Max the Lucado strikes again

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.

Names, Family, and Current Ministry Updates

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, Michael Lee Abendroth. In our family, the son�s middle name is the dad�s first name. Henry was my grandfather. I think that�s when it started.

My dad was named Lee Henry. My name is Michael Lee. Any guesses what my son Luke�s name is? Luke Michael. There you go. One day, I guess Luke will have a son. I guess, could he name his son Jake? Jake Luke?

That might mess things up. I�ve always liked names. You know, these short, one-syllable, kind of masculine, Jack, Jake, kind of thing. I don�t know how that will all work out. You can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

It�s snowing outside. My back is not feeling too bad today. I�d like to be back out on a bicycle soon. Shepherd�s Conference is canceled. Some are going to G3, I think, instead, or Ligonier. I don�t see how Grace Church is going to reopen.

They say it�s postponed, but I think they probably just cancel and start over for the next year. We�ll see how that works. I always go for mainly fellowship. I get to see my friends from around the world.

Dispensationalism, Seminary Shirts, and Church Services During Restrictions

I�m kind of like the black sheep of the family now, right? I�m not a dispensationalist, law gospel, Christ-centered preaching, reading the old in light of the new for testament. So I�m kind of, you know, no literal temple where we have sacrifices in the millennial kingdom, Ezekiel 40 to 48.

So see, I�m walking on thin ice. I did find my Fuller Seminary sweatshirt. I was going to wear that one day, and I have a Tubingen theological shirt, a t-shirt, and that�s a German school that�s super liberal, so I was just going to wear it to see if anybody knew that it might be liberal, and that�s what they�ll blame me on.

If you�re in town or close by, we�re in central Massachusetts. We have services at 830 and 1030. We have live services, our live stream. I think the governor said something about 40 capacity for people.

I think in Canada it�s 15%. Who knows what it is in California? My friend, Pastor Todd Breguet, is in a small little suburb of San Jose, and I think that�s what he told me was the last country in all of America that said you can�t meet inside for any reason.

Forget the 10%, 15%, 20%, 40 arbitrary number, you can go gamble, I guess, or you can go to a strip club, but you can only have 40%. I don�t really know how that works out. Anyway, that�s that. I�m sure we�ll be dealing with church issues with masks, no masks, vax, no vax, all that kind of stuff.

Max Lucado, Homosexuality, and the Cathedral Apology

Crazy. Well, the one thing that came down to my attention, which fewer things do now because I�m not on social media, once a week there will be a post, here�s the sermon, or maybe there�s a YouTube thing, or I recorded five episodes for American Gospel TV, and those would be on the law and gospel, and maybe we�ll make an announcement like that or something.

If I finally finish the Colossians commentary for S. Lewis Johnson, those kind of things we might make announcements. But just generally, bantering back and forth, I�m off of that, but someone sent me the Max Lucado apology regarding homosexuality.

And the title of this particular EpiscopalNewsService .org article, written by David Paulson on February 11th, says, �Max Lucado apologizes for past comments on homosexuality after outrage at National Cathedral.

Well, when I first read that, if I don�t read anything else, he apologizes for past comments. Oh, okay, well, maybe he was rude or something like that, and maybe he was sinful in the way he talked about homosexuality.

Okay. But then there was an outrage. You know, you have people who are outraged. That�s outrageous. And then now it�s time to sit and listen and take some classes so you�ll understand us and everything else.

Max Lucado, whatever he does, it doesn�t surprise me, because I think his background is not Church of Christ, and that would be not Christ Church, but Church of Christ, i .e. a denomination that would believe in baptismal regeneration.

Right? It is faith plus baptism. They�ll go to Acts 2, 36 and following, verse 38, and other passages to say, �See, you have to be baptized to be saved. It�s an integral part of it. I remember going to the church in Louisville where Bob Russell used to pastor.

There�s a new guy that took over. I forgot his name. And I forgot the name of the church, but a lot of Baptists go there, and it�s a big place and it�s good children�s programs and fitness programs and all that.

But it�s baptismal regeneration, so I never understood why Al Mohler could speak so highly of Russell. Bob Russell, I almost said Russell Fuller, but that�d be another show. Bob Fuller, Bob Russell, because he believes in baptismal regeneration.

So I took a group of my fellow doctorate students and we went over there, and there was a big baptismal pool there at whatever this church is called. I can�t remember. It�s called, if you�re a naive Southern Baptist, try this out.

And then this guy, the main pastor, this is before he retired 10 years ago, he baptized someone and then said, �Welcome to the kingdom. I mean, that�s what we�re talking about here. And I just think it�s ridiculous to promote such a ministry, even though they don�t really talk about it that much, even though they don�t really say much about it.

No, no, that�s not what we do. Anyway, here it says he apologizes for past comments. So then it�s kind of like, well, what were his comments? And you can probably see where this is going. He had an invitation to preach at the cathedral worship service, but then they dug up some stuff about same-sex marriage and homosexuality.

And he said in a letter dated February 11th, this is Lucado, he still believes in, quote, the traditional biblical understanding of marriage, end quote. But the article says, �But now regrets the words he used in a 2004 sermon and article.

Critics have condemned his comparison of same-sex marriage to legalize polygamy, bestiality, and incest in a suggestion that homosexuality is something that can be changed by pastoral care. Well, obviously the Lord changes.

But are people outraged that fornicators can be changed by pastoral care, i .e., the preaching of the Word of God, means of grace, proper administration of the sacraments? Does God change people? Does he change their behavior?

How does that all work? Do drunks and liars and those who are immoral, could they ever change? Oh, brother. Lucado, quote, �I now see that in that sermon I was disrespectful. I was hurtful. I wounded people in ways that were devastating.

It grieves me that my words have hurt or been used to hurt the LGBTQ community. I apologize to you and I ask forgiveness of Christ. Enter here. It's either that or cancel culture. It's either that or outrageous.

You know, it's, well, I'm never going to get asked to speak in any of these big places. But if I do, I don't think you have to go very far back in the future of No Compromise Radio, in the past rather, to find out statements that I talk about how these sins, including homosexuality, can be washed, you could be sanctified and justified, because God loves sinners of all stripes kinds.

I apologize to you and ask forgiveness of Christ. What would the forgiveness be, hmm? What does he need to ask forgiveness for, telling the truth, or just changing, compromising? What's the forgiveness?

He gets asked to go speak someplace and then they rescind it because they, these people, they will hold a listening session at 7 p .m. to receive additional feedback from the LGBTQ community. Hold a listening session.

So here's how this works now. Don't you notice it? With any of this victim-oppressor stuff, now the oppressors, and the victims tell us who the oppressors are, but this victim-oppressor matrix is now the oppressors need to just sit and listen.

We're just going to tell you things. You need to listen. You need to have a listening session. Forget the truth. Truth will just give experiences. His letter to the cathedral does not specify how much of what he said in 2004 he still believes.

Look, Ado, faithful people may disagree about what the Bible says about homosexuality. Really? People, yeah, but I wouldn't say faithful people, but we agree that God's holy word must never be used as a weapon to wound others.

I did a show earlier today on Luther and celebrity Christianity, and he calls himself a bag full of maggots. How does that all work? Are these weapons to wound? Actually, if you think about it in your life, if you read the Bible or hear a sermon and you're doing the wrong thing or thinking the wrong thing, and you hear a sermon and it convicts you in your conscience, is that a weapon to wound others?

God's word is a sword. It is a weapon, and it opens up things, so then the balm of the gospel can be applied. If you want to tell me that homosexuality isn't a sin, well, the best thing to do is say, you know, the Bible's written by men in a different culture and the trajectory was including them, et cetera, et cetera.

There are attempts to do that. But if you're going to deal with the corpus of Scripture, Bible passages, you're not going to get very far. I just like it when people just are honest and say, you know, we know the Bible teaches this, but it's either outdated, it was copied wrongly, or we'll establish a trajectory of where this was going to all end for homosexuality and how things would kind of change throughout time, and it's kind of a trajectory hermeneutic.

I would have more respect for you, because you can't deal with the text in any way, shape, or form to say, well, this is holy, this is righteous, this is godly, and people need no repentance for that.

The Church, the Word, and the Need to Preach Repentance

Locato's letter said, over centuries, the church has harmed LGBTQ people and their families. Just as the church has harmed people on issues of race, gender, divorce, addiction, and so many other things, we must do better to serve and love one another.

In my opinion, this guy has no idea what he's talking about. He needs to be born again. He needs to step down from quote-unquote ministry, and if you like him because he writes good children's books or gives you a daily devotional and all that stuff, you have to say to yourself, you know what?

No. The answer is no. I'm not going to follow this kind of tripe any longer. It's just whatever the world says, we do. That's not pastoral leadership. Pastoral leadership is, the world is against what I'm teaching, but I'm going to teach it anyway because I've been called by another.

This is not my ministry. This is not what I pick and choose to do. I'm preaching through 2 Peter now, and while I chose 2 Peter because of lots of reasons, it's a good book for these days of struggle.

It's a good reminder that Jesus is going to come back and live a holy life in light of that. It's a good book to teach us about these false teachers that say, hey, where's the promise of his coming? But I don't pick what's in the book.

I pick the book to preach through, but I don't pick what's in it, and whatever's in it, that's what I'm going to preach, and these are the transchronological God-breathed words that are good for every congregation and every place, and I'm not going to just get up there and run my mouth about critical race theory and race, gender, homosexuality, and all these other things that the world says, that the world drives us to say.

This is unbelievable. His 22-minute sermon for the Cathedral February 7th live stream is focused on easing life's anxieties by feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit. If I've got one shot, what am I going to say?

You know, it reminds me of Ravi Zacharias, and it was 10 years ago when he was promoting Joyce Meyer and Henry Knowing and the Catholic Mystic and promoting Alpha Ministry and just a bunch of nonsense.

I mean, he didn't just fall out of a tree. He's been climbing up it for a long time. He was at the National Day of Prayer, I want to say 10 years ago, maybe 15 or 20, and you're told not to say, in Jesus' name, amen.

You can say, in God's name or in his name or in the Savior's name or something like that. Now, if you want to pray and you don't say, in Jesus' name, at the very end, it's not like that's the stamp that you put on the letter to make sure it's delivered.

Some people teach that. No, in Jesus' name, whatever answer to this prayer would honor your son and give him glory in Jesus' name. But if you tell me, I'm going to a place and I can't say Jesus' name, well, too bad.

Too bad. I had another guest who did the exact same thing. I had a guest on here, there's a lot of respect, a military guy, but when he did the National Day of Prayer, or whatever it was called, couldn't say, in Jesus' name, and went along with it.

What is going on with people? Don't say Jesus. Jesus. Don't say in Jesus' name. Jesus. I mean, when I do weddings here in New England, there are some Unitarian churches here because Congregational churches would go liberal and Unitarianism would fill that vacuum.

So you go from Congregational to Unitarian and you get the cool building, and it's the quintessential New England, you know, Puritan church building, meeting house, and people want to get married in those places.

And so when I go to a Unitarian church, the first thing I say as I officiate the wedding is I welcome you in the name of the Triune God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. That's the first thing I say.

Because you know what? If you're going to say things like, Jesus isn't God, that's the first thing I'm going to say then, out of the chute. That's what I'm going to say. And let's see. Kevin Ekstrom, the Chief Communications Officer of the Cathedral, said, Deep pain was caused by the LGBTQ community by our invitation to Max Lucado to preach at the Cathedral last Sunday.

We appreciate him acknowledging the pain of his past remarks. Now here we go. You ready for this? It's never enough. The point to all this is, it's never enough for an apology, even though it's an awful apology and wrongly given with the wrong theological background.

But when you bow to these folks, it's never enough. There's never going to be, he's like, oh, we'll give reparations to people for slavery. It's never going to end. And so let's see if it ends here with Kevin Ekstrom.

We appreciate him acknowledging the pain his past remarks have caused, and we hope that he will find a way to truly listen, see that's it, stop teaching, stop preaching, stop preaching from God's word and authority.

You need to sit down and shut up and listen because we are the victims and you're the oppressor and the oppressor now needs to sit down. That's what's happening. It's just like South Africa years ago in the sense that whatever the system was with white men at the top and black ladies at the bottom of the pyramid, everything's inverted now because you've got oppressors and oppressed and you've got victims and oppressors.

And of course, apartheid was not good and I'm not standing up for them, but just everything's flipped and obviously slavery is not good. But just because you're white or this or that or straight, you need to just sit in the back and listen, to truly listen to those who have been hurt by his words.

For us here at the cathedral, we are now in the mode of listening to our community so we can do better going forward. Is that what preachers do? We're the listeners if it's, we need to listen to people when we talk to them and not always dominate a conversation and go back and forth and give and take at dinner.

Okay, I'm all for that. But what I'm not all for is when you get up and preach, no, no, you sit down, it's time to listen. I don't know. Where are the truth tellers? Where are those that preach the word in season and out of season?

By the way, it's out of season now, but Paul, he's like, you know, Timothy and every other preacher that dares to stand in the pulpit, I want you to stand and preach in times that are good and times that are bad.

Preach the word. You're just always ready. When there's an epic of, we don't like preaching, which it is now because we want everybody to listen. We want the preachers to listen. Then there's a big problem.

And so we are to reprove. Do those words hurt? Reprove. This is sin. Rebuke. You do those sins. Does that hurt? The answer is yes. No person ever convicted of their sin against a thrice holy God ever felt good until the spirit of God applies the balm of the gospel and regenerates and justifies and forgives and redeems and all those things that happen at conversion.

It hurts. That's what it's supposed to do. The law is a mirror. And even though when I get that 10X mirror with a little light around the border and I turn that on and I look at myself, I don't like the pockmarks.

I don't like to see the blemishes. I think I need to take care of those. Far off, they look fine. But when I look with the mirror of God's word into my life, I see things. That's the function of the law, right?

For unbelievers especially, it's a mirror, first use. And even now, the law, when we look at it, it still convicts us. We don't have to keep it perfectly now as children of God, but it guides, it norms our life.

It gives us direction, does it not? That's what the law does. And we need instruction and we need to be convicted. And that's why we have a conscience. And that's why when we're talking about harm, I mean, if it's you mistreat people who struggle with a certain sin because of that sin and you think you're better than they are and you're self-righteous, then maybe you owe somebody an apology.

But if you're just preaching the word, I will make no apologies for saying the viceless of sins that damn people are found in Galatians chapter five and Romans one and first Corinthians chapter six, they are what they are.

I didn't write it, but by the grace of God and his power, I'm going to preach it. And if you don't like it, you can silence me. You can turn me off the radio. You can cancel culture me. You can find me.

You can do whatever you want, but you tell me, don't say in Jesus name, I'm saying it. And for those that don't do it, zero respect, zero. I'm not saying if you ever prayed a prayer without saying in Jesus name, I have zero respect for you.

But I'm saying, if you go to one of these things and they tell you, don't say Jesus's name. Well, I'm going to do it because I'm going to preach praise what I'm going to do, just like a Thanksgiving prayer or a Christmas prayer with a lot of family around who aren't believers.

And I'm going to talk about the Lord Jesus, even in my prayer, right? You invite some friends over. It's a preach prayer. That's what I'm going to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is crazy, but this is where the world is going.

You just need to sit and listen. And really what it's, what this is, is they hate God. They hate his word and they hate preaching. If you look up preaching now, it's not a word that's endearing to people.

Don't you preach to me? They'll say, and that's true. Don't you preach to me? But for us as Christians, what we used to love, sin, what we used to hate, preaching, we now love. I love preaching. I love listening to preaching.

I hate sin. I hate my sin. Along for the day of the liberation of this body that the sin racked, and then my own sins too. But to say that, you know, the proclaimers of God's word need to sit down and listen.

Anybody here listening to No Compromise Radio, if you try to defend Max Lucado in any way, shape, or form from baptismal regeneration to this nonsense, then I don't know where you are, but in my opinion, you need some growing up.

You need to start dealing with the text. You need to start saying, I think I should probably follow people that don't lick their finger and put it up in the air and say, where's the world winds blowing today?

I better go along with them versus somebody who'll say, I don't really care what society or culture says. This is what the Bible says. And you don't like it that it's, whatever you do is called sin and you deserve to go to hell and God's angry with the wicked.

You don't like that. Well, nobody does. Nobody likes it that the doctor has to cut open your wound to clean it out and fix it. But that's what's going to have to happen. The law of God, it's going to expose and to wound and to grieve and to convict and to rebuke and to exhort.

So then we get to come along and say, but there's a savior of sinners. The just dies for the unjust. That even while we were enemies, Christ died for us and the demonstration of God's love for the ungodly, Abraham, the ungodly saved, Paul, the ungodly saved, me, the ungodly saved.

And you, if you're a Christian, ungodly saved, but it took a lot of convicting where it felt like you're the only person in all the auditorium, the sanctuary where that sermon was for you. How did he know it was for me?

The conviction and you realize how you treat other people and you hear the sermon. God's word wounds us and then applies the balm of the gospel wall. My name is Mike Abendroff. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry.

You can write me, Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com. Tell your friends, God bless you.

Ministry Sign-Off and Church Information

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroff 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.