Interview with Pat Abendroth

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

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

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

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

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

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Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is

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Mike Abendroth, and I'm here today to talk about a conference that's coming up next

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Saturday that if you are a male, you need to attend. I love the topic,

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I love the speaker. I love the speaker so much, I almost love him like he's my own brother. On the line with us is

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Pastor Pat Abendroth. Pat's coming to Worcester next Saturday for a conference at Bethlehem Bible Church, and we're here to talk about that conference.

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Pat, welcome. Hey, Mike, thanks. Great to hear from you, and great to talk to you, and can't wait to be there next week.

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It should be a great time with the men as we seek to man up together. Well, that's the name of the conference,

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Manning Up, M -A -N -N -I -N -G -R. Maybe you could say it's time to man up. Subtitled, In Church, Home, and Culture, next

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Saturday, March 27th, 8 a .m. to about 11 .30 a .m.

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It's $5. You can register online at nocompromisedradio .com. Just donate $5, print out your receipt, and you can have a good time of getting blistered by the

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Bible. How's that, Pat? Sounds good. It sounds like my brother. Sounds like we might even get along. Yeah.

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Pat, you've done this conference once or twice before. Tell us first, not the details of the conference, but how did the men respond that you talked to at the previous conference,

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Manning Up? You know, we just finished doing this at Omaha Bible Church, and before that, I've done it at a couple of other churches, and we had a great time.

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I like to say it was the best men's event I've ever been to except for the speaker, because otherwise it sounds self -serving, but we had a great time because we were talking about our lives, about how we're supposed to live, and what

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God has made us to do, and there's just great appeal to that with men, especially in light of the fact that it's not just more rules, it's not just more man -made stuff.

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We're really and truly looking to Christ and looking to do what we've been made to do, so it's a great time,

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Mike. Well, we're talking to Pat Abendroth, my brother. If you're wondering, he's nine years younger, but you would never notice it by his preaching or by his wisdom.

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Manning Up conference at Bethlehem Bible Church, March 27th, a week from tomorrow, a week from Saturday, and I think it's important,

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Pat, to give our listeners a little background and elaborate a little bit more from your previous comments.

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You know, promise keepers came along, and there was an appeal to people that said, we want to be better men.

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They just had the wrong appeal. What was wrong with the promise keeper, extra seven promises approach, and why would this conference be different?

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Yeah, great question, Mike, and what we don't want to do is just give men more rules and more legalism.

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You know, the world even seems to have figured out that men aren't leading and that men need to be leading in one way or another, and so they appeal to what

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I call mere masculinity. You just need to do something that somehow, you know, has testosterone involved, and that's not the solution, and at the worst, that's what the church ends up doing.

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They just mimic that, and they just do something that, you know, is going to be supposedly masculine.

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It's typically just something vulgar, but that's the church at its worst. The church making a mistake at its best just gives legalism, and,

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Mike, what's interesting is it may not be seven promises, which are just seven new laws that aren't biblical, that kind of legalism.

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Unfortunately, there's the legalism that the church gives sometimes that's actually even biblical as far as commands, but there's no connection whatsoever to Christ, and so in that sense,

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Mike, I think we can be legalistic even when we tell men, Ephesians 5 says, "'Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.'"

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If we're not tying Ephesians 5 back to Ephesians 1 and 2, which is, you know, the gospel foundation for it, so that's really what

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I'm looking to do and what ultimately is going to be effective in our lives.

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That's a great answer, Pastor Pat. Abendroth is on the line here in Worcester, Massachusetts next

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Saturday, March 27th. He'll be preaching here Sunday, March 28th as well,

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Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night, but if you'd like to register for the conference, info at nocompromiseradio .com,

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it's $5 plus breakfast. If you don't register by Monday, this coming Monday, it's just five bucks, no manly breakfast with venison or whatever else men like to eat.

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Pat, I've been telling everyone who's been coming that we're gonna have a session, a breakout session, and give one another

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Holy Ghost back rubs. Could you comment on that, please? I don't think I've ever had a

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Holy Ghost back rub, but I do and can promise to your listeners, as long as you can provide the video set up for it, we will learn how to give a man hug with only one qualifier.

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We'll learn how to give a man hug, we'll watch the video, but we will make sure that once we know how to do it, that we ourselves will not do it.

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I think they did that at Promise Keepers, the whole Holy Ghost back rub. I just want to know what happened to the poor guy who sat on the back row of the

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LA Coliseum because he didn't get anything. I guess we could kind of shout and make the sanctuary into two different sections.

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We've got spirit, yes we do, we've got spirit, how about you? And then the other guys could kind of say it louder. Are we gonna do that at all?

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The other side's gonna be, I think they said, we've got Jesus, yes we do, we've got Jesus, how about you? And on and on the drivel goes, and it's no wonder that men are frustrated, and it's no wonder that their wives are just saddened by the whole thing.

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Pat, which one do you think is more true, or are they equally true? The problem in local churches, evangelical churches, because we could dissect the world, our liberal churches, but the problem in evangelical churches, which is a bigger problem?

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Men don't lead, our women are usurping the leadership responsibility in the home.

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Which one, are they both together equal, one is related to the other? How do you diagnose that?

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I diagnose it by diagnosing it, I think the way you would, I probably learned it from you, since you're my big brother, the answer is yes.

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It's a problem on both sides, but at the end of the day, men need to lead, and if men lead and are truly godly and honoring to Christ, then at least it's more appealing than for the women to lead, and so it starts with us.

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It's a great thing to be able to know that it starts with us, and in one sense it ends with us, Tell us a little bit about the conference in general,

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Pat, some of the key themes, maybe to kind of wet the whistle of some of the listeners. I can say that you are gonna go later this year to South Africa and speak at the

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Shepherds Conference in Johannesburg, in Polokwane, I believe, and one other place with Phil Johnson.

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I think that should be a fairly manly experience going to South Africa with Phil, don't you think? I sure hope it's a manly experience, he's bringing his wife, and I was told

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I could bring my wife, which I would love to do, but with five little kids, it wouldn't work out, and sadly, I'm bringing another pastor from our staff, so I don't know how that's gonna work out.

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We won't be doing any man hugs, that's for sure. Sadly for the pastor, sadly for you. Okay, let me get back to the point,

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Pat. You know what, I think we should do this instead. Give me the background, give me your testimony, a short testimony, how

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God called you into his kingdom and then into service, and Pat, especially tell us a story about the guy who prayed for you while you were an unregenerate.

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Give us that story. Yeah, I didn't find out about that until much later, Mike, but we grew up, the two of us grew up going to church, sober or not, but we would go to church, always believed in God, that he was true and real, the

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Bible was true. The only problem was we didn't have a clue about what the Bible said because we went to a church that didn't really teach us that.

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So after being confronted with the gospel in college and even lying about my own commitment to Christ because I felt so foolish and felt so ignorant that I didn't really know the gospel,

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I think God used his word to really convict me that I was not saved and needed to repent of sin and trust in Christ, and all of that happened when

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I was at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. But what's interesting, and you brought it up, Mike, is years later at a baptism service at Omaha Bible Church, a man was there that I went to high school with, but we ended up going to lunch later that week, and it dawned on me as I saw him, it went through my mind, you know, this guy must be a

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Christian and maybe that's why he was different in high school. It sort of clicked in my mind.

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So we went to lunch and he said, I've got to tell you something, Pat. I've got to tell you that my student ministries pastor, when

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I was in high school, urged me and urged us Christian students to pray for someone we thought was unsavable.

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And as you might know, Mike, and you do, and I knew what he was going to say next, and started laughing, and he said,

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Pat, I prayed for you, and he pointed at me. So I love to tell that story because indeed

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I am unsavable because we are all unsavable apart from the grace of God and God intervening, and I'm so thankful to serve

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Christ now and to be able to do things even like this men's conference because it's so gospel -oriented.

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And one of the major points in one of the messages, you can fail to lead your wife and fail to be godly in the home if you stay unconverted.

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So we'll definitely talk about that, and we see that in churches all the time. Men can't lead, and one reason they can't lead is because they're unconverted, and it's no wonder their wife won't follow their leadership.

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Well, if you're listening, I'm sorry, Pat, go ahead. Go ahead, just looking forward to emphasizing those things.

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Well, I was going to say, for those of you who are listening, WVNE, you should bring your unsaved friends.

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If you've got a dad who's not saved and he's needing to hear the gospel, this would be a good conference.

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This is not just for people who do leadership well, who are godly and mature saints.

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The good news about the gospel, and I know you'll agree, Pat, is for those of us who have failed in our leadership, there's no time like today to repent and ask

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God with His powerful Spirit to help us lead godly lives now based on the power of the resurrection, true?

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Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, and that was one great thing about this conference when we just did it, and that was the fact that there were some very, very godly men who lead their homes, who are there, and there were also men there that didn't even know

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Christ, and there were men there that thought they did and probably didn't, and just all different kinds of men, and it was interesting,

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Mike, we didn't plan any kind of activities. It was an overnight thing, and we didn't really plan anything.

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The one challenge was, let's talk about the things of Christ during free time and not just sports or just things like that, as good as they might be, and just to hear older men, younger men, all different kinds of men from different walks of life talking and talking about Christ and how they were being challenged.

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I like to say that, and it's true, but I say it tongue -in -cheek, being at these events have proven to be about the closest thing to a charismatic experience

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I've ever experienced. Meaning? And I say that because to see the

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Spirit of God through the Word of God bringing conviction and bringing motivation to men's lives is nothing like I've ever seen before.

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So I would also like to say to people listening, pray, pray for the men, pray for the messages, and pray for the

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Spirit of God, because this is exactly the kind of thing that we really, really need in our world and in our church.

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We're talking to Pastor Pat Ebendroth, who's going to do a conference here in Worcester one week and one day from today.

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That'd be March 27th. It starts at eight o 'clock at Bethlehem Bible Church. Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, just north of the

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Reservoir. Start at eight, we'll eat till about 8 .30, and then there'll be three sessions on manning up in church, home, and culture.

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Pat will do session four during Sunday school hour, Sunday worship at March 28th.

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March 28th, rather, and then he'll preach from the pulpit here at Bethlehem Bible Church in the morning and in the night.

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So if you can't make Saturday and still want to hear Pastor Pat, you can come on the 28th here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

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We'd love to have you. Or if you have a good church home now, just come on Sunday night to hear Pat preach.

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It's $5, register at nocompromiseradio .com, or you could send us your money.

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Hey, Pat, tell us a little bit about some of those activities. You said you'd like to have no particular things to go on, but what was that whole moon dancing thing

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I heard about the late Saturday night? Was that part of the men's deal? Oh, Mike, it was amazing because there were some guys there that just had never really been to an event like this, and I'm sure that'll be the same next week at Bethlehem, but there were some pretty big eyes, and I was pretty blunt about things.

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Again, not vulgar in that kind of false masculinity, but pretty blunt and challenging, and there were some pretty big eyes, and it ended up being great because it just allowed us to talk about biblical things, and it was just a great time.

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How about bringing sons, I should admit. I've been encouraging men to bring their sons. Is there a cutoff age for sons who could understand?

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Would you encourage sons up to what age, et cetera? Yeah, Mike, I think it's going to depend on the son, as a matter of fact.

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We did the cutoff at high school, but certainly a junior high student could listen, but what

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I'm not doing is, it's not really geared toward them, it's geared toward men, and so some dads love their sons enough to bring them because they want them to know what they're aiming at and what they should be doing as sons that become men someday, but I'm definitely not going to try to have that kind of a shotgun approach and have it be for everyone in that sense.

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I want to speak pointedly and biblically to the men, the dads, the husbands, the husbands -to -be, and I think that really is where the power's going to be.

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Excellent. Remember Grandpa Henry, he was our grandfather on our father's side, and speaking of shotguns, he hurt his leg being a man actually rescuing his wife

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Erna out of a car wreck, but he hurt his leg, and so when I would go hunting with my father and grandfather,

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Grandpa would always just hold that double -barrel shotgun out of the window while we'd drive up and down the fields in Nebraska.

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So when you said shotgun, I was thinking about Hank. Last time, I think that's illegal, but oh well.

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Tell us a little bit about Wild at Heart. I think that there are lots of men who read that book who had a true biblical desire with godly motives to be more masculine from a biblical perspective, but what's wrong with the

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Wild at Heart model, and how is this conference going to be different?

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What's wrong with the Wild at Heart model ends up being explicitly unbiblical in the name of testosterone, quite frankly, and it's just sad and sick the way pastors promote it and the way people gobble it up, because yes, it's true, we don't want to have boys who are feminine and boys who are wusses.

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That's not good, and that's not right, but to say in the book explicitly that basically to explicitly deny what

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Jesus said. Jesus says, turn the other cheek, and the Wild at Heart author says, basically

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I would never tell my son to do that. I don't care what Jesus says, and it's a pretty sad day when we get to that where books like that sell, and I guess it's just evidence we're tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, and what's interesting about that kind of book is you'll ask young men in the church about that book probably in a year or two, maybe even now, and they'll say, no,

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I've never heard of that book before, when today or two years ago you had to have that book to be a man, and it's just another trend, and that's what we don't want to do.

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We want to tell people about Christ. Mike, one thing that I can't wait to talk about, and I'll get on my soapbox and talk about it, is the fact that what men need is not

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Wild at Heart or some kind of how -to manual, even how to love their wives. What they need more like something like John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, or John Stop, the

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Cross of Christ, because in Ephesians 5 we're called to love our wives as Christ loved the church, and so that's what we really need to understand.

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We need to understand that our wives could be unlovely and ungrateful as we were when

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Christ died for us, and we love them as Christ loved the church. Well, Pat, with the whole

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Wild at Heart issue, you know you have some immature believers, and they buy it, and so I'm usually not bugged at people who buy the book and want to learn something, but what bugs me is the pastors that promote it.

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They're the ones that should know better. They're leading the flock. They're to guard the flock. They're to teach sound doctrine and refute those who contradict, and for them to promote it, partly it shows me they have no discernment, but I think partly,

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Pat, I think it's laziness, and I believe that's part of the fabric of men in the world.

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If God says work before the fall, after the fall, we are lazy, and so there's still that remnant of laziness that still is in Christians today because we are by default lazier.

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We struggle with that until the Spirit of God can help us, and so I don't even know if there's a question in there.

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I'm just talking. Hey, it's my show. It's my show. I was thinking about watching Braveheart, and I thought, no, that's not the way to motivate.

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It's this, what does the Bible say, and then how can we, by the power of God, do it?

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And I'm so thankful that you're bringing the gospel home. Like you know, I'm teaching a parenting class at the church, and how does the gospel apply to parenting?

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How does it apply to being a man in the church? How does it apply for an elder board who are supposed to epitomize godly manhood?

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And speaking of elder boards, Pat, tell us what is typically the problem in an elder board in a local church when it comes to biblical manhood, because somewhere we've got to look for an example, and if the elders aren't acting that way, then how does a young, immature believer follow?

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So give us a charge for elders to step up and, in light of the gospel, be like men.

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Yeah, absolutely, Mike. The elders need to do that, not because they somehow rule the church in some sort of artificial way, but elders are there, yes, to give oversight, but they're there to be our example and the example to the rest of the men.

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And so if you don't have elders who are godly men, passionate about Christ and following Him, it's a given that the church is going to be emasculated as well, the church is going to be weak.

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In fact, maybe we could turn it around, Mike, and say that if there are not men being raised up and men who are standing up for the truth and for the gospel, it's a pretty good sign.

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It's a pretty good sign if your church isn't, excuse me, training up men and they're rising to the surface for significant leadership.

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It's a sign, and it's a sign that the elders there are weak and they are not truly acting like men because otherwise that wouldn't be happening by way of example, so it's certainly a great need for us.

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We're talking to Pat Abendroth regarding the Manning Up Conference, Be a Man at Church, Home, and Culture in Worcester, Massachusetts, March 27th,

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Bethlehem Bible Church. It's all morning, breakfast included, if you order, if you order, if you register by Monday, register at NoCompromiseRadio .com,

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$5 conference for men and their junior high, high school aged boys.

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Pat, with a couple minutes we have left, would you, I already know you agree because we think alike, we've gone to the same schools, et cetera.

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If someone is acting effeminately, and I don't mean their wrist is limp, but effeminately, they're not acting biblically in terms of who they are.

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Can't we back up and find out that they've got wrong theology that's driving their lack of biblical masculinity?

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That is to say, how close does a proper view of God and theology drive the methods and drive the imperatives of this is how we act?

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It's all gonna be tied back to that as you and I would agree, Mike, who is God and how do you understand who

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God is with a good, clear vision, a biblical vision of who God is, who

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Christ is for that matter. He is the lion and he is the lamb. And if we're going to learn anything about being a man from him,

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I understand he's the God man, but he's also certainly a man. We're going to wanna emulate that.

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We wanna be strong and we wanna be courageous, but we also at the same time want to be meek and that doesn't mean powerless.

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That means we're actually going to have self -control and we're going to seek the good of others and not our own glory.

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So we go to Christ in Philippians chapter two, but we also go to Christ with his boldness and his commitment to the glory of God and Christ.

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So we're certainly going to be doing the things you're talking about. Well, I don't know about all your sessions, Pat, but I hope you say something like this.

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Maybe I would say it because it's my show and I know you have class and manners and etiquette and all that stuff.

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I would probably say something like this. If you're preaching in an Arminian gospel, a gospel that somehow makes salvation a cooperation between man and God, some kind of synergistic cooperation that you are actually making, you are manufacturing biblical effeminacy.

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And I love Dan Douglas' book, Pat, that you probably read about the feminization of American culture.

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And here in New England, in Massachusetts, when Calvinism went out of the pulpit, a high view of God, a sovereign hand of God, when it went out of the pulpit, what came rushing in?

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Romance novels and Unitarianism. And so I think there's a direct correspondence between preaching a high view of God, what we call

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Calvinism, doctrines of grace, and biblical masculinity. You got 30 seconds. You want to comment on that?

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I want to comment on that and say I agree. And then if I can use a little shaming, some sanctified shaming, when men who are

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Calvinists or say they're Calvinists wait for their wife to do the right thing before they do the right thing and act godly,

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I want to tell them and look them in the eye and say, I don't care if you say you're a Calvinist. I think you're a Pelagian. I think you're an

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Arminian because you need to understand your wife and her lack of godliness is not something you're waiting for.

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You actually need to initiate like a good monarchist. Pat Ebendroth is shaming us,

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Manning Up Conference. Pat will be here March 27th, NoCompromiseRadio .com. Morning conference, how to be a man at church, home and culture.

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Pat, thanks for coming. I mean, thanks for taking my call. Thanks, Mike, see ya. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 10 .15 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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

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