New Episode! Death Be Not Proud

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.

Recovering From Illness and Returning to Ministry

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and it�s good to be live, is it not? November 23rd, Tuesday, and it�s about 10 o�clock here. I just am in the office, slash, study, slash, studio, what do you call it when you put all those words together?

I have no idea. Well, it has been quite a ride. I have been out of the hospital now for seven and a half weeks and slowly getting my strength back. It kind of feels weird, you know, talking about yourself, but you have prayed for me and you have come alongside my family and church, and so many of you expressed love and concern and kindness.

I�m still waiting for the big checks, but that�s okay. I can�t take it with you. You know, when you�re laying there and you think you might be dying besides sending your wife the passwords and, you know, where�s the life insurance policy?

It�s like, well, all the stuff, all the stuff that I�ve accumulated means what? Nothing. I�m in a COVID isolation room and I own what? I think what I had on me was a� so I had my wallet. I don�t know why, but I had my phone.

Somebody brought in a charger so I could charge it up. And I had a pair of sweatpants, a T-shirt, some socks. I had the hospital socks regularly. And then undergarments, that�s all I had. I guess you die with less than that, don�t you?

Amazing. I think I recorded a show three or four weeks ago and it was pretty rough to do, but slowly getting better, Lord willing, I will preach this Sunday, this long Thanksgiving weekend Sunday. I�ve been attending worship services the last few weeks and been doing scripture reading, pastoral prayer, call to worship, et cetera.

And so we�re slowly getting back. I�ve been riding the bicycle, the stationary bicycle, about an hour a day. And I could pedal faster. I�m at like 60 RPMs and I could pedal at higher tension. I�m anywhere between one and seven, but I just have to make sure my oxygen doesn�t go too low.

And once it gets to be 90 or lower, then I slow down and regain. But anyway, it�s just amazing now to read the Psalms. As I said last show, it�s amazing to sit there again and think, you know what? I don�t want to� I want to forget the hospital experience, you know, in the sense that pain and blood and trauma and sickness and not feeling good.

I drove past that hospital today and saw the room that I was in. My son and his buddies and my daughters and wife at different times would come and stand at the helicopter pad. And the nurse put something up in my window, I don�t know, some smiley face kind of thing.

So they would know which room I was in and then I would stand there and wave to the kids and the family. And I�m not on a crusade for COVID patients dying with their family there. But if I wasn�t a pastor, that might be my crusade.

It is unconscionable. It is detrimental to the patient and of course the family. It is� I can�t think of many things that are worse on so many different levels, whether it�s an unbeliever needing to hear the gospel from a family member, it�s my wife just there by me, I know she�s there, she�s my advocate, she�s making sure I�m getting this medicine or that medicine or whatever.

I mean, I had so many good nurses and CNAs and others that I don�t want to trash the system because they were very kind to me. But you�re in a COVID room, nobody wants to be in a COVID room. If you�re, you know, can get in and out if you�re a staff member, they don�t want to get it and I don�t blame them.

Anyway, learned a lot of lessons, still some follow-up, getting better. I think I�m going to be in December, I�ll be in New York City in December preaching. I�ve been helping Andy Woodward, he�s a pastor at Providence Baptist, I believe, in Manhattan, I don�t know what street, 64th or something, Upper East, Upper East Side someplace.

Anyway, I�ll be there. I think you can pull it up and it�s kind of like a CRT, social justice, that kind of thing. And he asked me, well, we want to make sure that we don�t forget about who Jesus is in the midst of this.

And so that�s what we know you like to talk about, who you like to talk about, so please come and do a couple of messages so we can keep our bearings. Anyway, my name is Mike Cabendroth, this is No Compromise Radio.

I got up this morning, somebody ordered three copies of Sexual Fidelity. I forgot I was selling books. I forgot I have stacks of those things. If you want a hundred of them or something or fifty of them, I can work up a good deal for you.

Thanks again for all your prayers, thanks again for everything that you�ve done for me. I�m sorry we had to cancel the Israel trip, but Israel, I think right now, we have, I think they�re up to their fourth booster.

And what we had to do as a group between Pat Abendroth and myself, by the way, listen to Pat Abendroth and his new podcast, pretty new, The Pactum. I have a t-shirt of his, it says Pactum, but I think I want the hoodie instead.

But that�s okay, you can just take what you can take. Anyway, we had to cancel. I don�t know when we�re going to reschedule. Maybe once everything�s done and crazy people are not in charge, then we might go ahead and do that.

But in the meantime, I thought to myself, I�ve got a trip in Germany planned, bet you that�s canceled. New Zealand, that�ll never happen. Israel, canceled. Who knows? I�m just going to have to drive. We�re looking at new cars, that�s a big expense these days, and I just want one with good gas mileage, because I might be forced to drive everywhere.

Anyway, today, just a couple things that I�d like to talk about in terms of Bible stuff. I mean, oh, here�s the show, you know, it�s all about Mike. That would be no good. Why on my desk? Okay, so I have an office study, there�s a desk and some books and there�s a little conference table and then there�s just like this table where we do no compromise radio.

Steve will be back soon and we�ll do some shows together, but it�s not that snazzy or anything. I�ve got some things stacked up and I don�t like clutter in life, but you�d never know it from here. So I have to preach a sermon on Sunday, so I�ll disregard this for now, but I need to clean this up.

But here�s my point. Why would there be a John Donne poem sitting right here, front center, of my no-co snack? A snack? I still do have a little brain fog here and there. My no-co stack, where it�s �Death be not proud.

How�s this holy sonnet? I feel like I�m Robin. Holy sonnet, Batman. �Death be not proud. Why is that here on Mike Ebendroth�s desk after what I�ve gone through? You know what? Let�s turn up your oxygen to 60.

You can�t breathe, pal. Oh. And I�d say things like, �Do you think I can get out this weekend No. And the best I could get out of the doctors, one guy, he�d say stable. The other guy�d look at me like, �You�re dead.

I�d like to go talk to those doctors and nurses, but I can�t get in the COVID rooms. It�s crazy. I�m locked out. I can�t even go say thank you. �Death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.

For those whom you thinkest thou dost overthrow, die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow. And soonest our best men will with thee do go.

Rest of their bones and souls� delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chants kings and desperate men. And thus with poison, war, and sickness dwell. And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well. And better than thy stroke, thou swellest thou then.

One short sleep past, we wake eternally. And death shall be no more. Death thou shalt die. Is that any good? I don�t know. I didn�t plan this. You know me. I don�t plan these shows, and I know you can tell that, but I�m just kind of curious why is that here?

I�ve said to many of you in times past, and have recently received some emails or saw some Twitter business, �Should I go to funerals I love you. Nothing said, just hug. Yes, of course, you should go to funerals.

Now, I personally don�t like wakes. I go there. I take my family there, but I don�t like them because with a wake compared to a funeral service, slash memorial service, there is a hug. There's no word to help frame what I'm seeing.

Special Revelation Frames What We See

Okay, here's what I mean by this, and so now here's actually the Bible part of the show. Sometimes you need special revelation to frame things that you see, smell, taste, or touch, right? Is seeing believing?

Well, one of the things that I like to do is I like to go to Acts chapter one, and it's said regarding the ascension of Jesus, his ascent into the clouds, into the third heaven. And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

Acts chapter one, verse nine. And while they were gazing into heaven, as he went, behold. Okay, we'll stop there. What's going on here? I see with my eyes Jesus ascending, right? If I was one of those men standing there.

But what does it mean, right? Do we need, right, we'll, the comparison isn't perfect, but with special revelation, it is something that Jesus said on earth. Now for us, it would be what scriptures teach.

What does the Bible say? Natural revelation, what does nature reveal? Romans one, that God's powerful, he's a judge, he's a creator, he's wise. It's enough to damn, it's not enough to save. But I need special revelation to frame what I see.

Because I can't trust myself, I can't even trust my eyes. And here, in Acts chapter one, it said, behold, two men. So the other people are staring up into heaven, gazing, and it said, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said.

Now here is the frame, the framing of what I see. So now I can interpret what I see better. Left myself, I'm a bad interpreter because my interpreter's broken. I'm fallen, my mind, my emotions, right?

I can't trust myself. Been reading the Proverbs a lot lately, and you know, you trust yourself, you're called a fool. Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

And I love that. He, Jesus, ascends into heaven, and now his messengers, that's what an angel means, right? Help the men understand what's going on. He's going up to heaven, of course. He had promised that, and he knew he was gonna return to the Father, but he's coming back.

So my point is, I have special revelation that frames what I see so I can understand it better. Now you go to a wake, and the wake is, it's sad, right? So I would tell the kids, this is all leading to, I bring my kids to wakes and funerals, and you should too.

But I need to frame things, and then I just say, well, we're gonna show up and everybody's gonna cry. It's just gonna be kind of, there'll be this weird thing. I would tell the kids ahead of time, we're going here to minister to these people.

It's not necessarily fun, but it's good, and here's what Ecclesiastes says about, you know, mourning and celebrations, and which ones affect you more and mean more, and are used of the Lord. So here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna go in, and you know, Jim died, and Jim's might be in a casket there, and a casket might be closed, a box, or it might be open, and the embalmer's probably done his work and put some makeup on, and so there's gonna be a body, and there's gonna be a line, and people kind of lined up past the body, and some people, particularly here in Massachusetts, they'll kneel at the casket and cross themselves.

Many Roman Catholics will attend. And then there's a line over to the side of the funeral home, typically, and starting with the person's wife or spouse, and then children, and then relatives, you know, and then more distant relatives and friends, et cetera, and you see the people, the line goes right up there, and all you have to do, maybe you don't even know the people, you don't have to do anything, just maybe hug them or say, I'm sorry, or I love you.

That's all you have to say. Sometimes when you say too much, you say nothing at all. What's that one song? I don't have any idea. And then you walk by, because we're here to love people and to serve, and here's the great commandment.

Love God, and since we can't see him, but we see these people, we're gonna love God's image bearers and that's why we're to love our neighbor. And so these people are our neighbors. Now, what's the point here in no-compromise radio ministry?

Well, I'm going to frame what the kids see, the dead body, with words from Dad, so they can interpret it. And so that's what I try to do. Big point, take your children to funerals because they'll learn a lot and they need to understand things about life and death and mourning and grief.

And I think the word to bereave means to rip, right? You have a loved one just ripped from you. I usually go to John 11 to frame what the children are going to see. If you haven't seen a dead body before, it's, I don't know, I guess I've been around them enough that it's not shocking to me, but it's certainly weird, odd, strange, not normal, right?

It's not, it's the opposite of alive, right? So it's, there's something, something's wrong. Their chest isn't going up and down. Every molecule on their body's dead. They're cold, they're hard, right?

They got some kind of weird makeup on. They maybe look better than they did when they were on death's door, their final breaths and sweaty and on morphine. They might look a little better than that, but they don't look like their normal selves.

And so something's wrong. And, you know, especially their hands, you know, they typically are folded on their chest and maybe there's a Bible inserted in there or something. So it's, especially if you're a kid, I'm sure it's like, wow, what's going on?

I mean, when do we see dead bodies? You know, your cat dies and you call the people and they come get the cat or whatever. I mean, it's, maybe you see dead mice. I mean, I've been getting a lot of mice these days caught.

You maybe see them or something, right? But anyway, this is Mike Cavendroth, this is No Compromise Radio. Thanks for praying I'm slowly getting better. Thanks for putting up with my little breathing the way I'm doing it.

John 11 and the Hope of the Resurrection

And I go to John 11 because we're at the wake and there's no, there's no words. I mean, put it, think about it this way. If you go to a funeral and memorial service, there are words framing things. The pastor reads 1 Thessalonians 4 and verses 13 and following and comfort one another with these words.

Right? The body's gonna be raised from the dead. You read 1 Corinthians 15, it's gonna be raised imperishable. You think about how God promises in John 14. And so everything's framed by the word of God and you interpret then the death of a friend, a loved one, somebody at church through the lens of scripture.

That's what you need. But when you go to awake, nobody talks. There's no leader. That's why people say, well, can you say something at the wake? Well, I can, but we've got people filing in for three hours.

I don't wanna have a wake when I die. You know what? Maybe I died and came back. Maybe I should write a book. See, I need a little extra cash. We've got some inflation, I think, with this new administration.

And I think that's what I need to do. What was I thinking? I did die and I came back. God told me some things and I'm gonna tell you for 1499. A funeral, there's gonna be scripture reading, prayer, and a message, a message of hope, a message of Jesus's victory over death, right?

A message of one day, dear friend, you'll be in this casket too. And life is fragile. Life is short. James chapter four, plan ahead. All that is, you know, it's still, it's still difficult to be at a funeral service, but we've got the word to help us interpret that.

But in awake, everybody just lines up for five hours or four hours or three hours. And poor family, then they have to go do this again at the funeral. So personally, I don't wanna have a wake. We don't have to wait around to see if I wake up after a few days.

Let's just have a service. If you wanna, if you're an unbeliever, you wanna come and pay your respects. It's way easier to go to the wake because you just go say hello. You don't have to deal with a message, a sermon.

You're a sinner, you need a savior. The only savior is Jesus. He lived a life you should have lived. He died for sins that you committed. You know, feel trust in him and believe in this risen savior, et cetera.

People don't wanna hear any of that. So they come to the wake. I don't wanna wake. I guess I won't be here to do anything about it. But I frame things for the wake for my children because I can't frame it for anybody else.

I frame it with John 11 and the death of Lazarus. And remember how much Jesus loved Lazarus. And Lazarus had been in the tomb already four days by the time Jesus shows up. And the Jews were consoling Mary and Martha.

And Martha knew Jesus was coming and she ran out to meet him and Mary stayed in the house. And Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.

Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? Yes, Lord, she said, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God who is coming into the world. Do you believe this?

That's the kind of thing I'd say to the kids. So I would frame it with that. I'd frame it with telling the children later on in the passage that there's a cave and that stone's taken away. Body's got an odor, has been there for four days.

Jesus cries out to the Father. I know you always hear me. I said this on the account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me. And now what happened? Lazarus come out with a loud voice.

And the man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to him, them, unbind him and let him go. Dear children, here's how I'm gonna frame things from the word of God to help you look at this dead body and think about it rightly.

Because you have to look at the dead body, I'll say to the kids, just for 15, 20 seconds, just a look. And you're gonna say to yourself, there's something wrong, right? There's the soul's gone. Whatever immaterial thing that's, you know, we have, it's gone because there's the dead body.

Also, children, I want you to know that you'll die one day. I don't want that. I hope it's in a long time, but you will die. It's appointed. God knows the day of your birth and the day of your death and you'll die.

So you wanna make sure you're ready to die, right? That you're forgiven. That's what you need to be. That's what needs to happen. Reconcile to God. And then I say, who can walk over that dead body and just say to it, no medicine, no, you know, putting some IV in, not putting the liquids in the mouth or something like that, or taken to a chiro chamber with, you know, ice therapy and all this.

Who can go to that dead body and every molecule is dead, just gone. And who could say to that body, arise. I mean, can you imagine? That's exactly what Jesus did. Arise. And on that last day, that great day, Jesus is gonna say, maybe people have been eaten by sharks.

Maybe they've been burned by fire. Maybe they've been eaten by worms. Jesus is going to say, arise. And everybody's gonna get up. Some are gonna get bodies that are prepared for heaven eternally and some will get prepared for hell eternally.

And we need to be trusting in Jesus. Children, do you believe Jesus? Good, keep believing in Jesus, the resurrected Savior. I mean, Jesus is dead and he raises himself, John 10. Yes, the Father and the Spirit did it right.

We have the triune God in separable operations. They're all doing things at the same time. One God, all doing the same thing. Might be a different focus of scripture here or there. But anyway, I thought about death, thought about life, thought about death, being not proud.

Then I thought about, yes, of course. So the answer to your question, should I bring my children to funerals? Yes, bring them, pull them out of school where they can be learning anyway. Critical race theory, pull them out of school and teach them a real lesson, a lesson about life and a lesson about death and a lesson about serving others and showing people compassion and love.

They don't have to say anything just for them to be there and have a hug would be wonderful. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Hopefully we're gonna have a bunch of new shows and off we go to the proverbial races.

Thanks again for praying for me.

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.