Desk Cleansing

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 I'm your host. I'm trying to speak up a little bit because we had our listener who said they couldn't hear us.

They can hear Todd, but they can't hear us. Now maybe that's some insidious plan planted by James or Tony over at Wretched.

Maybe that's what it is. I think I smell a spy. Maybe that's the problem.

But anyway, today is a clear off my table day, clear off my desk day, and let's start off with the

No Compromise Greece tour next year. Bethlehem Bible Church and No Compromise Radio invites you to go on a

Highlights of Greece 11 -day tour and cruise, April 2013.

Can you imagine? I've taught the book of Corinthians over at Corinth and I've been over in Athens, stood on Mars Hill and preached

Acts 17 and going to get to do that again. That is amazing. April 2013.

I don't have the exact dates yet because it's a little far out and we're getting close to picking the dates, but I don't have them quite yet.

You arrive in Athens, go to Ephesus, Patmos, cruise over to Athens, Corinth, Thessalonica, Berea, Philippi and home.

I don't know the exact price because I don't have the exact dates and again, it's too far out, but it's around $3 ,300 or so from Boston.

If you live someplace else, you'll have to get here and that might add to the cost. But if you are a listener of No Compromise Radio or you have family and friends who don't listen but should,

Greece. That is amazing. And for those of you who say, well, I'd like to go, but I've heard a lot of chaos over in Greece, none of that should affect you.

People say, well, there's chaos in Israel. I don't want to go. There's always chaos all around. And so when

I was in Greece just recently, you know, if you want to go to the bad parts of town, that's fine, but if you want to go with me to the safe parts and the tourist spots and the biblical sites, you're going to be fine.

If you want to go down to Occupy Greece and wave an American flag, that might be different.

But anyway, we'd love to have you go. Highlights of Greece, it'll be on the website pretty soon, NoCompromiseRadio .com,

but you can always email us at info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. I'll send you a brochure and the itinerary if you're interested about information, our reservations.

Greece, 2013, April. We would love you to come. No Compromise Radio, our first,

I don't know, tour, cruise, anyway. Secondly, I'd like to read an email.

And so I got an email and sometimes you minister and you think, well, what do

I do with that? When they say what you say about certain people makes me sick to my stomach, then I think, all right, did

I say the right thing? And even criticism should make the person ask, well, make sure

I'm doing the right thing. Although today in our age, you can't say anything about anyone because somehow it's deemed unloving.

Certainly Paul would have been deemed unloving, Peter. Paul names eight people in 2

Timothy chapter four, calls them out. Was that unloving? Well, it doesn't mean everything

I do are with the same motives that Paul has or I do them with the same motives that Paul does or did.

But when I get an encouraging email, it's nice. And so I don't read too many of them.

This is not back slapping time, but this is something that has encouraged me and I hope it encourages you too.

Dear Mike, I want to thank you very much for your show on death and funerals. Now see, it's not really my show.

It's what does the Bible say and what's biblical wisdom regarding that. So that's why if you boast,

I'm boasting in the Lord regarding this, especially the one dealing with kids. My mother -in -law died a little over a week ago and we went to Southern California for her funeral.

Thanks to your counsel, I was able to talk to my girls, 13 years old, 12 and 10, about seeing their dear grandma at the viewing.

They were very serious troopers. They were serious troopers. I didn't have to force the issue, but I did have to tell my wife that I felt very strongly that they needed to see her.

Your ministry has been a tremendous blessing, really hits home in times like this. So the day of Gloria, John.

And so that is encouraging that people listen and then people take biblical counsel to heart.

In that particular show, I think I played it a couple times. How important it is to take our children to funerals and to viewing and then to be the dad and to be the man of God and to teach our children what is life, what is death, how life is a vapor, who is the resurrection and the life, how everyone will be resurrected, some to judgment, some to eternal life, how only

God has the power over death, how Jesus has been raised from the dead. Those are very, very important times.

And I know people that don't take their kids to funerals and viewings. And I think that's very sad.

And so I want to do everything I can in my power to encourage you to go. And dads, you just take charge.

Just take the lead and say, here's what we're going to do. This is what you're going to see. This is what you're going to expect. Daddy's going to be right there.

And here's the plan. And you don't ask your kids, do you want to? Do you want to see grandma's dead body?

No. We're going to go see grandma. And she's not going to look like she used to, but you'll remember her and you'll remember that Jesus has power over death.

And that's why it's important to believe in the resurrected Savior, Christ Jesus, who alone can pay for sins.

Just think if we'd have to pay for our own sins. There's life after death. And this world is not everything.

And one day everything will be gone and you'll stand before God. And just how good do you have to be to get into heaven?

Just what right do you have to enter into God's holy heaven? And then you begin to talk about those things.

Friends, they will not forget it. You won't forget it.

I won't forget it when I'm standing next to my mother's dead body and she's in a casket. And I've got my wife with me and I've got my four children with me,

Haley, Luke, Maddie, and Gracie. And they were standing there crying, looking at my mother.

And we were just talking about my mom with affection and saying goodbye. And I'll never forget it.

And we sang, Jesus loves Grandma Carla, this I know for the Bible tells me so. By the grace of God, my mother was granted eternal life and faith and repentance, regeneration.

She was justified. She was redeemed, reconciled to God, based on everything that Christ has done, had done for her.

And 15, 20 years ago, she believed. And it was great to sit there and of course it was sad.

I was crying my head off. You know the kind of crying that makes your shoulders move? That kind of crying.

When you can't talk, you can't do anything, you can't see. It was that kind of crying. But I would never exchange that for anything.

That's right up there in my mind with one of my children being born. In terms of memories, in terms of flooding your mind with Biblical thoughts, with truth.

That's why we want to inform your mind with truth. Because when there are tough times, and contrary to heretic

Joel Osteen, there are times of suffering for the Christian. It's God's will for you to suffer. This is a suffering world.

This is a fallen world. This is a groaning world. We are sin -tainted creatures.

And even though redeemed, it is difficult. And the suffering servant in Isaiah, Christ Jesus himself, the second person of the

Trinity, has followers who suffered. If he suffered, we'll suffer. Now the great news is, suffering doesn't last forever.

The great news is, God is Emmanuel. He's with us when we suffer. The great news is,

God is going to turn suffering into good, and the list can go on and on.

But friends, there are things that we do and say and think and feel and believe.

There are times in our life where we've got to have the truth. William Plummer was correct, that in the tough times of life, you need good doctrine.

Now you might want soothing words, and I can just make you feel good. And I can just say, oh, you know, it's the,

I don't know, the Andy Stanley approach these days. But then what are you going to do when you bury your mother?

What are you going to do when you bury your father? I think you need to have the truth that God is sovereign, that God isn't just sovereign.

He's all -powerful. That God isn't just all -sovereign and all -powerful, but that He cares for His people, and that He loves you as much as He loves

His Son, because you are in Christ Jesus, John chapter 17.

So I was very encouraged, because out of all the times that I want to teach people something, it's time when death is there, and when the phone rings and somebody has died, people want truth.

They want a gospel minister, and that's the time where everybody else is freaking out. They don't know what to do, what to say, how to think.

That was me in 1989 when my father died, just before I got converted. I could not process death.

I could not process the death of my father. I had no theological, spiritual orientation so I could figure this whole thing out.

My dad's gone, now what? The provider, the leader, the rock of the family, the one who was always there, the tough guy, the one who was there for discipline, the one who was there for a provision.

Now what? Well, I don't know. So, if you want me to stroke your self -esteem every day,

I guess that might taste good just like cotton candy tastes good for a bite. But when you eat too much of it, it makes your stomach upset.

And when you get on the scale, or you try to run a marathon, then it shows.

All right, let's see what else we've got here on No Compromise Radio. Being born again linked to more brain atrophy, study says.

Philly .com, written by Mary Elizabeth Dallas.

Wednesday May 25th, Health Day News. I think this is actually, I don't know why it's

May 25th because that's not May 25th yet. I bet you this is somehow March 25th because it said posted

March 20th. Health Day News. Older adults who say they've had a life -changing religious experience are more likely to have a greater decrease in size of the hippocampus.

Hippocampus. Now, I could say a lot about hippocampuses.

I know they're excelling in universities, overachieving pachyderms.

Hippocampus. Maybe it looks like, maybe that part of the brain looks like a horse. That's what hippo means, right?

Hippotamus, pot water, a water horse. How else can I analyze this? A hippocampus.

I know what campus means. I think it means like a field, right? So the first campus, Princeton University, New Jersey, you look out in the field and it was a campus in the back.

It was a field. So, horse field. The part of the brain critical to learning and memory.

New research finds, according to the study, people who said they were born again,

Protestant or Catholic, are conversely those who had no religious affiliation, had more hippocampal shrinking.

I didn't say hippocamel, although that would be an odd creature. What would

Adam name a hippocampal? Be really a heavy, long neck, right?

More hippocampal shrinking, or atrophy, compared to people who identified themselves as Protestant but not born again.

The study is published online in PLOS, space O -N -E.

Well, that's fascinating. So basically, if you're born again, we don't know the difference between born again Catholic and born again

Protestant at the time, are those with no religious affiliation. But if you're not a liberal

Protestant, then you're not quite as smart. Now, actually, there's probably something to be said generally about the statement.

Maybe most people in the world who are the mucky mucks and who are highest up in terms of Harvard, Havid, Yale, Princeton, and the like,

Duke Divinity School, these premier religious institutions, according to the world, we would call them mainline denominational schools.

I would call them liberal Christians. I would not call them evangelical. Of course, there are some evangelicals there.

See all this compromise talk that we have here on No Compromise Radio. The smart people are at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale.

That's true. And maybe they are more smart than those who are born again.

But the study is basically, if you're born again, you're stupid. And so here's my retort when it comes to those who would like to say, if you're born again, you're really dumb.

Now, there are some really dumb and foolish people who claim to be born again. But what does the Bible say? For consider your calling, 1

Corinthians 1 says. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were more powerful.

Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

Imagine a human being boasting, not in God, not of God, not because of God, but boasting before God.

That is amazing. And because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.

So that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. So if this is actually true,

I don't think it's true. It says in the study, researchers asked 268 people aged 58 to 84 about their religious affiliation, spiritual practices, and life -changing religious experiences.

Over the course of two to eight years, changes to the hippocampus were monitored using MRI scans.

Well, the bad news is for these guys, if you don't know the difference between a born -again evangelical and a born -again

Catholic, and what does the Bible say about being born from above and how it has nothing to do with water, baptism, etc.,

then I don't really respect your study. One interpretation of our finding, it says, that members of majority religious groups seem to have less atrophy compared with minority religious groups, is that when you feel your beliefs and values are somewhat at odds with those of society as a whole, it may contribute to long -term stress that could have implications for the brain.

Amy Owen, lead author of the study and a research associate at Duke University Medical Center, said in a

Duke News release, the study authors also suggested that life -changing religious experiences could challenge a person's established religious beliefs, triggering stress.

Well, I guess there you have it. There you have it. If you're born again, you're probably stupider than those who are at Yale.

So, that might actually be true. God does save some very smart people, some

Al Mohlers of the world and Mark Devers of the world, etc. But in general, God uses the weak.

There's not many mighty, not many wise, not many noble. There are a few. He didn't say not any, but there's not many.

And so, if the world wants to say that, that's absolutely fine by me. Oh, you need a crutch.

Whatever the world wants to say, I will just respond with,

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling.

And my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the

Spirit and power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Isn't that reassuring? That is very reassuring. Well, Christy just sent me something here on No Compromise Cleanup Day.

Hi, pastors. Here are a couple worship songs that you can put in your bad list. This could be a wedding song.

Always, forever, Phil Wickham. Wickham. In New England, I think we say

Wickham. All right, is this a wedding song? Is this a boyfriend -girlfriend song?

Or is this a song to our triune God? You are the hand that catches my fall. You are the friend that answers my call.

You are my day. You are my night. You are my love and all my life. Aww. You are the love

I need. You are the air I breathe. You are the pantheistic air

I breathe. Oh, I inserted that. Doesn't rhyme, though. You are my love, my life, always, forever, always and forever.

I would lay down my life just to be by your side. You are my love, my life, always, forever, always, forever.

Now, friends, I don't know who Phil Wickham is, but that is atrocious. That is awful.

I would lay down my life just to be by your side. I think I'd rather have Jesus lay down His life to honor the

Father to redeem me. I'm going to lay down my life like Jesus needs that?

This is just atrocious. Now, some are probably listening saying, how you critique things make me sick.

Well, this song probably makes me sick. And this has nothing, I don't even know who this person is. I don't need to know, but if you write a song for public consumption, then you should take your lumps.

Right? So if I put my voice out on radio and you want to critique me, then I shouldn't say, oh, have you talked to me in person and how could you?

Hey, it's a free country. You can critique if you want. My point is what? To slam some person?

No, my point is to say songs like this need to be replaced by some psalms instead and maybe songs like Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.

I think I'd rather talk about God's love for me, God's action for me, God's accomplishment in my behalf,

God's creating power, God's sustaining grace, God's sovereign call.

I'd talk about that more. That's what makes me want to sing. I'm going to get up and sing with a straight face.

I'd lay down my life just to be by your side. Now, I don't know where that comes from, but that's the same mentality that says

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Ooh, Jiminy Crickets.

All right, what else do I have today? Bible translator criticized over word substitution.

My name is Mike Abendroth, this is No Compromise Radio. Tom Breen, Associated Press, Thursday, April 26.

One of the largest Bible translators in the world is undergoing an independent review after critics claimed language in some of their translations intended for Muslim countries misses the essential

Christian idea of Trinity, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, or ghost.

Critics argue that using words like Messiah instead of Son and Lord instead of Father badly distorts the doctrine in which

God is said to be one being in three persons. If you remove

Son, you have to remove Father, and if you remove those, the whole thread of the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation is unraveled, said the

Rev. George Hoosney. It says Rev. George's, but I think it's George.

The president of Horizons International, a Christian organization that works extensively with Muslims, and himself a translator of the

Bible into Arabic. So here's what's happening. Wycliffe Bible translators don't really want to use words that talk about God being

Son, because if Muslims think God has no son, then how are we going to do this?

And if God has no son, though, then God can't be called the Father, because fathers have son.

Let's not try to offend anyone. The Assemblies of God.

Here comes kudos for the Assemblies of God. Are you ready? A no -compromise radio. Credit to our credit is due. With more than 60 million members in affiliated churches worldwide, announced it would review its long -standing relationship with Wycliffe.

Wow! Last month, Wycliffe agreed to an independent review of its policies by the

World Evangelical Alliance, which plans to appoint a panel of experts to determine whether Wycliffe and affiliated groups are improperly replacing the terms

Son of God and God the Father. That's amazing. Good job,

Assemblies of God. Creason said that in some cases which are known to scholars as divine familiar terms,

God the Father and the Son of God, don't make sense in translation in some cultures. Islamic teaching, for example, rejects the notion that God can be involved in a relationship similar to a human family.

And Creason argues that people in such cultures might be immediately put off by those terms. So what?

God writes the text. Our job is to be faithful to reproduce the text. This isn't about nuances of literal versus dynamic equivalent versus phrase by phrase and word for word.

When it says, Son, this is my Son in whom I'm well pleased, that's how we translate it.

Just like when people say, well, you know, you don't have a sheep in that culture, what do we do? Well, you translate it sheep and then teach them what a sheep is.

If you've never been to the ocean, then describe the ocean. If you've never been to, you know, you're going to be in the desert and it says sea, but we better not put that in there.

Let's put in really big lake. Husni said, God says, this is my son and we can't put other words in his mouth.

Good job. That is exactly right. We've submitted ourselves to a global consultation that will look at our translation practices and will abide by those recommendations.

Well, that's bad. When you go by what the world equivalents, whatever theology group is going to tell you, that's bad.

Why can't you just say it as an organization? Yeah, we made a mistake and we want to be faithful to the text. This isn't a matter of do we put an and at the front of every verse in Mark that starts off with and.

This is a matter of words like substitution of God the Son for Messiah. This is the eternal

Son of God, the eternal Son of God. What does that do to eternal sonship? What does that do to 1

Corinthians 11, verse 3 with feministic issues? What does that do with eternal sonship in future past, in eternity future, in eternity past, future past?

What's that mean? So, my name is Mike Abendroth. No Compromise Radio today. You can write us, info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

Don't forget Greece in April 2013. Wouldn't that be fun going to Greece, teaching

Bible passages right there in Europe. Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

Always provocative, always biblical, not in that order. 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 10 .15 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.