Email Q and A

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, ministry.

Mike Abendroth here. I just looked down at MyFitnessPal, and it is, let's see, it's 1 o 'clock in the afternoon, Eastern Standard Time, here in real time. A biker just flew by, that's interesting. And I'm out of calories.

I think I have 100 calories, and there's 11 more hours in the day. Okay, so now what do I do? Pickles basically have no calories, if you get the right kind. Not sweet pickles, not little gherkins, but there are other kinds.

What else has no calories? I could eat a lot of celery, I guess. Or I could work out. So I've got to go home and earn some calories so I can eat them. Anyway, what do we do here on this show? We try to talk about the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and His Word.

He is and was the only one who never compromised. So we'd like to point to Him. And we don't want to compromise in our own life, but we are glad we have a substitute and representative because we know we do.

We just don't like it when we do. Same thing with sin, right? We sin, but we don't like it when we do. And why else are we called No Compromise Radio? Well, it's always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

That's what we're striving for. Website's up again. Thanks, Josh, for taking care of that. It's been hacked a couple times. You can listen to podcasts there. There's over a thousand podcasts there. I do reruns maybe once a week the last couple months just for fun.

Probably run a few reruns in the summertime. Then we'll have to see if we want to re-up with WVNE. I guess if we probably pay our money, they'll re-up. I don't think it's a matter of doctrinal issues, it'll just be a matter of financial issues.

Now that's not send us money, that's not my point, but most of you probably, I would bet 90 of you listen through iTunes, Facebook, TuneIn Radio, or I don't know where else you can get us. So, I got an email from Josh the other day, and it was about pet peeves, and he had some other things he wanted to hear me discuss, so I don't know what to do for a show today, so I thought I'd resort to this.

I could give you a love letter from Jesus if you wanted that. Just so, just things in general that listeners would like to know. What's your take on, what do you think about this? First one is, inviting unbelievers to church.

Inviting Unbelievers to Church and the Purpose of Worship

So what do you think about that? Let's think biblically today. Remember we have our biblical thinking caps on at all times, we never take them off and put them back on. We keep them on the whole time.

Do teachers ever force children to wear Dunn's caps in the corner anymore? Can you imagine that today, standing in the corner and wearing a Dunn's cap, or can you imagine corporal punishment at schools where kids actually got spanked for disobeying?

Headmaster cracks the literal whip of the rod? My how times are changing. So what about inviting unbelievers to church? Let's just think of this big picture. Now there are unbelievers in your life, and if you're a Christian, you certainly want them to be forgiven.

You don't want them to die and go to hell. Remember Luke chapter 13, something bad happens in society. Tower of Siloam, right, the Galilean blood mixture because of Pilate's murderous activities. What's the response?

Repent and believe, because you're going to die too. That's the response. We want people to realize that there is an end to their physical life, even though their eternal life goes on forever. We would like that eternal life to be in the presence of God.

That's what we want. So the motive of thinking to yourself, yes, there are unbelievers, and I'd like them to hear the good news, and my church preaches the good news every week. We're not talking about the altar call, but the cross is everywhere, song, scripture reading, in the passage, in the sermon.

Everywhere you look, you think of Jesus and his great redemption. So I want to bring the people who are unbelievers to church so they could hear that message and get saved. I think that's an admirable attitude.

I'm happy for that, but now let's just take it a step farther, a step further, farther further, etc. Let's say to ourselves, what is the purpose of the church? The purpose of the church, local church, God saves, redeems, gifts, brings together, is the worship of himself.

Think that through for a minute. No glory to another, that we might boast in the Lord, that we know him. We boast in that we know him. We boast of him. We boast through him. We boast because of him. We worship, in other words.

We sing praises and give in the Lord's Supper to remember, hear preaching, scripture reading, lots of ways the Bible reveals biblical worship. The Bible would only reveal biblical worship, right? But here's the rub.

Unbelievers don't worship. Without faith, Romans, excuse me, well, you could go to Romans 8, but I'm thinking of more of Hebrews chapter 11. Without faith, it's impossible to please the Lord. And so, unbelievers don't worship.

They blaspheme. Now, Jonathan Gershner would say this. He would say, even though it's sin for an unbeliever to go to church, and I believe that's true because everything's sin, it's less sin than staying at home, right?

People are supposed to be together on Sunday as the king calls worshipers to get together on Sunday. Worship him other days too by yourself, but get together corporately on Sunday, the Lord's Day to sing his praises.

And so, it's a sin, Gershner would say, it's a sin to read the Bible if you're an unbeliever. But it's not as egregious as reading or looking at pornography. So everything is sin, but things aren't as bad as they could be.

And so, it's not righteous. It's not meriting anything. It's not working for anything to come to church, but it's better than sitting at home. So here's the way I approach it. I approach it this way. Don't invite people to church who are unbelievers.

Well, if they're believers, you want to invite them, come praise the Lord with me and learn about Romans chapter 5 verse by verse, great. But don't invite unbelievers to a worship service until you've preached the gospel to them.

Now, see, what people think is, I'm too shy, I can't do it, the pastor, he gets paid to be good and we're good for nothing, so we'll have them do it. The better thing is, you preach the gospel and say, if you'd like to, we'd love to have you come on Sunday, and if you'd like to hear more about the Bible, then let's have you come on Sunday, we'd love to have you come.

So I think there's kind of a mediating position, and I think you shouldn't invite people to church unless you've preached the Bible to them, speaking of unbelievers. Believers invite any time you'd like, we'd love to have them.

I don't care what their background is, theologically, ethnically, democratically, I don't really care any of those things, and they want to come and praise the Lord here, that would be fine. So that's the first one, inviting unbelievers to church.

But the right ecclesiology is, the church is for believers, and so we've set everything up for believers. See, it would be wrong if you were seeker-sensitive and then said, how do we attract unbelievers?

Now, if you want to attract unbelievers to Friday night circus events outside or something fun for the whole family, there's a different strategy. But we can't say how—let's take a survey of unbelievers, see what they want in church, and then do that, because that's not church, that's not worship service, that's getting together a bunch of goats and asking them what they want and what they don't want.

You don't even do that with Christians, leaders lead and they follow what the Scriptures say, and I loosely hold to the regulative principle, and the Scripture regulates our worship. So, if you've ever invited somebody to church who wasn't a believer and you didn't preach the gospel to them ahead of time, I'm not chastening you, I'm glad you are concerned about them, I'm just trying to get you to think biblically.

Christian or Christ Follower?

The second thing Josh writes about is, Christ follower or Christian? What do you call people, Christ follower or Christian? See, what happens in our evangelical subculture, it's weird to think that there are more mainline denominational people in liberal Methodism, Episcopalianism, Baptism than the evangelical stripe, because we just live in this world, and so we think we are a number one big kahunas, I'm a Christ follower.

See, Christian, if you look at how the name was used, it was a bad name to start, and there's nothing wrong with now saying, calling yourself a Christian, but Christians have a bad name, let's face it, lots of Christians give Jesus a bad name, lots of people call themselves Christians and they're not even Christians.

For instance, if you go to the Middle East, if you're not a Jew or a Muslim, by default you're what? You're a Christian. It doesn't mean they're born-again Christians. So when you say it's the Protestants and the Catholics in Ireland 20 years ago fighting, if you're not one, you're the other.

So make sure you think through those issues. Just because someone calls himself a Christian doesn't mean they are, and just because someone calls himself a Christian and if they really are, they still don't necessarily do all the right thing.

The focus is on who Jesus is, it's never, well, this Christian, that Christian. You can always find Christians who sin, but that is no excuse, by the way, if you're listening today and you say, I don't want to believe in Jesus Christ because of Christians.

Well, Jesus loved sinners and Jesus loves Christians, and so I think we ought to do the same. But Christ follower is, it's kind of politically correct, it's another word to use, I'm a Christ follower.

Now, often, of course, Jesus said what? Follow me. Because our word faith in English is so bad and doesn't give me things like assent and credence and volitional will, right? You'd have the Reformers, as Burkhoff would say, thinking of faith with notitia, knowledge, a census, assent, and fiducia, like a fiduciary responsibility.

There's a trust involved and a will there. So, you know, we have different words for believe, but I like to say to people because of that, I almost forgot what I was talking about, that happens sometimes, do you believe Jesus enough to follow him?

Do you believe him enough to follow him? Because that's the kind of faith that Jesus was after. Mind, emotion, will, assent, and trust, better than demon faith in James chapter 2. So if someone says I'm a Christ follower, I want to know why they say that.

If you're genuinely converted, then it's more of a moot point. But Josh asked, so I'm trying to give you a response to his email. What about people who say that they have the gift of evangelism? So certainly there's the office of evangelist.

The Gift of Evangelism and the Work of an Evangelist

What we have to do is we have to go to Ephesians chapter 4. So I'm going to quick look this up right now as we talk about the office of evangelist. I've changed some of my views as the years have gone by in certain particular spots.

Here he gave the apostles, Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11. Remember the context? The context was in verse 7 of Ephesians 4, but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. And so he rescued us, and here's the picture of the triumph and the great general ransacking the lands, including people, and he's going to come back and bring the captives back and pluck their eyes out and kill them in front of the senate and all these other things.

But here we have not crazy general, human general. We have God who comes back and saves and then he liberates the captives and gives them gifts. They used to be the gifts, now he gives them gifts because he's gracious.

In saying he ascended, what does it mean? Verse 9 of Ephesians 4, but that he also descended into the lower regions of the earth. He who descended is the one who has ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, and evangelists, and shepherd teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry. So apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds slash teachers, pastor teachers, pastor and teachers, there's grammatical issues to jump through there, but that's not our point.

The office of elder is a true office. The office of the apostle was a true office. The office of a prophet was a true one. Now what about evangelists, since I'm plucking and putting those all together?

I think there are pastors today and there are pastor teachers today, and I think there are evangelists today, or do I? Well, that's not the point for a moment. Here's the point. Do you have the gift of evangelism?

Now when you look at Ephesians chapter 4, when you look at Romans chapter 12, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and then 1 Peter chapter 4, the four places where spiritual gifts are listed, and they are not perfectly—they're not the exact same.

You'll see how they all fit together, and I think if you think of signed gifts, you think of those four chapters, and then you think there are three kinds of signed gifts—spiritual gifts, sorry. Signed gifts is the first spiritual gift, speaking gift is the second kind of spiritual gift, and service, or serving gifts, are the third kind of spiritual gifts.

So sign, speaking, serving. The signed gifts were to point to God's canon being completed, and now that we have the canon, we don't need a sign pointing to anything anymore. Look at Hebrews chapter 2, verses 3 and 4, past tense even, because we have what we need to have, 1 Corinthians 13 study later.

So what do we do? People say, well, I have the gift of evangelism, when they like to evangelize, they're good at evangelization, they have a heart for other people, and they really like to preach a lot.

Maybe they have an outgoing personality. Maybe they're not outgoing, but they do it anyway because they're concerned for the glory of God and they're concerned for the lost. That's not the gift of evangelism.

This isn't a spiritual gift. Everyone is to do the work of an evangelist, whether you're Paul, or whether you write that to Timothy. You are to evangelize. You have the Great Commission, where the Father in eternity past makes a pact to send the Son for the elect.

Then you have the Great Commission in Luke 24 and in Matthew 28, where Jesus tells the disciples and then those who follow disciples like us to go tell people about Christ Jesus make disciples, baptizing, going, teaching, et cetera.

But gift of evangelism doesn't exist. You can't say, well, Ray Comfort has the gift of evangelism and I don't. No, it was an office. And if you like, it is an office. Maybe we'll do another show, is that office for today or not?

But since I don't want to talk about that right now, since Steve's not here to make me, we continue on No Compromise Radio. All right, here's another question. Christian Contemporary Music. Basically, I guess he wants to know, what do I think about this?

Contemporary Christian Music and Corporate Worship

What do we at No Compromise Radio think? Translation, what do I think with Steve's two cents thrown in? You know how tiring it is to come in and just tape one show after another after another? I've yawned on shows before.

Now I understand why. Because probably it's a boring show sometimes, but I bet you Josh doesn't think it's boring. See, I just want you to know, I read my emails. I answer them. I talk about them on the air.

I'd like to know if Todd Friel does that. Where oh where has Todd gone? Where oh where could he be? Where is Todd Friel? Calling Todd Friel. So, it's just kind of a dig. Todd is the big dog on campus.

And here we are, just small little No Compromise Radio. And so whenever I can put a dig in against Todd, in love, I do. Does Todd write, read his emails? Actually Todd reads the emails that I send him.

So how about that? Once you're in the upper echelon of the in-club of Al Mohler's on the radio, so is Todd Friel and so is Mike Abendroth. See? But you know what? In my mind, sadly, it's the other way around.

But it's Mike Abendroth first. Now I hide behind, let's go in alphabetical order, but that's just the decoy for me to be listed first on the program. It was years ago, I think 2007, I was overseas in Germany speaking at the Shepherds Conference.

And I guess you could think about that as a German Shepherds Conference over there in Deutschland. The polizeidog. Hound. Police dogs. They don't call them German Shepherds over there. German Shepherds?

The German Shepherds Conference? Yes, I'm speaking at the German Shepherds Conference. Huh. What's your education? I have a demon. I'm speaking at the German Shepherds Conference and I have a demon. Some kind of AKC training.

I used to train dogs, AKC, both for obedience and show. And so anyway, no, the Shepherds Conference in Germany, Christian Andresen puts that on. And then, what's the other one? I have a demon. I have a doctorate of ministry.

But anyway, when I was speaking there, I was the main speaker. See how nice that is? I was the main speaker, Abendroth. And MacArthur was also on TAP. John MacArthur on TAP. How does that work out? Anyway, John was the main speaker, of course, but he was only speaking through live video feed and I was the main plenary speaker in person.

And so it was a German Shepherds Conference with, and the list said, Mike Abendroth, John MacArthur. Now, I think I've kept that little thing someplace, a little postcard, promo sheet, because it's Abendroth and MacArthur.

So I don't think John knows that I was the speaker, but we've been at the same conference together, which reminds me of the story when I was in India and MacArthur was doing a live video conference there and I was speaking, one of the main speakers.

But at nighttime, we had the hookup and it was a live video feed. MacArthur's at the Master's Seminary building and he's speaking. And so it's at the YMCA in Pune, India. It's hot. It's crowded. It's late at night.

Lots of different people there from different backgrounds. Theologically, John starts talking about the sufficiency of Scripture and he's talking against mysticism. He's talking about Sola Scriptura and a guy didn't like it and he staggered up on stage.

I was sitting in the front row. I didn't really want to be in the front row, but because of custom and tradition and the guests up in the front, I did what they asked, of course, with a smile. And a guy goes up there in the middle of everything and slams down the video screen and then begins to stomp on it, meaning, I don't like what this man's saying and I'm going to stomp on it.

The only thing is, the video projection kept going even though it was under the curtains in the back. You could still see MacArthur. MacArthur couldn't see it because there was a camera showing us, but this guy was in between the camera and us.

So he was behind the camera up on stage. Now there were some people who were doctors there and they said he was having an epileptic seizure and it was the light and he went up to like a moth goes to the light, epilepsy, but then continues to stomp on the thing when it's down, when there's no more light on it.

So that was fun to tell MacArthur and probably, you know, a year later when I saw him, what had happened. Makes for good, no-compromise radio fodder. It makes for a good book. You know, in the old days I had to read all these illustration books to get good illustrations.

Take a breath, Mike. But now I think I've repented and thrown most of those away. I have kept a few. I'm looking at one right now. I have some Bible question books, even one by Jimmy Swigert. Actually he had some pretty good writers write for him.

So it's kind of funny. I just keep that one, Questions and Answers, written by his guys. I just thought that was fascinating. And where are my illustration books? I'm looking over there, illustration.

Let me illustrate. I do own by Donald Gray Barnhouse just because it's a lesson on how to illustrate. And so I stole his idea when I was in Germany for the preaching class and I was instructing the students and one student said, well, what about illustration?

What do you do with those? How can we be better illustrators? And I said, I, you know, everybody has 10 minutes using only things on the table. At this table, I want you to come up with a good biblical illustration.

Come up, we'll videotape it. And the other students are like, oh, great. Thanks a lot for letting me do that. So back to the study here, contemporary Christian music. I'm sure there are some, you know, when the Bible says, sing to the Lord a new song, we can't say old is the only way we go.

Old, and if it's in a hymnal, we'll sing it. If not, we won't. Because actually, there are some really bad hymns. There are some blasphemous hymns, there are some unbelieving hymns, and there's some unbelievably good hymns, of course, and I love hymns.

So to write new songs is not the problem. I think there's a kind and a style that would be conducive for corporate worship. If you'd like to listen to some music in your car and it's Christian whatever, then that's fine too.

I just personally, there's a reason why the intro music on Mondays and then Tuesdays through Fridays—we're actually going to change it here soon—is not Christian music because there's some other beats and intro stuff that I like better.

Maybe it's just a little edgier. I'm not sure. I do like non-Christian music in the sense that I don't have to critique it because I know it's not written from a heart that says, I want to honor God with the lyrics.

So anyway, good questions, Josh. There's one more on here about doctrine, but he will soon find out as he listens that we don't say down with doctrine. Doctrine is what you believe about God, so you are a doctrinal person whether you like it or not.

Info at No Compromise Radio. No Compromise Radio. No Compromise 90 is the YouTube channel. You can look at every Wednesday. We have a 90-second deal there. Or you can write us, of course, and we'll respond.

I'm Mike Tocqueville.

God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth 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.

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