Sermons Long and Short

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.

Sermon Length and the Joy of Hearing the Word

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Steve, do you feel bad that we just had to kill that wasp.

Live on the air? I'm really shedding no tears. I mean, listen, wasps aren't as bad as like cockroaches, but I've never thought at the death of an insect that we should have a funeral or anything like that.

Steve, I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and we in our home didn't have any roaches. I didn't really know anything about roaches. I mean, I knew what they were. I don't think I'd ever seen one. I moved to University of Nebraska, Lincoln, got a dorm room, they had roaches running around.

You'd have feel one climb over your face type of thing. It was awful. And then I moved to Los Angeles, and 870 AM, KIEV, George Putnam was on, and his sponsor was Roach Proof. So I always remember Roach Proof and George Putnam.

I like George Putnam. I think he was like a Democrat,.

But he talked like a Republican. First time I ever had to live with roaches, I mean, really, it was all due to the army. You know, when I had, what do they call it? Substandard housing when I was at Fort Meade, Maryland, which basically meant these were old pre-World War II apartment buildings that were just filled with roaches.

And so that was pretty bad. And then I got to Okinawa, where to keep the roach size down, because the roaches were enormous outside of the barracks. To keep the roaches down, they would spray like once a week, and they kept the air conditioning cranked.

I mean, it was like 64 degrees inside the barracks because keeping it cool like that had a debilitating effect on the cockroaches. I don't know why that was exactly, but I thought it was wonderful, you know, because it was always 85 degrees and 85 humidity outside.

And so to get in like 24, seven, 11 months out of the year, I mean, it was warm. So to come inside was nice. How about rats? Were there rat problems?

In Okinawa? No. No. I thought maybe like in a port city or something. No.

No, in fact, I don't remember seeing, I mean, there must've been lots of vermin, I'm sure there were, because we had amazing number of snakes, venomous snakes over there.

Did they tell you what to do if you got bit by one?

Well, they used to joke about it. I mean, we had the, they'd say, oh, that's a habu. You know, that was the name of the snake over there, and the poisonous snake. And then they'd go, oh, that's a two-step habu.

Two-step. You get bit, two steps later, you're dead. Yeah, which was not true. Steve, you and I were talking about sermon length the other day, and even today. And when you first get saved, do you think it's fair to say I'm only looking through my own eyes, my own experience?

But when I first got saved, and then I would sit and listen to Raul Ruiz, my first pastor, or John MacArthur, my second pastor, preach for 40 minutes, 50 minutes, 60 minutes. I was so tickled because I now love the word of God as God changed me and gave me a desire and an appetite for his word.

And then to hear a man of God stand in a pulpit and talk from the Bible about Jesus for an hour, and nobody left, and nobody really complained much. That was fascinating to me. Were you fascinated when you got saved.

And you'd hear somebody preach for an hour? Well, I never really, this is gonna sound dopey, but I never really thought about the time. And, you know, unless somebody was up there and they were really boring, you know, then I'd be looking at my watch sometimes.

But yeah, with MacArthur, I never even thought about it. And sometimes I remember I'd look at my watch and see that he'd gone over time, and I'm like, huh, you know, who knew? You know, I didn't even notice.

Steve, when I preach and when you preach, people say after the service lots of things, and sometimes they're just trying to be nice. Sometimes they're nice, yeah. Sometimes they're faking it. And we have joked many times on No Compromise Radio, funny things that people say to pastors, you know, at the door, and maybe we can share a few of those.

But maybe one of my favorite ones is when people say, is that when they're newer Christians, and then they say, the time went by so fast, Pastor. I just wish you would have kept going. And what they're saying is they're so absorbed with the Word of God and the Spirit of God's illuminating their minds, their understanding this truth, time just went by quickly.

And I love that because that makes me think I was in the text, and I was trying to be enthusiastically with authorial intent, emphasis, teaching the Bible. I like it when people say, that went fast today.

Yeah, no matter if you go three, four hours.

When you see people sleeping, Steve, when you're preaching, what do you, do you do anything to try to rouse them? I usually throw something. Okay. That's worked. I was wondering what that little signal was with your index finger, kind of wagging it over to the usher.

Yeah, I just waved to him. Wait, what did you call those deacons? Not you, but what did they call those deacons back in the days of the Puritans and churches in New England in the 1600s? Shock troops.

Something like that, seriously. They were called, you know, rappers or something like that. Like they would wrap people on the head with that long stick that extended, and they would like whack them on the head.

To like wake them up. Like a nun in a Catholic school? You know, just whack you?

You know, it was years ago, our beloved Lewis and Dallas Brown were here at the church and served in many different ways. And to this day, even though they left, we still love them. I just talked to Lewis last week.

He called me, yeah. Oh, good. Well, Dallas said to me, his wife, Dallas said, you know what, Mike, my eyes, I've got this eye problem going on. And she served as secretary, taught the women's Bible study, led the women's ministry, very neat lady.

And so I took her at her word when she said, when I close my eyes during your sermon, it's because my eyes hurt, but I'm still listening. But I'll tell you what, when I would get up and preach, because if I see sleeping people, I might raise my voice or slam the pulpit down or something, you know, not slam it down, but slam my hand down on the pulpit.

That would wake people up. Slam the pulpit down? Sometimes, well, I won't say you, but some people have been known to say, if you're having trouble staying awake right now, listen to this. And that's because I see people.

There used to be a guy at our church who would sit like in the second row and then just lay his head down, you know, on the pew chair in front of him and just try to sleep. I'm thinking, I wanted to use Wolverine language to him, bub, you know, adaminium claws around the gizroid and say, bub.

That's what I wanted to do. Well, it's kind of sketchy when some people walk into the, you know, church service with a pillow. And they've got their little night night with them. Yeah, night night.

Anyway, we, I think both you and me, we have decided as we have preached longer and longer in terms of tenure and years, that the sermons don't necessarily have to be longer to be godlier. Right. In other words, you first begin to preach and you, at least I'll speak for myself, it was a badge of honor for me to say 20 years ago, I preached 55 minutes.

That was a 62 minute sermon.

I never really tried. And well, because I'm dopey, I'll tell you, like when I decided to do the life of Samson, basically Judges 13 and 16 in seminary, you know, you only have 30 minutes. And so then it's like, how do I cram all that into 30 minutes?

And so, you know, so different approach.

Well, I, you know, I'm prone to pride. So I would say, oh yeah, I preach 55 minutes, kind of like I'm now MacArthur or whatever. But certainly 20 years ago, I think I'm a better preacher now than I was then.

And I think to myself, how can I carry people along for 55 minutes? They're getting bored. They're thinking, when's the plane gonna land? What's going on? And so I think it's better for younger preachers and those who teach Bible studies.

If you've got a favorite preacher, Sinclair Ferguson, S .O .S. Johnson, John MacArthur, Martin Lloyd-Jones, and you say they preach 55 minutes, I will too. That's the standard. Steve, how would you counsel those people?

I'd just say, you're making a mistake. You know, what I usually hear younger guys do is they feel this obligation to pack every single cool thing they learned during their study into the sermon. And so, you know, which is a major mistake because some things, that's what we call a data dump.

Some things Meep, meep, meep, meep, meep. Some things don't preach, you know, and you need to, as you get a little wiser, you learn to edit those things out of your sermon. But I also say, you know what?

Here, I have a newsflash for you. Who's your favorite preacher? John MacArthur.

Okay, look in the mirror. Repeat after me. I am not John MacArthur. Well, the mistakes regarding following someone who's trained you in ministry are compounded, especially when you say to yourself, well, what would John MacArthur do in this situation?

Well, I'll do the same thing. Yes, but John MacArthur has been pastoring the same church for over 40 years, and I don't think what you want to do now, year two into your ministry, John MacArthur did in 1971, the second year in his ministry there.

Probably not. Yeah, and while I want you to find someone who lives a godly life by the Spirit's power and imitate them, I think that's a biblical principle, you don't want to imitate them now in your life when they have been doing this now for 10 years, 20 years, the elder board is mature, the church is mature.

Well, it'd be a big mistake, and I mean, it's no less mistake than saying to yourself, you know what, if Spurgeon did it, I could do it. If Martin Lloyd-Jones could do it, I could do it. I mean, you're just thinking too highly of yourself, if I may say, you know.

Spurgeon didn't go to seminary, and Lloyd-Jones didn't go. I don't need to go either. And we would both say it's not mandatory to go to seminary, and especially if the church is training up young men and men to preach, that Spirit of God equips men, He saves men, He does all that, and then He uses elders to help train.

But if you're gonna be a preacher full-time, pretty much, you know, you're not in that one percentile that doesn't need seminary. Well, I certainly didn't need it. Didn't need it. So back to preaching.

How to Evaluate a Church by Its Preaching

Let's say you're listening today and you're looking for a new church. Here's what I do when I look for a church, when I'm, when I look for a new church.

Which is pretty much every Monday, right? That's right.

And then we slink in on Tuesday, here we are again. Well, I look for new churches regularly, not only when I travel on vacation, but you listeners write me and say, I'm looking for a new church, or I might have to leave a church, what should I do?

And what I always do is I say, please send me the link of your current church and send me the link of the church you're thinking about going to, and that kind of helps me size you up. Oh, that's pretty good.

And then I go You're getting pretty smart in your old age. Then I go there and I go to the home church, the current church of the person, and I immediately go to staff. Why do I go to staff? To see how many ladies are on the staff.

That's right. To see where they went to school. We need, how many necessary allies do we have? And I want to see where they've been to school, what seminary they've been to. And then very next click though, is I go to media, sermons, that type of thing.

That's what I'm after, to see Steve's face. You know, Steve is an excellent gamer and he's a world champion diplomacy player, but sometimes his face, I don't know if he'd be a good poker player, the worst.

The worst. It's funny, there's a lady at our church who does impressions. And we had a few couples over to our house the other day and this particular couple was over. And so we were, she was doing impressions of people, me and you.

Oh, really? It was hilarious. And what it was in, in love. Any, any who, then I go to media and here's what I'm looking for, Steve. Tell me if you think the same way. I'm looking for not every sermon has to be this, but just generally a sequential exposition, verse by verse teaching through a book of the Bible.

Yeah, I look for that.

Because it tells you about the philosophy of the church.

And if you see someone that's teaching through Luke, let's say Luke one, then Luke two, Luke three, then there's, you know, Psalm 51, maybe just special, you know, series message. Yeah. Mother's Day, Psalm 51.

That was funny. You know, there's of course exceptions and there's, you know, like we had ordination services last week. So we were out of the book of Hebrews. I understand that. Well, what does it tell you about their view of the word of God?

If they're going to teach the Bible in such a manner, is it indicative or illustrative of their philosophy of the Bible? If so, what?

Well, if they're going verse by verse, then they have a high view of it. And they want to make sure that they're not skipping around and just picking the things, you know, cherry picking the things that they want to preach, but they're going to preach the full counsel of God.

They're not going to leave anything out.

Totally. I don't know if you listeners realize that when there's a ministry that teaches through the Bible verse by verse, and we're talking, especially the pulpit ministry, you can learn a lot about what that pastor and that church elder board believes.

Okay. What if it's a verse that seems, you know, a little more obscure or it doesn't feel relevant to my life and applicable? Well, that pastor's preaching it anyway. And you ask yourself why? Because he thinks it's sufficient.

He thinks it's needed. He thinks every word is inspired and it's good for you and profitable. And he wants to withhold nothing that the spirit of God's put in the Bible. He's under the Bible. Doesn't it teach you that he wants to submit to what the Bible says versus, I think I'll pick this verse and that verse?

Well, plus, yeah, there's nothing easier. You have a term probably that you took from somebody else, but it doesn't matter. You know, the jugular texts, there are texts, there are a good number of them in the Bible that are easier to preach than other texts.

So if you want a life of ease, you just kind of pick the easy texts to preach and you just go from, you know, book to book or you skip around or whatever, and you just pick the good ones, you know, the highlights of every book or every chapter or whatever.

And it's a lot easier to do that than to go to some of the less obvious, you know, outlines, especially stay away from the narratives, you know, they're killers.

Steve, you just gave me a wonderful idea. Sometimes I come up with my own ideas, but usually I like take them from you. It's a pretty good idea you have, and then I make them into an excellent idea. Okay.

Well, when you go to California this fall for a conference or when I speak on the conference circuit, I don't say to myself, you know what, I'm gonna take the most obscure passage. I'm gonna take something that is in my mind, and I mean this with reverence, but just for the sake of our argument, a less than jugular text.

I don't say I'll preach that when I go to Branson. I'll preach that when I go to Germany. No, what do I do? I think, you know, I've been preaching books of the Bible and messages, and for whatever reason, I really like that message.

Of course, it's about the Lord and his word, and my wife might have said, you know, honey, if you ever travel, that might be a good one to use type of thing, and people would recognize that as, you know what, that's really a seminal text, a salient text, a highlight text.

Well, why don't we do the opposite now to show that all the Bible is sufficient and all wonderful and all inspired. Our next conference we should do is on obscure passages that you don't think are very good, but really are.

Well, that'd be a great idea. I was just thinking about one of those kind of texts when we were in seminary and Professor Montoya preached Colossians 4, I think it is, the end of it there, and he says Archipus.

Yeah, you know, take heed to your ministry or tell Archipus to fulfill his ministry or whatever it is, and I remember just as he was reading the text, just going, this is a dud, he can't do anything with this.

He said, dud. And then just leaving it and going, I think I learned something today, you know?

Well, and I think what he did is he took some stuff from 2 Timothy as well, fulfill your ministry, 2 Timothy 4, 5, and he was charging the men to have that said of you, by the grace of God, I fulfilled my ministry, you know, take heed to the ministry and fulfill it.

That was, I still remember that message, Archipus.

But I mean, it just kind of shows that, you know, you don't have to have a jugular text to have a jugular sermon.

Now, speaking of conferences and maybe these less than jugular texts that then you find out, wow, that really was good anyway, right? We could probably say it this way, the verses in the Bible that you didn't underline, are they still just as inspired?

Are they still just as good? Yes, but they didn't speak to me. Oh, Dr. Bott, thank you for coming. What are you going to talk about when you go to the conference in California? I forgot the name of the church, but what are you going to talk about?

Church at the cross, isn't it? I think that is it. That's where you first saw the light? Northern California. Burden of your heart rolled away? Rolled away. Well, it's going to be, you know, I think we're going to be talking about political issues, but from a biblical perspective, you know, how should we view voting?

What kind of things, you know, should a Christian take into account, in other words? And so I, you know, I think some of the things, I mean, I have a list of things that I've thought about talking. I'm sure I'm going to have to narrow it down, but, you know, what about, for example, big issue, medical marijuana, you know, and things of that nature.

Well, God created everything for good. We just read that in 1 Timothy 4, last show.

That's right. Did he create marijuana so that you could, you know, wrap it in paper and dry out the leaves, wrap it in paper, light it on fire and inhale it? I don't know. I don't see that anywhere in scripture.

But, you know, the other things, what kind of leaders should we be looking for? You know, all these sorts of, you know, issues that we ought to think about, not just who do I like better, but what would please the Lord as I go into the voting booth, so.

All right, well, that sounds good.

And by the way, I'm, and I'm not joking, I'm proud of you that you are able to go. And, you know, what we do here at No Compromise Radio, this part is a joke. If the conferences are large enough and they ask us to go, then I go.

And then if they're not that large, then I send Steve.

That's how that works. And if they're even smaller than that, we just send some of the staff.

Steve, do you know there are actually ministries, people that I respect to some degree, that they do that. You know, they get speaking engagements and I guess eventually you have to say no to certain things.

And so you think, well, if it's really large enough venue, then I'll go. But if not, you know, I don't want to waste my time. I have to use my time wisely. Is there any, is there any sense to that? Top dog, lesser dog, puppy.

You know, that's. Although one time I heard a guy, I won't tell you who it is. This, this person's more obscure to the No Compromise listeners. He got up and gave a message. I heard it in California and he said, well, you know, I travel around the world.

And by the way, his ministry name is his name. Hmm. Right, it'd be like mikeavendroth .com kind of thing. Mike Avendroth Ministries. Stevecooley .com. And I, I speak at all these places across the world and he does.

And, but just occasionally I like to book a smaller venue just to keep myself grounded, you know, with churches of 35 people.

Blessed are thou today because I have chosen you.

Now, Steve, you especially know some of my faults, but I never, this isn't one of them. I don't see if someone asked me to come speak, how many people are at your church? How many you running? You know what a better question is because I'd like to try to help the person and help the pastor and help the church.

How many elders do you have? Hmm. Right, because now that tells me, oh, we don't have elders, we have deacons, or, you know, we don't, we have, you know, the bishop or, or whatever. But if they say we've got four or five elders, then I say, well, you know, let's figure out a time we could all have lunch together or something.

I think that's a better question. It's a very good question. Okay, so back on No Compromise Radio, Steve, we're looking at a website, we're checking out churches, we're trying to find if it's good or not.

We found out where the staff has been trained. The church, in fact, does preach generally through the Bible verse by verse. And then now I look at how long they preach. Why would I do that?

Do you do that? I do, I do that because I, well, for a number of reasons. One is, if I see, you know, a regular time of 20 minutes, then I'm gonna know they're not very serious, you know? I mean, if it was like 45, 45, 45, 20, 45, 45, well, then I'd go, okay, either they had some kind of technical problem.

Communion service, maybe. So at the Lord's table,.

They're gonna talk a little bit more about the death of Christ. So it's like a little mini message. That used to happen with MacArthur on Sunday nights, right?

Yeah. Or the pastor could have had a heart attack, bomb threat, who knows? You know, I mean Wasps. Yeah. I mean, I'm not gonna, but if their regular pattern is 20, 25 minutes, I'm not gonna recommend that church.

That's just not enough. And of course, there might be more information that we don't know about. It's a new pastor who's there. He wants to preach 40, 45 minutes. He's just taking them a step in the 27-minute direction, 29-minute direction, 30-minute direction.

I'd always tell churches when I go visit, if they say to me, we only preach 30 minutes here. I mean, my default, I could say it in the middle of the night. My default is, okay, because I'm under their authority, right?

And I, but I appeal to them and say, if I keep the congregation's attention, do you think I could go a little bit longer?

And so far, everyone has told me yes. By a little bit longer, I mean twice as long. I know, I know.

So Steve, when you look at a website and you see, okay, somebody's preaching through a book of the Bible and it's Sunday morning and it's an hour and two-minute sermon and people regularly preach over an hour and their name's not John MacArthur,.

What do you think? I think that guy must either really be great or I bet he's chasing people away. That's my other thought, you know, because you're gonna wear people out unless you're really fantastic.

You're just gonna wear them out if you're going that long.

I don't know if it's true empirically, but it seems to me that guys that do the hour and two-minute haranguing type things, they're usually the ones big on imperatives, big on exhortations. Of course, those are in the Bible and they don't talk about the Lord as much.

They're just usually whacking people. Just to beat down. I know. And you know, honestly, some of the best sermons I've ever heard in my life were the ones that the Spirit of God through the Word via the preacher pummeled me and made me feel super small.

So I would run to the cross. Well, I talked about the student chapel one day where I'm telling you, you could have heard a pin drop after the guy was done and they didn't open the doors. We just went out underneath the door.

You know, it was that kind of.

The Best and Worst Kinds of Long Sermons

Well, I'm glad that you listened today. Mike and Steve here on No Compromise Radio. We pretty much have the philosophy here that Spurgeon had. You can probably say what you need to say within 45 minutes.

Most likely. Most likely, that's right. Info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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 WV &E, its staff or management.