Pillar’s Conference Q&A (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and you know what's been playing lately.

Today is part 2 Q &A held at the Pillars Conference in Alliance, Ohio.

Pastor John Tucker moderating the Q &A with myself and Pat Abendroth.

Yeah, that's right. So these are a variety of questions, I think, about preaching Christ in the

Old Testament. Probably a few other ones thrown in there. Who knows? Something about dispensationalism or something like that.

Anywho, that's what we got. We've got part 2 of question and answer.

It's good to see you all. Thank you for coming out this morning and Q &A sessions are always fun, so we'll have an opportunity to continue to talk with Mike and Pat.

I trust that these sessions have been a blessing to you all and that you're having an opportunity to see some things in the

Old Testament that you've not seen before and a deeper understanding of the point of Scripture, which of course is

Jesus Christ and His finished work. So what I thought we would do first off for some of you who haven't been here for the entirety of the conference to this point is to ask each of them to summarize the messages that they've presented.

That way you have at least a cliff notes version of what we've talked about so far and be filled in.

So Pat, we'll start with you. Why don't you kind of give us that quick review of your two messages so far?

Wow, that's a big ask, isn't it? My big burden, I guess, that I was trying to communicate and am trying to communicate throughout all of ministry would be that God has a plan

He has a purpose. He has a decree. He's all -knowing. He's sovereign. He's not learning all of these things and His purpose centers around His Son.

So Ephesians 1 teaches us that before the foundation of the world the triune

God purposed, decreed to save and elect people and the

Father predestines, the Son redeems, and the Spirit applies would be oversimplification because there are all three involved in everything.

So if that's true, that's true before Genesis 1 -1. Therefore, we should expect to see evidences.

We should expect to see shadows, types, even Christ, the Eternal One, before the incarnation involved.

When you know this, it's fun. It's exciting and it makes sense and you don't have to try to make the

Bible about something other than Christ ultimately. So that's my big burden that I've been trying to communicate.

Jesus says Moses spoke of me in John chapter 5. There's all kinds of texts like that and when you begin to see them, you see that the

Bible isn't about everything. It's about everything you need to know for redemption, but it is about Christ first and foremost.

So also we should interpret Scripture with Scripture because that's how Christians have been speaking since there have been

Christians because we believe in human authors. Peter's vocabulary is different than John's vocabulary, different than Jesus' vocabulary, if you will, so we can study how they use words.

We can study how they use grammar. That's all fine and good. But we should not only study human authors.

We should study the one divine author who according to 2 Peter chapter 1 is orchestrating, is controlling all of the human authors.

And so there it should it should be unified and it's good to do that.

But a lot of folks recently in evangelicalism are downplaying the divine author and emphasizing the human authors too much and that's just old -school liberalism.

So that's what I've been trying to communicate. Excellent. Amen to what

Pat said. Let's pray. What am

I supposed to say? I echo what

Pat says, especially when it comes to the divine author. Of course, we believe Moses wrote

Genesis, etc. But if you understand there's a divine author you're going to be able to look for and see and then be joyful in the plot line of the

Bible, the storyline, and you'll see big pictures like creation and the fall and redemption and consummation and you'll see how it's woven in.

So if you just take a look at a piece of something, fragment, you don't know what that fragment is all about until you see it in light of the whole.

And so that's what we're after is just seeing the Scriptures as Christ would see the Scriptures as the Apostles would see them.

So you know what you're looking for when you're reading such a big book. So yesterday I said there are over 807 ,000 words in the

Bible, 1 ,100 chapters. Is there continuity? Is there coherence? Is there some kind of organic way to look at Scriptures?

And if you just say, well, I'll look at Haggai and then I'll look at Malachi and then I'll look at Revelation, sometimes you just need to step back.

So regularly I in my mind and sometimes even with my body, I'm studying the passage in its minutiae and verbs and nouns and grammar and I need to push back from the table and I literally do and I think what's the big picture?

How do I see this? And while I loved microscopes when I was a kid growing up in Nebraska, you could get those in the back of the comic books

I think, with Joe Weider supplements too, so I wouldn't get sand kicked in my face. But then you need to step back a little bit to say what what's the theme?

What's the author trying to say? Pat wrote a book recently we talked about. I wrote a book.

I had a purpose in writing that book and I could distill that purpose probably into one sentence. I wanted to encourage

Christians who suffer with cancer are any physical malady. That's it and everything in the book drives towards that purpose.

So similarly with the scripture, eternal purpose, the Lord Jesus, triune God showing his glory, when you know that then you can look for things in particular.

So my message yesterday with Job, since Job was the first book in the Bible written, what do you look for when you're reading the

Bible? And I think Job tells you that. Look for forgiveness, look for a mediator, and look for a resurrection.

And if you can look for those things, then you'll end up seeing Jesus because he's the one that grants forgiveness since he's the mediator and has been raised from the dead and those who believe in him will be raised too.

Great, thank you for that. One of the highlights for me with the conference is the occasion that we have on Saturday afternoons to meet with Mike and Pat, myself,

Del, yesterday Danny, and Noah joining us for that luncheon, which was a great time of fellowship.

And we get to discuss things and theological issues and just how to do things in church.

They have a lot of experience. They have a great length of ministry. I mean

Mike, you've been the pastor at Bethlehem for how long now? 27 Pat? 25 years.

So these men have become a great resource for me in terms of helping me answer questions and address issues and work through theological and church -related matters.

And so yesterday what we did, and we talked a little bit about the idea of philosophy of ministry, and that was a great conversation amongst the five of us, or the six of us rather, that were there.

And the question that I want to have a discussion about so the congregation can kind of hear us talk about those things too and get some insight into that is that one, what is a philosophy of ministry?

And secondly, how does the church implement a philosophy of ministry? So Mike or Pat, whoever would like to go first?

I'm gonna let Pat answer that, but what John didn't say. Food, brisket, special barbecue sauce with cayenne pepper, macaroni and cheese with about 18 cheeses in there.

Yeah, but most importantly. Uh -huh. It's the best bananas foster I ever had, and I've had a lot because Pat said it was the best he had, but he'd never had it before, so.

Well, and I want to say a hearty thank you to Chris and Nancy Shank who prepared that meal for us.

It was very gracious of them to do that. There were six of us, but then after the meal there were 12 of us.

Great multiplication took place, yes. So philosophy of ministry.

So every church has a philosophy of ministry. You have a philosophy of ministry. Every pastor does, even if it's unwritten, even if you've not deliberately thought about it.

It's what are we about? What do we do? What's our purpose, and how are we going to accomplish that?

So everyone has one, we just might not be aware of it. So if I were to ask you, you know, what is community

Bible Church all about? Why do you exist? There probably would be lots of different answers, and if I'm honest, if I were to ask people at Omaha Bible Church where I pastor this morning the same question, unfortunately,

I think I would hear a lot of different answers. I think that's a, but that's a weakness. We want to be, we want to know what we're about.

What are we about here? Is it preaching Christ? Is it community? Is it evangelism?

Is it equipping the saints? Could we include all of those kinds of things? So I think there's always this tendency, even in an organization, if you, whatever company you work for, it would be good if you know what the company is all about big picture wise, as opposed to, well,

I just assemble bolts. Well, you know, are we building cars, or are we just assembling bolts?

That kind of thing. Anyway, so in Philippians chapter 1, it says, in chapter 20, verse 27 and following, the

Apostle Paul needs to remind the Philippian church what their philosophy of ministry should be. They're having problems.

There's division. There, he even names a couple of folks in the church who are arguing, and so they're distracted from their philosophy of ministry.

They're distracted from the main goal, the main purpose, and in chapter 1, verse 27 and following, he says that it's striving together for the furtherance of the gospel.

So that's what they're about, the progress of the gospel, and if you read the whole letter, it's protecting and promoting the gospel, because he talks about false teachers and things like that.

So I would say what we're all about, if we're on point, on target, speaking for myself as a pastor and the church

I pastor, we are about promoting and protecting the gospel. We're actually not about the relationships in the church, even though those are sweet sometimes and bitter other times.

But what we need to do is realize we're here to promote and protect the gospel, and we can't lose sight of that.

So we talked a lot about that yesterday. I probably will preach Philippians very soon, because Omaha Bible Church needs to be reminded of this whole thing.

We probably all need to be reminded of it now and then, because we tend to focus and get distracted.

We call it mission drift sometimes. What are we here for? Are we here for community?

No, even though I like the community, but we're ultimately here to preach Christ, to protect the message of Christ, or we won't have it to preach anymore, is what

I would say. And I want every member of the church I pastor to know that, to be reminded of that, and so when there is a conflict, they can realize that the church is not about them, and it's bigger than that personal conflict.

It's bigger than that relationship. We have a gospel to preach. We have a gospel to promote and protect.

I like to use the analogy, and he actually uses a sports metaphor slash military metaphor, standing firm in one spirit, striving together.

So if you're standing firm, you're protecting the goal, right? You're playing defense. If you're striving together, you're trying to score a goal or a touchdown, if you will.

So think about the fact that if you are a football team, you're not all best friends, and you don't all get matching t -shirts and go on vacation together.

Okay? In fact, you might have some intrapersonal conflicts. You might not get along with the defensive linemen, or whatever it is.

You might think they're weird. You might not like their spouse. That kind of stuff happens in real life, but the reason you're assembled together as a team is to win games.

And to score touchdowns, and to make it to the Super Bowl. That's the purpose of being on that team.

So, and it's nice that you are going to make some good friends, but there are other people you don't necessarily...

You need to love, but you might not like, to use your point. And it's for good reason the

Apostle Paul uses the sports metaphor. So, I've got friends at Omaha Bible Church, and I've got a lot of people that I work hard to love, but I don't necessarily like them all.

And we don't go on vacation together, but it's okay. We're trying to score touchdowns, if you will, and defend goals, but that's not what we're doing.

Promoting the gospel, protecting the gospel, and some wonderful relationships are formed and forged in that context.

But it's bigger than us, and it's bigger than our friendships. There's my sermon. Now we should close in prayer.

Thank you. Just if I could add a little bit to that, because my mind goes back to my marriage, and sometimes in our marriage, we were trying to work through issues, and we were having difficulties.

And we would go back to the idea that we're here for a bigger purpose. And that really helped me to work through some of the issues, because here we are kind of getting in an argument, or a discussion, or a spat, or debate.

I thought, why are we here? Why did we get married? Because we could serve the Lord better together than we could apart.

And so that's why he sovereignly brought us together. And our marriage is not big enough to shoulder the responsibility.

We have to have our marriage built on something else, the Lord Jesus, the rock. And so it helped us say, well, you know what, these people are coming over tonight for a

Bible study. We're arguing about something that we'll forget about in two years anyway. Let's work through these issues now, reconcile, and then serve

God's people. It's the same thing in a local church. Getting along with other people, bigger goals.

Iodius and Synecdoche in chapter 4 of Philippians. They're arguing, and they're forgetting the bigger picture.

And so we talked about that a little bit last night. What is the goal and the direction of Community Bible Church? And I'm thankful that from the pulpit, remember

Colossians chapter 1 verse 28, Him we proclaim. That's what we do. And I want it to be true for the church

I pastor, Pat's Church and John's. If you bring a friend to the church, they're gonna hear about Jesus.

You come on Sunday, you're thinking, I get to hear about the Lord Jesus. There's a means of grace, and that grace is the proclamation of the

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who loves you with an everlasting love. Yes, but I sinned this week.

Yes, He loves you with an everlasting love, and that love should motivate you to be full of gratitude, and that love should motivate you to say,

I need to get along with other people, and even if I don't like them, I'm going to love them. There are times

I think in my marriage, I really love my wife, but I'm not really liking her like now, right now. And she probably says that ten times more about me.

She's so generous and gracious, but what's the goal? So then when you have elder meetings, deacon meetings, congregational meetings, what's the goal?

Is the goal the carpet? Is the goal the building? Is the goal the gospel?

And then we put our resources there. Very good. Thank you. Another question that I think is important, especially in light of what we're seeing in the

Middle East, and even already this morning, I've seen some things from certain Christians talking about that, you know, get ready.

The Armageddon is about to happen in light of the events between Iran and Israel.

So either one of you, how should Christians view the events we are seeing in Israel?

As they escalate, as they unfold, what's our proper perspective of those things? Go ahead,

Mike. This question was your idea, so.

That's right. So as Mike thinks of the answer to the question, I'll buy some time for him. One thing to remember, wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, and all of those things, we'll take a closer look at those passages, and those are evidences that this, that the

Lord has not come back yet. Those are evidences that this is not the consummated kingdom.

That's what those are, and they're gonna keep happening, and they will happen until he comes. So the goal is not so people can create, you know, pseudo fiction from them, or do date -setting.

Those things have been happening. They will happen, and they will happen until the second coming.

So if anything, there are evidences that the Lord has not come back yet. It's not that complicated, so.

Because when the Lord comes back, there will be no conflict, and we'll have a perfect world, and there won't be any more earthquakes, and we won't have any more conflicts anywhere, because he's the

Prince of Peace. So don't, don't use those texts to create some kind of weird hysteria.

They're just saying, this is not the consummation.

We're waiting for that. So did that give you enough time to kind of think of a good answer? Yes, and the

Bible says that I should think before I open my mouth and speak. So I was trying to obey

Proverbs 10, and be a good model. When it first all happened yesterday,

I was out riding a bicycle, and I thought, who knows? This could be the end, right? And the retaliation and nuclear strikes, etc.

And I just texted my wife and said, if something does happen, I love you. It's been a great marriage. You know, see you in heaven type of thing.

And I would get worried if I just think about my grandchildren, or my kids, society, nuclear bombs, and fallouts.

And so what I have to do then, is every time I think about that, then I have to do something like this.

Why do the nations rage, and their peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the

Lord, and against His anointed, saying, Let us burst their bonds apart, and cast away their cords from us.

And here's the response from the Lord. He who sits in the heavens, what?

Laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. Then He will speak to them in His wrath, and He will terrify them in His fury, saying,

As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. So when I'm thinking about myself, people, loved ones, certainly not wrong to do that, but that tends me to worry, and to be anxious.

So then I have to remember the Lord is sovereign. These things are not taken Him by, you know, not taken

Him by surprise, and I can trust in Him, and rest in Him. My father has it under control. Where's the bomb shelter?

It's in the, in the basement. And what am I gonna do anyway? Hoard a bunch of ammo, and antibiotics, and food?

I'm a Christian. If people have come over to my house, what am I gonna do? Plus, there are widows in the church, and older people, and we need to go serve them, so we're all gonna run out of food anyway.

Indeed. Let's have some more brisket. I'm gonna, I'm, I'm just gonna have the shanks move into my house.

If I'm going out, I'm going out well -fed. I'm just telling you right now. It's just, I'm gonna go buy a bunch of brisket, and barbecue sauce, and mac and cheese, and we're gonna leave with a smile on our face, and full bellies.

Oh, bananas too, and bananas fosters. Yesterday, when Chris made that, I went back in the kitchen, and I was trying to find things to lick.

You know, spoons with sauce on them, and things of that nature, so it was so good.

All right, so kind of in that same vein, you know, we're in a political season. We have the election coming up in November.

There's a lot of talk about Christian nationalism, and, and the idea of Christians being involved in political issues, and things of that nature.

Which begs the question, how should a Christian then live in a political system? Kind of borrowing Francis Schaeffer's book title.

And, and in light of that, let's, let's think too about the idea of the two kingdoms.

Meredith Klein, Van Drunen has written on this issue recently. Pat, perhaps you could kind of give us some guideposts as we begin to move more deeply into this political season.

That is a big ask. So, Israel is a holy nation.

They're unique. Means unique. So, Israel's national laws were for Israel.

I would say period. Israel was a typological nation as well, serving a unique purpose until Messiah would come.

So, I don't think we're, I don't think any nation is supposed to become the next

Israel. I don't think the Bible pre, therefore prescribes, it might describe what's happened.

It doesn't prescribe any model for nation -building. So, that's, that's challenging, but I think it's important that we recognize that.

With that in mind, the Bible says the church is made up of all nations. It's the body of Christ.

So, it's diverse. It's different. It's not a nation, but it's made up of all different kinds of ethnos, all different kinds of people.

So, we say, well then, we, what do we do? Well, what we do as Christians, we can function in any different kind of culture, in any different kind of system.

Paul did in the Roman kind of culture, and Christians did. And it's interesting, last year we talked a little bit about 1st

Peter. 1st Peter's helping Christians function and survive in a metaphorical

Babylon. Right? Remember, when Israel's exiled in Babylon, they want to go to Jerusalem, to their holy nation, but they can't because they're exiled.

And so, Peter's trying to help them know how to maneuver, how to live, how to suffer when they're in this metaphorical

Babylon, until we can go to the new Jerusalem, where everything will be right. But in the meantime, we're in Babylon.

So, we need to have convictions. We might have to suffer for our convictions, but we're not trying to transform, get this, we're never called as Christians to try to transform

Babylon into Jerusalem. So, any kind of transformational kind of talk,

I think, is wrongheaded. We long for the coming of the new Jerusalem that comes from above, the

Bible says. That will be great. That'll be awesome. But in the meantime, I like it when my guy gets elected.

I like it when there are good things happening as far as laws are concerned. I definitely do.

I'm engaged. I vote. I use my voice and influence in so far as I can as a citizen of this present world.

I want the life to be better for my kids. I want it to be good for my grandkids if I have them someday. I want it to be good for me, for my fellow human beings.

So, I care, but it is Babylon. So, Jeremiah talks about praying for the good of Babylon, because you want

Babylon to be as good of a Babylon as it can be. But it's still Babylon, and it's always going to be until the

Lord returns. So, I think that really helps to kind of keep things in mind. Maybe also,

I would say, to kind of complement that, we're not, the next presidential election, we're not trying to elect a

Messiah. Because if we were, they'd need to be perfect. We're not trying to elect a new pastor, because if we were, we would need them to meet the pastoral qualifications.

So, what we're trying to do is elect a new president. I don't need the president to be a

Christian. I'm just going to choose for the best of bad choices, is what

I'm going to do. So, unfortunately, some Christians think that they can't vote for someone who's not a

Christian, and so then they somehow, in a fanciful world, convince themselves that one of those guys is a

Christian. Okay. So, I mean, maybe,

God knows hearts, I don't. But I don't need the person I vote for to be a Christian. I don't need them to be perfect in all their views.

I'm just going to pick the one that I think is going to be the best one. So, that might help. David Van Drunen has written a helpful book that John mentioned, called

Living in God's Two Kingdoms. You don't need to read it to understand these things, but if you're looking for something to read, it would help you.

He also wrote a more complicated book following that called Politics After Christendom, that is also a helpful book.

I would affirm both books. But what he's saying is this, Jesus is the king over all.

But right now, he's administrating his rule in two distinct ways, in two distinct spheres.

There's the common kingdom, the common sphere, and everybody's involved in that one.

And it's temporary, and it's going away. But he is sovereign over it. He's working all things together, right?

He's no stray molecules. So, that's true. But there's also the redemptive sphere, the redemptive kingdom, if you will.

And that's the church, where he administrates his sovereignty and his rule in a different way than he does in the common realm.

And so, we have church discipline, for example. In the church, we don't do church discipline in the common realm.

Actually, we want the civil government. It doesn't bear the sword for nothing. But we don't use the sword in the church.

The sword is used, Romans 13, in the common realm. But in the church, we do church discipline, that kind of thing.

Things get bad. Think of this. Things get bad in cultures where you blur the two, and now the church has the sword.

And now the secular government, we're going to cross over this, they have the keys to the kingdom. They have the gospel.

And it's never worked. It never will work. It always leads to trouble. So, we have the keys to the kingdom, the gospel, if you will, in the redemptive realm,

Matthew 16. But we don't have the sword, Romans 13, where we execute heretics.

It's not our job to do that. So, that might help a little bit. But pray, be involved, care, but don't ultimately care.

Because it's not going to work. And oftentimes, one, go for it.

Oftentimes, when you blur the two, somehow it turns into a social gospel. Remember, politics requires compromise.

And if you don't think that's true, you don't know much about politics. It requires compromise.

The church is never called to compromise when it comes to the truth of the gospel. So, we have to keep our heads on straight.

But it is okay to, in the common fallen world, you're going to make Babylon kind of choices.

Think about Daniel, exiled. He stood by his convictions and he got persecuted for it.

But now think about this. There's no way Daniel got to the position he achieved without having to pray for wisdom about making choices to promote, to defend a pagan country that promoted paganism.

I don't know if my conscience would have allowed me to do things that Daniel did. Because he was helping the bad government that was all about promoting idolatry.

How could you do that? Man, that would have been hard. Not bringing in Mosaic Law either.

Daniel didn't do that. I'm from Nebraska, pretty simple guy, not high

IQ, so that's helped me a lot. Amen. But higher than my brothers.

True, true. Tying it back to the mission of the church.

What's our goal? What do we strive together for in unity? It's about the proclamation of the gospel. So the

Christian nationalist issue and all that stuff, it's simple for me. Is there one great commission or two for the church?

And there's one great commission, and that's to proclaim the gospel, make disciples, etc.

From Matthew chapter 28, it's not to make this place a Christian nation.

So I'm just gonna stick to that in terms of trying to influence the church members. And when I think about the nation and transformation,

I just think about lipstick, and I think about pigs. Mike Avendroth, No Compromise Radio.