Problems Churches Face

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.

No Compromise Radio, ministry, my name is Mike Abendroth. And we put some new headphone covers on, I don�t know what they�re called, but our ears, Steve�s ears, my ears, were getting black flecks. I knew it wasn�t hair, because that would be white.

Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. We are trying to talk about Jesus because he never compromised. At the cross, God�s justice and his grace were not compromised, and in light of that, I don�t want to compromise.

No Compromise Radio started about eight years ago, Monday to Friday. We were on locally, WVNE 760 AM. We did that for about five years, and since we don�t ask for money, we don�t get money, and it cost a lot of money to be on radio, so no longer on the radio.

I think, you know, as I get some of these solicitations, �Oh, would you be on the radio show, et cetera, station I�m sometimes tempted, but then that would mean asking for money. There is a spot that you can give, if you�d like, on the No Compromise Radio website as you please.

I think there are about 12 people who signed up to give on a monthly basis. Thank you very much. All right, I have a stack here that�s getting smaller on my desk here at No Compromise Radio, which is basically here in my office, study, in the church building.

If you are in the Worcester area, central Mass area, I�d like to invite you to come to the church, Bethlehem Bible Church, West Boylston, Massachusetts, and it�s just north of Worcester. There�s a reservoir there, reservoir, and we�re north of that.

We go into the book of Hebrews, and there are people now driving a little over an hour to get here. I think over the years, we�ve turned into a commuter church, so we�re trying to figure out a few ways to increase fellowship and the one another�s in light of the travel that people have to go through.

All the sermons, Sunday School sermons, Steve sermons, Harry sermons, Harry Delgenides is one of the elders here. He writes the NoCo blog that you�ll see on Twitter and Facebook and NoCo. We�ve got a lot of people here helping us get the word out.

The Article on Five Challenges Preachers Will Face in 2018

Okay, today, I have all kinds of things in front of me. I don�t know how far I�m going to get through this stack. I guess I don�t really need those receipts. What good would those be? But I had the Christianity Today that just got in the mail.

Today, by the way, is October 6th, the real time. I know it won�t play exactly, but Fred, we are actually more up-to-date than normal. I�m trying to get ready for the trip. I�ll be down in New Zealand with my friend Donald Stevenson.

He�s a pastor there, the North Island. We have a conference October 27th, 28th, and 29th. You can email me if you�d like more about it, the Five Solas of the Reformation. I think I have a pre-conference message on sexual fidelity.

Then the Five Solas, and then I also talk about Jesus the Preacher. I think that�s after, or maybe another breakout session or something. So that�s seven messages down under. Do you say down under for New Zealand, New Zealand?

Then on the way, I stop off at the Master Seminary, and I speak at the chapel there October 24th. If you go to tms .edu forward slash probably live or something like that, you can watch. That is October 24th.

I want to say it�s about 11 a .m. Pacific Standard Time. I�m excited about that. I have never been to the chapel there as a speaker. So that is the future. Israel�s coming up soon. I don�t know how many we have.

I think I need 10 at least to go, so we�ll see how many we have. Pat�s got 23. I think I have 23 slots open. I won�t know until the money comes in. Your deposits come in, then I�ll know you are committed.

Commit that person. It reminds me of the story when I took my children to the geriatric psych ward here at a local hospital. Over the years, my children have seen all kinds of ministry-related things, some good, some bad, but all should drive them back to law gospel paradigm in terms of what God requires and then what God does in the person and son.

One of the things we had to do, my wife did, she went over to a lady�s house that was struggling with alcohol. My wife and two little kids at the time, I�m sorry about my voice here, Maddie and Gracie, they were younger.

Maddie now is 18 at the Master�s University and Gracie is 16 and she�s a junior at the local high school. I know. She�s a pagan. She�s not homeschooled. Although we did a homeschool of her last semester in Europe, that made it pretty easy.

Look there�s the Eiffel Tower. Look there�s Switzerland. Look daddy just drove through Belgium. Look how can I get this German SIM card in my phone? Can you read this for me with the Google Translate app?

My kids went with my wife and they just poured out all this lady�s alcohol down into the toilet and that was probably something they�ll never forget. What else has happened? I took them, the whole family, to the geriatric psych ward.

Somebody at our church was in there and I wanted to visit. Everyone would come up to us and say, it�s kind of sweet, I mean maybe there was some dementia. This was not like a bunch of 22-year-olds that had a variety of psychological issues.

Maybe they were older people who had psychological issues but we all had our little name tags and wristbands and you couldn�t get out unless they let you out, the geriatric psych ward. Anyway, we have opportunities to minister to all kinds of people when it comes to the gospel, Jew and Gentile, and that covers everyone and all the studies and whinings and discussions about race and everything else.

Maybe there are places that race is a real issue in the South or something like that, I would imagine that�s true. But here at the church, at Bethlehem Bible Church, there�s not an issue at all, all different kinds of people.

So much so that if you look at the population at West Boylston, you will see mainly white people. When you come to the church here, there�s all kinds of folks. My goal as a pastor, I have lots of goals, but one of the goals is that the church demographic should mirror where I�m at, where you are geographically.

If you are in Iceland and you�re mad that there�s not a lot of black people at your church, well I don�t know what to tell you. Maybe I�m just so naive and ignorant that there are black people, a lot of them in Iceland.

Whatever, you get my point, that�s what I�m after. When it comes to racial issues, people have to parse these things to such a degree to not try to get anybody mad at them. I mean, it�s just insane. Maybe some of you are female and you know how to run a football route.

I mean, where�s the world coming to? Anyway, I like the demographic, I like it that the Bible is trans-cultural, there�s one race and you are either in Adam or in Christ. That�s the way you should think.

Forever Rid, this pigment issue, white, black, Lecrae just came out and said, you know, I think he�s something or other about white evangelicalism that he�s turning his back on it. I don�t know what white evangelicalism is and I don�t know what he means by it, but if white evangelicalism is evangelicalism because there�s a white pastor, that the European reformers were white.

By the way, the European reformers who were white studied a lot of African folks that I�m sure had darker skin than they did. I�m not too certain that Athanasius and Augustine were lighter skinned, but see how far we digress with all this stuff.

It�s crazy. I want to look at you as either in Adam or in Christ. When you look at the New Testament, you will see as much as there are discussions about holy, brothers, set apart, saints, Christians, typically derogatorily stated, believers, there�s something that dominates the conversation in the New Testament that is in Christ, and so you�re either in Adam or in Christ.

That�s how I want to look at you, and that�s how, by the grace of God, I do look at you. I know what it�s like to be a racist because I used to be one, and I�m not now, so praise the Lord. Come on up to New England and we would love to have you.

Marginalization of the Church and the Importance of Gospel Hope

See this all is a lead-in to this Christianity Today supplemental magazine that I received about five challenges preachers will face in 2018, and so I thought I�d look at that. Hey, I�m a preacher. I would like to know what the challenges might be for 2018 beyond PSA blood tests and prostate biopsies.

I�d like to know. So, these are the challenges. The second one relates to what I just talked about, but let me read the first one, and this is from Jared Alcantara, assistant professor of homiletics at Ted�s Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois, adapted from Preaching Sermons, 2027 edition.

I guess you can preach sermons for the future. I want no-compromise radio, especially the Monday shows, the sermons, and I want the pulpit ministry here in particular to be transchronological. Why do people still listen to J. Vernon McGee?

It�s not as often as they used to, but he�s talking about the Bible, and I want the Bible message that comes out from the pulpit here not to be so cloaked in culture and pop culture that if you don�t live today, you don�t know what I�m talking about.

Now I might on the radio talk about old bands or something like that, but this is radio, and the bulk of the message should be on Sunday morning pulpit ministry, since it�s not a radio show, talk show.

Maybe some of you are saying, �Why don�t you just play sermons Well, I could. We do. You can get on the website to do that. We don�t have to have radio stuff for that. We�re not on any websites. A lot of people preach the Bible better than I do, but not many of those people have talk shows.

So we thought we�d have a little talk show. Number one challenge preachers will face in 2018, according to Jared Alcantara, marginalization of the church. Wow. I teach at three seminaries, I wonder what he�s talking about.

The church continues its steady move away from the center and toward the periphery of American civil life. Prepare yourself for the erosion of rights and privileges rather than the growth of them no matter who�s in office.

Okay. I think that would be a challenge in 2018 and I agree and I heartily concur, but I wish it wasn�t true. I really wish it wasn�t true. The good news, Jesus is going to build his church. The good news, every unregenerate elect person that�s supposed to believe in 2018 will.

That could be your husband, it could be your wife, your children, your parents, every person. God won�t lose one because if the father says to the son, �Go rescue N N meaning the amount of the elect, I don�t know the number, �Go rescue N and Jesus rescues N minus one, what would that say about the son�s work?

Racial and Ethnic Tensions in Light of the Gospel

What would that say about the plan of God? What would that say? Well, you know the answers to those. Second challenge, and this is why I was thinking about race, I read the John Piper article about white evangelicalism and Lecrae and everything else and just how crazy this is.

It�s just all this kind of crazy stuff and I could tell you everything I was thinking, I�d probably get in trouble, so let�s just stay back on target. Number two, ongoing racial and ethnic tension. Plan to run a marathon rather than a mile when it comes to navigating racial and ethnic tensions.

Think back to the U .S. cities impacted by violence in 2016, Baton Rouge, Milwaukee, St. Paul, Dallas, Tulsa, and Charlotte. That is not an exhaustive list. Ask how does the gospel address racial and ethnic tensions?

Okay, that�s a good question to ask. How does the gospel address it? Well, the gospel says you, unbeliever, are in Adam, and you could be from Norway or from Zimbabwe and you have a problem, you�re in Adam, and Adam�s sin was credited to your account and consequently you�re a sinner, and you are depraved, you�re unable, you�re spiritually blind, deaf, and dumb, you�re a rebel against God, and you are God�s enemy.

You�re not less of an enemy because you�re white or less of an enemy because you�re black, you�re an enemy of God. God made you white, black, and everything in between as an image bearer, someone to worship Him and to praise Him and to adore Him, and you have fallen into the trap of Nietzsche or anybody else who says, you know what, I�d never want to worship a God that always wants to be praised.

The default of the creature is to praise the Creator for all that He has done and all that He has given them the creation, the created rather, I�m not talking about creation, creation mandates. So you have a problem, how does the gospel address?

It just cuts everybody at the knee because everybody�s human, there�s one race, human race, and if you�ve got a lot of pigment or not so much pigment or if you�re an albino, it doesn�t really matter because you�re sinful and you need a Savior.

And so Jesus Christ, the gospel addresses this particular issue because there�s one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. He doesn�t even say Jew Christ Jesus, although he�s a Jew, why does Paul say the man Christ Jesus in 1 Timothy 2?

Answer, because if you�re a human, you�re a man, mankind, he�s talking about Jesus the man, but it doesn�t mean he only saves men. It�s in contradistinction to Jew Gentile, Jesus the Jew is the human representative.

He has to be a Jew for lots of reasons, but he is the human representative who lives the perfect life. He gets baptized by John the Baptist, even though it should have been the other way around as Jesus is perfectly obeying, and then he dies on the cross for sinners who are white and black and everything else who are in Adam and is raised from the dead, and he places you, you believe and you�re placed in Christ Jesus, union with Christ.

And all those who are believers are united with Christ, and no thinking Christian, there are immature Christians, I grant that, but no thinking Christian would say I�m better than someone else because of my skin color.

No thinking Christian would say, you know what, that person�s a worse sinner, for whatever reason, including skin color. I know, I feel, I get, I understand Paul saying that he is the chief of sinners, 1 Timothy chapter 1.

He understands it. I mean, it�s as if you�re standing before God alone, naked, exposed, and it is Paul on the Damascus Road and you are undone, and then when you realize God saves you, you are thankful and you want people to get saved.

I want whites to get saved. I want those who have more pigment, less pigment to get saved. This is crazy, it�s crazy talk. How does the gospel address it? Because then once you get saved, if you�re a thinking, maturing Christian, you�re going to say, you know what, I�m not going to buy in to what the world is saying to try to make these differences.

Now of course, if I have been sinful to someone in a racially prejudiced way, I need to ask for forgiveness. But if it�s my grandparents who did it, and they were very racist, then what kind of obligation do I have to apologize for them?

If I was an extra neighbor of my grandparents and I received scowls and scoldings and them being mean to me because I was black, then the grandson could say, you know what, I�m really sorry about my racist grandma.

I guess there�s that type of thing that could happen. But I�m not apologizing for me, I�m not asking forgiveness for me. There is ongoing racial and ethnic tension, and shame on the evangelicals that keep promoting it.

Where are the evangelicals? There are a few who you can tell they�re the exact opposite. When I sit and listen to John MacArthur, I hear a man who doesn�t think in these categories, these racial categories.

He just doesn�t think that way. You can hear his testimony about what happened and how he got thrown in jail because he preached at black churches. As you please, it was at the latest Q &A back in, I believe, August of 2017 at Grace Church Sunday night, if you want to pull that up.

Biblical Literacy and the Need to Teach What People Do Not Know

Where are those kind of people? Number three, decrease in biblical literacy. We�re looking at the five challenges preachers will face in 2018. My name is Mike Avendroth, this is No Compromise Radio, and all these things are in my opinion.

Decrease in biblical literacy. A LifeWay research study published in 2014 showed that 40 of the church attendees read their Bibles about once a month or rarely, never. As Andy Stanley observed in the interview with Christianity Today, oh great, �Whenever pastors assume people in their congregation know certain things, they miss opportunities to teach.

If we assume too much, we communicate too little. Andy�s right there. I hate to admit it, biting my tongue to say it, but of course broken clocks are right how many times a day. You ought not to be following Andy Stanley in terms of listening to what he says from the pulpit, but he�s right here.

If you do have 40 of church attendees that read their Bible about once a month, you are not saved by reading, you don�t keep your salvation by reading the Bible. You�re not saved by grace alone, through Christ alone, through faith alone, through you have to read the Bible.

Reading the Bible is not a condition of salvation, it�s not the ground of salvation. I understand that, but I think it�s a response. We�re not talking about we�re living 4 ,000 years ago or 2 ,000 years ago or 500 years ago where it�s hard to have Bibles around.

You might want to say, �Well, church attendees 500 years ago didn�t read their Bible every month because they didn�t have a Bible. Gotcha. Well, that�s just dumb. I understand. I know what the church history has taught and availability of Bibles, but what about Bibles today?

Let�s just talk about today. You really think if you�re a Christian, you read your Bible once a month or rarely or never, that would be a good sign, that would be a bad sign, would it be a sign that I might ask you as a pastor, do you really consider yourself a Christian because you rarely have a desire for the things of God and His Word?

Now, there are many more things to be said about it, but this is a radio show, number four. Advance of technology. This is the fourth challenge. Technological advance brings with it many benefits, new options for worship, outreach, education, and collaboration, but also potential liabilities such as exhaustion through hyper-connection, drift from embodied community, addictions like getting into pornography, and hate-filled online speech.

See, this is kind of weird, clumping all those together, that�s like the promise keepers. You got, you know, seven new promises and one�s like tinged with this whole race thing since this is kind of a race show.

The Amazing Race. Is that back on again? I always liked that. When we watch The Amazing Race as a family, we try to root for the most moralistic family. So, you know, the couples that were living together, we want them out first.

It wasn�t at Rush Limbaugh years ago. I don�t listen to him anymore, but I have to say that to you because I don�t want you to think I�m, you know, crazy. You know, Pittsburgh Steelers and the Los Angeles Rams, you know, at the time, and when Steelers beat Rams, you know, and he would always do the politically correct thing and So he always went to Steelers because they were politically incorrect.

They make a lot of steel. They put French fries on their salad. Oh, man. Technology. I�ll tell you some technology I don�t like. I�m very perturbed by this. I like to go to the gym or get on my bicycle and turn my podcasts on, and whichever the latest podcast have been downloaded, they just play one after another after another.

There�s no, there�s nothing like that in the new podcast thing for iOS 11. It�s awful. I have to go back, take my phone out of my jersey, hit the next one, back and forth, forth and back. Finally, I just said, I can�t stand it anymore.

I�m just going to go to ChristianAudio .com and get the free Whole Christ by Sinclair Ferguson. It�s seven hours of audio, and I�ll just listen to that because the bike ride is going to be less than seven hours a day, and I�m tired of switching things around, especially with podcasts at 1 .5 speeds, and I have to stop this and listen to the next show.

Reversing the Church's Reputation Without Compromising the Gospel

Oh, please. Finally, reversal of reputation. Preachers have the power to remind people that the church is not only against sin and rebellion, but also for compassion to the poor, justice for the oppressed, protection for the vulnerable, and transformation of local communities into places of shalom.

Dude lost me right there. I�m going to reverse the reputation of me and the church by going out and socially gospeling things. Hmm. I don�t think so. So that is a challenge because that�s what people expect churches to do now, and what we are going to do at the church is proclaim the truth about Jesus.

Come to Bethlehem Bible Church this Sunday if you�d like to hear about Jesus. That�s going to be kind of the New Orleans.

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 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 Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.