What Would Luther Say (Part 1)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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

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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.�

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

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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

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth and it is good to be back from the

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I think there�s five segments. My philosophy was kind of a Christian, biblical

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Jimmy Fallon set up, but I need the band. I need a band badly. What do they call their, what do they call his band?

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His band�s called something, I don�t know, I wanted to say the Crickets, but that�s not right. They sing some songs sometimes with some stars.

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Anyway, what I mean by Jimmy Fallon is, it�s a variety show, and so they have one segment and the next and the next, so back in the

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David Letterman days, you�d have stupid pet tricks, you�d have monologue, of course not in this order, and you�d have a guest and then you�d have some kind of,

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I don�t know, ping pong tournament, he�d drop something off the roof. Remember he did that? He�d always drop like, started with watermelons dropped off the roof, and then it was pianos, and then it was,

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I should have that in honor of Karl Truman. And we just go from one to the next, to the next, to the next, to one, to the next, next to the one.

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And you know what? If you laugh a little bit on the way, that�s wonderful, because I sit here in the study, my study at the church, in my office, if you�d like to call it that, and I�m the only one here unless Steve�s here, and I just, you know, the secretary�s gone, it�s later in the day, and I�m just laughing doing no -compromise radio.

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I feel your presence, listener. I want you to know that I know you by name, and what

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But seriously, I get letters and emails from across literally the world, and I am so thankful to the

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Lord God that he would give me this opportunity to teach the Bible to you.

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Very, very, very thankful. Alright, well, what do I have in front of me?

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I have in front of me something called Martin Luther�s Little Instruction Book, and it is put out by Honor Books, HB.

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I don�t know anything about Honor Books. It�s better than Dishonor Books. Oops, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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Rayma� I�m just kidding. What would

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O -R -U mean on the publishing page? I�m just kidding.

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I�m just totally kidding. Martin Luther. You ought to study Martin Luther.

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Of course, we don�t worship Martin Luther. Of course, he would not accept our worship.

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I mean, it goes back to, let�s say, you pick William Tyndale, you know, Tyndalites, and you say, well,

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I�m going to worship Tyndale. No, you just recognize the person as fallible and frail and sinful, yet redeemed by the blood of the

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Lamb, sovereignly chosen by the Father, and you say to yourself, sealed by the

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Holy Spirit, let�s make sure we talk in a triune fashion, and you say, thank you, Lord, that one man would lose his life, risk his life, to put the

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Bible in the language of the people. In this particular case, English. And so, we�re thankful for what

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God has done. If you love Mary Slessor, she leaves Scotland and she goes to Calabar, and she rescues twins and teaches the

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Bible. Fifty -one sets of twins, I believe, she rescued. They would think, those folks there in Africa were thinking that,

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I say Africa, that these twins would be demon -possessed, and so they just would set the twin babies out in the middle of the jungle and wait for them to be eaten by panthers or pumas or whatever was out there, and she would not put up with it.

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And so, are we Slessorites? Do we worship Mary Slessor? No, but we thank

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God Almighty for Mary Slessor and what he did. And in a very real sense, when you think of church leaders, especially men, he gave gifts like apostles, of course he gives gifts to ladies too, but I�m just thinking about the male aspect of Ephesians 4, prophets and evangelists and pastor -teachers, and we just say thank you.

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So if you worship a man, so John Calvin, or you�re a Calvinist and you worship John Calvin, just think about another word like, okay,

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William Cary, you�re a Caryite, and you worship William Cary. No, I�m just thankful for what

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God has done in William Cary�s life, and as I have reiterated on numerous occasions, why do

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I love biographies? I�m looking at the biography section of my library right now, and I have those biographies there, because A, I don�t really like to read fiction, and so this quenches my thirst for history, and then it�s redemptive history, and not in the sense of redemptive historical preaching, but I see other deemers� handiwork in the lives of men and women in history, and I read biographies because I say to myself, what can

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God do? What can the creating, the all -powerful

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Creator God do in the life of a person? And it wasn�t because these people were great, because the

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Lord God was in fact great, and who would be adequate for any ministry yet but the

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Lord, but God, and He prepares works ahead of time that we might walk in them,

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Ephesians 2 .10. So He�s the sovereign Lord who does that, and then finally I read biographies because I become motivated, right?

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You say to yourself, they are frail, they are sinful, they do need sleep, they get old and take naps, they have reading glasses, and have a hard time hearing, and all the other things that go along with age, yet they served.

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They served with sweat and toil and joy and sadness and sorrow, but they served.

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It was kapiao, to use the Greek language, it was a working hard to the point of sweat and exhaustion, and so I love to read biographies.

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And so when it comes to Luther, you ought to read Luther, Martin Luther. It�s probably easier to read a biography about him than to read

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Luther because you have to zero in what particular thing was he attacking at what particular year, was this a time when he was pro -Jewish or anti -Jewish, what parts of the mass did he want to slay and which parts was he accepting, where was he when it comes to justification by faith alone, what about the epistle of James as it relates to the law gospel paradigm, all law, no gospel, so how can it be in the

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Bible? So it�s a little harder to read Luther, so start with a biography, and I would start with Roland Banton�s biography, and you can barely put that thing down.

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It just reads, I mean, the life of Luther and what was going on in the day and risking his life and the cardinals that were involved and how

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God providentially through men protected him, and from lightning bolts and Help Me St.

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Anne to his father to the Augustinian monk root to Spallatin and to all these others, and you just think this is fascinating, fascinating, fascinating, and so Luther had some crassness to him, he was very human, wasn�t as refined as Calvin, and I think you would find

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Martin Luther a wonderful read. I just read Carl Truman�s book on Luther and his life or something like that.

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Carl was having a hard time selling the book, and so he just sent me a free one. Okay, the first part of that sentence was incorrect, it was a lie, but the second part was correct.

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So anyway, I�d like to have Carl on. I said whenever you�re able, we�ll talk about your book on Martin Luther, and I think you would be, as a listener, encouraged by what

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God does in the life of a very fragile man. That is to say, you know, men who were used greatly of God still had great errors and great problems.

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Even the Whitfield biography, I just was reading something about the life of Whitfield or George Whitfield, Thomas Kidd�s new book.

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You just think to yourself, yes, Whitfield was a saint in the biblical definition, using biblical definitions.

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Man, he had some major problems and lots of charismatic stuff at the beginning, impressions, intuitions, feelings, but it was a fascinating read.

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So back to Luther. In 1517, of course, he nailed the 95 Theses to the

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Wittenberg Door at the church there. And so in 2017, what�s 2017 minus 1517?

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The answer is 500, and so there will be the 500th anniversary of the

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Wittenberg Door deal. And I think,

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I�m probably letting the leopard out of the burlap sack, but NoCo, I think, will be there to celebrate that very

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NoCo in Wittenberg for the 500th celebration. So Luther�s going to be in the news a lot. That�s my point. Yes, it�s taken me 10 minutes to say that.

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Martin Luther will be in the news, and so it would behoove you to read Luther.

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I mean, if you want to go buy his Galatians commentary, I guess you can. It�s pretty cheap, by the way. You want to buy some of his table talk issues.

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That�d be good. But I think Roland Banton�s book, Martin Luther, I believe it�s called Here I Stand.

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It�s somewhere here. I�ve got a hardbound copy and a softbound copy. There are other Luther biographies to read, but I highly recommend that.

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Start there. And so in front of me, I have Martin Luther�s little instruction book. Now, I love

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Luther for lots of reasons, but on an interesting note, a side note. The first part is not so interesting, but then we�ll weave it together.

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I was born into the Lutheran faith. That doesn�t really seem right now, does it?

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I was born into a family, and my mother began to take me to a Lutheran church.

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Her father, Carl O. Anderson, Carl Otto Anderson, was

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Swedish, and there were a lot of Lutheran Swedes in Minnesota and Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa.

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And in this Swedish family, the grandpa was Swedish and grandma was

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Roman Catholic. And grandma�s name was Nona. Nona Anderson would answer the phone, and she thought she was saying hello, but Nona was the one who answered hello.

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And so hence the hashtag hello. If you have to ask what hashtag hello is, I guess, you know, there might be a nice listener who would describe that to you, but I think it�s just going to have to be

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Gnostic insider knowledge. So when my daughter said, �Daddy, you know, you got this cup that says hello, and people are sending you stickers that say hello.

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What is that ?� And I said, �Well, you know, when somebody does something weird or dumb or strange, you say hello, like wake up, hello.�

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But grandma couldn�t say hello. I don�t know. It�s like, you know, the two Ls in hello, maybe, you know, two

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Ls in quesadilla, the two Ls in llama.

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I mean, what do you do with two Ls? In the Swedish Catholic side of the

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Andersons, you said hello. And so my mom brought us up as Lutherans.

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I was baptized as a Lutheran. I went to Lutheran catechism, Lutheran confirmation.

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I went to Lutheran backpacking trips to Colorado. I went to Lutheran missionary trips in a van down to Galeana, Mexico, Galeana, Mexico, telling people that they should believe in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And so I think often about Lutheranism and the difference between what

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Luther might teach and Lutheranism. So when

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I opened the book up, this is the fun part of the show. This is everything else was scripted, written ahead of time, put through our scanners so that we can get the highest scheduled output.

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If you know how this show really would work, I say to myself, okay, it�s five o�clock, and I�m just going to record a couple shows.

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And I walk over here, Lord help me. And, oh, let�s try that. So see, what we�re after is spontaneity, right?

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And that�s the cliche of all time. You know, if you are going to be on Love Connection back in the day, my wife used to work for Love Connection, Chuck Woolery, you know, two and two and be back.

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She would screen people for dates, and not for a date for herself. We were married, of course.

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And she would say, well, why do you think it�d be an interesting date to be on Love Connection? And they would say, well, you know,

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I�m outgoing, and I�m fun, and I�m humorous and witty, and I like to do crazy things.

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And they have a variety of things to say. But if they ever said I�m spontaneous, that was the word that just, that was the dunk tank word.

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You just, you know, the floor of the interview room just opened up, and you were swallowed into the black hole vortex of, by the way, wouldn�t that be a cool name for a church, the black hole vortex?

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Vortex. There�s got to be a church out there called Vortex. Verve, Vortex, Vintage, Velocity, Velociraptors.

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It just seems to go correctly. What else would be a good one?

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Vox. Okay, sorry, that�s Latin, I think. Anyway, vernacular,

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I don�t think that sells so well. And so here we go. So here�s what I�m going to do.

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I�m going to just open this up randomly. Martin Luther�s little instruction book, subtitled,

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A Classic Treasury of Timeless Wisdom and Reflection. And so when it says on the back, when

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Martin Luther was called to answer for his radical beliefs about faith, he stood firm in his convictions. God declares his people righteous,

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Luther insisted, not because of their own efforts or merits, but because of what Jesus had done for them.

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This sparkling treasury, just look to the front, doesn�t seem to sparkle.

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Oh, I guess it�s for the meaning. Of the great reformers life and writings will encourage you to understand all that you possess in Christ.

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Okay, fair, I like it. But I just, I just, I highlighted what was italicized for emphasis.

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You�ll find illuminating quotes, fascinating stories and motivational insights by Luther himself, by the people who knew him and by present day observers.

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And you�ll be inspired to let these compelling truths change your life in powerful, practical ways. Let Martin Luther help you claim all that is yours in Christ.

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So see, at the very end, we did get a little ORU stuff there. The Tulsa influence came through.

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All right, so I�m going to open it up. Here we go on no compromise radio. A student, these are

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Luther quotes, a student who does not want his labor wasted must so read and reread some good writer that the author has changed, as it were, into his flesh and blood, for a great variety of reading confuses and does not teach.

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All right, so now let�s talk about that. See, now we�re off to that particular topic. And I do think it�s fair to say that you should pick some theologian and read a lot of what he has written.

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And so, for me, I�ve been reading Hermann or Hermann Bavink. And he has a four -volume systematic theology, and I�m just starting to read

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Bavink. Then I also got his biography, so I thought I would read that as well. And it was, for me, let�s read

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Lloyd -Jones. And so, I just read most every Lloyd -Jones book, Preachers and Preachers, Preaching and Preachers, Knowing the

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Times, something about the Puritans, you know, that type of thing. Others pick a

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B .B. Warfield, and they begin to read Warfield. And so, I started the 10 -volume set, and I�ve written a couple volumes.

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Well, I�ve written a couple B .B. Warfield volumes. My name is Fred Zaspel. Fred Zaspel�s book, by the way, is excellent.

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So, I�ve just read a couple volumes. And so, instead of reading little snippets, are modern books only written by current evangelicals, with my books as exceptions, of course.

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You want to buy those, buy the case, buy the lot. And it�s good to do that.

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And so, I�ve got a Flavel series. I thought, you know what, I need to read John Flavel. And so, that�s some good advice by Luther, although I�ve heard better advice.

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So, here we go, round two. It is opened up in a very providential way. And it says, �It is impossible that reward should not follow when we seek

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God in a purely selfless spirit, without any expectation of reward and advantage.�

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Luther, discussing Hebrews 11 .6, �He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek

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Him.� Isn�t that wonderful to think about? The rewards that God would give us.

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He could just tell us, �I�ve redeemed you, and therefore serve me.� But that He would motivate us or encourage us and give us unexpected blessings.

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You know, that�s just like the Lord, isn�t it? He gives you His best, His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Won�t He give us all things freely, everything else?

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That�s Romans 8, verse 32, isn�t it? So, let�s try it again. Luther�s little instruction book.

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It is providentially open to this page. �If obedience is not rendered in the homes, we shall never have a whole city, country, principality, or kingdom well governed.�

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That�s good advice. And as a person who struggles with, how can I parent the best,

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I also say to myself, what�s going on with some of the parenting at the church? And so, there�s a reason why 1

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Timothy chapter 3 discusses that we, meaning elders, need to be good managers of our household.

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We need to be loving our wives, like there�s no other woman in the world to love, and we must keep our children, can

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I say this? I guess it�s under wraps. I didn�t say to wrap them. But, you know, we need to have them managed as well.

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And so, government, good government, righteous government begins in the home.

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I�m just wondering, here�s a little no -co moment for you, how many listeners do not like inept government in the

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United States of America from the Republicans, from the Democrats, from the Green Party, from whomever?

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I�m wondering how many people in America don�t like inept government that is overseas, let�s say in Israel, from the

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Makud party, or maybe the Torah party, or whatever that Torah party is called.

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I think there�s a couple extra words. But then have children who are running amok. So, let�s take care of our own children first before we criticize government at church, government in society that is federal government or social government.

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Is that proper to say? Very, very fascinating. Martin Luther, what would you say?

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He would say this, page 98. Our Lord God must be a pious man to be able to love rascals.

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I can�t do it, and yet I am a rascal myself. Now, see,

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I just had a huge smile on my face thinking, now that makes good radio.

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You know, what if I just pulled out a few clunkers? You know, I should have had my crack staff go through all these and pick out the five or six best ones to make this, well, then it wouldn�t be providential, would it?

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They would be providentially working. And so, what a great quote for Luther.

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He must be pious to be able to love rascals. So, you think about the

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Lord Jesus Christ. He was fully man, and he did love rascals. Can you think of Zacchaeus in Luke 19?

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I just was reading that yesterday or the day before. If there was any rascal, it was

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Zacchaeus. And, you know, there were people who were more rascally than Zacchaeus, but he certainly would fall into the category of rascal.

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And maybe that�s too playful of a term. But we have a hard time loving enemies, rascals, sinners, and yet God does.

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And so, he must be righteous. He must be wonderful. He must be gracious. He must be merciful.

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He must be a God who loves. I have to read that again because it is, well, I�m running out of time, number one.

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I need to fill time, number two. Number three, I just want to read it because I like it. Our Lord God must be a pious man to be able to love rascals.

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I can�t do it, and yet I am a rascal myself. Well, if you�ve got some questions about salvation, you need a free

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Bible, you�d like some help in any way, shape, or form, we�d like to try to do that for you. Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

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You want to read Roland Banton�s Here I Stand, Martin Luther biography. You�ve got two years to do it, so you might as well order it now.

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I bet you can get it pretty cheap on Amazon used. God bless you. 6.

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We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org

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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.