Veggie Tales

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

Personal Updates, Seminary Teaching, and the Message Translation

My name is Mike Abendroth. It is a beautiful fall day outside here in New England, beautiful downtown Burbank. I think I've said before that two of my children on their birth certificates have birthplace, Burbank, California.

I think it was St. Joe's Medical Center. And then my other two children were born in Worcester, Massachusetts. They have been scarred, and I'm not talking about the selector in specials, I'm talking about scarred.

They were born at St. Vincent's, the old St. Vincent's, Maddie was, and Gracie in the new St. Vincent's. So I don't know, what does that mean if all my kids were born in Roman Catholic hospitals? What would that make me?

What would that make them? Boy, those were great days. I remember all four of those days so vividly. Haley was born about two weeks late, but in the Lord's providence. My mom was there to see the birth, and Kim's grandmother, who raised her, Evie, she bought tickets not knowing when the baby would arrive.

And she flew into Burbank Airport that morning, and somebody picked her up, our friend Rosie picked her up, and dropped her off at the hospital, and she got to see the birth of Haley as well. So that was really neat.

Then Luke was born several years later, and when he was born, he was blue, not doing very well, low APGAR. They showed him to Kim and I, and then rushed him off to the NICU. So off to NICU, where he had some infections in his lungs, and we didn't think he was going to make it.

And so to drive out of the hospital a couple days later with Kim, leaving Luke in the NICU was pretty traumatic. But anyway, he's healthy now, 17, driving around, doing thousands of push-ups a day. And let's see, what about Maddie?

When Maddie was born, we didn't really ask what sex she was during the ultrasound time. And so the ultrasound lady, the tech, I think she slipped up and she said something about a hemp. She used a masculine pronoun.

So we were expecting a boy. And when Maddie was born, it was a girl. So I said, ain't evolution grand? They all looked at me. And then when Gracie was born, or maybe it was Maddie, I'm not sure, but let's use Gracie because she needs a story, too, for her birth.

The labor was so fast, the doctors were all in other rooms, the nurses were all in other rooms dealing with other patients who were in the middle of childbirth. And so they said, well, there's a midwife.

And so the midwife delivered the child, which maybe was good because the last child was delivered by a doctor who was not our main doctor, not the main OB-GYN, but his name was Dr. Faracy. See how this all works?

My name is Mike Ebendroth, and you can write me at info at nocompromisedradio .com. I don't know how the whole thing's working, not being on the local radio station here. I think they, I finally figured out what they put in place.

I think it's family life. So family life has taken over the 330 slot, and we are relegated. People have emailed me and said, did you get kicked off for your beliefs or because of money? I said it was our belief in money.

And then now people are saying, well, if we would have known, we would have contributed to keep you on. Well, I don't know, that just seems not the George Mueller, S. Lewis Johnson way. So we just go forward.

If there's a ministry on the radio that you like and you want to send money to it, you probably should because it doesn't take much in the gray matter to figure out radio access cost moolah. So today I just want you to know that even though Steve is gone, Steve is going to the Strange Fire Conference.

How does that work? Well, I get to go places too. Thankful, I get to go to Poland for a pastor's conference. I get to go to Czech Republic for a No Compromise Youth Conference, and then down to Orlando in mid-November for a Friday-Saturday conference with my friends there at Cornerstone.

So I get to go places too, see? I'm going places. I'm a man who's going places. So this magic moment, okay, this is the message moment here. And I just didn't know this, see? If I would have known these things back at school, I've been to the Master's Seminary for six years, graduated by the way.

I've been to Southern Baptist, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for about five years, graduated. I've been to Ligonier Academy, Doctorate of Ministry, but I didn't graduate, I just took a D .A. Carson class for a week and a Sinclair Ferguson class for a week, Jean.

And then I teach at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, coming up in the spring I'll teach a preaching class and then preaching practicum, which is basically listening to students preach and then critiquing them.

So I just do that here at the church, can't believe I get to go do it for Southern Seminary. So in all these years of seminary, theological education, I've never learned these things until I opened up this NavPress book called The Message.

So here's what The Message says in Revelation chapter 21. I'm the beginning, I'm the conclusion, I'm a contraction. From water of life well, there's some dashes in there, I give freely to the thirsty.

Conquerors inherit all this, I'll be God to them, they'll be sons and daughters to me. Contractions. Now here's the part that is interesting to me that I never knew. You know, sometimes you have to look up a word to see what it means, well, here we go.

But for the rest, the non-conquerors, the non-sons, the non-daughters, the feckless and faithless, degenerates and murderers, sex peddlers and sorcerers, idolaters and all liars, for them, another contraction here, it's lake of fire and brimstone, second death, exclamation point.

Now, of course, I'm not making light of the gravity and the immensity and the awful judgment of God in the lake of fire, that's not my point. But at the top of the list here, there's all kinds of vice lists in Scripture, aren't there?

First Corinthians chapter 6, there's a vice list. These unrighteous people do not inherit the kingdom of God, do not be deceived. There's a vice list in Galatians 5. There are other vice lists. Here's one of them in Revelation chapter 21.

In Revelation chapter 21, it says in the NAS, still I think my favorite translation, but for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable, I think I put an extra word in there, syllable, it's kind of like the New England prima, and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

So, what I don't get is the feckless, the feckless and the faithless. I think I saw them at the Roxy on Sunset Boulevard in 1984. Feckless. Now, I have to admit that I come from a public school education.

I didn't really care much about school when I was in junior high and high school. That is to say, I cared about the grades, but I didn't care about going above and beyond vocabulary. I was too high in college to do much of anything except degenerate further into more demerits.

But I think I try to read all the time. I try to study. That's my life, not just Scriptures but other things. And so, I probably should know what feckless is, but I know what freckles are, but I don't know what feckless is.

So, I looked it up today. I typed in D-E-F, feckless. Definition, feckless. It is fascinating here how the computer works because I printed out the page in the dictionary, the free dictionary, and it says at the top, a little ad there, TableTalk by Ligonier.

Ligonier .org, TableTalk. Only reformed daily devotional magazine. Try free for three months. Side note, don't get put on their mailing list because they'll call you and hound you forever. It's like bad luggage.

You can't get rid of them. I appreciate R .C. Sproul's ministry. I just don't like people calling me all the time at insane hours begging for money. Although, I guess if I did that, I'd probably still be on WV &E now, wouldn't I?

So, feckless. Scott's feck is effect, and it comes from that Scottish word, and it means, in English, it's an adjective, lacking purpose or vitality, feeble or ineffective. Definition two, careless and irresponsible.

Feckless. Under the thesaurus section, adjective, feckless, not fit to assume responsibility. Two, feckless, generally incompetent and ineffectual. Example, feckless attempts to repair the plumbing, inept handling of the account.

Well, let's think about this. Lacking purpose or vitality. Now it all makes sense that I needed that purpose-driven life book. Because see, without purpose in your life, you're feckless, and you are, according to Eugene Peterson, you're doomed to a contraction-filled lake fire.

It's lake fire and brimstone. I guess that's the name of it. So, like Sea of Galilee. So, I'll go with NES's translation, which says, in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

No capitals. So, feckless. I don't know why he picked feckless and faithless. Faithless, of course, is true. The unbelieving, right? Faithlessness is the root of all sin. Unbelief leads to lawlessness, which leads to immorality.

You say, of course, sin is lawlessness, 1 John. Yes, but sin, there's something more primary to sin than lawlessness, even though that is true. And of course, the context drives everything there. There's a reason why he says sin is lawless.

But faith is unbelief. That's where it all starts. Go back to the garden. Do you trust God's Word or don't you? And so, unbelieving people who don't trust the Word of God don't trust God. And so, the lake of fire would be for them.

Their sins aren't forgiven. If their lack of faith is not dealt with from God's perspective, then it's the lake that would burn with fire. So, here it says careless and irresponsible. Well, I have to tell you at the top of the list, maybe he's using the special Septuagint Greek Texas Receptus version of the word translated by Peterson, feckless.

But lacking purpose, that's pretty much me. I have a lot of those days. Oh, I try to get a lot of things done, but I lack purpose or vitality, feeble or ineffective, careless and irresponsible. I mean, that's like me.

This is like reading the DSM-IV for psychotropic drugs and saying, you know, if four out of the seven fit, you can prescribe these things to patients. And every day four out of those seven fit for me, especially on the NoCo 90 days.

I don't know what's going on with NoCo 90. Maybe you like to watch them. Maybe you don't. I try to think of new ones. And, you know, the controversial ones, those could get a lot of hits. If I do another one on Beth Moore's, you know, uncle or something, that would probably get a lot of hits.

But I don't want to only just torque things. So, I'm trying to be nice. I'm trying to be nice and pastoral. I'm a pastor, after all. And I'm feckless, careless, irresponsible. Maybe people think the Beth Moore video is careless, irresponsible and feckless.

Now, if he means I'm incompetent spiritually, then, okay, I could go for that. But that's at the bottom of the list here. You really have to search far and wide to find this out. Futile. No sense of responsibility.

Okay, well, maybe that's it. Indifferent, lazy to the things of God. But see, this is the problem with the message translation. This is the exact kind of thing. I think he just picked the word because feckless and faithless sounds pretty good.

It just rolls off the tongue. I'm feckless and faithless. He opened for Billy Bragg, the feckless and faithless. So, I'm Caban Droth. Pete's Coffee. NoCompromiseRadio .com. What else is up here on my list?

Christian Vegetarianism and the Sacrificial System

I was given this by a congregant. I think I talked about this years ago. Would Jesus eat meat today? Perhaps not. Here's why. And then it has a picture of a little child on the front. And that child has its arm around a cow.

There's a lamb looking morosely. There's a lion looking. I'm like S. Lewis Johnson. He said he can't pronounce the word lion. With his Birmingham, Alabama accent, lion. There's another little lamb. There's a coyote or a wolf or a fox.

It looks pretty scary. And then there's a dove flying around in the background. Or maybe that's an angel. I think that angel's looking pretty feckless. And so, would Jesus eat meat today? This is printed with soy ink, by the way.

Remember, if you're a guy, you don't want to eat too much soy, I don't think. And I don't know if you want to go with this Christian vegetarian association stuff either. Here it says christianveg .org.

And of course, you know, I like it if I'm in the Bombay airport in Mumbai there, India. And you've got the subway. They didn't have a subway before. Now they have a subway inside the airport. I'm always worried I'm ready to fly home from India.

And then I think to myself, I haven't gotten sick yet. And if I have the wrong thing in the airport, and then I'm sick for the two eight-hour flights. So I have to be careful. So subway is a good choice.

And so you have either veg or non-veg sides of the subway deal. Because you can't put the meat together with the other stuff. So it's a wedge or non-wedge, as some of my Indian friends pronounce it.

So this is christianveg .org. I did notice that the photographs were provided courtesy of Compassion in World Farming, Farm Sanctuary, PETA, and USDA. And so, would Jesus eat meat today? Well, I think the answer, we know the answer.

W-J-E-M-T. Who comes up with this? And of course, there's all these horrible pictures of cows jammed in together. And birds' beaks that are being cut off with not just blades. Not just sharp blades, but hot blades.

Because the birds peck one another. It shows a pig licking the side of the rail there. It shows all the hens in battery cages that have one-third square foot per bird. Turkeys on a truck bound for the slaughterhouse.

Here's my question. Let's just think a little bit for a moment. What must PETA think of the sacrificial system ordained by God, given to Israel, to point to the once-for-all sacrifice that would eventually come?

Jesus Christ, the Lamb standing as if slaughtered by a butcher. What would happen then? If people don't like it that we kill animals to eat them—. I'm not for torturing animals and putting them in a cage so they have absolutely no room.

But what about the sacrifices? What about the sacrificial system? Where sometimes you sacrifice something and if you go back to Leviticus, you can remember there's all kinds of different grain offerings, peace offerings.

Well, what about the burnt offering? Offer a male without defect. He shall offer it at the doorway. Remember one of the animals of the herd of the flock and offer it at the doorway that he may be accepted before the Lord.

He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering that it may be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf. He shall slay the young bull before the Lord and Aaron's sons and priests shall offer up the blood and sprinkle the blood around on the altar that is at the doorway of the tent of meeting.

He shall then skin the burnt offering and cut it into pieces. The sons of Aaron, the priests, shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. Then Aaron's sons and the priests shall arrange the pieces, the head and the suet over the wood which is on the fire that is on the altar.

Okay, then we've got the entrails washed with water and we've got a burnt offering, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord. By the way, soothing is, I guess you could get there, but it is the aroma of rest.

You get the word Noah in there, rest. The aroma of rest. It's an offering that is accepted and then he talks about slaying sheep or goats, if it's a bird, etc. Smooth aroma to the Lord. Soothing aroma.

No, it's an aroma of rest. Well, I don't think the people here that are writing this are dumb. I think they're probably smart and they have the agenda. It does say here, what about animal sacrifices? The Bible relates that God accepted animal sacrifices.

However, several later prophets objected to sacrifice, emphasizing that God prefers righteousness. So, I guess the Mosaic Law by the prophets of God is undone. You know, I desire obedience and not sacrifice.

So, okay, let's get rid of all the sacrificial system. Animal sacrifices are not required or even desired now for at least two reasons. Okay, it's true. First, Paul encouraged self-sacrifice, writing, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship, Romans 12.

Second, traditional interpretations of Jesus' death affirm that because of Him... So, now you're super liberal, you're whacked out, you're loons theologically, but now you're going to use the biblical, traditional interpretation for your justification?

I find that disingenuous. Because of Him, animal sacrifice is no longer necessary. Christians, being new creations in Christ, may model Christ by choosing a loving relationship with all creation. Indeed, Jesus twice quoted Hosea 6 .6, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

Are meat eaters sinners? Well, this will be good. The Bible does not prohibit eating meat in all circumstances. While many people have eaten meat for nourishment, most Christians today have ready access to a wide variety of healthful plant foods.

You ever, when you were growing up, my name is Mike Ebendroth, by the way, no compromise radio, did you ever eat space food sticks? See, sometimes I have to bring these things up and make it interesting.

I'm probably losing you, so we have to talk a little bit. Where's my coffee when I need it? That was my Starbucks mug. This is Pete's. Actually, the other day I went to Starbucks, excuse me, Trader Joe's, and they have some espresso roast from five regions.

I can't remember what it's called. It was actually very good, I have to admit. It's right up there. I wasn't buying Trader Joe's coffee for a while, but now that it's promoted by PETA, I can do it. Space food sticks.

When I was a kid, born 1960, thinking about Apollo, Apollo 9, 10, 11. It was 11, I believe. 1969, does that seem about right? Neil Armstrong, Apollo 13, will they make it back? Everybody's into the space stuff.

Of course, we didn't know about NASA and their atheistic bent and their drive for evolutionary hypothesis confirmed. We had Tang, that was that orange drink. Now I have one of those little tablets for electrolytes, goo tablets for my bike.

Drop it in, fizz, plop, plop, fizz, fizz. Oh, what a relief, 130 calories of sugar is. And we had space food sticks. And what they were in my mind, and I haven't had any for probably 40 years, but I remember them as a beef jerky knockoff.

They looked like beef jerky and you could peel them. And I don't know, they're maybe cigarette size, something like that, and they look brown. They didn't look good at all. If it was today's kid, they would want it purple.

Like, did you ever have the purple ketchup? The neon green ketchup? I don't know. I think it's put a damper on some horror movies, but I don't know how it got onto that subject. Here it says, what does the Bible say?

Oh, and let me finish. Many Christian vegetarians find modern factory farming particularly objectionable because it is unnecessary and merciless. What does the Bible say about eating meat? Diet is a major theme in the Bible.

I see, I did not know that. See, I didn't know that. Of course, they're thinking about Mosaic law, certainly. We discuss passages frequently cited by those who defend meat eating. Like 1 Timothy 4, we defend those.

I mean, we have to look to people like Ellen G. White, it says, who's a person who wasn't a meat eater, as is the musician, Moby. Well, my name is Mike Avendroth, feckless, maybe, faithless, by the grace of God, no.

I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe he lived a perfect life. He was the sacrifice, unblemished. Why do I have to have an unblemished sacrifice? Because the righteousness of Christ, he was unblemished, discredited my account.

My sins, credited his account. And God says, amen, raises it from the dead.

NoCompromiseRadio .com. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Avendroth 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 WVNE, its staff or management.