Nate Pickowicz On Reviving New England (Part 2)

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.

New England Church Culture and the Problem of Moralistic Religion

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and Part 2, maybe today you�ll think it�s Part 1, but for me it�s Part 2. I�m glad to have Nate Pickwitz here in the studio. Nate, thanks for being a friend of No Compromise Radio and standing for the truth in New Hampshire.

Amen. Thank you for having me on. What was that you had at lunch today? Some kind of fried something or other? You�re so skinny. How does that work? You young men in your 30s, I�m very envious about that.

Yeah. Well, it�ll catch up.

So, you know. It�ll catch up. What is it? The wrath of God is like a millstone that grinds slowly. Is that what the ancients used to say? But surely. But surely. So, that�s what my stomach is going to do, slowly but surely grinding away like the wrath of God.

Pastor Steve says I�m usually on the Auschwitz diet. 300 calories of gruel per day. And by the way, sadly, some churches in New England, how do you like this for a segue? Pretty much give their congregants that same kind of gruel, right?

Man-centered, moralistic, Oprah-type book studies. Why do people preach that way or talk that way or share that way? What do you think the motivation? People do things for reasons. What�s the motivation behind it?

In New England or in general? Well, in New England. Let�s talk about New England. Well, yeah. I mean, you�ve just got, you know, in the south, the problem that many churches are up against is prosperity gospel.

But then in the north, it�s liberalism. I mean, liberalism just swept across the Atlantic and landed in New England and the institutions and Harvard and other places like that and has found its way into not even pulpits anymore.

They�re podiums or they�re whatever they are. And we just preach this sort of moralistic, therapeutic, it�s not even with the veneer of Christianity. I know of ministers who openly preach against the Bible and call the Apostle Paul a sexist, chauvinist, whatever.

It�s not even Christian. It�s something completely different. It�s a different religion, liberalism.

So, why do people show up? Is it because people are designed by God to be social creatures? They desire fellowship, and so it�s a false fellowship group. They call it a church. They feel good because they�ve got some religiosity.

Do you think those are the reasons why people show up to those kind of clubs?

I think that it definitely exists on some level, sure. I mean, people were relational beings, so, you know, there is something to that. I think there�s also familiarity. I mean, you know, in New England, you have churches that are very, very old.

I don�t just mean, like, you know, church buildings, which are very old, but families that live in these towns that have been there forever. You know, there are families that have been in towns for, you know, 100 years, 200 years.

And so, you know, there�s a sense in which, you know, my grandfather went to this church, my great-grandfather went to this church, and so there�s a connection to the past, which I think is neat, but if there�s nothing behind that, if you�re just there to be there, it doesn�t mean anything.

It�s just a social gathering. So, you know, we�re not called to a building, we�re called to a relationship with Christ, and we�re called to a relationship with one another. It�s not a building.

New England Meeting Houses, Church Buildings, and Worship on the Lord’s Day

Pete� Nate, tell our listeners about the building that your church meets in. Do you have those little kind of cordoned-off boxes, and in the old days, would, in fact, they have a little heater put down there, a little coal thing or something else to keep their feet warm?

How�s that work? Nate� The church that we�re in, we actually rent our building from another church in town, which has been a neat thing, and the church we worship in was built in 1820, and it does, it�s the old-style New England white big huge steeple, it�s got these little boxes with doors and the pulpit�s its own thing, and it�s a unique-looking thing.

So, when you think about old New England church, that�s my church, that�s where we gather to worship. So, there�s historicity there.

Pete� Well, that�s a lot different than Bethlehem Bible Church building where it looks like a pizza hut. See, I want that New England look, that quintessential New England white congregational meeting house.

They don�t call them meeting houses anymore, why not?

Nate. That�s it. Well, because there was a� well, now we�re going to go into this whole history thing. I mean, originally, that was where government was. I mean, that was, the towns were, you know, the pastor was the most influential person in the town.

Nate. So, when you would go and have any kind of governmental thing, the pastor would go and you would stand up and say, well, pastor, what do you think about this decision we�re about to make? So, all of central government was based out of these meeting houses, there was no separation there, and over time, those meeting houses were actually, it wasn�t really until the Baptist explosion that all these other churches were built up.

There�s not very many New England churches that meet in the old meeting houses. Those are relics at this point, but what we�re mostly meeting it as the Baptist churches from the 1800s.

That�s mostly what we have. Pete. In one sense, Nate, I like it when they�re called meeting houses because, of course, the church is not a building. We might just say off the cuff, we have to go to church, but what we mean is we�re going to go to a building so we can be out of the elements and then we�re with the church so we can worship Jesus on this day called the Lord�s Day, right?

That�s right. Just looking at Tyndale�s New Testament where you�re talking about preaching and why people don�t preach, I would hate to be on the receiving end of God�s displeasure because I disobeyed 2 Timothy 4 verses 1 and 2.

I testify therefore before God and before the Lord Jesus Christ, which shall judge quick and dead at his appearing in his kingdom. Preach the word, be fervent, be it in season or out of season. Improve, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

For the time will come when they will not suffer wholesome doctrine, verse 3, but after their own lust shall they whose ears itch get them an heap of teachers and shall turn their ears from the truth and shall be given to fables.

That even sounds good in the Tyndale version, doesn�t it? As we say up north, it�s Wicked Shop. Wicked Shop guy. I think my all-time favorite New Englandism is when we were in Bar Harbor, Maine and there are lots of R�s in Bar Harbor.

But there�s no R�s in New England. It�s funny and we saw the T-shirts that people would sell at the little tourist shops and they were very simple T-shirts, B-A-H-A-B-A. It�s perfect. Now you grew up here, right?

I did. So that probably is why, one of the many reasons, you have a heart for New England and you are in the process. I mean, it�s finished but you�re probably making some little tweaks here or there.

A book at the moment titled Reviving New England, is that what made you think about New England? Your love for the people, your love of God�s glory here, what it used to be like, what it could be like?

Give us the impetus for writing this book.

The Puritans, the Church of England, and the Quest for a Pure Church

Yeah, so I grew up in New England and when I was a kid, you had to travel. No matter where you went, you had to travel to find a good church. And I just assumed growing up that that was the way it was everywhere, that people had to agonize to find a good church and hopefully they would stay faithful and so on and so forth.

It wasn�t until later when I came into pastoral ministry, started reading not just scripture but reading church history and the history of New England and all these other things that I realized that we had such a rich heritage, not culturally but biblically.

We had Christians here and I actually wrote a series of articles for the IntrudingFavor .com website, which is a site I blog on as well. Who is that Landon guy? Landon Chapman. I�m going to gush about him if I talk too much because he�s.

Is he legit or not? He�s my best friend. Okay. I love him to pieces. He�s the real deal. He�s a good brother. He loves the Lord. He is humble. Yeah. He�s a great guy. Follow him on Twitter and that�d be great.

Landon has been very helpful to No Compromise Radio as well and I like him too. I�m just giving you a hard time. No.

I pick on him more. I love the guy but I pick on him like it�s my job. So it�s good. Is he married? He is married. He�s got a couple of kids. Actually, our kids are the same age or we�re both the same age roughly so there�s a lot of kindred stuff going on.

You live in New Hampshire. Where does he live? He lives in� where does he live? Myrtle Beach. Brownsville, Indiana. He goes to Paul Ludke�s church. Do you know Paul Ludke? Is that where they had the Brownsville revival?

I don�t know. I�m just kidding. It wasn�t at Landon�s church. I�ll tell you that. It�s the D revival. Yeah. It�s kind of like when you look outside� D-vival. D-vival. Yes. When you look outside and you see our Bible.

Lot. The Rick Warrens of the world and others will say you�ve got to have a good presence, a good footprint. You�re going to try to sell your house. It�s the first impression and curb appeal and everything.

Here�s what we do at Bethlehem Bible Church. We dare you to come and if you can make it and find a parking spot and get through the.

Mud. We don�t even shuttle our walkway. I know. You have to climb over snow banks to get into this church.

You can�t see it from here, Nate, but around this little bend, there was some water break or something and it flooded the parking lot and it turned it into an ice skating rink, except there�s a little incline as you can see.

I just thought, �Oh, man. That day, I didn�t want the snow plowed.

I feel so bad for your senior members who had to try to brave that just to listen to you preach for.

Nate, we don�t do senior members. We do young, affluent, kind of millennial, got to have. We don�t even want a lot of kids and stuff, just like the movers and the shakers. Are you a Mars Hill plant?

I thought there�s snow. Okay. Just kidding. All right. So as the pilgrims would come over to America, tell us a little bit since you mentioned in your book and I know you know history of New England better than I do.

What was their relationship with the church that was in England and now they come here? Was it for freedom? Did they really teach the Bible? Were they running from kind of mother church as you talk about?

Give me the scoop on that. So, there�s layers. I mean, history is never black and white. You know that. There�s always layers. There�s nuance. But basically, the first settlers that came here, they fled England because they were Puritans.

They were purists. The church in England was trying to reform and so they were trying to make� not compromise, but they were trying to sort of make everybody happy to a point, keep our doctrine, but still kind of practice the same Roman Catholic things and they were trying to make a meld of the whole thing.

Well, you had Puritan believers who were saying, �No, we�re not going to have anything of that. And they were persecuted because they wouldn�t conform to the articles of� what�s the name of it? Articles of� there�s a name.

39 Articles? Something like that. Yeah. So� I don�t think it was the 39. No, it was� there was a decree. I think Elizabeth passed it. It�s in the book. I don�t remember. You give me more credit than I deserve because I don�t remember, but� so, they wouldn�t conform to this new sort of syncretistic church and so they fled and they ended up overseas landing in New England, very, very tough first winter, almost didn�t survive, but they landed and they said, �That�s it.

We�re going to seek to find a pure or establish a pure church that preached the word of God, that was faithful to the scriptures, that was faithful to conduct and morality. We want to do exactly what the Bible has told us to do, what we know God has told us to do, and that is to be faithful to him.

Therefore, that means pure church. So, they were seeking pure church. Ten years later, fast forward, all of a sudden, all these other settlers are coming over, some of them for business reasons, but for the most part, the general consensus was they were coming over to establish a pure church, but the settlers that are coming over in the 1630s, they still revered the Church of England as kind of like a sister church and they weren�t as antithetical to the church, they just kind of thought that they were doing a different expression of it and it was a lot more peaceable.

But still, the churches that were established here in the 1620s and 30s were still committed to doctrine, they were committed to morality, they did not want to have a culture that was run rampant, they wanted membership to matter.

So, all the things that we would consider to be faithfulness in the church is what they wanted, those who were believers and those who weren�t believers still admired the culture and wanted to be part of it.

Plymouth Rock, the Witch Trials, and the Decline into Legalism

Jared� Nate, when I think of pure church, Puritan church, I think we should have a new church growth name. You know, sometimes they have things like Journey, Verve, Revive, and now we could just have Pure.

You don�t call it pure church either, it�s just one word, pure. Pete� I�ll let you start it. Jared� Uh-huh. Except if I joined, then it would be impure. And so, did they actually get to Plymouth, did they get to Plymouth Rock, how did that whole thing work?

I�ve heard they�ve moved the rock several times, it�s broken, and maybe that is a little metaphor of some of what happened to these.

Pete. Talking about spiritualizing a narrative, man.

Jared� Well, 1 Corinthians Chapter 5 says that the rock was Christ. Pete� There you go.

Jared� Not that particular rock. Pete� I�m sure you�ve been there, but if you go there, it�s not impressive. I mean, it�s just this little tiny boulder that has 1620 carved into it, it�s really nothing special.

It�s, yeah, I don�t know all the details of whether they�ve moved the rock.

Jared� Now, deep down, since you�re pastoring and from New Hampshire, do you wish that these Puritans would have settled originally in New Hampshire somehow and not Massachusetts? Pete� It doesn�t matter.

It doesn�t matter. Jared� Okay, so they get here and what happened between their arrival and then the awakenings? What was the climate like in New England? I�m sure, you know, we just asked for generalizations here, but get me from their landing in the 1600s to fast forward 100 years or so.

Pete. Yeah, so basically, you know, you have this kind of mishmash where you do have government that is, it is Christianized government, so to speak. You�ve got moral codes being introduced, which, you know, by and large is good, but you have all these commands being taken to the most extreme degree.

So basically, the culture hit a fever pitch. So as soon as somebody said witch or, you know, sorcery or any of these buzzwords that were, you know, associated with this, with evil, and there�s no evidence to prove that these people actually were caught up in this, but they started to hang and kill these people who are supposedly practicing witchcraft, and it was basically out of a heightened culture that was just, I mean, for all intents and purposes, legalistic.

So they just kind of get to this place where they take this to an extreme. They go hyper-legalism to the point where it�s on a governmental level. They�re calling for people to be killed over sin, and then the culture just kind of dies.

By the end of the 1600s, you have less than 5 of the people even going to church. Hey, wait.

This is my show. I was going to say, based on your excellent book, you�ve got the witch trials at the end of the 1600s, and then when Edwards is born in the early 1700s, you�ve got a culture where, I mean, it�s like New England today.

Five or 10 of the people actually attend worship services on a weekly basis. That�s what it was. So then what happens? God raises up people at different times, and what was going on in central Connecticut, central Massachusetts with Solomon Stoddard and Edwards?

You�re really making me work for my money here, huh?

Well, you wanted to get the $24 fisherman�s platter, but you were kind and you only did the $16 deal instead. I spent $16? Is that right? Wow. Yeah. I think mine was the I think I had the $14 grouper.

Oh, my goodness. Well, I remember Solomon Stoddard�s house. You can go to New Hampshire. New Hampshire. You can go to Northampton today, and if you want to try to track down some of the theological sites in Northampton, you can find David Brainerd�s tomb.

Edwards is not buried there in Northampton because he�s obviously in Princeton. But Solomon Stoddard�s house still is up, and I think they called him the Pope of New England. Pope of New England, yeah.

He was the Pope of Connecticut Valley. Oh, yes. That�s right.

Yeah. And was not he the man who had the halfway covenant? He did. Yeah. Okay. Tell our listeners what that is because that�s of interest. Yeah.

The halfway covenant. So what was happening is you had church members and church people coming in, and if you lived in a town, a New England town, you just went to that church. I mean, it�s not like today where you can drive anywhere you want and find a church that you like, you know, that�s of your choosing.

It was up to the church in the town to have a good minister. You brought a guy who knew the word, you brought him in, you went to church, there was accountability to go to church there. But the problem was that you had influential people in the town, so the local, you know, the local mayor or the local businessman or somebody who wanted to go to church and sit there and do all the stuff as well, even though they might not actually be Christians.

And so, what they devised, this was actually before Solomon started, even though he brought it into play, they devised this thing called the halfway covenant where you could become a member of a church, even if you weren�t saved, as long as you displayed moral tendencies and the hope was that through being part of this church and fellowshipping with them, you�d hear the gospel and eventually you�d get saved and become a full member, a full-fledged member.

And so, not just influential people, but also people�s kids, you know, they�d get born into a church and they would kind of grandfather them in under this covenant and say, okay, you�re part of the church.

But what it produced was a whole bunch of false converts, people who had sway in the church, who had a vote, who had influence, but were unregenerate. So, it became a problem. It was well-intentioned, it just wasn�t, it�s not how we understand church to work.

Aaron Ross Powell. And of course, Edwards came along after he took over for his grandfather and he changed that and I was glad he did. But with that and then the rebuke of the parents with the OB-GYN drawings, it cost Edwards his job and can you imagine firing Jonathan Edwards?

What was it, 220 to 20 or something? Well, he was fired over communion.

It was over communion. He wasn�t allowing people who are supposedly, you know, influential or whatever. So, the mayor comes into town and says, I want to take communion and Edwards says, no, you�re not a Christian.

So, that was, again, you let influence into your church, you let famous people, popular people into the church, give them the reins, and unregenerate people are going to do unregenerate things.

Pete. Now, you literally wrote the book on the subject, so I will defer, but I think the communion was tied into the halfway covenant where they were allowed to partake, even as unbelievers, communion, the Lord�s Supper, both the bread and the cup, maybe thinking that this is giving some kind of grace or maybe thinking this will allow them to continue to sit underneath the Word of God and to hear it and then get saved.

But he said, no, this is for believers. That�s right. That�s right. Yeah, that�s right. And Edwards stands up for that truth, gets fired, but let�s back up a little bit. You�ve got a situation where you�ve got a lot of people who say they�re Christians that are not.

It almost reminds me of the South, Nate. You�ve got a lot of Southern Baptists. Hi, what are you? I�m Southern Baptist. Right, I�m congregational. Edwards was a congregationalist. Post-millennial too, wasn�t he?

He was. I think so, yeah. But that was like before World War I, wasn�t it?

Yeah, I mean, but I�ll tell you though, I mean, if you witness the awakenings, when a thousand people in your tiny little town get saved in a two to three-year span, you�re thinking Christ is coming tomorrow.

So, I�d probably be post-mill too. You know what? Interesting.

Tell me a little bit more, Nate, and if you love, by the way, New England history, theological history, and even history for how does God work, to what measures does God use, I think you�re going to like the book.

I don�t know how they�re going to get a copy of this, but they can just kind of keep clicking on your website probably, and you�ll announce it on Twitter too, right? Well, I got a little hashtag.

I�m hashtagging reviving New England, so I�m trying to get everything trending on that. So, hopefully this will come about somewhere.

Edwards, Whitefield, and the Great Awakening in New England

Tell us, we don�t have much time to go, tell us about the connection between Edwards and Whitefield and their friendship and how that transpired.

Yeah, so there were already underpinnings of revival. The pastors were preaching for revival before Edwards, so there was already a culture there. But Edwards, when he started to see them wandering, began to preach for conviction, preach for, you know, for salvation.

He was an evangelistic preacher. At the same time, as people are coming to Christ, he�s writing all these things down and the letters were getting sent, these accounts of this revival movement in the states are getting sent overseas.

Because remember, at this time, England and America were still, it was still the British realm. So, it�s all the same family, so they�re sending Edwards letters and they�re sending his account overseas.

The Westleys read it, Isaac Watts reads it, and this guy named George Whitefield reads this and says, �I have got to go over to the states and see what�s going on. And he began, he arrived there in the early 1740s and began to preach up and down the eastern seaboard.

Edwards heard about it and said, �Will you please come to my church And he says, �Yes, I will. And he preached there.

So, did Whitefield read the Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God?

From what I understand, chronologically, I believe he read the work that was published prior to it. It was like a letter or a treatise that he�d written. It was like an account. I believe, if I�m not mistaken, the work was written after, I think.

Aaron Ross Powell It�s fascinating because you think, okay, who is America�s greatest or first theologian? And we want to say Jonathan Edwards, but he was still a British citizen. But I think he was born in Peter Robinson.

Oh, yeah. He was born here, yeah. Aaron Ross Powell. Now, what�s the connection between Connecticut and Northampton? Was he born, was Edwards born in Connecticut or up there?

Peter Robinson You know, I don�t remember offhand, but in terms of like the Enfield thing, is that what you�re talking about?

Aaron Ross Powell. Well, then he went down to Enfield to preach sinners in the face of an angry God.

Peter Robinson. Yeah, that�s right. That�s usually, that�s what he�s known for, but that�s not really, that wasn�t really his thing. He just happened to have that. He preached, actually, he preached that sermon at his own church and it bombed.

No one liked it. Preached it at Enfield and the whole place blew up. So, yeah.

Aaron Ross Powell. Well, if you come to New England, then I say you hire Nate. He takes you around and you have like a personal tour guide.

Peter Robinson I take one of those duck boat tours out of Boston and I travel around.

Aaron Ross Powell. Do you know what? Yes. Here�s Cotton Mather�s tomb and all that. When I go to Northampton, you can also find one of the steps from the church that he pastored still there. Oh, yeah.

It�s there. Aaron Ross Powell. Right there in a really kind of bad part of town. Peter Robinson. Yeah. Aaron Ross Powell. And then you can also find where his house was and now on his house on Edwards Lane, I believe it is, is a Roman, a Polish-speaking Roman Catholic church.

Peter Robinson. It�s sad. I went to Northampton and the church that he pastored burnt down, but the building that�s there now, it�s this Unitarian Universalist church that completely stands against everything he ever taught.

And of course, they wave the banner, Edwards Church, but it�s not. It�s completely gone apostate.

It�s sad. Aaron Ross. Powell. Nate Pickowitz�s new book, Reviving New England. I think you�ve got a pretty solid list of endorsers on there, don�t you? Peter Robinson. I have no idea.

Hey, I�ve got one winner so far and that is.

Well, I was glad to do it. I think the people will be encouraged that God is faithful and he uses means like preaching, evangelism and prayer and revival, certainly a sovereign work of God. And you bring that up in the book.

Thanks for writing it.

Closing Credits and Station Disclaimer

Aaron Ross Powell. I�m happy to do it. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abingroth 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.

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