Herald the Word or Go Home

Heralding the Word as the Heart of Preaching

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

My name is Mike Abendroth. It's snowing like a banshee out. Real time is February 13th. It's supposed to snow 12, 15, 16 inches today, so I thought I'd slip into the studio and record a few shows and then sneak back home.

Tomorrow's Valentine's Day. I remember my kids when they were little, remember them saying it was Valentine's. So happy Valentine's Day. One more pagan holiday down the drain. For my wife, I treat her as if every day is Valentine's.

All right. What are we talking about? Let's see. February 2015, Omaha Bible Church, Bethlehem Bible Church, Bedlam Bible Church, Bedlam Bible Church, and No Compromise Radio. We're going to Israel, and then if you've got the cash, we're going to Jordan and to Petra for the extension trip.

We have had people who listen to No Compromise Radio go with us to these trips, and we fly either out of Omaha or Boston, and we'll leave, I think it's February 14th next year. So see, one year from now, we'll be flying to Israel, Lord willing.

You can write me at info at No Compromise Radio for some more information. We'd love to have you go. I'll be teaching half the time, and Uncle Pat will be teaching the rest of the time. I think that's it for announcements.

We have merged the No Compromise Radio and NoCo90 YouTube sites all into one, if you'd like to get some of those. So there you have it. Ben is a slave driver. I've had the privilege of teaching the last four weekends preaching class to MDiv students, Master of Divinity, like you could ever master divinity, but anyway we're teaching the students at Southern Seminary, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in the Northboro campus here close to Boston.

The Science and Art of Preaching

They call it the Boston campus, 40 miles from Boston, 38 miles from Boston, and so I've been thinking about preaching a lot. What to do with preaching? There's a science to preaching, that is to say, we want to make sure we understand what the author's intention would be.

We want to make sure we realize that we're, as Stott would say in his great book, between two worlds, the world of the Bible and then the world of the congregation, and we need to show them the relevance of the passage.

The Bible is relevant. We don't make it relevant. We want to show them the relevance, and there's an art to it, how you put the package together, how you organize, in other words, the sermon with an introduction and conclusion, why should you listen, secure interest, get attention, outlining, plural noun propositions, a variety of that stuff.

So I've been thinking about preaching a lot, and I love preaching. I love to listen to preaching, and I love preaching. After all, as I look outside and see the snow and the white outside, God certainly preaches in natural revelation.

God loves to preach. He preaches that he is wise, that he is powerful, that he's sovereign, and he's this great creator God who preaches in natural revelation. Of course, Romans chapter 1, Psalm 19, discuss that very emphatically.

Jesus Christ, the Great Preacher

God also loves to preach because Jesus was a preacher. He, God, loves to preach. He, the second person in Trinity, is a great preacher, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Preachers. If anybody had any sense, they would write a book, and they'd entitle it Jesus Christ, the Prince of Preachers.

I'm sure it would be a bestseller. I'm sure I would cash my $12 checks. You know what? $12 every six months is better than nothing, isn't it? What do you mean you don't want to publish these books? Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.

And also, God has had his prophets preach through the Word, prophets, apostles, and the writers of Scripture proclaiming the truth of God. So preaching is very important, and you can think about yourself before you were saved.

If you liked preaching before you were a Christian, you grew up in a Christian home, you like the art of oratory, you liked reading Aristotle's The Art of Rhetoric, you appreciated someone who could speak well, but it's different now that you're saved, isn't it?

And to use the phrase we use often in no-compromise land, you used to love the world and hate the things of God, and now it's switched, right? So the same with preaching. You used to hate it, now you love it.

And how did you get such a new appetite? How do you change? Well, the change was done to you, and now you love preaching because God's people love his Word. And it wasn't that long ago, I was in India for a pastor's conference, and John MacArthur was speaking via video feed.

John just was on the screen, he wasn't there in person, and one of the Indian men did not like John's message. He was selling Benny Hinn books down in the parking lot, we later found out, and he got up and slammed the screen down on the ground and started stomping on it.

Well, John's image was still reflecting off of him or being shined on him, projected onto him. Shine, Jesus shine. And he was stomping on that thing, and that was a good picture for me, that people don't like preaching, unbelievers don't like preaching, false teachers don't like preaching, but we love the idea that God heralds.

Preach the Word as a Divine Charge

And did I say that in 2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 2, preach the Word. That is the Word where we get to herald. The Word is to be heralded. Of course, when you're sitting around and you're talking over the dinner table, you don't have to raise your voice and herald it.

If you want to, I guess that would make quite the point now, Dad, wouldn't it? But you have opportunities to share and to talk and to converse and to have authentic community with the Word. I'm getting a buzzing sound here in the studio, I wonder what that would be.

But Paul said to Timothy, remember, as I told the men, this is a good exercise, by the way, I had the IBS students do it, and I had the men at the seminary do it, write down a one sentence theme of each book of the Bible.

And so you have 66 books of the Bible, and what is the theme of each? Well, why would that be important? It would be important because interpretively, it would assist you to know and, is that a lighted tease I just used?

That you open up 1 Timothy and realize that chapter 3, verse 14, 15, 16, it tells you why the book is written, how you ought to conduct yourself in the church, this household of God, this pillar of faith, this pillar of truth.

How do you act in church? This isn't, you have to herald the Word every single time I have to raise my voice on the radio, and when you're evangelizing at someone's door, you've got to yell it and herald it.

But here Paul says, this is how pastors, this is how elders are to handle the Word, they're to preach it, they're to proclaim, kērukson, that is the word, to preach, kērukson ton lagon. See, I even have my Greek in front of me, what do you know?

And so, this word means to herald. So I'm trying to get these men to herald the Word at seminary. I want your pastor to herald the Word. I don't want you to be offended when he does. Well, he's not sharing, he seems above us.

Why is he raising his voice a little bit? We like first-person plural preaching, we preaching. We like anecdotal stories the pastor tells us how he fails, he's not better than us, and so he's part of us.

Well, the kind of preaching that's in the Bible is second-person imperative, you, second-person plural, ye, y 'all, y 'all, y 'alls, y 'all, y 'all. That shouldn't bother you, and if your pastor is more than a video screen preacher than a large, you know, I'm at Campus Six and he's on Campus One today, if he's more than a projector screen image, then you will realize that he's just a frail person like everyone else.

But when he stands in the pulpit, he's different. I hope the kids, I hope my kids say, my daddy's just a regular person. As they're getting older now, we've gone from daddy to dad. My dad's just a regular person, and he, at home, oftentimes is generous and gracious and kind, and sometimes he acts inappropriately, he's sinful, he's short, he's critical, he isn't thankful, or whatever I do or don't do, but they say, you know, when he gets up in the pulpit, everything's different.

There's a sense of authority, there's a sense of proclamation. He's a regular person outside the pulpit, but in the pulpit, he heralds, and so I'm trying to get across today, I want you to love your pastor, even when he's heralding, because our society today is, they don't like monologues.

I know the sermon's more than a monologue, but man alone speaking. They want dialogical. They want to bring the people into a dialogue, and you share, and it doesn't take you very long to recognize it when you go to any website, there's comments at the bottom, and Facebook has the comments, and everybody gets their say.

I get my two cents worth. That's not how it works with preaching. You don't get your two cents worth. My old friend used to say, I would never say it. You need to just sit down, shut up, and learn something.

Ow! I read a while ago, someone thought my voice was soothing, so I'll try to say it in a soothing fashion. My friend said I didn't say, and often people should just sit down, shut up, and learn something when their pastors preach.

Soothing. If you've got the urge to say, well, yeah, but I don't get to say anything, then you can take my friend's advice. This word means to announce. Now this isn't like the part of the service that's unbiblical, but it's not abiblical.

Public Proclamation and the Herald's Authority

Just it's unbiblical, abiblical, non-biblical. The announcements. I have a few announcements to make. We have the children's cook-off and the hot chili contest. I think we need a chili contest at the church.

Chili con carne. Chili carne. This is an announcement. This is a public proclamation. Listen to this public proclamation using the same word in Revelation 5, verse 2. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals.

My hand was just moving like I was proclaiming things, but no one can see. If I had free old studio, maybe you could see, but you can't see this. It's an announcement. It is a public proclamation. And of course, back in those days, no microphones.

And so you have to raise your voice. You have to make an announcement. You have to say things loudly while you want everyone to hear. And the message is going to require you to listen. And it might require you to change your mind.

It might require you to agree. It might require you to do something about it. It might require some response. And so there's an authoritative tone to preaching. Of course, our society hates that. Don't you preach to me.

Who do you think you are preaching to me? The word keruso is the root word, the main verb, main word, is also translated like this in Matthew, excuse me, Mark chapter five, verse 20, where it's got the emphasis to tell everybody you know, everyone, everywhere, every how.

And you try to permeate this message. You try to infiltrate. You want a Coke purchased by every home and you want one in every home. You want that kind of market saturation. So what do you do and how do you do it when it comes to preaching the word?

Mark chapter five, verse 20 gives us this nuance. And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him. And everyone was amazed the word there to preach, to proclaim in Decapolis.

I've got to tell everyone I know, you get a load of this. We would say back in Nebraska, I often think of Nebraska. Don't know if I want to live there. That's pretty far from the ocean. We have a little, I don't know if it's me, but my wife has some restrictions she's placed upon me.

Of course, she knows wherever the Lord would leave us or take us are all that stuff. But she has a request that if we ever move, of course, nobody wants to hire a guy like me, but if we would ever move and even, you know, one day retire.

She would like to be able to drive within like an hour and a half to the ocean for surfing. So there you go. What does this have to do with anything? Is this a public proclamation? Is this tell everyone everywhere to make known where Steve to rescue me when I need him?

It's so snowy out there, but I'll try to rescue it in this way, although I know this wasn't my original intention. She has made it known and she has told everybody in the house, let's please just stay close to the ocean.

See, that was a horrible rescue. I know if I went back and listened to this show that I would remember my flow of thought. See, that's what we do here. Flow of thought radio, but my name is Mike Abendroth.

This is No Compromise Radio. You can write us at info at no compromise radio .com and you should go to Israel with us. Can you imagine standing there in Israel? This word K-Russo also is a religious word that means you speak forth, proclaim, announce, herald, preach some message that's holy, a religious message, a sacred message.

And you're going to distribute this message. This is, if you take a hand and you hand a tract to someone to publish something, to distribute it, this word K-Russo means to do that verbally. I used to hand out tracts at all the hospitals I would go to when I worked in hospitals and I would have to park in a parking lot, here's the money, please give me a receipt, and here I have something for you to read.

Everyone took it, at least in Los Angeles, and I got to Boston, I think the first time I tried to give somebody a tract in a Boston parking lot, he's like, get out of here. True story. At the old Boston Garden, Matthew chapter four, verse 23, here's the sacred message that is distributed.

The Gospel of the Kingdom and the Call to Proclaim It

Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming, there's our word, the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.

This is what we mean by proclaim. You announce, you herald, you publicly proclaim, you try to make sure that it goes to every single area. It's like water just finds its way everywhere. I'm thinking about ice dams on roofs this time of year, and it is a sacred message, a public proclamation.

This is a word that if you use it in the noun form, a herald, right, this is to herald, but at the herald, the noun form is someone vested with public authority, according to one dictionary, who conveyed the official messages of kings, magistrates, princes, military commanders, or who gave a public summons or demand, and performed various other duties.

Thayer, Lexicon, page 346. It's as if you have some men, and they go to the house, and they have a warrant for your arrest. This is the warrant. This is a search warrant. This is an arrest warrant. I don't know all the technical terms.

Cooley would certainly know. Friel would even probably know. So what do we do? We make this proclamation, and you, if you're a pastor, are certainly the ambassador of God, and you have a word to proclaim.

And when 2 Timothy chapter 4 says, preach the, the next word is very important. So are you to proclaim your own publicity, your own self? Preach the news. Preach current events. Preach things that Fox News would consider worthy.

Preach things that Slate considered worthy. Preach about books in the Bible. Preach the catechism. Preach the Trinity Hymnal. Preach, the list goes on. This is not my own opinion. This is certainly not a debate.

Did you notice that? We love to debate. Your idea, my idea, let's debate. I'm not saying debates are wrong. That's not my point. But debates should not reflect, or preaching should not reflect debating.

This is a divine summons. This is one-way communication where the Holy Spirit, He is pleased to work through that frail messenger called the pastor. That's why I like preacher. What do you want to call me?

I often get asked the question, Mike, what should you, what do you, what do you desire to be called professionally? Well, Reverend Doctor, of course. No, just kidding. I never use the doctorate part unless it's Southern Seminary or European Bible Training Center or some other place overseas when you need some street cred, baby.

Street cred. So what do we call you? Well, Reverend's out because only God in Scripture is to be revered. So don't call your pastor reverend, reverend. That's, anybody that calls himself reverend, I don't know.

I guess there's probably an exception, but I got major issues. Well, pastor would be fine. That means shepherd, right? Pastor teacher would be fine if you go for the hyphen translation in Ephesians chapter four.

What else? Clergy member, minister, minister, I serve the gospel, a minister of the gospel. I like that. You're a minister of the gospel. Simply minister won't do, but minister of the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ, the eternal son, cloaks himself with humanity, lives as our representative, dies as our substitute, is raised from the dead, and the response to that is to repent and believe.

I would love to do that. I'd love to serve that up to you in Golden Corral style, country buffet. I think I watched the Undercover Boss on that. Some of those guys, some of those CEOs are kind of chintzy, wouldn't you say?

Some of them go for it, but some of them, oh, here's a $5 ,000 thing. I hope you can, after taxes, figure out how to buy a few more White Castle sliders. My family never had a slider till we watched the Undercover Boss on White Castles, and so we don't have any around here in Boston area, but you can get them in a grocery store near you.

Speaking of grocery stores, I think they're probably panicking at grocery stores today. This is not an idea that's to be preached of your own. This is not some debate from the pulpit. This is a responsibility.

This is a privilege. This is an exhortation, because chapter four, verse one, really lays down in 2 Timothy chapter four, verse one, how important this is. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, or you could translate it, even Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and dead, and the dead, and by His appearance and by His kingdom, debate the Word, discuss the Word, share the Word, mime the Word, preach the Word.

I don't know one person who stands in the pulpit, one pastor, one reverend, like preacher better. I don't know one preacher who stands in the Word and who shares. That's his delivery style, is sharing, that I like, that I respect, that I think is doing the biblical thing.

You make with a loud public announcement, I have good news for you today. This is Daniel three language, the herald cries out aloud, to you it is commanded that whenever you hear the sound, all kinds of music, you will fall down and worship the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up.

That's how you do it. Here's a proclamation for you, prepare in the wilderness the way of Yahweh, make ready in the desert a highway for our God. That's what that is. This rebellious city, and the ambassador, the preacher, goes out, and he goes for peace, and it's the offended king that makes peace, and he proclaims it through preaching.

Because Christ Jesus is the ground for that proclamation. A town crier, I'm a town crier. My name is Mike Abendroth, this is No Compromise Radio, preach the Word. Pray for your pastor to preach the Word.

Society doesn't want him to, you pray that he would be faithful to preach the Word. Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.