Wear Out or Rust Out

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, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. Boy, do my headphones seem loud today. You probably don�t notice that, but I can hear myself, which is kind of a scary thought.

The other day I was listening to one of the shows. I got in the car and it was tuned to the station, WVNE 760, and I thought, �Mike Abendroth sounds like he�s taking a tranquilizer or something, some Quaalude or something.

I sounded so groggy, groggily, etc. So I vowed today, or as my Indian friends say, I wowed today, that I would try to sound peppy, happy, and upbeat, even though it�s snowy outside, slippery. I still have a little bit of a cold, but I have my hot chai tea here.

Somehow the coffee machine is not seeming to work too much, so I have my hot chai tea, and I will try to do my peppiest best today on No Compromise Radio. I�m thrilled that you listen. I�m thrilled that you are edified.

I�m thrilled that maybe you don�t like the show that much, but you listen anyway just to see what�s going on in that crazy man�s mind. I will be in California February 1st through 3rd, Lord willing, Biblical Discernment Conference with my friends there at Church at the Cross, and that address is 21895 Homestead Road, Pine Grove, California, a couple, maybe an hour from Sacramento, hour and a half, something like that, towards the mountain, Church at the Cross.

I got the little promo here, and it says, �Always Biblical, Always Provocative, Always in that Order, Mike Abenbroth, blah, blah, blah, to help Christians be aware of current compromises of Scripture and church life.

That�s the why. �Cost� I like this, �love gifts. So we like that at No Compromise Radio. I just got in my spam folder this morning, �Churches and ministries that I respect but, you know, we need your help, it�s the end of the year.

And today, actually, I think is December 29th, that�s the day I�m taping the show, and so I could probably make that appeal, but then it wouldn�t really work, would it? Churchatthecrosspg .com if you�d like to go, if you�re one of the folks that listen up in the Sacramento area, and I know we do have some there that listen, I�ve received some emails.

We�d love to see you at Church at the Cross. I speak Friday night, I think one time, three sessions on Saturday with a Q &A, so that makes four sessions total. Make sure your questions are easy, and then preach Sunday morning, and then back to Santa Cruz I go for a little, I don�t know, I like to go to Santa Cruz to prove, in fact, that I am conservative.

Living in Massachusetts, sometimes people don�t think that, but then when you go back to Santa Cruz, you realize that you are pretty conservative. Well, today on No Compromise Radio, I�m trying to clean off my desk.

I sometimes call this Clean Off the Desk Friday, but I don�t know when I�ll air the show. I do want you to know that if you send me an email, I will read it, info at nocompromiseradio .com. Most of the emails we get are very kind and pleasant, even if we disagree with each other.

Someone wrote me a while ago, and I thought, you know what, that guy�s right, and so see, once a year we can�t be wrong here at No Compromise Radio. Now, I want to read you something about George Whitefield.

I believe it was in the Church History calendar, 365-day Church History thing. I don�t know what that�s called, and see, that�s the problem being the staff. Today of one, all my sidekicks are gone from Josh to Steve to everyone else.

You know, you can get the daily Bible rating, Bible ratings, 365 days. Well, this is one on Church History. And so every day you can read a little historical background of someone that the Lord has used in Church History.

So here it says, �George Whitefield was the greatest preacher of the 18th century and one of the best known and best loved individuals in America. I just was talking to Charlie Crane, who edits the show on Monday, and he was telling me how he�s in Newport, Rhode Island.

I said, �Next time you go to Newport, Rhode Island, you have to go to that church, the Presbyterian Church, where George Whitefield preached. Stand on the pulpit. That�s kind of neat. Anyway, it says on September 29th, see, I was reading this devotional thing on September 29th, but it�s been sitting on my desk, and I�ve got to clear it off, 1770, �Whitefield preached his last sermon in the fields, though feeling ill, he set out in the morning by horseback from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Matter of fact, we drive past Portsmouth all the time when we go up to York Beach to surf and other surfing areas up there. Portsmouth has a neat little downtown, and it also has a submarine there, and it was interesting how they got that submarine where they got it.

It�s called the USS Nautilus. It�s not the Nautilus. That�s down in Londonbury or wherever that is, New London, New Town, New something. What�s this one called? I don�t know, Sputnik? I can�t remember.

If you type in submarine, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, you would get it. To preach at Newburyport Mass the next day, remember he was buried there? That�s how I enticed MacArthur to come out one year. I said, �Come preach at the church here and that was 1999, �and I�ll take you to Newburyport Mass where you can.

That�s even a cooler downtown, but George Whitefield is buried there, and you can get a special blessing. You can get the anointing, Mr. MacArthur. On the way, he passed through Exeter, New Hampshire, not intending to stop.

However, people were aware he would be passing through and had gathered, hoping that they could hear him preach. Boy, those were the days, weren�t they? They had even erected a platform for him in a field.

The crowd was insistent, and Whitefield agreed to speak. As Whitefield approached the platform, an elderly gentleman said to him, �Sir, you are more fit to go to bed than to preach. �True, sir Whitefield replied, looking up to heaven.

Then he said, �Lord Jesus, I am weary in thy work, but not weary of it. If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for thee once more on the fields. Seal thy truth, and come home and die.

So I think that�s where we got the phrase, �weary in the work, but not weary of it. I was preaching the other day. I think I reversed those. More chai tea. I prefer Pete�s coffee, but when you can�t make coffee, what do you do?

When Whitefield mounted the platform, he stood for several minutes, unable to speak. How about that? You get seated, pastor gets up to preach, and he can�t talk. How long does it take for the elders and the deacons and the ushers before they go up and try to ask him a question?

An observer noted that his spirit was willing, but his flesh was dying. He finally said, �I will wait for the gracious assistance of God, for He will, I am certain, assist me once more to speak in His name.

He then preached for two hours on the verse, �Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith. Toward the end of the message, he said, �I go to a rest prepared. My son has given light to many, but now it must set.

No, to rise to the zenith of immortal glory. I have outlived many on earth, but they cannot outlive me in heaven. Many shall outlive me on earth and live when this body is no more, but there, O thought divine, I shall be in a world where time, age, sickness, and sorrow are unknown.

My body fails, but my spirit expands. How willingly would I live forever to preach Christ, but I die to be with Him. Many of us here said that it was the best sermon that Whitefield had ever delivered.

After he was through, the exhausted Whitefield rode off to home, to the home of Jonathan Parsons. Now, see, that's a good name for a pastor, isn't it? That's why I have a parson, Jack Russell. Pastor of the Old South Presbyterian Church in Newburyport.

By the way, you can go there to see where Whitefield was buried, actually in the church. And it's called something, not an obelisk, but there's something above him. And I don't know if it's true or not, but I heard that if you were a beloved pastor in New England and you died, they would bury you in the church.

If they didn't really like you, they'd bury you outside, adjacent to the church in the common cemetery there. But if they really liked you, they'd bury you inside the church. And the more they liked you, the closer to the pulpit they buried you.

So back row, middle row, front row, and if they really, really thought you were faithful to the Lord and they really liked you, they would bury you under the pulpit. So you should go see where George Whitefield is buried in Newburyport, Mass.

That'd be a good thing to do. So if you're ever in New England, you say, we need to swing by Wes Boylston, home of No Compromise Radio. Actually people have done that. You'd be surprised to know that.

And we welcome them with open arms and give them free swag and other stuff. And then you should go to Newburyport. The other places you should go, as a matter of fact, if you ever are coming out here, email me and I'll give you the inside scoop.

Make sure you go to Northampton and you can see the front step of the church where Edwards preached. You can go to where his home was. Actually his home now, it's Edwards Circle, Edwards Square I think is the street name.

And where his home sat, they do say the elm tree maybe is the same elm tree or it's the baby of the first elm tree. But his house doesn't sit there anymore. And it's interesting. It is in a weird way anti-apropos.

Is that right thing to do? You take maybe a Latin anti or a Greek anti and then apropos, what's that, French? And so it must be, I don't know. Ted would know. And then they built a Catholic, Polish church, Polish Catholic.

I think that's better. Polish Catholic church where Edwards' house was. So but you can still go and see where he lived and you can imagine the street that he walked down to get to the church there in downtown, in the heart of Northampton, Massachusetts.

And of course you can go past the graveyards there at the cemetery in Northampton. And although he's buried with other presidents at Princeton Seminary, at the Princeton graveyard, you can see his obelisk there and some of his family is buried.

And so is David Brainerd in a nondescript, what's the right word, Ted? Nondescript or undescript little gravestone down the way, David Brainerd next to one of Edwards' daughters. But anyway, there are things to do in New England.

You can go see where Cotton Mather was buried in Boston right along the Yellow Brick Road Trail there, Freedom Trail, the brick trail. What else could you see if you were in New England? You could go to Connecticut right along the river and you could go to Enfield, Connecticut and you could go to the town and there's a little plaque there where Edwards preached.

Actually there's going to be a new book out, hopefully in the next year, written by Michael Haken on touring New England slash Jonathan Edwards. And there's a great series in Day One Books about John Bunyan, for instance.

There's one on Paul Bunyan and his ox babe. Kidding. And you can buy one on Edwards. And Haken needed some help with the book. I couldn't really help him write some of the stuff, but I did find a photographer, our own Mark Westcott, took the pictures for all the different New England sites.

And hopefully that book will be out, Traveling New England with Jonathan Edwards or something like that, Michael Haken. It should be out soon. That'd be an interesting book to get. You can go see where Ashell Nettleton lived in Connecticut and you can drive and see that as well.

You can go to Brookfield and you can go to West Brookfield in Massachusetts on your way to Northampton and go to the rock where Whitfield preached to 500 to 2 ,000 people, the United Methodist Society says on there, Whitfield Rock.

And so we like to take people there, whether it's James White or Carl Truman or maybe I could drop some other names of people that I like to take around. Well, anyway, back to the story. Reverend John Parsons.

My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. I'm trying to liven things up a little bit here. Arriving tired and sick, Whitfield ate early. So he's at the home of Jonathan Parsons, Old South Presbyterian Church.

As he was going up the stairs to bed with a candle in his hand, the front door was open to let in a crowd that had gathered outside the house. Hmm. Well, it must have been a cold September day. They begged him to preach.

And he did. When did he stop preaching, by the way, back in those days? He did until the candle in his hand burned out. So I guess he needed to see the text. That is one fascinating story from a book that I don't know the title of.

At 2 a .m., Whitfield awoke panting for breath. The young man who was traveling with him gently chided him for preaching so often. To this, Whitfield replied, and here's another phrase that either he coined or was popular in the day and still popular, should be more popular with pastors today in ministries and Christians, I'd rather wear out than rust out.

He woke again at 4 a .m., getting out of bed. He went to the window saying, I can scarce breathe, at which point the young man went out to get a doctor. At 7 that Sunday morning, Whitfield entered the land for which he had been prepared by sovereign grace, the land to which he had pointed tens of thousands, and the land that would be his home for all, eternity.

A faithful to the end, wouldn't you say? Why do we like to read about men and women of God? Why do we like to read biographies? Well, we've talked about it many times, and I'm turning my head to my left to see the biographies from Adoniram Judson to Hudson Taylor to David Brainerd to many of the men at Princeton Seminary to the Scots Worthies, John Payton, Martin Luther, Thomas Cramner, William Tyndale.

The list goes on. Why? Well, we read biographies because it does two things, remember? What are the two things biographies do? Well, in my mind, they exhort me to pour out my life and to be more poured out for the gospel work.

And if these men, mere flesh, these women, mere humans, did these things for the Lord, that's motivating, isn't it? You read the biography and you get motivated. You on the negative side are exhorted by these men and women in our apathetic, hedonistic couch potato day, and so I need a good kick sometimes to be ramped up, and biographies do that.

It's also encouraging because I realize these people were nothings. Remember 1 Corinthians? As a matter of fact, I should read that since I have a Bible here in front of me. Can you imagine? God gets the glory when He works through people like us, and so when you read 1 Corinthians chapter 1, for consider your calling brothers, 1 Corinthians 1 .26, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards.

Don't say not any, but not many. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. And then listen to the focus on God and God choosing specifically, sovereignly. God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are. Can you imagine? We're not even called a he or a she or a them or a they there.

Here Paul says, even things that are not. The nobodies. He didn't even say that. The nothings. If there was a caste system in America, we would be the lowest caste. Why? Because when God uses such people, when He, you think about people who used to have servants in the house, they have the help.

See they're not hims nor hers, no personal pronouns used. We know they're people, but the way they're talked about, they're called the help, the staff. So here we're called things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

When I think of Luther or people in church history or Charles Haddon Spurgeon or Mary Slessor or anyone else, I don't say to myself, oh they are to be exalted. No, this is God to be exalted, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

Mary Slessor didn't want the focus to be on her, William Carey didn't want the focus to be on him, so that we might boast in God and boast of God. Can you imagine this in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 29?

So that no human being might boast in the presence of God. You read these biographies and you're reminded that if we would exalt ourselves into God's presence and then boast in ourselves, can you imagine?

Just picture what that would look like, if you could go to the presence of God and then you would boast in how great you were. Now remember, we are creatures and he's the creator. Remember there was a time we didn't exist and he's eternal.

Remember we have to learn things, we forget things, we're sinful, he doesn't learn anything, he doesn't forget anything, and he is holy, holy, holy. That we would go to God and boast in the presence of God.

No, I think if you even examined Near Eastern kings or any king that had powerful armies, you would not go to the judgment hall, you would not go to the throne of judgment and boast. You would have your head down.

Sometimes they would have to take a knife, something very sharp like that, and put it under your chin and fix it there with whatever kind of rope or adhesive that they had, so that you would be forced to have your head up to look into the judge's eyes, into the king's eyes as he was going to judge you.

I always think of criminals when they get caught and the TV cameras are tracking them down as they're ushered into cars, police cars, detective cars, FBI cars, and what do they try to do? They have their handcuffs on, but they're still trying to hide their faces.

They're cowering, they know they're caught, and so for sinful, finite, frail creatures to stand before God and say, we're number one, I'm the greatest in a Muhammad Ali kind of style, that's deplorable, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

And when you read biographies, you'll quickly understand that, like yourself, like me, that these men and women of God weren't perfect. They weren't Jesus. They needed Jesus. They needed his righteousness.

They needed his redemption that God alone supplies. They needed the triune God for everything. And so you quickly find that these people did have problems, and we realize that in our own life where we positionally, of course, we are seated in heavenly places and we have Christ's righteousness imputed to our account, but practically we stumble and we fall and we trespass and we don't love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And so when you read biographies, you think, God uses people like me. God uses people who aren't superstars by their own accord, but they were men and women who were strengthened by the grace of God, be strengthened by God's grace.

How do we do that? Well, when you read biographies, you see many, many times thrilling examples of God's sovereign protection in these people's lives until God's work with them, like in George Whitefield's day, was done.

It says in 1 Corinthians 1, and because of him you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God. Remember all the Corinthians? Wisdom, wisdom, wisdom. We want wisdom. And he said, you know, the word of the cross, the doctrine of substitutionary atonement is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God.

See, God makes foolish the wisdom of the world. The wisdom of the world is foolish. It doesn't know God through its wisdom. So what is wisdom? They all want wisdom. All the Greeks want wisdom. All the Jews want signs.

And Paul gives them Christ Jesus. So you want to understand what real wisdom is? Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, and because of him you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God. You want to know what wisdom explained is?

Righteousness. There we have Christ's perfect righteousness credited to our account. And sanctification. We are set apart. We are holy. And redemption. God's laws were broken and we must pay. We have an advocate.

We have a substitute. We have a representative. Christ Jesus, the risen King, who was our ransom, and now we have redemption in Christ Jesus. So that, the text says, it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

Of all those boasting, let them boast in the Lord. So today on No Compromise Radio, we've talked a little bit just about a man, George Whitfield, and the last couple days of his life. Finishing well. Can it be done?

So many times people don't finish well, but it can be done by the grace of God. And so if you're not a George Whitfield, I'm not. If you're not a Mary Slessor, if you're not one of these people, you say, I don't know what I can do.

God has gifted you. God has saved you. Of course, not in that order. The other order. God has saved you and he's gifted you and has given you a ministry. And I wonder if you would just pray, Lord, it's better to burn out than to rust out.

It's better to wear out than to rust out. Lord Jesus, I'm weary in thy work, but not weary of it. Actually today, when things going on in my life and ministry, I'm not trying to get out of work, but I'm weary in it.

That's for sure. Certainly when you're sick, it kind of compounds everything, but I'm not weary of it. To tell people about free grace, sovereign grace, the riches of our triune God, I love to do it. And I love it that people listen.

Who would ever think that we could sit here at this table in West Boylston, proclaim sovereign grace, hopefully in a biblical fashion, in a provocative way, in that order. And people like you listen. I'm encouraged by that.

So today you can write us at info at NoCompromiseRadio .com and you can pull up a biography of George Whitefield. That'd be good for you to do, two volume, you won't regret it. 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 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 Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.