Zack Eckert Interview (Part 2)

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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 apostle

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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 divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her king.

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

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My name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm talking to Zach Eckert here. And we were just laughing and I pushed the record button.

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So I usually don't laugh to start. Steve Cooley and I sometimes do that, but this time I happened to do it.

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And so today is part two, talking to Zach Eckert, gospel preacher, husband, fireman, personal trainer.

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What do you do in corporate America again? I work for a company. I handle replacement. I work for a company. I work for the man.

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That's right. So we talked to Zach last week, and Zach's in town and he is going to preach on Sunday night.

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Actually, you can probably go to Bethlehem Bible Church's website and pull up the Sunday night service and listen to it because this is taped early.

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This is actually April 2nd today. It's raining outside. And so Zach and I were talking about youth ministry last week.

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We were talking about seeker -sensitive stuff, just a variety of different things. Zach is young.

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How old are you, Zach? I'm 26 years old. 26, fired up for the gospel. He and his wife went to burn out for the

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Lord's ministry, whether that's while they're working or while they're, does Charlene work? She does a little bit.

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She nannies. Okay, so she's a nanny. No kids yet? No kids yet. Okay, so I wanted to have

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Zach out here in Massachusetts because I wanted him to speak to the youth and then he's gonna preach on Sunday night.

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And I know you've had some preaching experience before. Tell us a little bit about this kind of pseudo -emergent church that you preach at because our listeners are gonna say,

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Abendroth is off the deep end. Compromise leads to more compromise. He's got some kind of young 26 -year -old guy that he gets free

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Pete's from or something. There's gotta be a reason he has them on because he's preaching regularly at a pseudo -emergent church.

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What have you done to my reputation? Well, Mike was the one who told me to do it. No, that's my response.

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You know, when I teach the youth on sexual purity, I just say, Mike told me to say this. Give us a, for those that didn't listen last week, tell us about what you're doing at this small church in Santa Cruz and why you continue to go back.

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So this church, you know, if you were to define it, you'd say it's a seeker -friendly church.

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It's more charismatic, definitely. There's some individuals there who are definitely into spiritual gifts.

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God told me. God told me and all that. There's not the highest view of the teaching of the scriptures based off what happens every

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Sunday, you know, and that's, I got connected with this through some guys I've been discipling and they've been going there.

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So I came in and within a short amount of time, I was asked to preach. Good, well,

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I'm not making any comment about that either, the short amount of time. And so they asked you to preach. Well, how long did they say you should preach?

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I think the original was about 30 minutes. I'd say the most weeks, the message is about 15 or 20.

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So you got the double portion of the anointing of the Spirit. I got the double portion. But they probably don't think you believe in the

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Holy Spirit though. Why is that? Well, because I'm not trying to heal everyone. Okay. And so you get asked to preach.

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And so tell me the kind of slow ball, underhand, you know, underhand pitch softball that you gave them because you want to kind of win them first, get them to like you, get them to like your wife.

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You probably brought free samples of some kind of health food, drinks or something. And then maybe later when they invited you back, then you'd tell them the truth later.

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Well, you know, I really just got up and talked about myself the whole time. And, you know,

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I just wanted to build, I wanted to make some friendships first. And then about five years down the road, I wanted to then really get to teaching.

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Okay, so building bridges. That's the name of the church, building bridges. Now tell us what you really did.

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What I really did was, thankfully, I got saved through reading Matthew 7, Jesus' words about, there's many who are going to say to me,

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Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name?

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And then he says, then I'll declare to them, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness, I never knew you.

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And I got saved through reading that verse. That's what God used to convict me of my sin and my unbelief and to save me.

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And so the pastor said, hey, can you kind of, maybe you can incorporate your testimony as part of the sermon.

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And I just said, perfect. I wanted to teach on Matthew 7 anyway. So I taught on Matthew 7 about entering through the narrow gate.

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And I just gave a, went on all four points that Jesus goes through about entering through the narrow gate, about being aware of the false prophets.

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Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, is really a believer. Basically, there's many who are self -deceived. And then not everyone who hears the words of mine talks about doing, being a doer, not just a hearer of his words.

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Good, and how was that received? Surprisingly, I was kind of surprised.

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People were actually encouraged by it. Well, maybe here on No Compromise Radio, talking to Zach Eckert, maybe you did compromise because how could they really like it if?

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Well, I take, well, there's one person who in particular, there's a Buddhist lady who is visiting and she came up and talked.

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Only in Santa Cruz. And she came up and talked with me afterwards and she's, and this was her response.

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She said, well, you know, after listening to your message, it sounded like you were saying that Jesus Christ is the only way to the

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Father, that it's an exclusive gate and that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus. And I said, wow, you're listening.

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Yeah, message received. She didn't like it, but at least she got it. That's the urgency of preaching. You know, if Jesus was one of the three ways to get to heaven, then it wouldn't be so dramatic.

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It shouldn't be so urgent. And being a firefighter, I think you probably have a sense of urgency when you've got to go into a house.

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Definitely. But, you know, maybe there's three other fire teams there. We think, well, they might go in and save this little girl.

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Then we don't have to be quite as urgent. So you go there regularly now and establish a good relationship.

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Do they know you're involved in another church locally? They do. The pastor of that church, him and I meet up on Friday mornings.

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We get a cup of coffee. We talk about ministry. Some of us will look at some things in the scriptures. And, you know,

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I definitely challenge him in some areas. And we've been talking about setting up, hey, at least a statement of faith of what we believe.

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And so there's at least a standard for whoever teaches. Because sometimes other people get up and teach and it's, you know, maybe some guy's super charismatic and he wants to teach on why he believes everyone should be healed.

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And... That would never happen, Zach. It has. But you know what? I think you probably haven't been healed.

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I know your back sometimes hurts and all the weight you lift. I think you don't have enough faith. Well, it must be.

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Yeah, it must be. I guess I'm just gonna have to wait for heaven then for my true healing. See, that's right.

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So tell me, Zach, if someone said to you, yeah, but you go back once, you know, and you go back regularly and having fellowship with these people.

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And that's really, you're kind of compromising. You're doing some kind of underhanded thing to kind of get your point across.

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What do you say to those kinds of people? Well, I'd say, first of all, they probably don't know my heart.

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My heart and my wife's heart is that we go for the purpose of being a light, for being almost like a missionary.

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You'd send a missionary. Oh, I have to interrupt you right now. We have a new missionary sending agency and we're gonna be sending missionaries to emergent churches.

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Kind of like when you went to a vintage faith. Yeah, but I didn't go to speak. Actually, there was no speaking except a woman who spoke for 17 minutes and she didn't really say anything hardly about the

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Bible. And that's when I did ask Dan Kimble afterwards when he asked how I was doing,

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I said, well, I'm not doing very well. And Dan Kimble said, why? And I said, because this place is ashamed of the gospel.

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And he said, what do you mean? I said, this place is ashamed of the gospel. There is no gospel here. Well, we usually do that on other

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Sundays and stuff like that. Well, when the Lord's people get together, you should preach the gospel. And I said,

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I think it's kind of, I think you're ashamed of the gospel just by what happened today or didn't happen.

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And that's when he asked me where I was from. So it doesn't really matter where I'm from. I'm a nobody, I'm a nothing,

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I'm sinful. But I do know this, in 2 Timothy 4, verse one, Paul charges

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Timothy that I solemnly charge you in the presence of God, even Christ Jesus, this God who's going to judge people.

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He judges the living, he judges the dead. You're to preach the word. So anyway, we're gonna send missionaries now.

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Maybe, you know what? Let's start a new denomination, no compromise denomination. And we have a special missions board. We send out people to emergent churches to evangelize them.

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I like it. Okay, Zach, and keep going. I like what you're saying. So we go pretty regularly.

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Our focus, they're aware, and our primary church that we go to is in the morning.

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It's faithful to the gospel. It's solid theologically. And we go and we get fed the scriptures in the morning.

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And then Sunday night comes around, and we go and we go to some of the guys. As a result of this, there's many of these guys who are in a

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Bible study with me that I've been teaching for about six months now to them. And they're growing.

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And a lot of the women, too, are in my wife's Bible study. Well, Zach, I'm really glad you're doing that.

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And while I'm thinking about it, for those who are listening today on No Compromise Radio, I'm always talking about how men shouldn't be lazy because laziness is part of the fall.

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We should be hard workers. And Jesus was a hard worker, Paul says, in 2 Timothy chapter two. Soldiers, athletes, farmers,

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Jesus, disciples, they're all hard workers. So I know you don't have any kids yet, but you're married and you have three jobs, and you try to preach and teach and disciple and evangelize.

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Tell me how you walk through that mentally in terms of priorities, and why would you do such a thing, et cetera.

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Well, we got one life to live. And it's a point from man to die once, and then the judgment. There's, I mean, there's urgency in life.

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There's urgency in the gospel. When I read through the gospels, it's not like, hey, let's sit back and just let

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God do it all. It's go out, preach. We're commanded to, the Great Commission is go and make disciples.

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Go preach the gospel. And what would you say if someone said, you know, I've lived such a lazy spiritual life my whole life, and it's pretty much about over now.

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I'm 50, 55, and I wish I could kind of go back and reestablish things, but it's too late.

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What would you say? Well, just the heart of the gospel is it doesn't matter what you did yesterday, today, repent of that, repent of your laziness, and ask the

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Lord to strengthen you and be faithful now. Go forward. We were talking yesterday, I think we were listening to a radio show talking about Spurgeon.

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Make sure you serve the Lord well now with your body, because one day, if you're in a convalescent home and you can't serve, at least you could lay there and think,

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Lord, you were great enough to work in me that while I did have my body and it was healthy,

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I served you, and so now I can just pray for people and relax and say, you know what,

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I just tried to be faithful to the Lord's ministry, and it would be a content life then. Well, Mike, I know that if you're in a convalescent home, you'll be preaching every

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Sunday, so. You know, I'm wondering, though, if I am in a convalescent home and I kind of lose my mind,

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I wonder if it'd be some kind of radical gospel where you just go. Zach Eckert's here, guest on No Compromise Radio.

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Zach taught the youth ministry here on Thursday and preached on Sunday night. Zach, tell me more about gospel ministry and young people today.

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So many times, those who are 21 to 26, I don't know, they're either thrown under the bus by the adults because they don't think they have anything to offer, or the 21 to 26 -year -olds are so selfish, so consumed with electronic games and themselves and pornography and everything else.

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How do I look at the 21 to 26 -year -old age group and say, you know, these people can literally, through the gospel's power, turn the world upside down?

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Well, a prime example of it, there's a guy named Andrew. He's 19 years old. He grew up going to a secret church.

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He was, his family has affirmed that he was a believer his whole life. He got saved six months ago.

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Six months ago, he was listening to a sermon online and it was actually biblical and it was preach the gospel.

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He got saved, and this guy is complete, he's a new creation, as scriptures talk about.

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He's reading some great theologians. He's growing, maturing, and he's going out and sharing the gospel now.

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I mean, in six months, this guy's probably more mature than people in churches I've been in that have been saved for 30 years.

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Well, we kind of just relegate youth ministry over here to the side and we don't really expect that much, so when they don't do much, we're happy, but as the

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Harris sons do, Josh Harris's brothers do hard things, people at 15 and 16, 100, 200 years ago were captaining ships and making inventions and all that stuff.

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I'm convicted because I think I should expect more from young people who are really regenerate.

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I totally agree. I think we kind of minimize kids today. We kind of say, oh, they're not an adult yet, and in the same way, you go back a couple hundred years and 15, 16, especially 18 years old,

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I mean, you could have a family by that time and be supporting a family and leading the family.

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You could be a preacher, and I think we kind of just dumb everything down for children today and for young people, and the reality is they have the capacity to be mature, and especially as a believer, they have this

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Holy Spirit enabling them to learn the scriptures, to teach the scriptures. We need to be faithful and investing in them.

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That's right. Today we're talking to Zach Eckert. Zach does a lot of things. He has three full -time jobs and then does gospel ministry on the side.

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Zach, as a fireman, give us some kind of spiritual illustrations. We look up to people who rescue others when they are in danger, and so just use that to kind of play off on how easy it is to say there's another kind of rescuer, and of course, we should look up and admire that rescuer as well.

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Is there a link? Well, definitely. I mean, obviously, Jesus is the best rescuer. He's rescued us from the judgment to come through his perfect life, death, and resurrection, and there's definitely opportunities with other fellow firefighters.

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There's actually one of them who's gonna start coming to a Bible study with me now. I've been talking with him quite a bit, and there's opportunities to preach the gospel to him, and there's definitely, there's times where, you know, we're doing

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CPR on someone and they don't make it, and people, I mean, people take it hard, and thankfully, our chief, he's actually an elder at a church.

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He's a believer, so when we're kind of talking through that after the fact, you know, a real tough call, how do you deal with it, you know?

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How are you dealing with it? Each person's asked, and it gives me an opportunity. I'm dealing with how

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I deal with it. Life and death right there, yeah. Tell me one of the wildest stories of the calls that you have been on that you're able to tell us.

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Wildest call, a husband had beat his wife to death with a maglite, and I went in, and me and three other firefighters, we went in and did

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CPR on her. She was alive and then basically passed away. We got her back three different times on the way to the hospital, and then finally in the

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ER, she eventually passed away. What was the guy doing when you got there? He was actually holding a bandage on her head.

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He just, I don't know. Oh, and then he did it, and then he was grief -stricken afterwards. What did they do to him?

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Threw him in jail? I think it's still in the courts right now, but basically, he's probably gonna go to jail for a long time.

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Okay, and now you also do some personal training. We talked about it a little bit yesterday.

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We know in 1 Timothy chapter four that bodily exercise is not the end all.

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There's a spiritual exercise that basically lasts forever. It lasts into eternity.

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It supersedes this life, and Paul wants to make sure Timothy is concerned about the top priority, but I think it's a throwaway line,

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Zach, when we say, oh, bodily profit, bodily exercise, it just profiteth a little, using the

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King James, but it does profit. Tell me why you're concerned about health and eating right so you can have,

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I mean, why do you do it? Maybe before I answer that question, one last comment about firefighting.

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Yeah, please. After that call that night, one of the blessings of being a believer is understanding death, understanding that God has created us, and he's also determined the day, our last days as well, and being able to go through that and actually, as it says in Ecclesiastes 7 too, that it's better to be in the house of mourning than the house of feasting.

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That same day was my dad's birthday. We had a barbecue, a feast, and the scripture says, Zach, it's better for you to be in that hospital doing compressions on that woman than for you to be at that feast because this is the end of every man, and a vivid picture and a reminder, hey, this life's short.

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And Zach, it's surprising to me, on one hand, that firefighters and nurses and policemen, ambulance folks, they see death all the time.

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More often than regular folks do, yet they're immune to the gospel. They are not making the connection about,

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I'm going to die. They see people die, yet the connection is not, that will be me one day, but then once I think theologically and think about depravity and Satan blinding them, no wonder they don't make the connection between one plus one.

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Okay, let's see, where were we? Spiritual discipline. Yeah, tell me, if you met a

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Christian that was kind of groggy and sloggy and just having a hard time just with ministry, let me ask it this way.

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Hey, this is my show. I can do what I want, Zach. Is there a connection, do you think, between your working three jobs,

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I don't know if they're all full -time, that'd make you. One full -time. One time. Two part -time jobs and a full -time job doing gospel ministry.

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You're also married, no particular order there. Marriage, of course, is at the top, and staying fit and eating well.

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Is there a connection? Well, definitely. Being, you know, hitting the gym, working out, and then also just eating healthy, you know, and not in a hardcore, like I can't eat any carbs or anything crazy like that, but just eating good food, good fuel in, and it's what

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God uses to allow me to do all these things, to work three jobs, to preach, and to not, you know, to not just get sick all the time or anything like that.

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Zach and I had this conversation in Arby's just before we got here on the air. What was all that white stuff you were putting on that Arby's?

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Is that horsey sauce or what is it? It may have been my milkshake that spilled over.

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Oh, that's exactly right. You're special with all the, you got all your milkshake in my french fries, my extra large crispy rings or whatever they were.

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How about people that struggle with working out and struggle with overeating? What would you tell them?

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What would be some hints that you would give them? Well, there's definitely, the scriptures do talk about the sin of gluttony, you know, in the past.

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That was actually a sin that I really struggled with for a long time. When I first got saved, it was,

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I came out of a family where it was just kind of, you know, we'd have a big meal, we'd have a big barbecue and we'd just eat all day and I would just gourd myself.

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By the way, you can't see Zach because he's on the radio, but Zach is fit, thin, muscular.

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I guess I can say it because I'm in touch with my masculinity. He's handsome. That might've been some compromise,

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Mike. That's right. Okay, so, and by the way, thin people can be gluttons. Very true.

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Okay, so keep going. So, you know, really it's a matter of recognizing it for what the scriptures say, that it is a sin and to repent of that and to pray and ask

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God to give you the strength to forsake that sin, to turn from it. And pretty much society today, they're pushing everything they can because they want to sell products and the food industry is pushing it.

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The food industry does the exact same thing. I noticed when I was watching a period piece movie the other day,

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Zach, that it was set in England and the plates were the size of basically a hair larger than a teacup plate.

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That was their main meal plate and then now we've got these huge plates. No wonder.

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Yeah. Eating too much. And so I just wanted to get some of Zach's thoughts on that.

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Tell me about people that you like to listen to preach. If I just throw out names and you tell me what comes to your mind.

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S. Lewis Johnson. Awesome. John MacArthur. Awesome.

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Okay, let's see if I can figure out him for him to get a word besides awesome. Mark Driscoll. Listened to him a few times.

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He didn't say awesome. Who else? If I pick up your iPod, who would the preachers be on there?

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I'm not asking if I'm on there but I'm asking who else would be on there? Actually, I don't have an iPod, believe it or not.

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He's too busy to listen to iPods. And we talked about that today. People have no time to think anymore.

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Now, if you're listening to No Compromise on your iPod, we encourage you to do that. I actually think we should have some kind of No Compromise, what do they call those, like marathons?

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You just like for two weeks straight, you just listen to No Compromise all day. Kind of like when I was sick two weeks ago and I was sitting at home and I was flipping through the channels and there's

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TBN, praise -a -thon. Praise -a -thon, yeah. So it's like a No Compromise -a -thon. Let's talk about that for a second, thinking.

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Why don't people think anymore and why is that detrimental? Well, as we were talking about earlier, people are so busy.

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I mean, just everything, we're constantly being bombarded by TV, by radio, by music.

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I mean, everywhere we go, it's just we're always turning something on and we're never just thinking and it's really detrimental.

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I mean, if you're reading through the scriptures, then you finish reading the scriptures and immediately turn on the radio or turn on music, when are you gonna think about that?

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When are you really meditating on the scriptures? When are you having that time to think? Well, tell me about your standard day because I'm thinking that if you have a full -time job, two part -time jobs, gospel ministry, you're married, you like to work out.

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I'm somehow thinking that call of duty for three hours per night isn't on your agenda. Definitely not.

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What time do you get up in the morning? I wake up usually about 4 .30, 4 .45. Sometimes if I run calls all night, fire calls,

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I'll sleep into about five. And then what do you do after you get up? I get up, get a cup of coffee, I read my

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Bible and then I wake my wife up about a quarter to six, go back, finish reading my

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Bible and then, and or in that time, start doing a little more prep for Bible study.

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And then about six, we both leave. I go and I either train someone or I work out myself from six to about seven, 7 .15.

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And then I'm off to my first, my other job, which is at West Marine. It's a eight to five job.

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I leave from there and I train people basically from five to five to seven, about seven,

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I get home and then eat dinner with my wife. Some nights, some nights actually have firefighting drill that night or Bible study.

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So I just go to the coffee shop and do Bible study with them or to the fire station. But other nights,

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I come home about seven and my wife and I eat dinner. We'll, sometimes we'll do a

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Bible study then or before we go to bed, sometimes paying for both tired. We may watch a little bit

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TV for about half an hour. Oh, oh. Oh, half an hour to an hour, sometimes two hours.

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Believe it or not. Believe it. Good, well, Zach, it's been great to have you on No Compromise Radio.

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I know you kind of linked with me in gospel ministry. We're 3 ,000 miles away, but it's been good to have you this week.

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If you want to hear more about Zach, you can listen to last week's show. Otherwise, Zach, thanks for being on today.

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Thanks, Mike, for having me. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. And if you wanna have

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Zach as a guest speaker, write us. 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 six. 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.