Random Puritan Quotes

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 and in real time it is what? November 28, 2018.

We here in the studio, royal we, have been talking about hiring pastors.

I guess we could talk about firing pastors, too. I�d hate to be on the receiving end of that. Almost was once.

I�ve been here now 21 years, the longest five decades of my life, and it�s been great.

As I�ve said often, that�s a great thing when the Lord allows you to stay at one place for such a long time because you get to see children grow up, become baptized, have their own children, and lots of neat things.

You get to see the congregation grow, and I don�t mean by numbers, I mean maturation, and it is really quite the blessing.

What we�re doing here on No Compromise Radio is we try to talk about things from a biblical perspective. I know some of you don�t like that, but I guess the ones that download these do.

I don�t know what we have, 2 ,000, 3 ,000 downloads per show. That�s not a whole lot because I think it�s the same people.

That might be 600 ,000 downloads in a year, but if only 2 ,000 people do that, but listen to me at 1 .5

speed, you could listen to more shows. Sometimes I�m tired of talking really fast, so if you do that, you can�t understand what I�m saying, so you have to slow it back down again.

You know what, I was going to do this pastoral thing, but I�m going to kind of just switch this up. Oh, just a heads up too on social media,

I like to post all kinds of things, and some of them are just kind of crazy. But some people want to argue on Facebook or on Twitter.

I found that Facebook people don�t have as thick skin as those on Twitter, but I don�t really interact much with Twitter, and people want to say, �What do you mean by this and this, that, and the other ?�

And you know what, I don�t really have time for that. I consider those things kind of,

I hate to say it, but one -way communication. I talk, you listen. It�s kind of like the show. And the thing is, you don�t have to listen, right?

This is free. How much money did we receive on Giving Tuesday?

Zero. So you get what you pay for, man. We have some helpers. Thank you if you�re a helper on Patreon.

And that helps out when we have a variety of different things. We don�t have huge expenses, but we have enough.

You know, it�s like $500 a year just for the, whatever the LLC, just to have the umbrella.

Et cetera. All right. You know, I was thinking about this the other day. I have this book called

A Puritan Golden Treasury. It�s a Banner of Truth, Puritan Paperback by I .D

.E. Thomas. I don�t even know what I .D .E. Thomas stands for.

He was a pastor at First Baptist Church, Maywood, California. I did not know that. I .D

.E. Thomas. And let�s see what he says here.

Privileged and dead, the Puritan authors, well, it doesn�t really tell me here.

But I received this book from Barbara Cole before she died, and lots of times

I look at my sermon illustration books and I think, I used to actually read those.

So I pretty much threw all of them away. I think I might have a couple here or there. I don�t know for what reason

I keep them. But sermon illustrations at 58 years old, do I really need those? If you read, if you observe, if you just think a little bit, you don�t have to have sermon illustration books.

And everybody else has them. I mean, in the old days, what do you do? Go to bible .org and pull up Genesis 22 and see something there about, you know, the

Lord will provide. I guess you could do it. Some are interesting. Some are fascinating. I mean,

I still love the one about the wolf, right, and the Eskimo and how does an Eskimo kill the wolf.

I don�t know if it�s a fake news or not, but dipping the blood and freezing it and putting the handle in and the wolf comes and begins to lick it and it keeps ferociously licking it.

And pretty soon it gets its tongue cut and then it�s licking its own blood and it dies, blah, blah, blah. You know, that�s interesting.

I like that. That�s perfect for NOCCO. But I did keep this book, A Puritan Golden Treasury, because it�s got different topics like pride, joy,

Christ, slander, prayer, mercy, hypocrites. Those are different topics alphabetically arranged that if you want to have a quote from a

Puritan when you�re putting together a lesson, you could look that up. Now, see, that seems to me a little bit better.

That�s almost like if you want to know what John Bunyan says in Pilgrim�s Progress about a particular point you�re talking about in prayer or in ministry or in the

Christian walk. Those ministry illustrations through Pilgrim�s Progress are effective because most of the time he�s got it right, and so I wouldn�t mind that.

So I thought what I�d do is I would read this book, The Puritan Golden Treasury, to you today on the show like I would read the

Bible if I were a crazy man. And here�s how I�d read the Bible if I were a crazy man.

I would open it up randomly, pick a verse, and say, �That�s for me.� It�s written to me.

It�s about me. That�s what I would do if I was a crazy person. But since I�m not a crazy person,

I�m not going to do that. I am going to pause this here because there�s a person here who�s going to deliver something to the front door, and the secretary�s not here.

So the random opening is found like this, �Sin hath the devil for its father, shame for its companion, and death for its wages.�

Thomas Watson. That was good. I�m having fun so far.

Okay, here we go, I�m just breezing through it again. And you know how you ever have those books, and if you fanned the books, there would be some

Mickey Mouse cartoon, and it looked like he would move or something like that. You know, if you had no time in school to study, but you just, you know, on every page of the book, you made a little

Mickey Mouse cartoon, you could make him run and shoot and dive and throw bombs and stuff like that. That�s kind of what I�m doing now, fanning.

There is none so old but thinks he may live one year longer, and though in the general he say all must die, yet in the false numbering of his own particular days, he thinks to live forever.

Isn�t that interesting? That�s exactly what we do. You know, you�re going to die someday.

Oh yeah, I know I will. But now let�s think in particular. Oh no, you don�t think so. Very, very interesting.

Nehemiah Rogers. I think he won the Heisman Trophy for Nebraska in 1971, if I remember correctly.

All right, here we�re going to keep, I mean, this is so far so good. This is radio at its finest.

I�m going to just fan it open here toward the back. It can be written on the tomb of an unrepentant sinner.

Here lies a man who in all his life never worked one hour for God. That�s a shame, isn�t it?

Can you imagine God has given you life and breath? He created you. And what a mind can do and how it can think and what you can say and feel and experience and touch and taste and listen to, wow.

And you think, okay, what do I do back to God, for God? And of course, we know that after the

Lord saves us, we don�t do anything to earn our standing before God or to keep it.

That�s all done by the work of Christ and the great workings of the triune God. But in response to, in gratitude, grace, gratitude, response to do something, if you�ve done anything ever for God, can you imagine an unrepentant sinner not one hour for God ever?

Wow. That�s amazing. Who said that? William Gurnall. William Gurnall.

So, I�m reading from this Banner of Truth Trust book, a Puritan Golden Treasury, I .D .E.

Thomas. I�m just going to fan it open. Here we go again. Many dumb beggars have been relieved at Christ�s gate by making signs.

Okay. It used to be good. William Secker. Many dumb beggars.

Okay. The topic is prayer, so I�m just asking God for things, but I�m not talking.

Many dumb beggars have been relieved at Christ�s gate, that�s G -A -T -E, by making signs.

Is that why they�re dumb? Okay. Here we go.

I�m going to open up another one. Ready? Oh, that one�s by Richard Baxter.

I can�t do that. I�m not going to read a Richard Baxter quote here on No Compromise Radio. I think I've only said I would never do that unless that was a bad quote.

I was with Josh, Pastor Josh, in Banner of Truth's headquarters.

I think that's Carlisle. Is that where it is, matter of fact? Carlisle, Pennsylvania, yes. And we went and bought a few books that were on sale at the front, kind of damaged books.

And then one of the managers from our, you know, I don't think it was an owner, but some exec from Banner of Truth came down, and we were talking to him.

I wish I remember his name, super nice guy, Banner of Truth, great publisher. And I said, you know, for 99 % of the stuff you publish,

I'm so happy, but this Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter is anything but Reformed. John Owen, I said, see that volume right over there,

Volume 5, that whole book is written against Baxter's view of justification. And I said, the reason why

I think Baxter had to go around and do all these pastoral visits all the time in Kidderminster, the city in the little town in England, is because he had to keep people doing all these extra laws that he was given for evangelical obedience to keep their justification, right?

You have Baxter, who was the chaplain for the New Model Army, Cromwell's army, and these men in the army, like many army people, yes, they believe in Jesus, but then they live like hellions.

And so what do you do? Well, the answer is the gospel. Antinomian's answer is the gospel, but Antinomian's answer is not extra law and evangelical obedience for legal standing.

Anyway, I went through that whole spiel, and the banner guy wasn't that impressed.

So here we have more banner of truth, Richard Baxter. I guess we all need patience, which brings me to the section on patience in the

I .D .E. Thomas, Puritan paperback, Puritan golden treasury from my dear friend Barbara Cole.

And this book, by the way, is yellow pages, and it's kind of falling apart a little bit. And Barbara was a smoker and ended up dying from complications regarding that, smoked for a long time.

And most times when I would get books from my grandmother and they were yellow and smoky,

I didn't like that. I mean, you know, I'd want to borrow a Louis L 'Amour book or something from grandpa, and it was yellow and smoky.

I mean, they quit smoking toward the end of their life, and normally I don't like that. Let's see. I don't know,

I fan it. Do I smell the smoke anymore after 25 years? I think she gave me this 25 years ago. I don't like yellow smoky, but in this particular case, it reminds me of Barbara Cole.

In what way do you say? Well, it reminds me of her in this way, that even though she did that to her body and smoked and got all kinds of emphysema and everything else and died essentially from it, she's getting a new body one day.

And all of her sins paid for by the Lord Jesus, and I'm sure she's worshiping him now, and one day she'll get a new body, and good thing we're not saved by keeping our bodies healthy.

Now, speaking of which, who could be calling me from Greece? That's funny.

I'm getting a phone call from Greece. I'm not answering it. They can go to phone mail. From Greece?

Who do I know in Greece? That's crazy. I'm just going to say, sorry,

I can't talk right now. I'm on the radio. Who's calling me from Greece? I don't know anybody in Greece.

That's crazy. Calling me from Greece. I talked once to Phil Johnson when

I was in Greece and he called me, but maybe Phil's in Greece now and the tables have turned. Okay, I open this up randomly and go to this page.

Covetousness is dry drunkenness, Thomas Watson.

What is it about covetousness, wanting something, desiring something, that's like dry drunkenness?

That's a good question. This is a good comment here, dry drunkenness. What are you looking for when you get drunk?

You're trying to soothe pain. You're trying to go to sleep. You're trying to not be anxious.

You're trying to not deal with the problem. I don't know why do people get drunk. They're not satisfied with life.

They want to have their pain dulled. Wanting something that's not yours is covetousness and wanting something that's not yours,

Watson says, shows up as dry drunkenness. Let's see.

Phone mail. It says

Greece though, but I think it's Canada. It said

Greece, but it's Canada. How does that work? I have to put the stop here.

That's crazy. Okay, here we're going to go another one. Here we go. If man would lead a happy life, let him but seek a sure object for his trust and he should be safe.

He shall not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. He hath laid up his confidence in God, therefore his heart is kept in an equal poise,

Thomas Manton. And the context there is if you've got joy, that's interrupted.

You have to make sure you've got an object for your trust, and that's the Lord Jesus. If your object is other things and your joy could definitely not come back.

Thomas Adams said, that which a man spits against heaven shall fall back on his own face.

Interesting. Alas, that the farthest end of all our thoughts should be the thoughts of our ends.

Thomas Adams. So far so good. George Swinnick said, reprove seriously.

Reprove is an edged tool and must not be jested with. Cold reproofs are like the noise of cannons a great way off, nothing affrighting us.

He that reproves sin merrily as one that takes a pride to show his wit and to make the company laugh will destroy the sinner instead of the sin.

Wow. I'm going to fan that a little farther here, fanning the flames. As a sacrifice, our sins relate upon him,

Isaiah 53. As a priest, he beareth them, Exodus 28. And as an advocate, he acknowledges them to be his own,

Psalm 69, John Bunyan. Isn't that good? That is excellent.

See how this works? Thomas Mattinson said, God is not wasted by bestowing.

So you give all your riches according to your riches, but he's not wasted because of those things.

All right. Let's go a little farther toward the back and see what we have. Ooh, there's a star by this one.

Should we think ourselves obliged to throw away gold or diamonds because an impure hand has touched them, or to deny

Christ because the devils confessed him? John how? And how?

That was good. All right. Let's just keep going. Philip Henry, can

I choose to undergo the greatest suffering rather than commit the least sin? Can I embrace Christ with his cross?

Can I work for God, though there were no wages? Can I swim against the stream, be good in bad times and places?

Can I pull out right eyes for Christ and cut off right hands, et cetera? This is under self -examination.

Now, is that under the topic of justification, legal standing? Or is it under the topic of sanctification?

That's for another day, my friend. All right. A minister, a merchant of invaluable jewels,

Abraham Wright. That's what we are merchants of. I don't think we buy and sell it, but we just freely give it to people.

The labors of the ministry are fitly compared to the toil of men in harvest, to the labors of a woman in travail, and to the agonies of soldiers in the extremity of a battle.

John Flavel. I mean, you're working hard in the field.

I've worked in cornfields before, bean fields before, farm fields, labors of a woman in travail.

Now, that hasn't happened to me, but I've been there close, several times when it has, but with my dear wife, and the agonies of soldiers in the extremity of a battle.

And again, I haven't been in battle, and of course, I've only read about it and watched movies.

I never went into the military. I thought about it, but it would not have worked out well when I was, you know, getting high every day, and I didn't want them to tell me what to do.

So I decided not to, but I would have liked to have that on my resume. And then when I was going to be a National Guard chaplain, 21 years ago, when

I arrived, I needed to go to South Carolina for a school, an officer training school for six weeks.

But how do you do that when you're a brand new pastor? I mean, now I would have a little more clout probably if I went someplace and asked for that, but I didn't then, so I didn't do that.

But the agonies of soldiers in the extremity of a battle, I'm just thinking about when my son and I and family, we walked through the

Ardenne Forest, and I was thinking about Easy Company, and how cold the

Ardenne Forest was at the battle there. So cold.

And just imagine, they didn't have the nice clothes. I mean, if I go on a bicycle ride, and it's 30 degrees out, or I think last week I went, it was 24.

I think I put on six, seven layers, and had these special mittens and all this stuff.

I need those claw mittens. There's a claw glove for bicycle shifting, shifting the gears, and I don't have those.

So let's put that... You know, I know some people, they'll put that on their list of things that they want from ministry.

You know, here's my list that I have. I don't have that online, so it'll be extra large.

I used to get quite a few gifts at No Compromise Radio. I don't get those gifts so much anymore, but that's fine.

We don't do it for the gifts. Brethren, it is easier to claim against a thousand sins of others than to mortify one sin in ourselves.

John Flagle. You've probably heard that one before, and it's so true. And it's easier to see in other people than see in ourselves.

That's why I'm so thankful for the gospel, because we can just be honest with ourselves. And you know, if your spouse confronts you,

I know I want to defend myself, and it's so nice not to have to defend myself. I can just fall on the sword, ask for forgiveness, and to think about the

Lord's great work on my behalf. Sins of omission are aggravated by knowledge,

Thomas Manton. It's true. It's true. Some of these quotes maybe aren't true, but some of them are very true.

You have lost a child, nay, she is not lost to you. Who was found in Christ, she is not sent away, but only sent before.

Like unto a star which, going out of sight, does not die and vanish, but shines in another hemisphere,

Samuel Rutherford. Sweet, very sweet, under the Christian view of sorrow.

And then, as we wrap up, just a little bit more. A man who had his eyes up to heaven, the best of books was in his hand, the law of truth was written upon his lips, and he stood as if he pleaded with men.

That's what an evangelist is, John Bunyan. All right, Barbara's got a little note here by this one, under affliction.

Don't try to take the easy way out. She hardly had any notes in this book, and I think that's the only note she had in this entire book.

And let's read that one, by Richard Stock. There's a fable, but it has its moral for this purpose.

A certain ass, laden with salt, fell into a river, and after he had risen, found his burden lighter, for the moisture had made it melt away.

Whereupon he would ever after lie down in the water, as he traveled with his burden, and so ease himself.

His owner perceiving this craft, after laden him with wool, the ass, purposing to ease himself, as before, laid himself down in the water, and thinking to have ease, rising up again to feel his weight, found it heavier.

Richard Stock. Don't try to take the easy way out. That's what Barbara said. How sweet. How sweet.

All right, well, my name's Mike Gabendroth, this is No Compromise Radio. I guess we could probably find another couple. Riches may leave us while we live, we may leave them when we die.

Richard Thomas Fuller. The heart of a Christian, like the moon, commonly suffers an eclipse when it is full, and that by the interposition of the earth.

Oh, do you see that? Earth, world, system, cosmos, wow.

Solitude is a release to the soul that was imprisoned in company. George Swinnick. That sounds like the

Twilight Zone with that. Burgess Meredith, and he wanted to read, and he was always bugged at people that wouldn't, you know, give him time to read, and he finally, you know, there's the end of the world, it's just him and the library, and then his glasses break.

Time, time, time, time, time. All right, well, today on No Compromise Radio, we talked about some quotes from Puritans.

And by the way, why do we read quotes? Because they're rich, refreshing. Why do we hear pastors use quotes?

Because they say things better than the pastors do, and or they say things because they want you to believe what they're saying.

That is, it's a confirmation. So I tell my students, when you're preaching, and you want to read a quote, this is why you read a quote.

It says things better than you do, or it lends credibility.

I was teaching Hebrews 6 and the different views of Hebrews 6, and the view I landed upon, verses 1 through 8, it's all non -saving stuff.

I said, this view, or if I didn't say it, it's in my notes, and I'm saying it now.

This view was held by Calvin, the view that I'm teaching today, and by John Owen. Now, if I told you that, this view was taught by John Owen and John Calvin, those two

Johns, you'd think, okay, you know what? There's credibility. He might not even be right, but he's not kind of crazy.

He might be English Reform crazy and Geneva Reform crazy, but he's not crazy.

You're not crazy, institution. My name's Mike Ebendroth, this is No Compromise Radio. Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth 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 bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.