Tuesday Guy and Romans

Opening Theme, Scripture, and the Show’s Anti-Compromise Posture

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.

Banter About Singing, Karaoke, and Army Memories

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Pastor Steve on a rainy, is it August day today, Augustus? It�s a hot August night.

That has to be a lyric from something. What is it from? It is the title of an album by Neil Diamond. Seriously? Yeah. After the Boston Bruins. Or is it a song? It�s a lyric from, let�s see, I think that is the name of the double album, double live album.

Have you ever been asked to sing in public?

I�ve done it, you know, without being asked. Well, I mean, I did some karaoke on a few occasions. Seriously? Yeah. But you don�t drink. So, how did that all work? You know, that was probably before you were saved.

No. No. I mean, we did it while we were on a cruise. We did that. Oh, okay. You know, Janice was like, oh, let�s go, you know, let�s do karaoke. Did you do a duet together? No. She goes, let�s do karaoke.

And I go, you don�t sing. And she goes, I know. Let�s go do karaoke. So, I sang a couple songs. I did it on another occasion, too.

You know, it�s like our listeners over the last nine years have no idea, Pastor Steve, of some of your talents.

It�s funny because, you know, like here�s before I was saved, you know, the guys when I was in the Army in Okinawa, the guys would go to the base bar, you know, and drink, well, what was it called? The NCO club, you know, and drink.

And why don�t you ever get anything to drink? Steve and I would go, because I can drink Diet Coke and I�m just as stupid as you guys.

Yeah. Oh, man. Well, anyway, this is No Compromise Radio. You can, I guess you can go to the Facebook site. You can go to the YouTube site. You can go to a Twitter site. I did not know this, Steve. We have an Instagram site.

Wow. I haven�t been posting anything on Instagram, but Ben does once in a while.

Pretty much dominating the internet. Social media, man.

We�re just all over it. Snapchat. Oh, we got it. Hey, Steve. I haven�t even looked at this, but I did see the New Christianity Today cover, June 2019. And it said, �God gave us oil. Should we keep using it

Is that a hybrid I see out there? You just get a brand new hybrid car, electric car?

Oh, yeah. Because I�m all about saving the environment. You can count on that.

What kind of oil do you think this is? You think this is anointing oil?

No, it�s motor oil or, you know, regular oil because I just kind of flipped through it. I didn�t read the article. Okay. Huh. All right. What do you think? Do you think we should use oil? Yes. I was reading something the other day about how, you know, it was like 20 years ago they were telling us we couldn�t well, even President Obama said we couldn�t drill our way out of the energy problem.

You know, we would never be energy sufficient, and now we�re the number one oil producer in the world.

So. When I think of drilling, I usually think of dentists and stuff. Hmm. I just saw my dentist yesterday. Random thoughts from Steve Cooley. Uh-huh. And, you know, we always tie this back to the Bible.

Psalm 133 and the Image of Oil on Aaron’s Beard

This will be a hard one. Uh-huh. Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. It is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his rose.

I don�t think you want black oil all over your head and beard and all that. Uh-huh.

Well, I�m thinking about the Beverly Hillbillies. Yeah. You know, Texas crude and all that stuff. Texas tea. Yeah. It says here in the note, �The first simile is the ordination oil on the head of Aaron and his descendants.

This oil made the priests holy, consecrated to God�s purpose. The image means that when Israel is true to its ideal, it is displaying genuine consecration and carrying out its calling in the world. I mean, you know, that is one of the good things about manners and customs because otherwise it loses its luster if we just think about, you know, oil today and coming down on our beard and collars and stuff.

We wouldn�t like that. Now, that clerical collar that I get down at the clerical garb store, that haberdashery store, with that white thing in the front where my Adam�s apple is, when that thing gets oily, it scratches.

You know what it makes me do? It makes me talk with an Irish accent.

Father O�Cooley. Now, I think, of course, there are some Protestants that wear such things, but that�s one thing I don�t know, while I know what the word �Narthex� now means, I have no idea why priests, both Protestant, you know, like Anglican guys, and Catholics, wear that little white collar deal.

What�s that for?

They can�t afford ties? Yeah, exactly. I was going to say it spares you from having to wear a tie. That�s weird. Did J. Adams die?

I don�t think he�s dead. I think David Polissen recently died. Yes, he did. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Alright. That was just a few days ago. Alright. Well, if any of our listeners care to find out, why do they wear that little tab thing on their collars?

That�s what I would like to know. He�s a man of the cloth, or he�s a man of the collar. How does that work? What have you been studying in the Bible lately? Anything good?

Anything you like? This won�t surprise you. I�ve just been reading through Romans 1 -8. Well, there you have it.

Romans is one of my favorite books for lots of reasons. And since it�s one of my favorites, I like how it breaks out, and of course, you�ve heard me say a hundred times, at least, sin, salvation, sanctification, security, sovereignty, service, salutation, slash stuff, that�s the outline of the Book of Romans.

But I probably do it a little differently now, even though that�s stuck in my mind forever. I�m thinking if there�s one word that summarizes the Book of Romans, it�s righteousness. And the first few chapters through, you know, two and a half chapters through 3a, we don�t have righteousness, but we need it.

Universal condemnation. Uh-huh, yeah. You can be an unbelieving pagan, you have no righteousness, or you can have self-righteousness as a moralistic person, Jewish person, chapter 2 and 3a, but you still need perfect righteousness, right?

You need a perfect righteousness to stand before God. And then we have the Lord Jesus, and He, while He was righteous, and is righteous, He was under the law to earn righteousness for us. He didn�t have to earn it for Himself, He was inherently, intrinsically righteous.

And so, I just love the way it breaks down, where you don�t, if the theme is righteousness, you don�t have it and you need it. God by His grace supplies it through His Son�s merit. He also dies for your unrighteousness, right?

And then in the sanctification chapters of 6 and 7, even though we�re positionally, legally righteous, counted as righteous, we don�t always live a righteous life, and there�s that struggle. Even Paul said in chapter 7 he didn�t do what he wanted to do, and in spite of all that, your righteousness is secured based on the Spirit of God�s work, and there�s no condemnation for you in Christ Jesus.

Now, see, I�ve talked about that for a� Now, see, if I ever had to teach Romans, kind of an overview, that�s the way I would do it.

The Resurrection, Romans 4, and the Logic of the Gospel

Well, I think about the only thing you left out there was just the resurrection, but I know that wasn�t your, you know.

Right. Well, you know what I�d start off with? It�s really neat. Chapter 1 and chapter 16 talk about the gospel, and of course chapter 1 verses 3 and 4 talk about this great resurrection. And so, I would get there.

Chapter 4 verse 25, it has it there. I knew you�d get there. Chapter 10, if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead. Uh-huh. That�s right. I�m glad that we have got the resurrection down here at the church.

Oh, you know, okay, here�s how we do it, Steve, with the righteousness theme. The righteousness that Jesus earned, we know for certain, was applied to God�s people, his bride, his elect, and we know that�s confirmed by the resurrection.

That�s 425. Come on! Hit me. Okay, so if I ever go to a church and I�m sitting there, and I�m not supposed to speak, I�m there for worship, but I�m always in the back of my mind thinking, if something happened and they came up and said, �Would you please get up and preach a sermon

And if I didn�t have any notes, right? My iPhone has a thousand sermons on it, but if I didn�t have that or I didn�t want to use it because it�s small font, I would get up and say, I�d walk up to the pulpit and I�d say, �Lord, help me.

You know, under my breath, quiet prayer, and then I would say, �Please turn your Bibles to the book of Romans. And I would just do the tour, the jet tour.

I mean, can you imagine, you know, like sometimes we see this in movies, like on the plane, you know, the pilot has a heart attack and they go, �Do we have a pilot on the plane You know? Yes. So, you know, the pastor has a heart attack or something.

Do we have a pastor, you know, a preacher in the audience?

You know what we should do if that ever happens here, and maybe all the pastors are raptured, so there�s no pastors left. Maybe they all die in an accident or something. You could, your congregation, if everybody�s looking around, what do we do?

There�s no pastor today. Do we just cancel church service? I�d like one of you men that are listening, or if the men aren�t listening and the wives are, you could just tell your husbands about it, they could get up and read the book of Hebrews.

Here�s this exhortation, chapter 1322, I think pretty much our only real sermon to an established church in the New Testament post-Acts, and it takes about 45 minutes to read, and it�s a wonderful exhortation with a lot of Christ-centered stuff, and at the end, the imperatives.

They could just read the book of Hebrews. It�d be just like a sermon because it is a sermon.

Pat Avendroth did that once, and he said, �But I really studied all week. It wasn�t just, you know, I ran out of time. I purposely studied the passage and read it with an interpretive reading. Hebrews chapter 1 to 13.

That�s a lot.

I mean, people don�t realize, you know, you�re just sitting there going,. �Well, that sounds kind of� that would be a lot because even when I read, you know, when we read a chapter on Sunday and I�ve read it ahead of time and I�m trying to emphasize certain things, right, in my reading, to do that for 13 chapters, that�s a lot.

I�d be tired. Yeah.

Uh-huh. Steve, if you, I mean, I don�t get phone calls or letters from other churches saying, �Could you come please be our pastor I was told that if you�re faithful for a few years, you�ll get a lot of those letters, and I don�t really think I�ve gotten too many.

I get emails that say, �We�re thankful you�re not our pastor. Yeah, I hate that. �Thanks, Steve. Just stay there in New England.

Although some Newell Compromise listeners have written and said, you know, �Would you come please be our pastor You know, we have like four people, and you can come and do that. I�m very pleased that they would ask.

That�s very nice of them. Uh-huh. Yeah. I guess I could sell light bulbs or something, you know, in the meantime. That�s it. That�s a good job. But if you received a letter and it said, �Dear Pastor Steve, we�ve been following you some time on No Compromise Radio, on Tuesdays, etc., and we would like you to be the leader of our Christian organization.

And it�s a thriving organization, at least it was in the past, and now we�re trying to reboot ourselves. And we don�t want to let a brand die. What if you were asked to come be the president of Promise Keepers, what would you do?

Promise Keepers. And the reason why I brought it up, did you know, there�s a book out, Rise of the Servant Kings, subtitled, �What the Bible Says About Being a Man. Okay. You know, servant, man, Matthew 20, right?

By Ken Harrison, chairman of the board, Promise Keepers. It says here in this little ad, Multnomah Press, �Ken is chairman of the board for Promise Keepers, an influential Christian men�s ministry there�s no Oxford commas there, because you don�t need them, �and the chief executive officer of Waterstone, an organization that helps clients give away millions of dollars annually in support of worldwide Christian humanitarian efforts.

He has served as a police officer in the infamous 77th District of South Central LA, where he received numerous commendations. So see, here�s the thing, we�ve got the LA Sheriff deal, and did you serve in the 77th Division?

Negative, because that�s LAPD. I know that, but play along, it�s radio. Did you know about the 77th Division? Yes.

Is it infamous? I don�t know. I think, you know, Newton�s probably more infamous, but yeah. I mean, you know, most of Los Angeles, other than maybe Foothill Division, is kind of infamous. There aren�t any really safe spots in Los Angeles.

Now, you know my penchant for seeing law gospel stuff, and I love to talk about God�s law because it�s a reflection of His requirements, and for us, it�s not law or gospel, right? It�s just, we just have different categories.

Do isn�t done, and done isn�t do. Okay. Law isn�t gospel, and gospel isn�t do. Do this and live is different than Jesus did this for you, simply trust in Him. But don�t you think a lot of the books, and maybe even some that I�ve written, who knows, a lot of books in Christianity you could just boil down to, it�s just more law.

Just do more. Right? That�s why the Jerry Bridges book that I reread recently, The Gospel for Daily Life, was so refreshing, because okay, there are responses that we have to this good news, but it was just refreshing, because I realize if I�m honest with myself, there�s a lot of the stuff I don�t do.

I mean, would I like to be a real man of God, or would I like to be a man�s man, or would I like to have, here it says, true masculinity, greater courage, humility, generosity, that transforms your marriage, family, and friendships?

But I mean, come on.

I like to have all those things, but you know, again, you were asking about would I take over the helm of promise keepers, and the answer is, I would say, well, thank you so much for asking, but some things are supposed to be buried, and this is probably one of them, right?

I mean, is there any reason to drag promise keepers back up, and I think the answer is probably not. It was ecumenical. It was flawed from the beginning, so I wouldn�t be interested in that.

Interestingly, Steve, back to this whole thing, not just about books, but promise keepers in and of itself. I mean, don�t we have enough laws that we fail in? Do we need seven extra ones?

Yeah. Can you give me seven extra biblical rules that I can fail at as well?

And wasn�t one, like number four, tied into race or something like that?

You know, I don�t even remember. I actually had the book, and you know, I was in a group, I�ve told you this before.

Yeah, but our listeners like to know these things. I was in a group, and.

Was this a karaoke group? No, it was, because you were supposed to have� Oh, promise keepers, okay. No, you know, at least two of the guys probably couldn�t carry a tune. So, there were four of us, because I think that was the magic number, you know, you had to, there were three of them that went to the event, and then they thought, well, hey, Steve will join us, right?

Oh, good, because you have Holy Ghost back rubs, and you need four to do that, right? Yeah.

So, they invite me, you know, they give me the book or whatever, and I read the first, I think we just read the first chapter or whatever, and we get together, and we pray, and then we look at each other, and, you know, anybody.

And then we look at each other. Well, because everybody�s waiting for somebody else to go first, and, you know, the first guy, I don�t even remember who spoke first, and kind of said, because it wasn�t going to be me, I wasn�t going to be the, you know, bucket of cold water on the hot coals of fire, you know, promise keepers, you know, but somebody said, well, what do you think of it?

What did you think of the book? And the guy says, well, I didn�t really get anything out of it, and so we went around the room, and nobody was defending the book. Everybody was like, you know, it was kind of empty.

And that was the last time we met.

Promise Keepers, 2 Corinthians 1, and the Problem of More Rules

Well, I think it probably came out of a desire for men to act in accordance to what the Bible teaches, right, about being a man of God. And the problem was, if we�re honest with ourselves, we�re promise breakers.

And here, it says in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, �As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has been yes and no. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not yes and no, but in Him it is always yes.

For all the promises of God find their yes in Him. That is why it is through Him that we utter our amen to God for His glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us and who has also put His seal on us and given us His Holy Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

Petey. You know what? One of the names that they decided against, that was great, by the way, very nice interpretive reading.

Tom. It�s hard reading that far away. I was trying not to mess up the lines.

Petey Promise Keepers was the winner, but one of the other, like, also-ran titles they had for the group was Garment Renders.

Tom. Holy haberdashery back then.

Petey. Because there were 80 ,000 men standing there tearing their garments, you know that?

Tom. Well, the other one I think was Loin Girders. Petey Loin Girders. Tom Girding up your loins for action. Petey. It finished a close second, right? Tom. Uh-huh. Yeah. Boy. That�s something about that, though.

You know, Loin Girders, that would be nice. I was so tired when I was in New Zealand and I was preaching and I was trying to talk about just submitting to God�s truth. After all, He�s infinite and we�re finite and we�re also fallen, and it should not surprise us that some of the doctrines of God and His person and work blow our minds and we just can�t understand them.

We just have to submit to them. And so I said, just instead of trying to wrap your mind around some of these truths, like, you have to dissect them all and understand every notion of them before you believe them or submit to them, it�s okay to just not do that.

I kind of give you permission as it were. And so I said, instead of trying to wrap your mind around them, I conflated the words and I said, �Instead of trying to map your wine around them�. Pete. Well, you�re in New Zealand, I�m sure they have lots of wine.

Tom. Oh, yeah. They�re known for their whites and Zinfandels. You just got to map your wine around them. Anyway, the good news, if you think about it, dear Christian, while I�d like to be a wonderful husband and a great dad and a great pastor and all those things, we fail in so many ways.

Even Steve reminds me as we get back to Romans, �For all have sinned�, right? That�s a point in time. I think that�s Arist. �And fall short of the glory of God. That�s a present tense, if memory serves me.

So we�ve sinned, and some people think that was in Adam, whether it is or not, that�s a true fact. And we continue to fall short, even now as Christian people, and so that�s why we need to be reminded every week of the good news.

And if you attend a church that only pushes this stuff every single week, I don�t know how people stay with it. I�d rather stay at home and listen to a TED Talk online. Pete Well, it would be defeating, right?

Be good, be better. You know, what�s wrong with you? How come you�re slacking? Tom I know. Think about it. Today, I don�t feel that good. I�m tired. I have a headache. I had this procedure yesterday, and blah, blah, blah.

I�ve had better days in my life. And now I read this. �God�s plan for you as a man is bigger than you�ve dared to imagine. Stop settling for simply getting by and prepare to rise up as a servant king in every area of life.

Pete Servant king. Tom What if I�m just tired of being a servant king right now? Pete Wait a minute.

There was a servant king, I think, Tom. Tom. Yeah, there you go.

You know what? If they only took the �s� off, the rise of the servant king, what the Bible says about the man or something like that and how he can strengthen people who are weak like us.

Pete. What it says about the man, Christ Jesus, right? The rise of the servant king.

Tom I want to just take that �s� off of there. Not off the forward by Stu Weber, then it would be Tue Weber, but the kings. Rise of the servant king. Anyway, that�s, you know, I think I should probably just go through every book here in this library and these that tend to just push, do better, run faster, deny yourself more.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then we could just get rid of them. Pete. Get your spiritual PF flyers on.

Tom Maybe the Eric Liddell new biography that I�ll keep because he was a fast runner. You had PF flyers. Did you ever have Chuck Taylors? Pete Converse, all sorts. That�s all. Tom Did you ever have these?

I have these are the pre Chuck Taylors. These are called the Jack Purcells. Pete No, I did not. Tom Yeah. These are what James Dean wore. Not this exact pair, but this brand.

Pete I remember, I think, what did I get like Adidas or something like that? And I thought, oh, I�m all that because they were leather high tops and no more canvas for me.

Tom. My mother and father told me, we were poor growing up, didn�t really have even enough money to be in the YMCA league. I think it was $25 and mom cried when dad said no and then he changed his mind.

You know how that works. And then they said that if I make the team, I don�t know if it was junior high, it must have been JV or something, that they would buy me a pair of shoes, whatever ones I wanted.

And I think at the time I wanted the suede Pro Keds. Those were tricky. I think that must have been probably 1976.

Pete Very tasteful, suede Pro Keds. Tom I think they were white too.

I mean, that�s that. I wish I had them now. I did not know, Steve, the industry of shoes and these special shoes and buyers and sellers and how much money people made. Steve. It�s crazy. Tom. If I had my old Converse All-Star leather Magic Johnson purple and yellow, I�d like those.

Remember they had the green and white bird and then they had the Magic Johnson ones. Those were fun.

Steve. And which ones are better, duh.

Tom. Well, I said on a tweet yesterday, I couldn�t find where Rick Pitino actually was filmed when he said, �Larry Bird is not walking through those doors. Right when the Celtics were crumbling, when he was the coach when I first moved here.

And so in light of the disaster at the Southern Baptist Convention, I said, �And Lottie Moon�s not walking through those doors. And I just have a picture of Rick Pitino yelling or something. Although the GIFs online typically have Rick Pitino saying things.

You could see with his mouth, you could see what he was saying. I couldn�t use those. Steve. Yeah, probably not.

Tom Yeah, probably not. Steve. Let�s just put it this way. He never coached at BYU when he was on.

Tom Bart Starr died, Brian Bartlett Starr. That was sad. He seemed classy.

Steve Yeah, he did. Yeah. Well, I always liked Bart Starr, growing up. Very, I thought there was something about those quarterbacks. Tom Johnny Unitas. Steve Yeah, Bart Starr. Those guys were serious quarterbacks.

Tom. Remember the backup for Johnny Unitas at the Baltimore Colts was Earl Morrill. I think he was a kicker too, number 15.

Steve. Yeah, he was pretty, I mean, I�m like, �Who else I mean, he was like an all-star backup.

Tom. And he was one of those straight-on kickers. I think the first sidewinder, soccer-style kicker that I ever knew was� Steve John Stenrood.

Tom John Stenrood. You got that right. Steve I love the Kansas City Chiefs, man. I was a big Kansas City� Tom John Stenrood. Steve Big Kansas City Chiefs fan. I just love them. Otis Taylor and Len Dawson.

Tom Uh-huh. Steve So, yeah. Tom Who was the linebacker? Tom Yeah. Steve Yeah, you're taking me back. Tom Well, you know what?

On No Compromise Radio today, we talked about Psalm 130 -something with the oil. We talked about Romans, and we talked about 2 Corinthians 1, rise of the servant king. 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.