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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.
My name is Mike Abendroth. And these headphones are hot. They�re loud. Boy, I have to turn these down. I don�t know if Cooley�s been messing with my mixing board here. I did do a show for Wretched Radio, and that was, I had to do all kinds of things to hook my soundboard up and my audio to Atlanta, I believe where Wretched is, and then it was hooked up through where Tony and James are, I believe up in Minnesota.
I don�t know how that whole thing works. I couldn�t see anybody, of course, and they were paid money to laugh at my jokes. I don�t know how Todd does it. I mean, you have to mix humor and Bible together, and when you�re not a comedian, it�s very difficult, but I was very thankful to do it.
Today on No Compromise Radio, we have a good show lined up for you. At least I think it�s good. But before we do that, remember you can write Steve at TuesdayGuy at NoCompromiseRadio .com. Steve does Saturday shows, not quite every Saturday, but a lot of Saturdays.
You can only get those on the website or on Facebook. You just type in No Compromise Radio Facebook, and you can just play it right there, or you can go to iTunes as well, but we�re not on WVNE 760 for Steve because it costs too much money.
So, if you�d like the special, oh, and he actually goes longer than 24 and a half minutes, I think. Anyway, and then we�ve got another feature, NoCo 90. NoCo 90, if you go to the YouTube No Compromise 90 channel, as of today, real time, the first day before February 1st, I think there are three, but by the time this show airs, there�s probably going to be about nine or ten, and it�s just 90 seconds of sharp-edged thinking.
We get a lot of talkback and squawking regarding that. I don�t really write back, though, so some of our people do. Ray does, probably Josh and Jonathan, but I can�t get involved in that. How do you make decisions?
Now, we�ve done decision-making before, but I just want to stress something today, and that is you can use the Bible to say pretty much whatever you�d like if you�re twisted enough. That is to say, the Bible, of course, is God�s Word, God the Father, the Son, the Spirit, one God subsisting in three persons.
We believe that God is triune. He always has been triune, and that He speaks in His Word, and since He speaks in His Word, He speaks with clarity. He speaks with authority. He speaks in community with authenticity.
No, He gives us His Word, and so there�s a consistency found in the Word, and when you try to study the messengers of God, the apostles and prophets and Moses and others, and you try to understand what their authorial intent is, that really is the key.
The key to all hermeneutics is authorial intent. The key to expository preaching is exposing people to the author�s intent, and of course here with the Bible we have human authors, 40-ish or so, and we have one divine author who moves these men along like the wind bears a sail along, see 2 Peter chapter 1, and we have a consistent Word.
Well, what happens when people want to turn the Bible upside down and just try to find things, they can find things because it�s such a large book. If you�ve got so much printed, so many different backgrounds, people can get the Bible to say a lot.
For instance, the people can say, �Well, there�s no dating in the Bible, so therefore there should be no dating. Well, what they forget is there are a variety of different ways to find a wife in the Scriptures, but the Scriptures don�t prescribe a certain way.
So, for instance, you can be like Samson and say to your parents, �Get me a wife. Well, that�s a biblical, in one sense, way to get a wife. It�s in the Bible. Now, of course, it�s not biblical in the sense that it honors the Lord and it honors your parents, but there are bad examples of things there, and so I think we have to be very careful.
There�s another way to get a wife. I guess you work seven years for one, you get the wrong one, you work for another seven years. And so, just because something�s in the Bible, it doesn�t mean it�s the right way to do it or the righteous way to do it or the good or godly way to do it.
The Bible contains the record and events of sinful people. Adam ate. Okay, well, that doesn�t mean we�re supposed to succumb to temptation. And so, the Bible records sin and the Bible records righteousness, and you have to be careful on which one�s which.
So today, as I look in the Bible on how to make decisions, there are a lot of wrong ways to make decisions, although they�re biblical ways to make decisions. And just to say it again, I don�t mean you�re supposed to make them this way, but if biblical means they�re found in the Bible, then it�s biblical.
If biblical means godly and righteous and submissive to the counsel of God, of course it doesn�t mean that. Now, I just want you to know the lengths that people will go to try to find out what�s God�s will for my life.
And for the evangelical, if you�re listening today, don�t make trying to discern the will of God an idol where you have to know, I�ve got to know this, and I�m paralyzed with fear. I am catatonic. I am mesmerized.
I am discombobulated. I cannot make this decision. I need to know ahead of time. And what this strikes of, it strikes of a person who doesn�t know the Lord. He doesn�t know or she doesn�t know the extent of God�s sovereign reign, the power that God has, the all-encompassing, sovereign hand that God uses to control the world.
What does Proverbs 3 say? You�ve all memorized those verses, and I don�t know if this is New King James, King James, New American Standard, 95, New American 78, ESV 2001, 2007, 2011, I don�t know which ones these are, but they�re just in my mind.
Trust the Lord with all your heart. So you trust Yahweh with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. All your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. And I don�t think scurrying around like little mice trying to find the will of God and discern the will of God is really trusting in the Lord.
Now, if you�d like to make a decision which one best honors the Lord, of course, I�ve done shows on that, and there is a right way to do it. How will this decision honor the Lord? But scurrying around trying to find the will of the Lord for my wife, my wife, that was easy.
She was to marry me. What�s God�s will for your wife? I don�t know. I�m still trying to figure that out, scurrying around like a little mouse. Excuse me, that�ll make you have a catatonic reaction as well.
Pagan idea is to try to discern God�s will for your life. Now, discerning God�s will, well, some of those are easy. I think MacArthur�s book, Found God�s Will, was really an excellent book because it�s God�s will for you.
Whatever the New Testament prescribes for a church person, if you want to make it a little bit smaller than that, it�s God�s will for you to show thanks, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Let�s see, what are some other ones?
It�s God�s will for you to be submissive, 1 Peter chapter 2. It�s God�s will for you to rejoice, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. It�s God�s will for you to, what are some other ones that express God�s will?
Ephesians chapter 5, I think, be filled with the Spirit. So you can find places, oh, this is God�s will for you, abstain from sexual immorality, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. So I�m not saying you can�t ask the question, God, there�s a girl that I�m dating, I�m a single man, and I think I�d like to ask her to marry me.
What should I do? I mean, you can ask God for wisdom, you can ask other people, you can read your Bible, but back to this petrifyingly wrongheaded idea that I�ve got to know God�s will for my life before I can proceed, I really think, and I think Phil Johnson backs me up on this, right Phil?
Where are you? I�m sure Phil listens. Phil probably listens to No Compromise Radio right after he listens to Wretched, right before he listens to Pirate Radio and The White Horseman and Crisis Center.
I hope some Baptistic tendencies rub off on some of those Crisis Center guys. No, Camden, Jeff, Cassidy, who else, Nick, see, I think I know all their names, maybe not their first names or last names, but I just throw it together.
No, great show. I do listen. If people ask me, what do you have on your iTunes, what podcast do you download? I download Sinclair Ferguson. I download White Horse Inn and I download Crisis Center. And for a special one-time love gift, I�ll tell you the next one.
I did get some Pete�s Coffee in the mail. I won�t tell you who it is, Dave and Barb, but I got some in the mail and so I was very thankful for that. So I don�t want you to become petrified when it comes to making a Bible decision.
What�s God�s will for my life? I mean, you are responsible for today. Tomorrow�s got enough trouble of its own. And so I want you to rest in the Lord, relax in the Lord. I want you to trust in the Lord.
What�s the opposite of trust? If we�re going to play antonym game, I mean, you could play homonym game and antonym name game and reindeer games. The opposite of trust is worry, to be anxious. And so we are to trust.
It reminds me of the new Hebrides missionary, John Payton. He was trying to find a word for trust or to believe for translating the New Testament in the cannibalese language, whatever that was. And so the guy sat down on a chair and it was a long day of work and he kind of just threw his whole body weight into the chair and you can just imagine a big sigh of relief.
You�ve worked all day. Your legs are tired. You sit down. And then he said something. Our Payton said, �What do you call that And it was throwing the weight that you have on a chair and you�re trusting that that chair holds you up.
And that was the word that Payton used to translate the word trust or to believe. And so we can trust the Lord. And I just can�t tell you the lengths that people go to try to discern God�s will for your life that are completely loony.
And I�ll tell you why they�re loony. They forget the fall. They are Quaker, inner light, loony tune. We forget Adam�s fall and consequently our sin nature and our own sins that we do. And we don�t believe that our hearts are bad.
We don�t believe that intuition is fallible, that impressions are fallible. We don�t believe that God speaks in His Word now with finality and clarity, sola scriptura. We forget the sufficiency of God�s Word and then we want God to talk to us and God to tell us.
I mean, who wants this stuffy old Bible and you�ve got to read it and turn the page. Why can�t you just be, I guess, someone like Beth Moore and God just intimates to her certain things. He tells her certain things.
He talks to her. Now see if I was sitting there watching Beth Moore talk to people, of course I wouldn�t like her narcissus of the tent of meeting and I wouldn�t like her blatant disregard of 1 Timothy chapter 2.
I wouldn�t like her mystical things. But here�s what I would be saying, I�d be saying to myself, I don�t have those experiences. I�d like to be like her. If I was a woman and I listened to Beth Moore and I was attracted to that kind of style and that masculine preaching.
Not quite as masculine as Joyce Meyer, the most masculine Bible teacher on TBN. But you know, the thing is, I�d be saying I want that. I want something more. There�s something more to this. I mean, invisible God, you don�t see him though you rejoice, 1 Peter chapter 1.
That�s all fine and dandy but there�s an element of a Thomas doubting. I�d like to walk with him and talk with him along life�s narrow way. Aren�t we supposed to have a relationship? I talk to you, you talk to me.
And so the Bible seems kind of stuffy to these kind of folks. And so I would be sitting there as a woman listening to Beth Moore thinking that doesn�t happen to me. And then I would want it to happen to me where God would specially whisper to me and ask me to go on a special Starbucks date at the cold zoo for the day.
And so I�d want that. And then I would yearn for it. And then I would begin to look inside, hoping that the feelings I had, hoping the impressions I experienced, and hoping that my tuition was actually God.
And I would make the mistake that God speaks from the inside, mysticism, Quaker, forgetting depravity, forgetting the fall, forgetting Jeremiah 17. We�re to trust the Lord, we�re to trust his Word. He speaks outside of us.
And we have a source, and that source is the Bible. Does God speak and proclaim things through the heavens and the natural revelation? Obviously. I have Psalm 19 and my Bible, too. Don�t you like it when people say that?
Well, my Bible says. I don�t know. Maybe your name is Eugene Peterson. I guess he could actually say that now, couldn�t he, except, oh, sorry, it�s not the Bible. Who else could say it�s my Bible? The Dakes.
I didn�t say T .D. Jakes, although he has as many mistakes as Dakes. The stakes are high for the mistakes in the Dakes study Bible, and T .D. Jakes didn�t write it. So you could put that to a little rap.
You know, some of the guys at the church, some younger guys who are coming, they take some of my sermons and make some sermon jams. So you type in my game and draw the sermon jams. The only thing that they haven�t done, and I don�t know why these guys haven�t done this yet, is they haven�t taken out the mistakes.
So you know, MacArthur, he preaches a sermon, and then they get the transcript ready and get everything else. And he either doesn�t make mistakes, I know that�s probably the thing, but if he does make them, they�re all taken out.
So here we are, No Compromise Radio. Mike Abendroth here, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. That�s what we�re looking for. I just signed a deal with Zondervan, taking the notes and personal transcripts of Samuel Lewis Johnson, S. Lewis Johnson, and we�re going to put together his notes for a Romans commentary.
And that will be released in 2014, Romans Commentary, Zondervan. And I am excited about that because I love S. Lewis Johnson, I want the book of Romans in people�s hands, and this will be good commentary from probably my all-time favorite Bible teacher.
I have a love and affinity for MacArthur as well, so I guess they�re tied. So back to decision-making. You don�t need to wig out or freak out when it comes to decision-making. You don�t have to go to the inside.
You don�t have to say to yourself, well, you know, Disneyland theology. Now in the Bible I did notice that people really want to know God�s will so much because they don�t really know God. They don�t trust God.
You need to read, by the way, Jerry Bridge�s �Trusting God� book. That is an awesome book. You need to read �Sovereignty of God� by Pink. That�s an awesome book. You need to read �Attributes of God� by Pink, an awesome book.
If you haven�t read those books, you shouldn�t. After you read those, you read my book �Sovereignty of� I can�t remember the name. I didn�t like the name. That second book, I didn�t like the name. I wanted it to be called �King� because all cool authors just have one word for their books these days.
Think about it, �radical, slave, crazy love. Wasn�t that the backup band for Neil Young? So I wanted the cover to be all black and then in the middle it had the words lowercase letters �King� and then the other black faded letters all down the front of the book cover.
It would say things like �Savior, Redeemer, Advocate, Lord you know, whatever, but in the center �King� because Jesus is a King. �Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, Bowing to the Gracious Despot.
That would be a good book to read after these other ones. And then you realize that I can really trust in the Lord and when I know the Lord and can trust in Him and throw my weight on Him in faith, I don�t have to lean on my own understanding.
Listen to some of these people in the Scriptures. Here's my point, I know we're 18 minutes in. The point is, look how pagans run around and try to do funky monkey things, but I'm saying evangelicals do the same thing, so don't act like a person who doesn't know God.
If God has known you and then now in response you have known Him, throw your weight on Him. Ezekiel 21, 21, �Rabdomancy. What would happen here, Nebuchadnezzar used arrows as a sign from God. How do I make a decision?
Well, what's worse, intuition, impressions, thinking God actually talks to you? �For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination, he shakes the arrows.
So where am I going to go? Am I going to marry Jim or I'm going to marry Jack, the woman asked? And so you're standing there at a bifurcated road and you shake the arrows and you put them in the quiver.
One comes out and you go that way. You could write the names on arrows, you could write Jack on one arrowhead, you could write, what's the other guy's name that I just said, Joe, put personal names on there.
It's also called �Bellomancy. It's basically casting of lots. So don't act that way. Trust in the Lord. Nebuchadnezzar did another thing in Ezekiel 21. He consults the household idols. And so you can imagine if you watch the Gladiator show and there are those little idols that he has, ancestor worship, forefather worship, trying to get guidance from them, ancestral inheritance worship.
He does that. And then he does another thing. I guess this is where we get really the word �liver shiver. Ezekiel 21, 21, same verse. He looks at the liver. Now that's interesting. I wasn't really a big liver person.
You can put enough onions on liver and I still don't like it. I still don't like walking into my super poor grandmother's house when I was probably 12, smelling what was coming out of the kitchen. And it wasn't very good.
Last night I went outside, I think to take the dog out or something. And I came back inside and my wife was making a specially meaty spaghetti sauce, baking homemade bread. And she was also baking some garlic cloves in the oven to get them all soft so you could spread them on that bread.
And I walked into the smells of that house. I couldn't believe it. Man, that was good. I remember walking into grandma's house thinking, what is that smell? I don't care if you cook kidney from a cow 500 times, it still reeks.
I mean, that is bad. Now here's the study of the liver. Did you know that in the New Testament and Old Testament, both in the Bible and in the pagan lands, your stomach, your splachna, your bowels, weren't just the seat of your heart, but there was intelligence connotated with that and with all your splachna.
And so, especially for the pagans, there was some intellect found in not the brain, but the liver. And it was a heavier organ, maybe the heaviest organ. Is that true? I know it's very vascular. And so people would study the liver.
So if the liver has some mental thing, it's a heavy organ, study the liver and you can figure out what's going on. Ash-Urbanapal, the great king of Assyria, Bruce Waltke said, had a lifelong obsession of this and he slaughtered many sheep in times of trouble.
The liver, splachna, the seat of life, hey, let's check that out. Let's study intestines. They also did that. Nebuchadnezzar didn't do that here. And so here's my point on No Compromise Radio today. If God has made himself known to you through saving faith by the spirits working in your life and heart, he's regenerated you, he's justified you, he's now sanctifying you, he is the one that you need to think about more than what's God's will for my life.
I mean, I could go crazy sitting here too. What's God's will for my life? Well, I was going to say, do I have to stay here in New England the rest of my life? And I mean, this isn't my home. And so, you know, do I stay here?
Do I move back to California? Where do I go? I don't think about that detail to make myself paralyzed with, well, what do I do? I have a job to do, I have ministry to do, I have responsibilities, and I'd like to discharge those before the Lord, and I'm just going to have to trust him.
I'm going to trust him with my kids and my career and my retirement and everything else. Now, do I use responsible means of saving and planning and thinking and all that? Well, of course. But my point again today is, I think, I really do think this, and I want to say this nicely so you get the point and don't say, well, I don't want to listen to him because he just seems mean.
I really think that modern-day use for the Christian of intuition, impressions, God speaking, God, you know, talking to people, is absolutely no different than looking at livers, looking at kidneys, doing the bellomancy, and doing the shaking of the arrows, and looking at little household gods.
It's pagan. It's idolatry. You have an external source. Call the Bible. Use it. You have a God who, of course, his Spirit dwells in you, but he's transcendent as well, and you can just look to him, and you can trust him for everything.
You can throw your weight upon God without scurrying around, running around. What am I going to do? What about the future? What about this? What about that? The antonym to trust is worry. So don't worry.
My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Impressions are impressions, intuition is tuition, and livers are livers.
No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.
Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.
The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.