Chickens in the Pulpit

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Chickens in the Pulpit

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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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
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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.�
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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.
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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
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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.
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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. It�s good to be back here in the studio. I think,
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I think, I think, I think we have Steve�s microphone fixed. Thank you to Charlie for that.
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And I think my microphone is fixed as well. I don�t know what goes on. It�s probably because,
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I don�t know, some kids come in here somehow and turn all these buttons. Buttons, as we say here in New England.
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Anyway, Mike Abendroth here, No Compromise Radio. Steve isn�t in today, but I am. And before me,
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I have something that happened here locally in Princeton, First Congregational Church of Princeton.
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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, we�ll stay on VNE another year.
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How about that? So all this kind of scare tactics to drum up money.
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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.
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We just can�t find any place on the website that will help us figure out how to give.�
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You know, there�s no donation button, what address, who are you? And so, kind of that�s the way we like it.
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It�s hard for you to try to figure out how to give to No Compromise Radio. A chicken was at church, now this was last week for me, but now probably a few weeks for you.
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Here is a piece of paper, I talked about this on Wretched Radio as well. There will be foul,
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F -O -W -L, foul behavior in the pulpit at First Congregational Church of Princeton.
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By the way, that�s not news. That�s not news at all.
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There�s usually foul behavior, F -O -U -L, in the pulpit there.
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And actually there�s, last on September 30th, there was foul F -O -W -L and F -O -U -L behavior in the pulpit.
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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.
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I�m reading a book now about how architecture in churches has changed worship services.
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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
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Word of God, Christ Jesus�s Word, is central here, and this is the main focus.
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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.
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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.
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Just call them a little platform, a desk, why don�t you call them,
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Puritans did call them sacred desks, call them a music stand, but don�t call it a pulpit.
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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.
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So, let�s just read what this article says, I�m not making this up. Mark Gale sent it to me, �Thanks,
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I think, Mark, there will be foul behavior in the pulpit at First Congregational Church at Princeton, Massachusetts, at 10 a .m.
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Sunday, September 30th, when Susan Tordella and her chicken, Mui, will be guest preachers.�
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And there�s a picture of Susan Tordella and her chicken, Mui, right there.
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Now, could I make this up on No Compromise Radio? By the way, do you think this is compromise? The day
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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?
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Never criticize anyone else.� Okay, that�s why
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I have the show and you�re writing it. Maybe somebody could do, maybe
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Ted could do a diagnostic analysis through his major computers.
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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
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Incarnation, this is imputation, this is justification. Here�s a good book to read, here�s an interview with someone, holy
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Toledo. And what we do for critique. Now, the old setup for No Compromise Radio was this.
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Monday, it was a taped sermon, recorded sermon. Tuesday, we had
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Steve in, and we are usually yucking it up about something. Then Wednesday, I tried to interview people.
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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.
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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.
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So why read a book and then you can�t interview the guy? So that�s Wednesdays. That was typically
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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.
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That is to say, let�s talk about forgiveness, the difference between parental forgiveness and judicial forgiveness.
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And so we went about it that way. And then Friday, it was get the rotating cannon out.
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And so we were just going against, you know, just trying to teach you. What does the Bible say about Seventh -day
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Adventism, etc.? So but I don�t know. Maybe we�ve changed our style. I�m not sure.
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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.
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They will be offering a powerful message about the effects of, what do you think they�d be talking about?
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Now, if you had a chicken named Mui, and you were a guest preacher, here Susan is there.
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I guess she travels all around throughout Massachusetts. No jokes about chicken with the head cut off here.
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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.
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God tells us that he�s an awesome God. I�m looking outside now and I see the fall foliage and it�s change.
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Actually, the death is happening, so now the leaves look pretty orange, yellow, red.
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People pay to come to New England to see these sights. Mix that with the green. We see
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God�s wonder, his power in creation, but there�s a lot of things we don�t know about God.
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We don�t know his plan of salvation. We don�t know that in eternity past, the Son was sent by the
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Father, unless we have scripture. So without special revelation, we wouldn�t know any of this. We wouldn�t know that Jesus was fully
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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
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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
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Josephus says that the Passover animal sacrifices would begin.
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And then the veil is torn from top to bottom, separating the holy place and the holy of holies.
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That 60, 70 foot thick veil ripped total access to God now.
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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.
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A woman, court of the women, you can go further. If you�re a Jew, you can go further. If you�re a
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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 first fruits of the resurrection, and the list goes on.
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So what I�m trying to say is this. If you have a Bible, there�s so much you can talk about.
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There is a panoply, a veritable cornucopia. See how do you like that,
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Steve? Oh, he�s not here. You�ve got a lot to discuss. Isn�t it good, isn�t the
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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.
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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.
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And this is why I want to try to encourage the people who are actually Christian people, and they�re in the pulpit.
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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
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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.
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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, 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.
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And then churches play these during the sermon. 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.
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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.
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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.�
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Again, I�m not against movie clips in a movie theater or in your home movie theater, but in the pulpit on a
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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
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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
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William Carey movie that Media Focus put together. I am not talking about those things.
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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.
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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.
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My clicker broke. Now, if the PowerPoint has got a verse up there,
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I still don�t like that, but that would be okay. My PowerPoint�s not working, but we�re talking about video clips too.
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So there�s no difference between foul behavior in the pulpit by having a chicken or by doing these
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Braveheart videos, Gladiator videos. I watched a guy preach in California, and he put some videos.
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It was Chip Ingram, and he put, I can�t remember what kind of video he played in the middle of his message.
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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,
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Mike Ebendroth here talking about Susan Tordella and her chicken Mooey. Why is a chicken called
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Mooey? M -O -O -E -Y. I guess it does make sense.
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They're going to give a message about the effects of, and remember, we've got all kinds of scripture, teaches us all kinds of things, spiritual gifts, right, heaven, hell, repentance, repentance, confession, the
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Spirit of God�s work where we can cry, �Abba, Father ,� how the
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Son prays for us, how the Spirit prays for us, how God elects and keeps the elect alive long enough to believe, and then
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He sanctifies them and He glorifies them. There�s all kinds of things to talk about.
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God works everything together for good. He causes that, right? We can talk about God�s faithfulness in Israel, �Great is thy faithfulness.�
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There�s so much to talk about, oh, the depths and riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God.
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Oh, just open up the Bible. If I walk into a Bible -teaching church and they say, �Turn your
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Bibles to Judges, turn your Bibles to Lamentations, turn your Bibles to the
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Book of Revelation, turn your Bibles to Romans ,� I just think this is going to be a feast.
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This man of God is going to open up the Scriptures and proclaim them. This is what
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God says, �Thus saith the Lord.� I mean, I get excited. I remember,
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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,
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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
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I then be shown as small, yet God loves the small, insignificant sinner like me, for Christ�s sake.
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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.
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B, a woman gets up. C, she gets up with a chicken. D, the chicken is actually called
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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,
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Satan, angels, the virgin birth. I guess it does make sense.
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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.
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Then maybe I would have had some compassion. But you�re going to talk about the effects of bullying.
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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
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Bible. Well, let�s see. Here�s how people do it. They say, well, you know, bipolar, manic depressive,
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ADD, ADHD. Let�s take those and say, you know what, David had those. David probably had all those.
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Samson had double those. And let�s see how we take these modern -day conventions and diagnostic tools from the
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DSM -IV and then place them on Old Testament heroes. Let�s see, what did Noah have? What did Lot have?
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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?
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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?
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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?
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I�m wondering what passage she would go to. Bullying. Maybe we do need more apographer stories.
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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.
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And you know what? She could be very good at all that. That I�m not saying anything about.
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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
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Rwanda night on Wednesday night, I guess, again, short of some sacrifice, you probably could.
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She has presented at schools and churches throughout Massachusetts with positive responses to her presentations.
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And then, of course, the thing that I hate, pet peeve, hate is a hyperbole, of course, but just I say to myself, when churches say this, then you know you�re in trouble.
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All are welcome to attend. Now, what church in the universe says all are not welcome?
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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
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Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord and purchaser of the church, they aren�t welcome.
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Short of that, everybody�s welcome to just come and attend the one time, and then if you say, well,
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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.
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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.
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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
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Ted�s computer program can work out properly. If your pastor does preach the word, if he says, like Paul, �When
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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.
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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
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Greek language, �I�m under orders, there�s an officer over me and he�s giving me orders.�
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And here, Paul knows he�s under the Lord Jesus Christ, that God -man whom he met on the
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Damascus Road. �And my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the
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Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God and chickens.�
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Of course, it doesn�t say �and chickens� at the end. 1 Corinthians 2, 1 -5, proclaiming the crucified
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Messiah. People don�t necessarily like it. Jews, they think, �That�s offensive,
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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,
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Savior, salvation, guilt, grace, and gratitude.� We don�t want that.
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We want chickens. You know, here�s probably the super sad news. I hope I�m wrong. The people probably loved it.
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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.
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You got a congregational church there, and you say, �This is what we want. We want chickens. We want
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Mooy the chicken.� And they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths or social issues.
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But as for you, Paul said to Timothy, here�s his deathbed last chapter he ever wrote that was inspired by God.
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As for you, always be sober -minded. Now how does that figure into chicken work? Chicken evangelism.
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Chick evangelism. Chick -fil -a evangelism. Endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
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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?
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Chickens that bully one another. That might be a good talk at the public school.
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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.
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But to stand from the pulpit and talk about chickens, it makes me want to pray imprecatory psalms.
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It makes me want to say, God, have mercy on these people. Now if you do have a pastor who preaches the
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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
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Lord Jesus and he preaches the Word. And he is someone who does what he does for the glory of Christ Jesus.
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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
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Christ Jesus. We would seek Christ. Now what do you do with this? At the end of the sermon you say, �Well,
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Jesus never bullied anyone, so now you have the righteousness of Jesus imputed to your account.
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So even though you�re a bullier, now God sees you as one who never bullied.�
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Do you think she said that at the end? Is that how you think it turned, or do you think this is moralistic, therapeutic?
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Forget the deism. This is chicken language. These people that get in the pulpit and don�t preach the
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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.
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We�ll say it again, elders need to guard the pulpit. They teach sound doctrine, they rebuke those who contradict.
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That�s what elders do. Many people say, �Well, we like the sound doctrine, but we don�t like the rebuking part.�
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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
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Bible. Here is your sin, people. Here is the great Savior, Jesus Christ.
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Look to Him.� And whether you have real sin issues like immorality or anything else, here is a great
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Savior who can wash you clean. And if you are a Christian, you have in fact positionally been washed clean.
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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.
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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,
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I guess it does make sense. First Congregational Church of Princeton, you can write them instead of writing me. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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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.
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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.
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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.
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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.