Don Green Interview

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 ministry.

My name is Mike Abendroth, and our slogan here is always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

I try to teach you the Bible in a way that might goad you sometimes, might encourage you sometimes, and of course it goes without saying, but then

I need to say it, that I do compromise even though I hate it when I do, but our goal is not to compromise.

And probably the best thing we can do on the show is regularly show you from scripture that Jesus Christ never compromised.

He's the one that we want to talk about and highlight to think that he says in the gospel of John, I always do what's pleasing to the

Father. Only the Son of God could say that. Well, today is Wednesday, and on Wednesday, I like to have guests who are pastors, authors, theologians, and sometimes they're all three, and I think that's the case today.

Sometimes even radio hosts. We have a familiar voice on No Compromise Radio today as a guest,

Pastor Don Green. Welcome back to the show. Thanks, Mike, I'm glad to be back with you on No Compromise Radio, thanks for having me.

Don, what I like about you, well, there's lots of things, but I just like it that I can call you up, we do the show, and you don't need to know questions ahead of time.

You just roll, and maybe it's the grace to you background or hanging out with Phil Johnson for such a long time, but I like your style.

Well, I didn't know that I had a style, but whatever it is, I'm glad you like it. I'm always happy to be with you.

Yeah, that might be one of the classic lines on No Compromise Radio. See, if you don't know you have a style, that is a style.

It's the new post -modern, unstyled style. Don, tell me a little bit about your new radio show.

It's called The Truth Pulpit. Let us know how we can tune in, even if we are not in the area where it's being played, and what has the

Lord done through the show? Well, it's a brand new show, Mike. We just started a couple of weeks ago, as you and I are recording this.

We started in mid -November, and we're broadcasting on a very good, solid teaching

Christian radio station, WFCJ, that broadcasts out of the Dayton area, which also covers

Cincinnati, Ohio. And you can go to their website, wfcj .com,

or our website, thetruthpulpit .com, and find links to the broadcast.

We air at 9 o 'clock Eastern, 9 p .m. Eastern. And so you can listen to us live, or at our website.

There's an archive of past broadcasts. So lots of ways to get us, even if you're not in the area.

Well, I'm looking at truthcommunitychurch .org here, and we've got The Truth Pulpit. It's got links for the

Facebook page. It's got the Truth Community live stream for Sundays, 9 a .m.,

for the worship service. And then you've got some free radio offers as well, study guides.

Tell our listeners about those. Yeah, they're just, you know, they're modest study guides that are, that correspond to the messages that are being broadcast with those series.

So we had one called Essential Truth, which we just completed, that covers some basic doctrines about the

Christian faith and its evangelistic orientation. And our current broadcast is one called

Escaping the Anxiety Trap, which is based on Jesus's teaching in the Sermon on the

Mount in Matthew chapter six. That was a series that changed my life, really, being able to work through the implications of the providence of God.

And so that series is currently airing, and that study guide corresponds to five messages out of Matthew six, and also a message out of John and a message out of Proverbs about the way the

Lord directs our steps. It's a very encouraging series. Don, I don't want to admit that I worry and that I have anxiety, although regularly

I have to suppress that, and I know I do, and I need to repent of it. And Turn, I liked your quote in the study guide because I think the study guides are wonderful.

Our listeners, if they will pull those up, will be blessed. Anxiety is a controlling distress over circumstances that distracts your mind from trusting the

Lord for whatever is to come in your life. And that was a quote from your message.

Tell us the relationship between anxiety and trusting in the Lord in terms of antithetical antonyms kind of thing when we're not trusting the

Lord, prone to anxiety, and then when we are feeling anxious, what does that say about our trust in the

Lord? Well, there's two things that I would say about it, Mike, and I do love this topic.

It's something that I've taught on many times. The first thing that I say is a starting point is to recognize that Jesus commands us, do not be anxious.

And he says that three times in Matthew 6, 25 to 34. He commands it three times using two different Greek verb forms, one that says, stop being anxious, and then another form that he also uses that says, don't start.

And so it has the idea of stop being anxious and don't start again. And he grounds that command in teaching about the providence of God.

And in very simple terms says, look, you're a child of God. Your heavenly father is the one who feeds the birds of the air and clothes the grass of the field.

If he does those simple things for things that are here today and gone tomorrow, if he does it for the lesser realm of creation and cares for them in that way, how much more should you think that he's going to be a

God of covenant love and covenant faithfulness to you, to care for you and all of your needs?

And when you recognize that and you recognize that God is sovereign over everything that happens, that he's holy so that he always has righteous intentions in what is taking place, and that he's loving enough to care for you to such a point that Jesus Christ went to the cross and shed his precious blood in order to secure your soul.

Well, if God is like that and he is as a father to you as a child adopted into his family, then you should rest in that and be confident that he's going to care for you.

And we don't need to know how the future turns out as long as we know who it is that's in charge of the future.

And the God who holds our future as Christians, God who holds the future of the universe and the world in his hand is the same

God that sent Christ to die for our sins. And so we can know that we're in good hands no matter what happens.

And that deals a death blow to anxiety. Talking to Don Green, pastor at Truth Community Church.

Don, when I see the passage in the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus says, look at the birds of the air.

When I was younger, I thought when I would see a group of bird watchers, maybe by the lake or something, this was relegated to, you know, this is what old people do, they're bird watchers.

And I think to myself now, you know, I should be a bird watcher. It is good advice to, when you're worried, go take a walk and then you begin to look at the birds and you think through those issues from the lesser and the greater and vice versa.

We need to be bird watchers. I think that's a lost art and probably is commensurate with our worry going up.

We just don't get outside and take a good walk and pray and watch those birds. Yeah, that's right.

And you know, to add to what you just said, Mike, that one of the things that encourages me is that Jesus' examples of looking at flowers, looking at birds, it's so simple that a child could do it and a child could understand it.

So that this isn't, you know, the cure to anxiety isn't some complex metaphysical theory that only super educated people could have.

But this is available to the most simple and humble of us. And it's also humbling in the sense that, you know, if we just go and observe simple things of nature, we find the answers to the anxieties of our soul.

And we just see the simplicity and the sovereignty of God side by side in a way that answers all of the longings and concerns of our heart.

Well, I would encourage our listeners to go to your website and pull up that study guide. I think it would be excellent even for a family sitting around the dinner table to work through.

I like the style of it. You've got some Bible verses and then questions, explain your answer. So I think our listeners could benefit.

Don, speaking of the sovereignty of God and the providence of God, tell us a little bit about how you've seen

God's hand even in your own life regarding the radio show and the ministry he's given you in light of grace to you and now your new radio show.

Well, yeah, it's really wonderful to look back on it.

As we were talking before the show began, Mike, and we just see the ability of God to accomplish his purposes despite our own stupidity and lack of cooperation.

About three years ago, someone in the radio industry approached me, that, Don, I'd like to help you get your material on the radio.

I think it would do well. And I said, absolutely not. I'm not interested in that. And please don't bother me about it.

He came back. See, that's why you're a No Compromise regular host. Don't bother me about it.

So you fit perfectly in our New England No Compromise studio. There you go. He came back to me a time or two later and was just persistent about it.

I kept telling him no. And then over time, it started to weigh on my mind that maybe

I'm just being unfaithful and untrusting here with a false sense of modesty about it.

If there's opportunity in radio, why wouldn't I do that? And as the

Lord started to shift my thinking and mature me maybe a little bit on that, some people approached me who said,

Don, if you were on radio, we would underwrite. We would support that. And so all of a sudden, there's opportunity.

I had some contacts from my days at Grace to You who knew how to make radio happen, who had the capacity to produce a broadcast.

And they were willing to help. And so at this point, it was no longer a matter about me, whether I should be on radio or not.

It's simply that there was an undeniable opportunity here that I had a stewardship over.

And whether I think it's good or not is not relevant. There's an opportunity. I have a stewardship to God's Word to move forward, to let it happen.

And then whatever God does with it is fine. So I don't have any expectations about what will happen with it.

I just wanna be faithful to the opportunity, be a good steward so that when I stand before the

Lord face -to -face, the only thing that matters to me in all of this, Mike, and I know it's the same for you,

I just wanna stand before the Lord when I'm before Him and hear Him say, well done, thou good and faithful servant.

And whether that's good and faithful with a little or a lot, it doesn't matter. I just want those words of approval as I enter into heaven.

Don, some of our charismatic friends want to focus on sign gifts and maybe the spectacular.

Tell our listeners a little bit about the amazing providence of God. I think, for me,

I'm thrilled when I see God's providential hand. As I look backward in time, not forward, but look back, and then

I see God's masterpiece as He has put together all these things. And He could even use it with mistakes and stupidity, sin, everything else.

He can work everything together for good. Don't you think some of our charismatic friends miss out on the providence of God because they're looking for something more spectacular?

Oh, absolutely, and it would shock them to hear you and I say this, that they are looking for a very cheap plastic substitute for the spiritual reality.

What's truly great and amazing about God is not that He could snap His fingers and make smoke appear from a pulpit, but rather what's truly amazing is that God is in perfect control of every detail, of everything that ever happens anywhere in the universe, and that men fulfill the purposes of God even when they're not trying to do so.

Sinners crucified Christ according to their own wicked desires, and yet the

Apostle Peter could say that Christ was crucified according to the predetermined plan of God. And the fact that God is able to work through every detail and knows the numbers of hairs on our head, and when a sparrow falls to the ground, that is truly awe -inspiring.

That is truly remarkable. You know, Hollywood can do special effects and make things look pretty spectacular, but it doesn't mean anything compared to the awesome power of God to direct everything to accomplish

His will in the end. That's amazing, that provokes worship from a believing heart.

Pastor Don Green, we're talking with him today. You can go to his website, truthcommunitychurch .org,

and Don, tell me what you're preaching through these days on Sunday mornings and Sunday nights. Well, on Sunday mornings,

I'm in the Book of Ephesians, and we're getting ready to talk about being filled with Spirit this coming

Sunday is what I'm preparing for right now from Ephesians 5 .18.

And then on Tuesday nights, I'm preaching out of the Book of Ruth, and I know that it wasn't too long ago that you yourself were preaching from the

Book of Ruth, and that's why the Doctrine of Providence is especially fresh in my mind today is because we've been studying the providential hand of God in that book.

And it's just a wonderful doctrine that has fed my soul for many years. Just reflecting on Ruth and thinking about what

God sovereignly does even through a Moabite, you know, the recurring Ruth the

Moabitess, Ruth the Moabitess, and then to think how Moab started in that cave with Lot and the daughters.

It is just amazing to think that the Lord would have anything to do with such a line, but in fact, he does, and we're thankful for that.

Don, you've written a post for our friend Aaron at Do Not Be Surprised, and it was called

On Choosing a Church Home. And I was really encouraged as I read that. So many people choose churches for the wrong reasons.

Give us an overview, and then we'll dive into some of the details. If someone's looking for a church home, let's first start with what they shouldn't look for, what not to look for in a church home, the wrong way to choose a church.

Right. You know, it's funny to me that that post even saw the light of day because it was kind of a, in one sense, it was a little bit of a lighthearted post with a serious intent behind it.

And it was born out of times in the past when I've gone to random church websites and read the biographies that men choose to use to introduce themselves to the public.

And, you know, and just the foolish and silly things that they emphasize to try to make themselves look like a regular approachable guy that you could have fun with.

So they talk about their favorite baseball team or their favorite cup of coffee. And, you know, and so the post was designed to kind of mock guys like that that focus on those kinds of superficialities.

At the same time, in pointing that out to Erin's readers and her audience, just to help them see that what you want to look for in a church home and what you want to look for in a pastor is you want to see some kind of evidence that he takes his role seriously, that in one manner or another,

God has prepared him to speak and to teach the word of God to a group of believing people.

Does he have some kind of educational background that would qualify him to handle

God's word? Does he have something in his family background or in his experience that would lend itself to say, here's a man who has some kind of established maturity in Christ and therefore is biblically qualified to be a leader to God's people.

And so that was kind of the focus of the post, ultimately, getting at that through the back door of the foolish things that men use to promote themselves in order to try to be popular in accordance with the seeker -sensitive philosophy of ministry.

Don, I loved it because it sounded like a NoCo post when you said, please pass the Tums, my stomach hurts.

Yeah. While you were talking, I quickly went to the website, the Bethlehem Bible Church website, to see what my bio said to make sure there was nothing like that on there.

But this idea of, well, I'm just a regular man. And of course we believe in the priesthood of all believers.

Of course, the pastor is only a man. But the idea for me, when I go to a website and wanna check out a church,

I first look at sermons and see if there's any kind of sequential exposition. I know you can do expository preaching without going verse by verse, but it's very difficult to do that on a regular basis.

So I first look at that. And then secondly, I go to see where the pastor's profile is.

Where has he gone to school? What education does he have? How do I know he's going to rightly divide the word?

And then I do exactly what you say. And when I read, well, he's this cool guy, and this is the kind of coffee he likes and all that other kind of stuff.

And that's the only thing he has. He's just a regular person. Then I think what you say is so apropos.

This guy's like chatting up Pastor Flip. Now, where did you get

Flip? Now, did you used to watch Flip Wilson when you were growing up? Where's Pastor Flip from? See, I am so excited that you made that connection.

I chose Flip in honor of Flip Wilson, who used to have the comedy routine as the pastor of the church of what's happening now.

So true. Back 30 or 40 years ago, or maybe even more, where he had this character that he played.

And so Pastor Flip was a direct reference to Flip Wilson. And I am so glad you caught that.

I figured there'd be somebody in the world that did. And to know that it was you, Mike, my trusted friend, that just blesses my heart.

Well, you can go on YouTube and watch Flip Wilson as a reverend. I don't know if it's very revered or not, but I have been influenced by pop culture all too well.

Yeah, I know that it's more than 35 years old because I was watching that long before I was a

Christian. That's about how long I've been converted. So it's very funny to do it.

And it was just a way of kind of making a connection and mocking, frankly, hopefully in a sanctified way, mocking these guys that are just putting themselves forward.

And getting serious now between the two of us, realizing that when guys put themselves forward in their bios like that and make themselves look cool and hip, you have to, you can't help but remember what the

Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4, 5. We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord.

And when a listener, when you in the audience, when you're looking for a church home, you should be looking for a man who makes it clear in one way or another that his desire is to teach

Christ and to proclaim Christ and put Christ forward to you rather than himself.

And that is a pretty easy marker of discernment in these days of seeker philosophy ministry.

Well, the only one who should proclaim himself was the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why,

Don, I say to myself when I preach and remind myself before I go up into the pulpit,

I need to talk about the Lord Jesus because if I'm talking about myself, I am frail and weak and sinful and have all kinds of issues.

And so if I'm not gonna talk about the Lord, I'll end up talking about someone else. And whether it's Tom Brady or myself or someone.

So I have to crucify that. And I wanna make sure I talk about who the Lord is.

And I know when you're in the book of Ephesians, that has been easy for you to do as you think this is a great book that extols the person and work of Christ Jesus.

Yeah, that's right, Mike. And what you were saying there reminds me, one of the very, very first places that I ever preached was at Pacific Garden Mission, one of the gospel outreaches to the street people in the downtown city of Chicago.

And in their pulpit, they have a plate imprinted that only the speaker can see quoting from the book of Acts that says, sirs, we wish to see

Jesus. And that's a good way for a man to think as he goes into the pulpit. The people there need to see

Christ. They don't need to see us. And if a man that has that straight, it will show in the way that he preaches.

Don, I wanted to talk to you about all kinds of subjects today, assurance and maybe the San Bernardino Planned Parenthood issues.

But now that you've got me thinking of 2 Corinthians, especially chapter four, talk to us a little bit about Paul.

Even Paul, I mean, can you imagine the intellect and the training and the gifts that Paul would have as a person?

Even before he was a Christian, before God saved him when he met the

Lord on the Damascus Road. If anyone could boast in himself and his own sufficiency, it seems to me that Paul could, but God had so arranged it in Paul's life that that was something that Paul was not allowed to do.

And matter of fact, he was taught, as we both know in 2 Corinthians later, to boast in his weaknesses.

Shouldn't that be, shouldn't, I mean, of course, the Lord is our ultimate model in ministry, but Paul is a good model for us for gospel ministry as we have this treasure in jars of clay.

Yeah, that's really well said, Mike. And I really don't know what I could add to what you've already said.

Paul, the great apostle, Paul who saw the resurrected Lord, Paul who went into the third heaven is the same

Paul who would speak about himself and say, I wasn't inferior to the most eminent apostles, although I'm a nobody.

And he said, not having a righteousness of my own, but that which is found through faith in Christ Jesus.

And so he was not, despite all of his superior gifts, he was aware of those things, but he didn't boast in them, and it's not what he wanted to talk about.

He wanted to talk about the excellencies of Christ and exhort people to faith in him, to trust him, to obey him.

And that is our model. And I feel the same weakness that you've described about yourself.

You know, we're mindful that we fall short of these things as fallen men proclaiming a perfect Christ, but at least the aspiration of a man's heart in the pulpit should be to reflect

Christ, and that that pulpit is not given for him to make himself look good or to draw attention or to get people to like him.

Our job is not to get people to like us, but to get people to follow after Christ. And if a man doesn't have that as his center aspiration of his heart, he shouldn't be in a pulpit.

Talking to Don Green, our friend in gospel ministry, you can go to his website, to the church website, truthcommunitychurch .org,

and whether it's a blog or the radio show, our sermons, our watch during the online services on Sunday, you can find it all there.

Don, thanks so much for your time, for your ministry. And I'm glad you give me a good dose of seriousness in gospel ministry.

And I wanna make sure I set my face towards faithful proclamation with you and other men who

God has called. Thanks for being on the show today. Thanks for having me, Mike. It's good to be with you. 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 six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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