Holy Flexible

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's

Mike Abendroth. It's September now. I usually have about 40 shows, 30 shows already recorded ahead of time.

But after the summer, then we have to start from scratch. So I think I have about 10, so I am feeling the pressure to provide biblical, provocative radio tonight.

I think the show's going to air on September 14th, so tonight, Carl Truman. If you're with an earshot of this radio station,

WVNE, Dr. Carl Truman, I like to call him—this probably puts him below Phil, so that's not fair—but

I call him the Presbyterian version of Phil Johnson. Carl will be here September 14th, 15th, so tomorrow as well, speaking

Friday night, tonight, 7 p .m. at Bethlehem Bible Church. You can go to our website and find directions. Current issues in evangelicalism,

I gave Carl that topic because I thought that gave him enough rope to hang anyone he wanted, including himself, two sessions.

And then Saturday, tomorrow, 9 to 12, three sessions on Luther, Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know, lessons from Luther.

Then he'll be here preaching Sunday morning, so if you already have a church on Sunday, I don't invite you to come, but you can come on Friday and Saturday.

Carl Truman, Bethlehem Bible Church, No Compromise Radio. Speaking of Carl, video two,

Josh did a great job putting together video one, NoCoEver .com, with Carl Truman, Phil Johnson, and James White.

Have you ever tried to talk for four hours with James White sitting so close to you that he can read your notes and you can read his notes?

That's so close. Just how intimidating is that? James White, you know, our knees are basically touching, and there he is for those four hours.

Man, that was a stressful day. I think I'm better on radio than TV, but the topic was important.

And so episode two should be out within the next month or two, and we'll try to leak out those.

Maybe if the donations are large enough, I'll get you a sneak peek, special Vimeo behind -the -scenes production.

We also taped a couple hours of those guys at the cemetery doing outtakes that are pretty funny and informative as well.

So that is what's going on here at No Compromise Radio Ministry. Don't forget the Greece trip. You can go to Greece with us in April.

That'd be great. Well, most of the time I get great letters of encouragement, emails. For instance, the

No Compromise Ever video, I would say 95 % of the people who wrote in to say thank you, who wrote in said thank you.

And basically the theme was, the overarching theme to their responses, if I put them all together, some aggregation, would be, we thought we were the weird ones who thought

James McDonald and Mark Driscoll and the Elephant Room people were off the deep end.

We thought something was wrong with us, and so now we're glad to know there's something wrong with four other people in the world.

Now we know that we're not off. We recognize that they shouldn't have invited T .D.

Jakes, not only for his word faith, but his modalistic view of who God is.

And we just thought we were the weird ones. We were the ones being ostracized. We were the ones who were pushed to the side, saying, oh, it's a discernment ministry, etc.,

etc. Live and let live. And like I said before, there's nothing wrong with people saying, well, would you be on our show, and you're not a believer, and I'd like to talk to you about what you think and what your worldview is and who you think

God is, and that would be fine. T .D. Jakes, why don't you come in as a guest speaker?

But when you come in as a guest speaker, one of us, then that was the trouble. And that's why

Mark Dever didn't go on that, etc. But there are a few times I get emails, and they don't like what

I say, and it's interesting to me, which, you know, I don't like what I say sometimes, too.

So I guess, you know, and it's more than 5 % of the time. If you talk a lot, you say a lot of things, and you regret some of those things, and I'm glad I don't have to pay for my sins of the tongue for certain.

But what causes more angst, I think, on the radio and through this show than anything else, more anger, more consternation, is when

I talk about charismatics and talk about cessationism. Now, if I talk about charismatics in general, that is the wild ones, the wooly ones, the two -paid ones, crazy ones, my charismatic friends, my continuationist friends in the vein of Carson, Grudem, Piper, Mahaney, et al.,

fee, they don't get mad. They're with me, and I'm glad they're with me. With the word faith, hyper -Pentecostal, hyper -charismatic, third wave from Rodney Howard Brown to Pat Robertson to any other

Kooks and Barneys that are out there, Kooks and Barneys, we're all together with that.

And if you say there's some degree of cessationism, then my continuationist friends agree with that as well.

But when you say all the signed gifts that were in the New Testament have ceased for many reasons, then that just rubs people the wrong way.

I don't know exactly why, but that brings out the heat. And so I got an email the other day,

September 2nd, and I won't read his name just because I don't have his permission.

I guess I don't have other permissions either, but here's what it says. I invite you to learn how to be wholly flexible,

H -O -L -Y, which is the level that is above rigid righteous, wherein you are now stuck.

So this is fine for them to write in. I always tell people to write in. I'm rigid righteous.

I think that probably means self -righteous, but that's rigid righteous, and I'm supposed to move up the curve to wholly flexible.

I need to be more flexible. That's holy, and I'm rigid. Nothing wrong with being rigid righteous, except you don't want to stay there.

Okay, maybe this is a good, better, best paradigm. Leaders in religion tend to want to stay rigid righteous.

Well, so far, when I think about Paul and his view of pastoral ministry, 1

Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus, I don't know, he's pretty rigid. Do this.

Don't do that. He's not giving prescriptions for how the church should be ordered.

I think Leviticus is probably pretty rigid righteous, although it is holy. I don't think there's much flexibility.

See Leviticus 10, Nadab and Abihu. Matter of fact, I think I'm just going to read that for a second, because it is so amazing to think in our day and age, when worship is to be emotionally led, remember

I like emotions, I just don't like them to lead our decisions, nor do I like them to lead our worship. Worship being emotionally led,

I'm caught up in the Spirit, somehow divorcing the Spirit's work from the

Word of God. And Paul goes on to talk about that in 1 Corinthians chapter 14. You can't do that.

You can't say, well, I'm a prophet and I'm going to be led away in a manner that contradicts the

Scripture. So when I think about worship, I think about regulative principle, the

Scriptures regulate how we worship, what God wants. What we don't do in a worship service is say, what would you like to do today?

What do you think would be good today? Well, if you think it would be good to follow Scripture, then I'm liking the way you think.

But if you just say, well, let's just maybe have some streamer girls up there, make sure they're thin, right?

We don't want any streamer girl ministries if people are not thin and attractive.

We want some video clips that we're going to play, Braveheart, Gladiator, because we've got to rile up the men too.

And then there's some very sentimental ones with some piano. We can get some people to cry and stuff like that.

Let's just do that. That's what we should do. I met a man one time, not in this office, but the one next door to me in my study.

And I said, what are you preaching through? That's what I like to ask pastors. That is the question to ask pastors.

What book of God's Word are you preaching through now? Implying that they should be preaching through a book. Now, topical messages, you can do a little mini -series, etc.

But the bulk of ministry, I think, should be verse -by -verse, sequential exposition. And he said, well, sometimes, like last week,

God led me not to preach. I said, really? That was in a worship service on Sunday, the saints getting together?

Yeah, he just led me not to preach. We just worshiped. Translation, we just sang the whole time. Well, God is very precise.

And God is a God of order, a God of peace, not a God of chaos, not a God of disorder, not a

God of we'll just wing it. Nothing in the Bible yields the fact that God is just a wing -it

God. He just wings it when it comes to creation and the plan of salvation. He just wings it when it comes to sanctification.

And we're to just follow his wing -it philosophy as we worship this wing -it

God. Actually, when we wing it, then our depravity seeps through, and we worship wrongly.

That's called paganism. That's exactly what that is. It's paganism cloaked in the guise and delivery and the verbiage of Christianity.

So we don't wing it. If God was a wing -it God, we would wing it. But since God, 1

Corinthians 14, talks about a God of order, and you think about the triune nature of God, and you think about the plan of salvation, you think about progressive revelation, there is order to God.

Now we can discuss, does God have feelings or not? Does he have passions like men?

You can look at the confessions and talk about that as well. One thing's for certain. God doesn't wing it, and we're not to wing it.

And when people wing it, there's trouble, sometimes to the manner of, to the order or degree of, death.

I think of Uzzah, who grabbed the ark when he just was winging it. I guess that's what today's show is called, the wing -in -it.

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, Leviticus 10, each took a censer and put fire in it and laid censer on it, and offered unauthorized fire before Yahweh, which he had not commanded them.

They were winging it. Well, let's just be spirit -led, but people say they're spirit -led and they're not tying the spirit through the word and with the word, and so it's bad.

And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the

Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord has said, among those who are near me

I will be sanctified. That's how I'm going to be treated. And before all the people

I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace. Isn't that amazing?

That is fascinating to see what happens. If you go on, the passage says, and Moses called

Michiel and Eliphan, the sons of Uziel, the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, come near, carry your brothers away from the front of the sanctuary and out of the camp.

So they came near and carried them in their coats out of the camp, as Moses had said.

So they came, and Moses said to Aaron and Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, do not let the hair of your heads hang loose and do not tear your clothes, lest you die, and the wrath come upon all the congregation, but let your brothers, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning that the

Lord has kindled, and do not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting, lest you die.

For the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you, and they did according to the word of Moses.

God wants precise worship. God is precise. God is ordered, and he wants ordered worship.

Well, what if I was wholly flexible when it comes to worship? I don't want to be that.

Now, I do not want to be self -righteous. I have no righteousness of my own.

I know my best righteousness is like a filthy rag. But this idea where balance is always right, sometimes balance is good, sometimes people are imbalanced.

Sometimes balance isn't good. Sometimes we don't want to go down the middle of things, especially if something is clearly scriptural.

So I want to be rigid. I remember I was candidating for this church 15 years ago, over 15 years ago, and I thought

I had the job. I was going to fly out to preach, which is just kind of a formality vote then after that.

And I was called by one of the elders and they said, well, we're going to withdraw our, you know, we're not going to pursue you anymore.

Okay. I figured that was just the Lord not letting me go to New England. And he, the elder said, you know,

I said, why? And he said, well, we think you're too rigid and too dogmatic in what you believe.

Okay. Well, I guess you want a pastor who's not sure of himself or sure of what he believes are changing and being carried to and fro by various winds of doctrine, like the children were in Ephesians, children, adults acting like children.

And I said, well, just to let you know my philosophy, my philosophy is I know I have not arrived. I know

I have much more to learn. But I'm sure of what I believe based on the 12 pages that I sent you on my doctrinal statement.

And I have been taught by John MacArthur in Master's Seminary. And I know what church history teaches about who

God is, how God saves, the return of Christ, and everything else that God has revealed, you know, large topics.

The Holy Spirit, he is a person and he is a member of the Trinity. And, you know, one

God subsisting in three persons, you know, co -equal and co -eternal, the eternal sonship of Christ.

I'm just dogmatic on those things. And when it comes to salvation, I'm dogmatic. When it comes to lordship,

I'm dogmatic. And if you can tell me why I ought not to believe something that I have believed, then

I will gladly change. I remember when I was younger and more naive and, hey,

MacArthur had the position on Jesus is not the eternal Son because of Psalm 2 -7.

Today I begotten thee, and today, meaning it's, you know, upon his incarnation, and now he's called the

Son. And I just thought it was a good argument. MacArthur's got good arguments. But then studying church history and eternal sonship, no, he has to be eternal

Son. And by the way, MacArthur has changed his view as well, thankfully. But I've changed my view on things, right?

So I would not think there would be something called the covenant of redemption and call it what you like.

I think the Spirit of God and the Son and the Father before the ages began made a pact to rescue sinners for their glory.

And so I didn't believe that before. I mean, I grow in theology, but if you're trying to get me to be more flexible in what

I stand for and believe, that's not what I'm looking for. Do the Scriptures in any place—this is

Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry, info at nocompromiseradio .com—do Scriptures in any place commend flexibility when it comes to doctrine?

And if they don't commend flexibility when it comes to doctrine, then it's not going to be carried over into methodology because your theology leads to doxology.

But through methodology, what you do determines what you believe. No, what you believe determines what you do.

And so I want to be flexible with people, kind with people, to people, patient.

That is 1 Thessalonians 2. That's how Paul acted towards the Thessalonians, and that is how pastors should act.

But because you're dogmatic on the radio station or from the pulpit, it doesn't mean you have to be unkind to people and not flexible.

Oh, well, my wife planned this and I planned that, and I'll just bend my plans to hers and the kids.

I forgot about that kids' program, etc. Well, that flexibility is fine. That's just—I think that's love.

But I'm accused now of being rigid righteous. Here it says, employees everywhere want a wholly flexible boss.

Well, I'm sure they do. Say la, he says. I'm sure they do. Let's see.

He gave me his website. It's apostolic, so sorry if that website offends you.

Well, apostolic, you mean like an apostle like Paul was? They don't exist.

The church is built now on—was built on the apostolic men and the prophets, and now we go ordain elders in every church.

See Titus chapter 1. Blessed are they who are not offended, you know, by high -level, wholly flexible truth.

Blessed are they who are not offended by truth. You know what high -level truth is offensive, don't you? God hides high -level truth in parables.

Today, it's movies. I ride a postal carbon trek. This is the email.

Welcome to my world. So I guess he listens enough to know that I like to ride bicycles, and I like carbon treks.

Come out to where I live, we could ride together. You could tell me I'm wrong, and I could show you Jesus. Well, I like to be shown

Jesus through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, his emissaries in Acts, and the epistles written about who he is in Romans through Jude, and I like to see him revealed and uncovered in Revelation.

But I don't know how you show people Jesus. You can show people the love of Jesus, but you can't show people

Jesus through your love directly. There has to be more than that.

That's a good start, but that's not primary, that's secondary. You could tell me where it hurts, I could heal you.

Well, what if I don't want to be healed? Would anybody ever think of that?

I don't want to be healed from rigid righteous to wholly flexible.

I mean, I think I need to give this guy the Kooks and Barneys Award today. So if I had some music, it'd be the

Kooks and Barneys Award. I did go surfing the other day, and I'm getting a little bit better. The boards are shrinking in size because I'm catching on a little bit more, so I'm happy for that.

And so Kooks and Barneys, I brought out a guy, he surfed for the first time, he's like, man, I'm a

Kook and Barney, he said today. So see, it's catching. I don't want to be unrighteous and rigid, that would be bad, but righteous,

I am righteous in Christ, and I want to live out who I am in Christ Jesus and practically act righteously.

I don't think that's being bad. Flexibility versus righteousness, which one's better? Well, holy versus rigid, we get that one.

You could tell me lots about cessation, I could show you Christ in you, all with dashes and how it's done.

Well, that would be awesome, but maybe I don't want that because it's not that I can't be taught,

I never want to say that. I listen to so many sermons per week by men that I respect and who I couldn't hold a candle to.

I do like to be taught. I'm just listening to Graham Goldsworthy in Australia doing some messages about Christ in the

Bible. It's awesome listening to William Still on MP3s, Sinclair Ferguson and Eric Alexander's mentor.

Listen, S. Lewis Johnson, probably go ride a bike this afternoon in the rain listening to S. Lewis Johnson.

I want to be able to be taught, but studying theology for the past 23 years and going to two theological seminaries,

I don't know what the Christ in you deal is. Maybe I went to the wrong school.

Oh, this isn't easy to show you Christ in you because it takes right doctrine in your head and soul.

Once bad doctrine's out, the good doctrine is in. Behold, quickly comes Jesus in your soul and you shine like Moses.

I don't want to shine like Moses. Moses is not what I'm after.

See 2 Corinthians chapter 3. I don't want to shine like Moses. Not at all.

And so, I'm glad people write. He's got his address here. Good that he's a man to give the address.

He's not anonymous or anything. The air's good where I live. Great for biking. You'll love it.

Come on out and let's ride together. This is the Webster definition for apostolic, one sent on a mission.

Well, yeah, okay. Well, I guess the missionaries that we send out are sent on a mission. Okay, well, that's fine.

But that's not apostolic chapter in the Bible where we have the capital

A, apostolic. Now, since that definition's not in the Bible, good. Did it make you go all rigid righteous?

Yes, it did. Yes, it did. Rigidly sticking to the text with righteous fervor.

Thought so. Can you be wholly flexible enough not to fight the universe or at least Webster's dictionary? Hey, let's see.

I can tell you this guy's first name. Robert. Robert, maybe I could be a new Superman character, a new superhero fighting for theological truth or something.

Instead of B .B. Warfield or D .G. Hart, it could be M .L. Abendroth. Something M .L. That could be on the chest part of my breastplate.

Well, maybe someday you'll mellow and see things more wholly flexible. P .S. Your family will love you being wholly flexible.

An answer to prayers, an answer to prayers of all under your authority.

I know this because my family hated me being rigid righteous. Doesn't every family? Have I made you think? And then the classic line from Robert is, thinking, about thinking, helps thinking.

Now, Robert, I like that. That is excellent. A, I like it that you wrote in. B, I like it that you try to convince me.

C, I like it that you like carbon trex. D, I like it that you're man enough to put your address on there.

And E, I like it that you said, thinking about thinking helps thinking. Now think about it.

All right. Well, we have a new category. Wholly flexible versus rigid righteous.

Well, my name is Mike Abendroth, and I am wholly flexible today, and tomorrow

I'll be rigid righteous, and I guess

I know more than Webster's Dictionary. Actually, if truth be told, God has given me instructors, because when it comes to theology,

I do know more than Webster's Dictionary on some entries. Why?

Because my kids know more on that. Because Webster's, in the old day, would be much more theologically based, and now they're too concerned that we have vernacular and acronyms and other misspeak in there.

I don't know what we call it. I was trying to think of an Orwellian term, but Ted's not here to help me, so I don't know what to do. You can write us at info at nocompromisedradio .com.

If you have a wholly flexible email, write us there. If it's rigid righteous, you can write that to Steve, or Josh, or Ray, or someone else at No Compromised Radio Ministry.

Highlights of Greece and other things on our website, nocoever .com. Don't forget Karl Truman tonight.

You don't have to register ahead of time. Just show up tonight. I think it's $10 at the door, just for Friday, or even go on the website.

God bless you. No Compromised 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 Compromised Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.