.

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And then oftentimes on a Saturday after my work is done, I go on a bike ride or something and listen to Sinclair Ferguson or something to...

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Yeah, it's got to be a preacher that you really do appreciate, right? Otherwise, it just becomes like a churning experience.

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You critique it, and it's not relaxing at all. You don't learn anything because you're too hyped up. Yeah. I think that's true.

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How about you, Mike Ryan? I'm a sermon guy. I like to listen to sermons. Sermons? Yeah, I do. I don't know. Maybe it's just because of the lecture.

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Sometimes I'm just not that smart. So maybe it's just... Well, maybe you're the only... It requires too much brain effort. You're the spiritual one.

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Maybe you're the only preacher in the room. I don't know. This is what I war with sometimes. I'm like, do preachers have to love listening to sermons more than...

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Is that a thing? I don't know. Well, we probably did early on in our ministries. Maybe. Now we're working on technical things and exegetical things.

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Does Stephen Curtis Chapman, does he preach? Do you listen to his sermons? He doesn't preach, no. He preaches through his music.

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That's what he does. As you see his picture there, right? Autographed in the back of the studio. What's that gold dust around there?

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Well, it's the Shekinah. Oh my God. So if you could tell a preacher one piece of advice, what's it going to be?

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And for our listeners, what's the one thing you want to hear from a preacher?

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What's it going to be? I'll go. Yep. All right. Well, it's not one thing. We do have rules around here.

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I know. We are not antinomian. That's why I didn't answer. All right. Mike, you might be antinomian, but on the pactum, we're not. We have laws.

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Um, okay. Well, the one thing is I would say, forget about all the pressure that seminaries and homiletics textbooks and whatever you think people want to hear will put on you and just focus on the only thing that matters, right?

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Which is to just simply understand what that text is actually saying, right?

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And then tell people what that text is saying and then show them how it still means something for them.

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That's it. There are three things there, but it's one thing. It's just, forget the homiletics and just focus on the thing, you know?

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And I don't think that anyone who hears a sermon where they've understood what that text is saying and then afterwards come away with the main point and how it applies, no one's going to complain about something like that unless of course it's offensive to them for some reason, but the sermon will always succeed.

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And you don't have to worry about all these other things like alliterating with P's, for heaven's sake. Or R's. Or R's, yeah.

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I like that. That's my answer. No. One thing that makes it so hard, right?

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These days it seems like since there's so much moralistic, pietistic, how -to sermons, right?

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T. David Gordon, we talked about him last night where a lot of people, they visit a Christian church and were asked, what's

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Christianity about based on that sermon? They would say, being good, doing good things, being nice, being kind to people, loving other people.

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But I think if I had one pass fail for one of my students in seminary for preaching, it'd be, you have to talk about the

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Lord Jesus. He must be exalted, Colossians 1, verse 28. Even with a weird word order, it says, him we proclaim.

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Right? Paul said, before I even get to a town, I know what I'm going to do. Right? 1 Corinthians 2, verse 2,

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I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ. And by the way, what you don't like about him, he's crucified.

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I'm going to talk about his crucifixion. I used to believe that 1 Corinthians 2 was go there and talk about his person and his work,

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Jesus Christ and him crucified. But Paul is saying, I know you don't want to crucify Christ because it's foolishness to you and the

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Jews don't like it either. And so I'm going to make sure I give you what you don't want, but what you need,

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Christ and him crucified. All right. I changed my answer. That's my answer.

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Well, let's see. How can I add to that? I don't even know. I'll just borrow from William Perkins.

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You better know if it's law or gospel, make it clear. So how about that? He says that regarding application, but I'll steal him.

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Yeah. Grimes, you got anything? I have one and I'm the newbie, but it has nothing really to do with preaching.

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Okay. Sing. Sing well. Sing loud. What are you talking about? With gusto. What are you talking about?

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Like during the sermon? No. Is that what you guys do? I have this thing where, I don't know, since I lead the music all the time, it's hard to sit and watch pastors, preachers sit up in the front and not sing.

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Yes, I agree. I agree. So I'm just saying this is a... I thought you were being... No, I'm saying before you even preach, sing.

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I've seen that in charismatic circles. You sort of hit the crescendo of your sermon. You just start singing in the middle and it's usually in a strange sounding language.

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Walk over to the piano, look out to the audience. I agree. I agree. No, I was going to say,

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I have to tell the students when I teach them up in a preaching class, remember when you're sitting on the front row, you don't need to be reviewing your sermon head down.

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You ought to be singing. And I know you're not the worship leader per se, but you are probably in the front and you're leading the congregation.

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And if you're not singing, well, who else is going to follow the lead? And I'll tell you, from being up front and having the vantage point of seeing the congregation every week, they look over at the pastor more than they look over you.

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And that is one of my favorite things about Pat, because he sings with gusto. How can he be such a better singer than I am?

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We have the same parents and he's got the good singing voice. My grandpa did not say I'm a good singer. He just said I'm singing.

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I'm leaving that out of the conversation. The Lord has perfect hearing, and that's the thing. You don't have to worry about it.

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Yeah, it's true. You just get it out there. So someone, a Zambian friend of mine often made the application.

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I don't know if I follow him 100%, but leaving that aside right now, he always used to say, those psalms that talk about shouting to the

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Lord, they should be applied in exactly the way that you're talking about now, like a boisterous singing, just singing with all of your heart.

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And ever since he told me that, I was thinking, yeah, there is a reason to just sing like you're almost shouting.

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Yeah, you got to do it. This is not an episode about singing. Well, I just thought

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I'd hijack it for a second. It's the singing hermeneutic. It's as the newbie preacher. I'm the student. It's warming your vocals for preaching.

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And that's true. Wesley used to say something like that. Before, he was like, what do preachers do to exercise their vocal cords?

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And it's like, sing for about three hours straight, and then get dragged through the city by a mob, and then do your thing.

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It was Spurgeon in lectures to my students, and he would say, if you are losing your voice, don't have some kind of sugary mint or something like that.

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Get some kind of oil with a chili powder paste or something really hot. He said, that's what you would do for rawhide.

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And so if you ever are losing your voice, some kind of hot, spicy - Potato chips. R .C.

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Sproul told me that. Wow. It's because of the oil, the potato chips. Yeah. I thought it was him just making it up because he liked eating chips.

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No. Yeah, chips are good. Wow, cool. That's why I have to think you're right. I'm so going to use that. Sorry, Khan Singh, eating chips, mouthful.

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This is important for my preach. Did they recall those chips where if you just have one, it could kill you? They might have because, yeah, a young teenager died.

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Yeah. Okay, let's get back on track. Okay, sorry. The one thing. The one thing. Let's talk about pet peeves.

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So maybe - These are legion. They are legion. Because I'm an expert in making these mistakes.

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I'll start with this one and say a pet peeve for me is when preachers read the text and they say things like, let me read to you, let me read for you.

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Because I love it when people have Bibles. I want them to look in their own Bible and say, let's read or look with me at this text.

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Don't say I'm going to read to you because then people - I bet it changed the way I'm planning on doing this.

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I was going to do a lot of reading to people. Well, we should have done this afterwards. This was a bad mistake.

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It will air afterwards, so you're okay. It's true. Yeah, it's all good. What I tend to do,

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Pat, is if I'm in the section like now, Luke chapter two, and I have cross references,

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I try not to have them turn to too many other passages. So what I'll do is I'll say, please turn to Galatians chapter four, verses four and five.

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And we have in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under law that he might redeem those under law, et cetera.

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And then I go back to Luke two. And if I say another verse from someplace else, I'll just usually say, and Matthew chapter one, verse 21 says.

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I can get behind that. I can support you there. All right, thanks. Thank you. Yeah, like, you know, if you're doing some heavy hitting biblical theological sort of thing,

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I mean, I don't want to, just stay where you are. Stay where you are. I'll get that verse for you. And I quickly want you to just see, it's kind of like my version of the hyphenated word.

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You know, you want to hold the idea there before them without losing the main thing. I wouldn't disagree with any of that.

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It's just maybe the main text you're preaching. Don't say I'm going to do this for you. I want active listeners engaged.

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And I want people to see it in their own Bible. So when they go home. Do you think screens with verses up on the platform or, you know, whatever it's called stage, has that contributed to people not bringing their

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Bibles? Do you think so? People do that? People put the verses up on the screen? They do. I think we've maybe done it like Christmas Eve or something.

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Yeah, we've done it maybe on Christmas Eve once or twice. You don't think people are bringing Bibles with you and it's dark in the room?

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Yeah. But I think it's that and smartphones. That's why they don't bring Bibles anymore. On vacation, I'll bring my smartphone to a church service, worship service.

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But other than that, I don't want that thing around because I can't control myself. Yeah. I just love the way you can get the

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Greek and the Hebrew and everything going on. You know, it's awesome. It's a linear format and you can, whatever the guy is saying just on the spot, you can just check it all out.

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Yeah. But you're the kind of guy that on your free time, you probably listen to Hebrew folk music or something. I mean, come on.

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I'm a macadam. Yes, I do. It's weird. I know. Low, low, low.

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Yeah. Pet peeves? Pet peeves. Yes. Well, I mean, for me,

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I sort of continuing on what I was saying a bit earlier about the overly formulated sermon that's sort of like wrangling the text into some sort of homiletical mold.

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I'm going to do that at the conference tomorrow. Yeah, well, just, I mean, look, here's what

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I'm worried about sometimes is that we're so concerned to get the homiletics right that I'm guilty of this.

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For many years, I did this and I just said no more. It just gets ridiculous sometimes where I spent more time worried about how the points are going to alliterate or flow on or whatever, when actually no one really cares.

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At the end of the day, if you've got a great outline and it's genius and it doesn't really reflect what's actually going on and what the author is actually doing, it just bothers me.

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So now, whenever I see any of that, I know, I think, you know what it's like because you just know what's behind the scenes there and you know where the mind has had to go to kind of construct this whole process.

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And I get that it's a bit easier to listen to something when you've got three nice points but I think it's so worthwhile just to push past that and just put that extra effort into feeling the text and just let it flow out of you rather than, and just let them pick up the pieces afterwards, you know, and just break something when you preach rather than come away with some neat little thing.

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Break something when you preach. I think that could go on a packed shirt. I think that's kind of unloving to let them pick up the pieces.

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Yeah, just break it and smear it all over the place and, you know, over the epitome of your own existence and then, you know, everyone just walks out all hobbled and thankful.

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One of the things I don't like, Pat, and of course I did it for so many years, is just a data dump, right?

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We learn all these things in commentaries and other tools, which is good and fine and right, and you're excited about it and then you think somehow a gnomic heiress is really going to preach and it's just these trucks, you know, make the sounds when they back up, these lorries beep, beep, beep, and you just dump all this information versus trying to take that information.

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And sometimes my wife and I will watch these cooking shows and good food is plated well and it's really nutritious and there's not that much, right?

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It's not these big heaps of hash and stuff like that. So I just think preaching should be that. It's not a big data dump.

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And I also don't like when people are preaching 60, 70, 80 minutes. I think young preachers think, oh, you know what?

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I can handle the text so well. I'm going to preach 60, 80 minutes. I'm like, no, you can't. Just make me want to say,

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I wish you'd keep going versus that young man just needs to sit down. I've had enough.

22:31

They're more likely to forgive a bad sermon that's short than a bad sermon that's long. Yeah, right.

22:37

Yeah. Data dumps. I always tell people, if you're a guest speaker, don't preach longer than the pastor does.

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Because he's probably more gifted than you by the grace of God and says, just don't go longer. Land the plane.

22:54

How about just moralistic sermons that don't take big picture views, right?

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You're in Proverbs and somebody says, well, I'm going to preach through all the Proverbs, 31 chapters over the next year. And they want to be somehow faithful to the text, to the human author only, doesn't see maybe

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Proverbs 8, but they think, I'll just go for a year without talking about Jesus. I don't like that.

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I don't like when they just tack Jesus on at the end, somehow thinking that redeems the whole sermon because they said life, death, burial, resurrection.

23:27

So to the positive, I absolutely love it when a preacher understands the passage clearly.

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They've studied it and it's gripped their heart and then they're just excited to share it, which fits with what you were saying,

23:41

Zach Beck. It's amazing. And as a preacher, the joy of discovery, you figure something out and you know it's profound and it's important and glorifies the

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Lord. And I can preach that because I'm excited about it. Exactly. And so many times,

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I know I'm not ready to preach because I don't have anything that's really excited me, if I'm honest.

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There has to be something that's like, oh, yes, and now I'm ready to go.

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It's brutal because there is this week. You've got a week, right? Which is just, it's a tough deal in that sense to get to that point with everything else going on, which it is every week, to get to that point where you found that thing that you've got to preach.

24:21

But that's, I suppose, what keeps us on our knees. I mean, that's the thing right there. That's what makes preaching just an animal in that regard, especially as it keeps coming for you week after week.

24:32

Wow. I was preaching Luke chapter two last week and thought, what am

24:37

I going to do with this? Jesus is circumcised. He is presented in the temple. He is purified along with his mother.

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And that's the data. What am I going to do? I mean, I understood what it said and what it meant and what

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Luke was trying to do. And then it dawned on me, oh, Jesus is born under the law, not for himself.

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He's already inherently righteous. Yes. He's holy. He does things for other people as a federal man, as a public man, just like Adam did.

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And so Jesus is not qualifying himself to be the savior. He already is qualified, and now he's doing things for other people.

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And when you look at the perfect Israelite, he's circumcised, he's been presented, he's been redeemed with the five shekels, he's been purified, all these things.

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Jesus, of course, never sinned, but everything that needed to be done for the perfect man for our behalf was done by Jesus.

25:27

I was excited, fired up. And just like you said, Pat, now I thought, oh, I've got something that I can be enthusiastic about.

25:34

Covenant theology is always the answer. You know what? Everything in the book of... That's true. That is true.

25:40

But I love the way... You should write a book on that. Yeah, you should. I love the way that those initially really obscure, difficult passages end up being the ones that we just remember and the ones that we go back to.

25:53

And yeah, I love that. It's one of my favorite parts of the journey. We don't say the journey.

25:58

Oh, privilege. We don't say privilege. Well, what's wrong with journey? What's wrong with journey? Sojourn. We like sojourn.

26:05

We can say that. We can say that. But something about journey. So right now, at least in American culture, churches have to be named something with water, something with a tree, something with a journey.

26:20

Or some verb, collide. I say you just take that and redeem it.

26:26

I'm just joking. So the transformationalist here who just wrote a book on it, oh, wait a minute, against it.

26:34

Exactly. One of the things I think pastors should do positively is be, this is related, is to be enthusiastic, right?

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It's not a show or anything like that. But if preaching is true through personality, we have personalities.

26:49

I'm talking with my hands now. And so what I'll do sometimes if I'm critiquing a younger pastor that's asked me to critique him or he's in my class,

26:57

I'll videotape him while I'm asking questions about his children, the archery class, his

27:04

Krav Maga classes, his music classes. And he's excited. His eyes are big, his face.

27:09

He's really going after it. And I record that. And then I'll say, all right, now let's look at your sermon.

27:15

Dour, sour, face down. Why do you want to hit me all the time? And I know what he's doing because I've done it for years too.

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This is a serious business. We're not playing games like Calvin said, but we forget to translate.

27:28

Okay, if this passage is talking about joy, well, the way we talk should be reflective of that.

27:34

It should be an echo of that joy. And so you should be enthusiastic. Even if you preach a sermon on hell, it's appropriate to smile when you're talking about the redemption of the

27:41

Lord and how you don't have to go. So I want, of course, proper data, but I want enthusiastic preachers.

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And I want people to look at the pastor and say, you know what? I think he believes actually what he's saying. I think he's enthusiastic because if he's not enthusiastic, then how can

27:57

I be? And we always tell people, I told this to the children and then to the church. If you're not smiling when you're talking about Jesus and resurrection and new life, you need to send a missionary to your face.

28:07

That's what you need to do. Hello. So years ago, maybe it was the first Coldplay album that came out.

28:15

Maybe it was the second one I remember. Who's the lead singer? Chris something. Anyway, I watched a video and he was attacking the piano.

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I couldn't believe that he was making music, but he was all in, just going crazy and it sounded awesome.

28:31

And I thought, you know what? Whatever it takes to get this sermon communicated to people, even if I look crazy and I look like I'm losing my mind, why not be all in to make something hopefully beautiful?

28:44

I don't know, but... What did Spurgeon say? Get on fire for the Lord, pastor, and people will come and watch you burn.

28:50

It's good. But what about the fact that Jonathan Edwards read his sermons word for word, monotone, and the people just fell over?

28:59

Oh, I think that cancels everything we've just said, and we should just start reading our sermons. No, I'm joking.

29:06

I have seen preachers do that. You must have seen preachers read their sermons.

29:13

There is a way to do that. Some people are really good at it. Yeah. They're reading, but they're not reading, though.

29:23

They're not doing what everyone thinks they're doing. They've got a place their eyes are resting, but it's funneling this deep, heartfelt conviction.

29:33

And if Jonathan Edwards was doing what I'm thinking, when I've seen that being done, then yeah,

29:39

I could see how it would get crazy. But I don't know about any historical or anything there.

29:45

So Ian Murray writes the biography of Edwards, one of the good ones. And he convinced me that Edwards didn't do it.

29:52

Oh, is that right? Yeah. So early on, yes, manuscripts. But as time went on, sometimes it would just be a couple of words written down on a piece of paper.

30:00

So it's probably a myth that he read every sermon verbatim. And then you also have from Edwards, who's not my homeboy, but he's known for supposedly doing this, and I don't think he did.

30:10

But also him critiquing people for being lifeless in their preaching. He also critiqued people for being overly dramatic.

30:19

I think it was Neil Postman's book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, that talked a lot about Edwards and simply reading, right?

30:26

And taking all the passion out and emotion out and everything else because the word was powerful, et cetera. But I've been to Yale Beinecke Library, and it houses all kinds of Edwards.

30:36

Therefore, you are an authority on this. Therefore, yes. Drive down the street to Yale. But it's interesting.

30:41

We all grow as pastors and preachers. And so early on, much more manuscripting. Some of his later sermon notes are simply five words, right?

30:50

I've preached with a lot of notes. And the other day I thought, you know, I'm going to do a jet tour of Romans because I'm ready to start

30:56

Luke, and I'm just going to do 45 minutes Romans no matter what. And I'm not bragging. I just have aggregate knowledge.

31:03

And so I didn't bring any notes. I just found one of Luke's old Bibles, went up there and said, Lord, help.

31:08

Here we go. And that was the first sermon I preached without notes since India, I think maybe at that Methodist church there.

31:16

But all that to say, Edwards, I think it's a myth that Edwards always read his sermons word for word from the manuscript without emotion.

31:27

Remember when we went and saw the Edwards study Bible that he had made himself and they didn't want to show it to us?

31:33

And then the lady said, it's our most prized possession. This is at Yale, right? Amazing.

31:39

Why did they let us do it? Because you had a doctorate or something. I was working on my doctorate, right? And so they let us.

31:45

And I think you had to give them special passes of information and material.

31:51

We couldn't have anything but maybe pencils, right? And we were in the sealed room. But then we learned, oh, if you can go to Yale Beinecke Library for the things, now let's go to Princeton Library.

32:01

Do you have a rare documents room in Princeton? Oh, may we see the B .B. Warfield notes,

32:06

Archibald Alexander notes. Handwritten. Samuel Davies. Oh, wow. Like Protestant relics.

32:13

So yeah, we definitely got the anointing. Yes, anointing. I can tell. And then Pat did the grave sucking thing.

32:18

So we'd go to the Princeton President's Cemetery and he laid down on Edward's grave and then he laid down on Erdman's grave and then

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B .B. Warfield's grave to redeem the Erdmans. Don't be an Erdman. That's right. The Hodges are there.

32:31

That explains so much. It does. Well, I get it now. And then remember, they had the rod, the staff of orthodoxy that Archibald Alexander gave to Charles Hodge on his deathbed, supposedly.

32:43

It was like this ivory cane, symbolizing I'm giving you this,

32:48

I'm dying, I'm leaving. And remember, I told that story to a famous preacher. And then in the next week, he was speaking at chapel at a famous Christian university and he told the story as if he'd seen it.

33:02

But we're not going to say who he is. So do you guys all use notes or do you just...

33:10

I use an iPad. How about you? I use an iPad, although it bailed out of me the other day. Got me a little bit worried before this conference, actually, because I was like, oh, man.

33:17

Saturday night, always reboot it. Every single Saturday night, I reboot it and then turn off your Wi -Fi so you don't want updates.

33:24

I do. It just kept on, whenever I touched it, it just kept on turning off. Oh, no. I didn't know. It has never done that before.

33:30

During a sermon? During a sermon. I just went, I don't even use my notes ready.

33:35

So they're just kind of there. They help me to prepare. I write full sermon manuscripts, basically.

33:41

But I write way more than I'll ever preach on those things. So I know I can't just go to them anyway. They're more to get my mind ready.

33:48

And then when I'm preaching, I don't even refer to them. But I like to have the iPad on. It does give me some comfort that if I get lost,

33:54

I can quickly find something to say. Or for the glow of the screen. Well, I've got the iPad notes, but then I have it on my phone as well.

34:01

So it's synced. And even though the formatting is much smaller, you could open up your phone and still find the same document.

34:07

The Abendroth brothers are amazing. You're like so organized. It's not true.

34:12

It's not true. Do you preach every Sunday, Michael Beck? Well, my Sundays, I have some elders that help me out, like right now.

34:21

Right now? Right. Yeah. Yeah. What are you preaching through or on right now?

34:27

I am preaching on the public ministry of Jesus. So I wanted to kind of go past the...

34:33

I preach on all the Gospels. I followed Kelvin's Harmony of the Gospels.

34:39

I preach on every single text in all four of them. And I did that about 10 years ago. And I wanted to go back because I now realize

34:46

I really missed some things. Okay. Even with that, my desire was to kind of cover all the ground. And I realized, oh man, oh boy,

34:53

I just completely missed that turn, completely missed the way that sort of linked up to this. And anyway, so I want to go, it's my opportunity to kind of go through some of that again, expand on it, show its significance publicly and theologically.

35:07

And it's been great. I love it. I love doing that. I realized that's not the normal kind of sermon prep for me, because usually it's a new book.

35:16

You've never been there before. So you've got a little bit of ground to work with. And then you can just build and it's more fun.

35:21

And yeah, I think people are appreciating it as well. So yeah. How about yourself? We right now are going...

35:27

My brain is so fried because I'm working on the conference. You're in Exodus. Exodus. But it's been a little while. Yeah. And I was going to do four weeks doing

35:34

Exodus. And I think I'm into, I don't even know, 20? I'm trying to go big picture, but it's hard.

35:41

And it's hard because the people here at Omaha Bible Church, at least, they're just used to every word, every verse.

35:46

It's like, but I'm learning a ton. Yeah. You're using Brian Estelle's commentary. I am.

35:52

Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I like the Michael Morales one. There's another, oh, Currid.

35:57

Yeah. Is that how you say it? Two volumes. Maybe that's my favorite. Oh yeah. I don't use commentaries.

36:03

I have the Holy Spirit. Oh, buddy. And biblicism is good. So I've heard.

36:12

Yeah. All right. Well, this has been fun. Appreciate it. So those of you who've been listening, who aren't preachers, hopefully you can know that you really do need to pray for preachers, if nothing else, based upon this episode.

36:24

Well, one of the things I like to say, I did it with Maddie the other day. She's in town, my daughter, and we drove to the church building together and pull up.

36:32

And I said, always pray for the preacher, right? And so in the car, in the parking lot, before you walk in, pray for the worship service, pray for the preacher, pray that you receive the word well.

36:42

And so please pray for the preacher. One guy said, when someone said, well, that really wasn't a very good sermon pastor.

36:50

And he said, well, you get what you prayed for. Nice. I am going to use that.

36:58

I think it was Don Kistler, Soledad Gloria Books. And he was a pastor in New England for a while, brand new, maybe 35 years old.

37:06

And he preached for 60 minutes. And the guy came up to him afterwards at the door and he said, you preach too long.

37:15

And he said, preach too long for who? Well, for me, of course, he said, that's the problem, sir. I don't preach for you.

37:21

I preach for the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm quite positive that he's still liking to hear his word proclaimed after 45 minutes.

37:28

Wow. And Kistler said, that's the last time I saw that man. Wow. Wow. You need to write a book about this.

37:34

We need this Preachers Retalk, you know, something like that. That'd be good. Yeah. Because you're always flabbergasted by those comments that, you know, it's such a great

37:42

Sunday and then out the door, it's just sort of like this nail to your brain. So speaking of that,

37:48

Michael Beck, what's the maybe the most, just the oddest thing you've ever heard someone say after you preach? This is good radio right here.

37:55

What has been like the most offensive, the weirdest, the most encouraging when you're done preaching, you just gave it all you got and somebody says to you,

38:04

Oh, I need to think about that. I've had so many. Can't you see my face? It's like scarred from this stuff.

38:10

I'm like, look at me. I'm so young and I have so many gray hairs. I mean, what the heck? I think when you tend to, it's probably a little bit my fault, probably, maybe just a little.

38:25

But you know, when you preach a decent sermon and you give it everything you have, and then you make the fatal mistake of saying something that's a little bit too easy to grasp, maybe a little bit toward the end of this, maybe an illustration, maybe just something comes to mind, an anecdote of some sort.

38:43

I usually try and stay away from that just because this happens. It's like people will talk about that anecdote.

38:50

And it doesn't really have anything to do with what I was saying, actually. And the times afterwards and the coffee, well, hey, it was really great what you said about this thing.

39:00

And it's just, for me, I don't know, you put your whole week into this thing and your whole song, like you have given birth, right?

39:07

And then that's not my baby. When they talk about my baby, that's not my baby.

39:14

What are you doing? What are you doing right now? So I think that's kind of in the genre of the thing that most discourages me.

39:21

Not to put pressure on people who hear me speak. Now I know they're going to listen to this and go, oh my goodness, got to get it right.

39:27

Pastor Beck, that was the best sermon I've ever heard on my journey. I feel so privileged to hear you speak.

39:34

So when COVID happened that I didn't stand at the door anymore, but I would try to stand at the door, not because I needed people to tell me it was a good sermon.

39:42

Did you knock? But there were visitors that I wanted to say hello to and widows that I wanted to give a hug to.

39:51

And so I've had a variety of things said to me. I remember one, this lady said to me,

39:56

I don't like your tie. And I wanted to say, I don't like the way your husband dresses because he's a polyester man.

40:03

I didn't say it. I just like, what? I had another person say to me, you're the smartest person

40:11

I've ever met. I thought that's really a bad thing to say regarding the sermon. You don't get out much.

40:17

I'm not trying to impress you with my smarts. And then the other one, the guy said, you're a liar.

40:23

And I said, what do you mean you're a liar? And I was talking about spiritual gifts and the gift of healing and how the gift of healing

40:30

God gave to a man who could heal instantly, organically, completely, et cetera, et cetera.

40:35

And he said, you're a liar because God heals today. I said, of course he heals today, but not through a person. I said, what do you, what do you mean liar?

40:42

He said, cause you're sweating. And when people lie, they sweat and you're sweating. I sweat all day.

40:48

And I'm like, what are you talking about? That's the litmus test of lying. No sweating. Mike Rimes, what have you heard that's struck you as particular or weird?

40:59

Anything? I don't know. I haven't done it enough to get weird comments, I don't think. You just get weird looks.

41:05

Oh, yeah. I just remembered, have you ever, I mean, this must've happened to some of you, right? But you're like, oh, that was the best sermon ever.

41:13

Thank you so much for that. You can't help it. Well, I thank you for telling me that. That's great.

41:18

Let's talk. What did you like about it? And then they say something that is heretical or it is complete, like if you're preaching gospel, they're preaching law.

41:30

It's just like the opposite of what you said. And yet they are so excited about it because you said it.

41:35

Then you have a whole new job in front of you. It's true. So that makes me think one time somebody was pretty new, they're not around anymore.

41:42

And they loved like scolding preaching. Their favorite preacher is like known for being the biggest scolder around.

41:49

And so I preached a sermon. I don't remember what it was, but it was like all gospel. It was no law because it wasn't in the text.

41:57

It was just all awesome, amazing gospel. And the person said to me afterward, oh, pastor, that was really good.

42:05

I'm so convicted. And I'm like, there was nothing convicting in the passage other than maybe you feel bad.

42:13

You don't love Jesus as much as you should. And I thought, you totally don't get it. Yeah. That's happened a lot for me, that exact thing.

42:21

Yeah. And that's probably the reason for it. But it's just, I hate that thought. You've really tried to be encouraged.

42:26

You know, it's a sermon about you're going to heaven. Jesus has died for you. There's like nothing that could possibly be wrong.

42:33

And, you know, this Christianity thing is really heavy, pastor. You know,

42:38

I don't know if I can do it anymore. You know, it's just like, where were we?

42:44

They were on Snapchat or something the whole time, doing something else. So bad, so bad.

42:49

I know this isn't my show, but what about positive things that are said to you to encourage you at the door?

42:55

Good question. Yeah. That was a good sermon I don't need to hear, right? That's, you know, again, to quote

43:00

Spurgeon, Satan already told me that, you know, I've already told myself that. What about something encouraging?

43:06

Something that's a good thing to say to a pastor? For me, it would be the mirror of what I just said in that they go, Hey, you know, really good sermon.

43:13

Thank you. And then they'll tell me why. And it's like exactly what I was trying to say. And that's what made me so happy throughout the week in finding this particular passage to minister to me.

43:24

And if they get it, then, oh my goodness, that's why I'm alive. You know, that's the reason I'm put on the earth. That's, that's, this is amazing.

43:30

So that really encourages me to keep going. Yeah. I'm scared when people say, I've never seen that before.

43:36

And then it's like, uh, I hope it's actually there, but that encourages me, but it also worries me.

43:44

That's a pretty common one. That is a common one. Isn't it cool though, to be able to teach the Bible, whether it's a Bible study or, you know, teaching a class or preaching.

43:51

And, and you, you do really help people see it. So then they go home and read it and they say, you know what?

43:58

It makes sense. I can read it the right way. I don't think that's the only thing, reason why we preach, but it's one of the reasons.

44:04

People try to argue on social media. Here's my view. Nobody accepts it. They fight back and forth, back and forth.

44:10

But if you take someone, a regenerate person, place them at church, they hear the word of God, preach for five years, 10 years, 15 years.

44:17

They're completely changed in their mind. It's called repentance. It changes them. Preaching just transforms their entire life.

44:24

And you just watch somebody learn and grow. It's so good to do that. I think my favorite thing that people say to me now, after I preach is if they were to say,

44:32

I was really encouraged by that. And I, in my mind, I just think means of grace, right? Not means of scolding.

44:37

It doesn't mean they can't be convicted during the sermon, but overall I was encouraged because when you hear about the Lord Jesus, it's to give you encouragement and hope and joy.

44:47

Super. Well, we need to go down the hallway to get some Pactum gear for you guys.

44:52

We better wrap up the show. Yeah. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being on, Mike Ebendroth and Michael Beck.

44:58

Thanks for being here, guys. Really appreciate it. It's been an honor. Yeah. We want to thank all of you listeners for being a part of the Pactum Verse.

45:04

You can find us online on Instagram and Twitter. You can be emailing us, connect at thepactum .org. We'll see you next week on the

45:10

Pactum. Bye.