Chickens in the Pulpit

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.

A Chicken in the Pulpit at First Congregational Church of Princeton

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. It�s good to be back here in the studio. I think, I think, I think, I think we have Steve�s microphone fixed. Thank you to Charlie for that.

And I think my microphone is fixed as well. I don�t know what goes on. It�s probably because, I don�t know, some kids come in here somehow and turn all these buttons. Buttons, as we say here in New England.

Anyway, Mike Abendroth here, No Compromise Radio. Steve isn�t in today, but I am. And before me, I have something that happened here locally in Princeton, First Congregational Church of Princeton. Oh, by the way, I thought we were going to go off the air and go to iTunes only.

But this special news bulletin just in will stay on VNE another year. How about that? So all this kind of scare tactics to drum up money. By the way, that wasn�t what that was. Actually, the other day, someone wrote in and said, �We�d like to give money to the ministry.

We just can�t find any place on the website that will help us figure out how to give. You know, there�s no donation button, what address, who are you, and so kind of that�s the way we like it. It�s hard for you to try to figure out how to give to No Compromise Radio.

A chicken was at church, and this was last week for me, but now probably a few weeks for you. Here is a piece of paper. I talked about this on Wretched Radio as well. There will be foul, F-O-W-L, foul behavior in the pulpit at First Congregational Church of Princeton.

By the way, that�s not news. That�s not news at all. There�s usually foul behavior, F-O-U-L, in the pulpit there. And actually there�s, last on September 30th, there was foul F-O-W-L and F-O-U-L behavior in the pulpit.

Now, the pulpit is a place where the man of God ascends. In the old days, you would ascend. That�s how they typically had it put together. I�m reading a book now about how architecture in churches has changed worship services.

In the old days, you had people in a meeting house, and you had the pulpit up front, and that was the center of activity. It was in the center of the room, signifying that the Word of God, Christ Jesus�s Word, is central here, and this is the main focus.

It�s great to sing to God, it�s great to pray to God, but when God speaks through His Word, that is the center, that is the apex, that is the pinnacle of worship service. And I don�t say that because I�m a pastor, that was true before I was a pastor.

And so, now you have people going into pulpits. Just call them a little platform, a desk, why don�t you call them�Puritans did call them sacred desk�call them a music stand, but don�t call it a pulpit.

I mean, if I was in the South, I�d say pulpit. Don�t call it that. You�re going to bring a chicken in. So, let�s just read what this article says. I�m not making this up. Mark Gale sent it to me. Thanks, I think, Mark.

�There will be foul behavior in the pulpit at First Congregational Church at Princeton, Massachusetts, at 10 a .m. Sunday, September 30th, when Susan Tordella and her chicken Mui will be guest preachers.

And there�s a picture of Susan Tordella and her chicken Mui right there. Now, could I make this up on No Compromise Radio? By the way, do you think this is compromise? The day I got an email saying something to the effect, �Mike, I like you, you�re a good old boy, but shouldn�t you be putting your time into something else?

Never criticize anyone else Okay. That�s why I have the show you�re writing in. Maybe somebody could do, maybe Ted could do a diagnostic analysis through his major computers. What percentages of the shows we teach positive things?

This is the doctrine of forgiveness. This is the gospel. This is the doctrine of the incarnation. This is imputation. This is justification. Here�s a good book to read. Here�s an interview with someone.

Holy Toledo. And what we do for critique. Now, the old setup for No Compromise Radio was this. Monday, it was a taped sermon, recorded sermon. Tuesday, we had Steve in, and we are usually yucking it up about something.

Then Wednesday, I tried to interview people. It�s when Crossway and all the book companies were sending me books, and then you�re a slave to read the books and then review the people. And a lot of the people I wanted to talk to on the phone don�t do interviews anymore.

So you can�t get a hold of Debra, you can�t get a hold of MacArthur, you can�t get a hold of Horton, you can�t get a hold of these people that write the books. So why read a book and then you can�t interview the guy?

So that�s Wednesdays. That was typically Wednesdays. And if I do interview someone, I try to play it on Wednesday. Then Thursday, it was trying to talk about something in a constructive way. That is to say, let�s talk about forgiveness, the difference between parental forgiveness and judicial forgiveness.

And so we went about it that way. And then Friday, it was get the rotating cannon out. And so we were just going against, you know, just trying to teach you. What does the Bible say about Seventh-day Adventism, etc.?

So but I don�t know. Maybe we�ve changed our style. I�m not sure. Here�s the article. They will be offering a powerful message. They. So I�ve heard of donkeys and asses saying things, but I don�t know if chickens can.

They will be offering a powerful message about the effects of, what do you think they�d be talking about? Now, if you had a chicken named Mui, and you were a guest preacher, here Susan is there. I guess she travels all around throughout Massachusetts.

No jokes about chicken with the head cut off here. What would you talk about? Now, here�s the great news. When a pastor stands up to preach, just think about the depth and the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God found in the scriptures.

God tells us that he�s an awesome God. I�m looking outside now and I see the fall foliage and it�s change. Actually the death is happening. So now the leaves look pretty, orange, yellow, red. People pay to come to New England to see these sights.

Mix that with the green. We see God�s wonder, his power in creation, but there�s a lot of things we don�t know about God. We don�t know his plan of salvation. We don�t know that in eternity past, the Son was sent by the Father, unless we have scripture.

So without special revelation, we wouldn�t know any of this. We wouldn�t know that Jesus was fully God and fully man. We wouldn�t know how to interpret the Son in Matthew 27, going dark from noon till three as God the Father was judging the sinless Son for the sins of all those who would ever believe.

And then at three o�clock, the light goes back on the exact time Josephus says that the Passover animal sacrifices would begin. And then the veil is torn from top to bottom, separating the holy place and the holy of holies.

That 60 -70 foot thick veil ripped total access to God now. If you�re a woman, you don�t have to get, you know, if you�re a Gentile, the court of the Gentiles, you can go further. A woman, court of the women, you can go further.

If you�re a Jew, you can go further. If you�re a Levitical priest, you can go further. It�s not once a year that the high priest has access to the holy of holies, but the mediator has done his work and we have access to God.

And then Jesus is raised from the dead. Centurion says, �Truly this is the Son of God. Now those kind of details we don�t have unless you have Scripture. Now here�s the great news if you�re a pastor.

If there�s an occasion that needs comfort, pastors can find comfort in the Bible, passages of comfort. Passages that talk about how do we mourn in a godly way, go through trials, suffer. Passages that aren�t on the behavior side or the attitude side or the mood side or emotion side but just thinking correctly.

So 1 Corinthians 15 is in my mind, I�m preaching it, how to think correctly. We have to-do lists in our lives, little yellow post-its, but there are also to-believe lists. And so believe the right thing about the resurrection, it�ll help you when it comes to sin, who you hang out with, a reminder that Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection, and the list goes on.

So what I�m trying to say is this, if you have a Bible, there�s so much you can talk about. There is a panoply, a veritable cornucopia. See how do you like that, Steve? Oh, he�s not here. You�ve got a lot to discuss.

Isn�t it good, isn�t the Lord kind and generous to give us so much Scripture? We can study our whole lives and still feel like we�ve just put our toe in the deep end. So what would you talk about? Well, you have a chicken, that�s the first thing.

If you need a prop in the pulpit, then you�re in big trouble. And this is why I want to try to encourage the people who are actually Christian people and they�re in the pulpit. And then I listen to one of their sermons and they�ll say, �Oh, can you turn the next slide, or my clicker isn�t working, can you go ahead and forward that, let me play you a little video clip, let�s go online to the God channel and find the one that everybody loves is the football pastor, evangelism pastor who�s going to knock you down, some big football player.

Or the one that they love to play is the people that get in the big fights, the churches have family members who get in, you know, there�s family turmoil at home and in the car on the way to the church, and then you get out of the church and everybody smiles.

And then churches play these during the sermon. It�s just, you know what it says, here�s what it says, �We don�t think the scriptures are authoritative, sufficient, and we�ll put our own spin on this.

We�re not going to preach the word in season and out of season. We�re not going to reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. We aren�t going to do that. We have our own view. And so you say, �Well, yeah, but it�s nice, it�s funny.

Again, I�m not against movie clips in a movie theater or in your home movie theater, but in the pulpit on a Sunday morning worship service, it is, if I go into a church and they play a video during the sermon, just before the sermon, in the middle of the sermon, or after sermon, that�s the time all my kids are going to be looking over to daddy because they know daddy�s going to be saying, �It�s time to go.

You want to show a video Sunday night of your missionary�s work, or maybe you play the William Carey movie that Media Focus put together, I am not talking about those things. I�m talking about taking time from preaching when the man of God is supposed to have the word of God and proclaim truth, and he plays a video to kind of warm up the people.

What is this? This is called liberalism. And you go right here to Massachusetts, and I just hear these pastors one after another after another. My clicker broke. Now, if the PowerPoint has got a verse up there, I still don�t like that, but that would be, okay, my PowerPoint�s not working, but we�re talking about video clips, too.

So there�s no difference between foul behavior in the pulpit by having a chicken or by doing these Braveheart videos, Gladiator videos. I watched a guy preach in California, and he put some videos. It was Chip Ingram, and he put, I can�t remember what kind of video he played in the middle of his message.

So I think Carl Truman would have a few things to say about that, but I�m back on track here. They will be offering, Mike Ebenroth here talking about Susan Tordella and her chicken Mooey. Why is a chicken called Mooey?

M-O-O-E-Y. I guess it does make sense. They're going to give a message about the effects of, now remember, we've got all kinds of scripture, teaches us all kinds of things, spiritual gifts, right, heaven, hell, repentance, repentance, confession, the Spirit of God�s work where we can cry, �Abba, Father.

How the Son prays for us, how the Spirit prays for us, how God elects and keeps the elect alive long enough to believe, and then He sanctifies them and He glorifies them. There�s all kinds of things to talk about.

God works everything together for good, He causes that, right? We can talk about God�s faithfulness in Israel, �Great is thy faithfulness. There�s so much to talk about, oh, the depths and riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God.

Oh, just open up the Bible. If I walk into a Bible teaching church and they say, �Turn your Bibles to Judges, turn your Bibles to Lamentations, turn your Bibles to the Book of Revelation, turn your Bibles to Romans I just think this is going to be a feast.

This man of God is going to open up the Scriptures and proclaim them. This is what God says, �Thus saith the Lord. I mean, I get excited. I remember, I mean, now as a pastor, it�s a hair different than what it used to be.

But when I was going to churches and not preaching, and even now if I visit, I think, �Okay, here comes the good stuff. Get the good stuff out. Here comes the preaching. May Christ be shown as great, and may I then be shown as small, yet God loves the small, insignificant sinner like me, for Christ�s sake.

Give me the Word. And then you�re going to get up and you�re going to bring a chicken. A, call it a pulpit. B, a woman gets up. C, she gets up with a chicken. D, the chicken is actually called Mui. And then E, the topic of conversation.

I mean, I guess it does make sense that they�re not talking about conversion, justification, evangelism, demons, Satan, angels, the virgin birth. I guess it does make sense. Maybe if you bring a chicken up and talk about how sacrifices are made and blood sacrifices, maybe that would have been probably pretty eye-opening if she would have killed the chicken in front of the church.

Then maybe I would have had some compassion. But you�re going to talk about the effects of bullying. Now let�s try to figure out in the Bible, how can we take a modern invention, a modern discussion, modern disease, and place it back in the Bible?

Well, let�s see. Here�s how people do it. They say, �Well, you know, bipolar, manic depressive, ADD, ADHD. Let�s take those and say, �You know what? David had those. David probably had all those. Samson had double those.

And let�s see how we take these modern-day conventions and diagnostic tools from the DSM-IV and then place them on Old Testament heroes. Let�s see. What did Noah have? What did Lot have? Well, now we�re going to take bullying, which isn�t in the DSM-IV yet, although how can we blame people for bullying if it�s a disease?

They�re going to disease this thing in no time. Everything else is a disease. When you have incest and pedophilia and everything else, sinful behavior is a disease? No, I don�t think so. Here now we�re going to have who was bullied in the Bible?

Do you have a bullying story? I�m wondering what passage she would go to. Bullying. Maybe we do need more apographer stories. This is an issue, it says in the paper, that is personal to Tordella. She is a noted educator in the region and has also written and spoken about raising children to become thoughtful, independent adults.

And you know what? She could be very good at all that. That I�m not saying anything about. How�s that? She�s probably a great educator. And you know, if you wanted to bring a chicken in and teach some kids something on a Rwanda night on Wednesday night, I guess, again, short of some sacrifice, you probably could.

She has presented at schools and churches throughout Massachusetts with positive responses to her presentations. And then, of course, the thing that I hate, pet peeve, hate is a hyperbole, of course, but I say to myself, when churches say this, then you know you�re in trouble.

All are welcome to attend. Now, what church in the universe says all are not welcome? I guess if you�d like to be nitpicky and you�d like to parse this, those under church discipline, stage four in Matthew 18, according to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord and purchaser of the church, they aren�t welcome.

Short of that, everybody�s welcome to just come and attend the one time, and then if you say, well, I�m going to keep calling myself a Christian, but I�m living with my girlfriend, then we�ll talk about that and we�ll discuss that with you.

You�ll probably decide not to attend, or maybe you�ll do the right thing by the grace of God and then move out. That�s happened before, too. All are welcome to attend. So I don�t know who�s going to be preaching at your church this week, but let�s spin this into something positively, spin this in a positive way, so then Ted�s computer program can work out properly.

If your pastor does preach the word, if he says, like Paul, �When I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom or chickens, for I decided to know nothing among you except bullying and other social problems.

No, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and trembling�fear and trembling is a way to say something in the Greek language, �I�m under orders, there�s an officer over me and he�s giving me orders.

And here, Paul knows he�s under the Lord Jesus Christ, that God-man whom he met on the Damascus Road. �And my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God and chickens.

Of course, it doesn�t say in chickens at the end. First Corinthians chapter 2, 1 through 5, proclaiming the crucified Messiah. People don�t necessarily like it. Jews, they think, �That�s offensive. I�m going to strip my foot up on that one.

And Gentiles, �Give me wisdom. Give me bullying. Give me a woman with a chicken. Give me something, but don�t talk about that sin, Savior, salvation, guilt, grace, and gratitude. We don�t want that.

We want chickens. You know, here�s probably the super sad news. I hope I�m wrong. The people probably loved it. The people loved it. And exactly what happens in 2 Timothy chapter 4 occurs, and they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

You got a congregational church there, and you say, �This is what we want. We want chickens. We want Mui the chicken. And they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths or social issues.

But as for you, Paul said to Timothy, here�s his deathbed last chapter he ever wrote that was inspired by God. As for you, always be sober-minded. Now how does that figure into chicken work? Chicken evangelism.

Chick evangelism. Chick-fil-a evangelism. Endure suffering. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. You know, Paul didn�t mess around. If you think I�m tough on the chicken ministry and Susan Tordella and the cock-a-doodle-doo business here, nothing could make me more upset to figure out if somebody was going to stand in the pulpit of the church that I�m allowed by the grace of God, privileged to pastor, over my dead body, is somebody going to stand up and talk about bullying and chickens?

Chickens that bully one another. That might be a good talk at the public school. That might be a good talk that if your kid�s rambunctious and uses physical force or words to coerce other kids on the playground that you want to try to reel him in and reign him in.

But to stand from the pulpit and talk about chickens, it makes me want to pray in precatory psalms. It makes me want to say, �God, have mercy on these people. Now, if you do have a pastor who preaches the Word, you ought to be saying to yourself, �Hallelujah.

Thank you, Lord, that I have a pastor who feels the pressure, certainly, to give the people what they want, but he wants to honor the Lord Jesus and he preaches the Word. And he is someone who does what he does for the glory of Christ Jesus.

And he wants us to like it, but knows even if we don�t, it�s for our own good and he�s going to proclaim Christ Jesus. We would see Christ. Now what do you do with this? At the end of the sermon, you say, �Well, Jesus never bullied anyone, so now you have the righteousness of Jesus imputed to your account.

So even though you�re a bullier, now God sees you as one who never bullied. Do you think she said that at the end? Is that how you think it turned, or do you think this is moralistic, therapeutic? Forget the deism.

This is chicken language. These people that get in the pulpit and don�t preach the Bible are chickens. And so today on No Compromise Radio, you want to talk about something that gets me fired up, it�s foul behavior.

We�ll say it again, elders need to guard the pulpit. They teach sound doctrine, they rebuke those who contradict. That�s what elders do. Many people say, �Well, we like the sound doctrine, but we don�t like the rebuking part.

Well, partly today, this is a radio show and it�s called No Compromise Radio, but partly it is, �Give me a man of God, called by God, who will stand up and say, �This is the Bible. Here is your sin, people.

Here is the great Savior, Jesus Christ. Look to Him. And whether you have real sin issues like immorality or anything else, here is a great Savior who can wash you clean. And if you are a Christian, you have in fact positionally been washed clean.

Live in light of what the Savior has done for you, out of gratitude for the great, great grace that God has shown for your guilt. So today on No Compromise Radio, we have foul behavior with a chicken named Mui.

And I don�t know what else to say to that, I guess it does make sense. First Congregational Church of Princeton, you can write them instead of writing me.

Ministry Sign-off and Station Disclaimer

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 are 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.