Celebrate Diversity

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

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2 verse 5 where the

Apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'"

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio. My name is Mike Abendroth, and of course you can always write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

You can go to the website there for downloads. You can go to the Facebook site. Ben's doing a good job with Twitter and Facebook, and we've got other, got all kinds of people helping,

Jonathan and who else? Mario, Josh, Jim.

So, who else? Everybody but Steve Cooley because I think he's on vacation still. The sabbatical that would never end.

Where is Tuesday guy? You know, these days I don't even get the people writing in saying, where's Steve Cooley?

They just realize that he's just dropped out, and I don't know if he ever really existed, although you can go to bbchurch .org

and pull up maybe some of his Sunday school messages. I'm not really sure. I was, or I am preaching through the book of Romans, and next

Sunday I'm going to preach Romans 12. I'm doing something a little bit differently, and that is chapter by chapter, kind of back with my

Calvary Chapel roots. I was first saved, and my first pastor was

Raul Reis, Calvary Chapel, West Covina, before God told him to move to Diamond Bar.

That's another story. I really love Raul, though. I was baptized by Raul, and I appreciated his desire to teach the

Bible. I appreciated his, you know what I liked about Raul Reis? When I first got saved, my view of the pastor was influenced by my past.

ELC Church, Emanuel Lutheran Church, or as we like to say in the

Midwest, Emanuel Lutheran, and I remember the church meets here sign.

I learned that, that the church was in the building, and I had two pastors, a senior pastor,

Pastor Ellison, and an associate pastor, Pastor Gruber. I know.

I had lots of Jell -O with pretzels at the bottom. You ever have that? Kind of a, you know, let's just see how bad we can make some food.

This had nothing to do with Ellison and Gruber, but with the tater tot casserole kind of thing where you had green

Jell -O, pretzels somehow. How do you get pretzels to sink to the bottom? I'm not really sure.

Maybe you flip it upside down. Maybe some shredded carrots, throw on a few mini marshmallows, and you've got yourself a low diet product because no one wants to eat it.

To this day, I remember asking my mother what she made for the church potluck so that I could eat what she made, only,

I think kids still do that today, but anyway. I remember growing up in the Lutheran church, and while I, I think

I understood respect and respected those men as pastors, and they had the white robes on, kind of the green thing slung over their vestments, the urn.

And I was an acolyte, and I had to go back behind the scenes and put on the white garment myself, and then light the candles.

One time, the candle, the person, the week before, I think it was some girl, she, tall girl, what was her name?

Pam, I won't say her last name, but Pam, she, when she snuffed the candle at the end of the service, she pushed it down too hard, and so it broke the wick off.

So then the poor next guy, me, I went over. You're supposed to have your elbow up, and you light it a certain way.

There's no, I mean, everybody's in the service. They're all waiting. Pastor Gruber's over there, and I was sitting, everybody else, and I couldn't get it lit.

So how long do you stay there? One minute, two, and then you just have to say, oh, there's only five lit. Maybe it's just a fifth week of Lent or something.

I don't know how that works out. But what I, but those men never struck me as being masculine.

Now, they were both married and had children, but what I was after was biblical masculinity, teaching the truth, extolling the transcendent virtues and attributes and perfections and characteristics of God, to talk about the holiness of God, to talk about the greatness of Christ Jesus.

It was just all mumbo jumbo enough that it took the edges off, and it didn't hurt in my mind that Raul Ruiz came out of the

Vietnam era when he was the point man in the infantry unit, that he was a black belt and all these other things.

But looking back, that's not really what caught my attention. It was this guy was a real man, and real men of God, when they stand on the pulpit, they proclaim

God's greatness, and they don't proclaim man's potential.

I just saw this Steven Furtick Twitter the other day, tweet, you follow

Steven Furtick for any other reason except for you'd like to have some quotes for No Compromise Radio or something similar.

I don't know what to tell you. Let me see how many Twitter followers he has. I think he's up there.

160 ,477 Twitter followers, and actually, that's from Rick Warren's update, where he tries to, he says,

Rick Warren says, I encourage you to follow these senior pastors on Twitter, and then the top three aren't really, they're not born again, which is him himself as well.

Rick Warren's spiritual status, I don't know, but I don't know how he can say the things he does and still be a

Christian. Joe Osteen, Rick Warren, and T .D. Jakes, follow these three senior pastors.

Why? Because they've got a lot of numbers, that's why. But I'll get back to that. Steven Furtick said, and this is one of his tweets, nothing you've done is so repulsive that God can't redeem your potential and love you through it.

Instagram .com, forward slash P, forward slash Z8, U -A -U -H -M -5 -R -O.

So, redeeming your potential. Oh, yeah. See, that kind of talk, I don't really get.

That's the kind of talk I got at the unregenerate Lutheran church, where we never were told you must be born again because we thought we were born again when our parents allegedly had some water sprinkled on our forehead.

Now, I guess the Lutheran church taught me that there's one God, and his name's

Jesus, he was raised from the dead, and there are all kinds of things that I remember. Good Friday, the black sheet goes over the cross with the eight -pound test line tied to it to keep it there.

And then on Sunday morning for Easter service, he is risen, he's risen indeed. You cut down the cords and it's off, and there's a white thing up there,

Jesus alive. But anyway, I, why do you, how, well, if Steve was here,

I would know why I got on this subject. Oh, yes, now back to point. I'm preaching Romans chapter by chapter, kind of, you know,

I like my Calvary Chapel days. I don't like it that they're anti -Calvinistic, that you've got, you know, poor ecclesiology.

There are different things about it, but it gave me a love for the Bible. Appreciate that very much.

So, I was looking at Romans chapter 12 in the message translation for our message moment today,

Eugene Peterson, NAV Press. And here's Romans chapter 12. Now, Romans chapter 12, it's one of those passages that most people know it, they memorize it, and it's just good to go back to.

Let me read you the ESV. Evangelical standard here says, I appeal to you therefore, by the way,

I still like NAS better. I don't know why I switched, but that's another story. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Not a bad translation. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

So again, not a bad translation. I'm very psychotic these days, and most of you already know that, but here's the reason for my psychosis.

I preach from the ESV now, because I think Crossway's done a good job universally with the

ESV. It is a very conservative translation. I like what they do with some of the poetic literature.

It is free for lots of people who can't afford Bibles. They're not dopey like the NAS when it comes to copyright and distribution, and they didn't do anything wrong to my professor

Robert Thomas. That is the ESV. I sometimes still read the

NAS. It's still in my mind. My favorite Bibles are the NAS. That is my own personal physical

Bibles. But I'm working with the NIV now, the 1984 NIV for the

S. Lewis Johnson Romans commentary that should be out next year on Zondervan. So I'm looking up all these verses, and you know,

Adam knew his wife, King James, NAS.

He, I can't remember what the NIV 84 says, but the NIV 2011, talk about psychosis.

It's he made love to Eve. I don't even like saying that on the air. I don't even like that.

That's somehow, that's just, you shouldn't, this is not the way to talk. That's not biblical, a biblical way to talk.

So let's go to the message version. Here's Romans 12, and you wouldn't have known this unless I would have told you.

So here's what I want you to do. You know, just this vernacular, this street lingo.

So here's what I want you to do. God's helping you take your everyday ordinary life.

I don't even know how you translate all this. So here's what I want you to do, comma,

God helping you. I guess this is with God's assistance. Take your everyday ordinary life, your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life, and place it before God as an offering.

Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Don't become so well adjusted to your culture, I guess that's verse two, that you fit it into it without even thinking.

Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize,

I guess that's metamorphosis there. Readily reconcile these translations in your mind, and then you'll be a scholar.

Readily, I wonder if Doug Moo likes this, recognize what he wants from you and quickly respond to it.

Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well -formed maturity in you.

Now, lots of people I know like to memorize scripture. My wife is memorizing a lot of scripture.

She puts me to shame in that area. But what would you have to do if you were memorizing, or what would you do if you had to memorize the message?

Oh, sad. Okay, back to the Twitter thing here, redeeming your potential.

Why didn't they tell me that at Master's Seminary or Southern Seminary? Why is that not in some of my pastoral ministry books?

That just doesn't seem to make sense. It's not fair. Rick Warren did pull his tweet down because he's gotten some flack,

I guess, from the Osteen, T .D. Jakes, follow these two unbelievers' Twitters, tweet accounts.

I encourage you to follow these senior pastors on Twitter, top 100 senior pastors on Twitter.

I don't think John MacArthur personally tweets, but he does have people who do that, and there are 63 ,000 followers,

I guess, according to this claim here. But John's not on the list, I wonder why. That's another story.

So Osteen, Rick Warren, T .D. Jakes, and who does that? Now, maybe you wanna do that. I want

No Compromise Radio to be lots of people listening and stuff like that. I guess it's a fleshly desire.

Oh yes, wouldn't it be nice to be popular and influential and have a lot of street cred? See, there's my message talk right now.

I got some street cred. I don't have to hang out at Sin Saloon, you know, like Psalm 1 says in Eugene Peterson's version.

But do you really do it? If I were to say, top five blogs that I read, and one of them's my own, but I don't have a blog.

No Compromise does, though. The guys do a good job with it. What if I were to say my top five podcasts that I listen to?

Now, when James White said he likes to listen to, he has No Compromise, the bottom five.

I think he listens to it at twice the speed. James, hi, how are you? James pedals about 100 revolutions per minute, and so he probably turns up No Compromise of that.

And so within two minutes, he can listen to the whole program, dissect out anything he thinks is appropriate.

Marcos Witt is here. Mark Driscoll. Louie Giglio.

Cash Luna. I think Cameron Putell would say, if your name has the word money or cash in it or something like that,

Creflo Dollar, Cash Luna. Andy Stanley. Let's see, the first one that I have any respect for down this list is number 11,

Matt Chandler. 215 ,000 Twitter followers. David Platt, 195.

Oh, then we've got people like Joseph Prince and Ed Young. See, just because you have a lot of followers,

Rick Warren is impressed. How sad. Let's see, who else do we have here?

Perry Noble. I do respect Josh Harris. He's got 72 ,000.

Tulian's got 62. David Crank. I don't know him, 57 ,000.

There's David Jeremiah. There's Mark Dever. See, I respect Mark Dever a lot. 36 ,000

Twitter followers. J .D. Greer. I don't know much about him, but I like that new book he wrote.

Kevin DeYoung. I have a lot of respect for him. He's down there with 27 ,000 followers.

Ligon Duncan, 19 ,000 followers. Dan Kimble, 18 ,000.

Zero respect for Village, Vintage, Village. It's actually Vintage Faith. And who else is on this list?

It's interesting. We have Tabeti. I respect him. So here's what you do.

You find the people that are super popular. This is the similar fashion to Mark Driscoll, who says, oh, do you know what?

I don't really have somebody with a large church, larger than I have in my tribe.

And so I have to go to see T .D. Jakes because he has more and I can learn from him. I can't stand it.

Can't stand it. Okay, next.

Graham Goldworthy. He writes in his book, Gospel and Kingdom. Very interesting quote.

Under the auspices of, under the umbrella of how were Old Testament saints saved?

I think probably the best way you could look at this is Romans chapter four, that might be good.

But just let me read to you this little section of Gospel and Kingdom. Graham Goldworthy.

Okay. From man's point of view, we see the scriptures unfold a step -by -step process until the gospel is reached as the goal.

But from God's point of view, we know that the coming of Christ to live and to die for sinners was the predetermined factor even before God made the world.

We must not think of God trying first one plan and then another until he came up with the perfect way of salvation.

The gospel was preordained so that at the exact and perfect time

God sent forth his son into the world. In the meantime, until the perfect fullness of time should be reached,

God graciously provided a progressive revelation of the Christ event. These prefigurements of the gospel had two purposes.

First, the progressive revelation led man gently to the full light of the truth. Secondly, Goldsworthy says, it provided the means whereby the

Old Testament believer embraced the gospel before it was fully revealed. The Old Testament believer who believed the promises of God concerning the shadow was thus enabled to grasp the reality.

It was by Christ that saints of Israel were saved for such as the unity of the successive stages of revelation that by embracing the shadow, the believer embraced the reality.

Only in this way can we account for the unity expressions of the New Testament, which speak of the

Old Testament believers as hearing the gospel, seeing Christ, or hoping for a heavenly kingdom.

Well, that's good for you if it's good for me. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio.

We have next the presiding bishop of, let's see, what is her name?

The Most Reverend Catherine Jefferts Shorey, presiding bishop and primate, the

Episcopal Church. Friends, the heresy couldn't be any greater coming from the mouth of this woman.

She can take scripture and make it say whatever she wants. Now, she needs to do that because if you can go, as Wayne Grudem says, to 1

Timothy 2 and say I do not permit a woman to teach and exercise authority over man and make that say

I do permit, then you can make the scriptures say anything. And for her, she has to make the scriptures say all kinds of things because she's a practicing lesbian woman.

And so how does that unrighteous behavior keep her qualified for gospel ministry?

And so shame on the Episcopal Church and shame on her for her sermon that she delivered to the

All Saints Church, Stenrick Caraco, Diocese of Venezuela, May 2013,

May 12th, on my birthday, no less. On my birthday, no less.

And here is the spew, pablum, that comes vomiting forth from her obscene mouth on May 12th, 2013.

Now, what she's doing is she's talking about humans discounting and devaluing difference, finding different things offensive or even evil and slavery, human trafficking, exploitation.

And God does unexpected things. Yeah, like contradict his word. There are some remarkable examples of that kind of blindness in the readings we heard this morning.

This is Catherine. She's not revered though. Paul is annoyed at the slave girl who keeps pursuing him, telling the world that he and his companions are slaves of God.

She's quite right. She's telling the same truth Paul and others claim for themselves. But Paul is annoyed, perhaps for being put in his place.

See? Yeah, how's that? And he responds by depriving her of her gift of spiritual awareness.

Paul can't abide something he won't see as beautiful or as holy, so he tries to destroy it.

Yeah, like you're trying to destroy the passage. It gets him thrown into prison. That's pretty much where he put himself by his own refusal to recognize that she too shares in God's nature just as much as he does, maybe more so.

I mean, can you believe that she's even alive as she says this? The amazing thing is that during that long night in jail, he remembers that he might find

God there. So he and his cellmates spend the night praying and singing. As the earthquake opens the doors and sets them free, and now

Paul and his friends most definitely discern the presence of God, the jailer does, and he thinks his end is at hand.

This time, Paul remembers who he is and that all his neighbors are reflections of God, and he reaches out to his frightened cat.

This time, Paul acts with compassion rather than annoyance. It makes me wonder, what would have happened to that slave girl if Paul had seen the spirit of God in her?

The gospel insists that Jesus has given glory to the growing company of his friends and disciples so that they can all be one.

When we recognize the glory of another human being, we become her advocate, and we begin to see him as friend.

The word that's used for glory echoes that we speak of awe, gravitas, and deep significance. The glory we've received is something like the grand ceremonial garment, maybe even a shining face like Moses that says to those around us, here comes the image of God.

The world begins to change when we see that glorious skin shining on our brothers and sisters' faces.

We live in a time where we need to see the glory of God in every other human being, and also in the rest of creation.

This fragile earth, our island home, is also shining with the glory of its creator. Looking for the reflection of God's glory all around us means changing our lenses.

So we start to say, like in Isaiah, evil's good and good's evil. You're evil if you think that unrighteousness is unrighteousness.

This kind of change isn't easy for anyone, but it's the only road to the kingdom of God. So unless you change your lens, here's the law, here's the bad news, here's her law, here's the lesbian law of Catherine the

Virgin. Catherine Jeffords, or whatever her name is, what's her name? Catherine Jeffords, shorty. Here's a new thing.

This is the gospel for her. This is the only road to the kingdom of God. We are here among all other creatures of God's creation to be transformed to the glory intended from the beginning.

The next time we feel the pain of that change, perhaps instead of annoyance or angry resentment, we might pray for a new pair of glasses.

In other words, just get a new Bible is what you're going to need. And that's exactly what she's trying to do. She's making good evil and evil good.

And this is the kind of stuff that should not surprise us at all. This makes me angry.

This makes me upset, but this doesn't make me surprised because you're going to have to just change all of it.

And this is something so egregious, even the message wouldn't do it. Celebrate that difference, for it is necessary for the healing of this world.

Let's pray that God's glory may shine in us and in all creatures. Well, Catherine needs to repent and the gospel is so great, could save a lady like her.

Wouldn't that be great? Lord, save her, open her eyes, make her see scriptures rightly. Well, my name is

Mike Ebendroth. There's nocompromisedradio .com. We don't want to compromise, but sadly we all do.

We're fallen in Adam and we consequently sin, but we look to the one who never compromised the Lord Jesus Christ.

You can go to the website, you can follow us on Twitter with over 5 million followers. And I can't believe

I'm not on a record sheet. No Compromised Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth 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 six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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