The Letter of Letters

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. Mike Abendroth here.

I have not recorded a show for quite some time, so I'm glad to be back here in the studio, in the office, in the study, in beautiful downtown

Burbank, Buena Vista Street. Just kidding, West Boylston, Massachusetts.

If you look on a map, we're kind of in the center, central mass.

We are going to Israel as a radio ministry and church,

Bethlehem Bible Church. Email me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com. If you want to have a flyer, it is

February 21st through March 2nd, next year, 2023.

And round trip from Boston, $34 .99. And if you want to come from a different part of the country or world, you just need to let me know and you can work your way up here.

And matter of fact, I might even be able to get you a place to stay if you need to come here a day earlier or something like that.

Maybe we could accommodate you. We'll see. First, let's send in $500 for a deposit that's refundable up through the first week of November or so.

Get to be on the list. I get 22 spots or 24, something like that. And Pat Abendroth with the

Pactum and Omaha Bible Church, he gets the rest. And so we're looking forward to going, especially after having the last one or two canceled regarding COVID.

We are also on KAGV 1110

AM in Alaska, Alaska's Gospel Voice. I'm thankful for that, out of Anchorage, Alaska.

And we are on one other station, too, and I think we're in Powell, Wyoming.

And we are on KFGR, Trinity Bible Church in Powell, Wyoming. How about that?

I like the word Trinity. I like the word Bible. I like the word church. So can you believe it? On these radio stations, and you can listen, and I don't know.

I don't know how that works. I don't pay to be on those because I don't have the money to pay to be on radio stations.

Most ministries, that's what they do. That's why they have to ask for a lot of money. And anyway, but I'm glad to be on.

I receive some emails. The number one email that I think I used to receive was, how do

I find a good church? Or, I'm at a church, is it a good church, right?

And I wanted to be very careful, especially as a pastor, not to tell people just to cut and run.

There are problems with every church, problem with every fellowship, right? We're sinful people.

We're far from perfect. That's why the focus should be upon the perfect one, the Lord Jesus, whether it's

Sunday school or Sunday morning or Sunday night, et cetera. That's the one we proclaim, right?

Colossians 1 .28. And over the years, as this ministry here has changed some from exposing what

Beth Moore might say or Ann Voskamp, you know, she just preached, I think, at Christmas time at Saddleback Church.

Rick Warren is retiring, and there's some new guy coming, and the new guy, my dad would say sometimes about people, he's a piece of work.

I don't know. I think that's negative. So maybe my dad would say he's a theological piece of work, probably a nice guy, right?

People can be very friendly and still have bad theology, or people could be like me, mean and have good theology.

Sad, but true. These days, though, the number one email

I tend to get, probably Tye, but this is right up there, is

I'm understanding law gospel better.

I'm understanding the doctrine of assurance better. I'm understanding different uses of the law, and it seems like my pastor tends to preach a lot about if there are unbelievers in the congregation and less about could

I as a congregant, as a Christian, weak and frail as I might be, have any assurance that God loves me because I know

I haven't measured up to the law. And so we might put this under some type of maybe Lordship Salvation argument,

Lordship Salvation as a theological way to look at certain things. Obviously, the anti -Lordship people, the non -Lordship people, and the

Lordship people, as I'm talking theologically, all agree that Jesus is

Lord. He's the King of Kings. He's the Lord of Lords. Actually, all three of those proponents, of which

I'm not any of those, they all desire holy living. They all desire godliness, striving and sweating and toiling to honor the

Lord with our obedience. None of them are antinomian. This is not, they're not some free grace movement or anything like that.

I'm just looking at it from a Reform perspective. What have the Reformers taught us about this?

Is it a new concept? Do the confessions at all help us with the sections on justification, sanctification of good works?

How could we be helped there? For people that say, oh, I'm an antinomian, A, they don't listen to the show.

I just did some shows on motivations to obey. They don't listen to my preaching. I preach about the fear of the

Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It's just not a servile fear. It's a filial fear. It's a fear of, well, this is my great father and I want to obey him because he's so great and I have this reverent awe for him.

Anyway, you know, if you, my point in all of this is not to kind of poke and prod.

It's to try to give relief and a rest. And so if you go to the Heidel blog, my friend

R. Scott Clark, I think we're still friends. I'm writing a book on kind of a theological pilgrimage from synergistic sanctification to monergistic sanctification, from biblicism to confessionalism, from this to that.

And so I wrote an article, the first chapter, and it was from lordship to law gospel.

And I really wasn't after lordship per se. I was after law gospel, but it seems to kind of, you know, roll off the tongue,

I guess. And you can go to heidelblog .net and read the three parts so you can get that chapter.

It will be in the upcoming book. Oh, speaking of which, soon the book on assurance that I compiled a bunch of old writers, a 31 day devotional on assurance.

What does the Bible teach from Octavius Winslow, from Horatius Bonar, from J .C.

Ryle, Charles Spurgeon, different people who are under public domain, and I can just cut and paste their chapters, and 31 days so that you can read about assurance.

That should be out soon, and I'm not even shopping it to big publishers.

Did you see the Erdman's thing the other day about their whole inclusive deal? They got a lot of pushback, rightfully so, on that.

I'm not shopping it for the big ones. I don't have time. I don't have a concern. I'm just going to send it to Amazon.

You click on there, create space, we'll print it and send it to you, and I think you'll be encouraged.

Chapter 9 is great. Chapter 3. I can say it's great because I didn't do anything except organize, find some quotes, and I did write an introduction.

At the back there's Cranmer's Four Comfortable Words. There's some hymns of assurance, and so for those of you that have assurance and want to keep it, this would be a great book for you.

For those of you that don't have assurance and would like to get it, this book is also for you.

Ah, it's going to be a bestseller. You can probably sell. That would be a good question.

Somebody asked me how many copies do I think I could sell. I think probably the most books

I've sold was the Sexual Fidelity, and I think that's probably, you know, over a thousand copies.

That's it. So, whatever. Today on No Compromise Radio, I'm going to read a letter from a 16 -year -old, and she has given me permission to read this on the air, but I think

I'll probably keep her name just confidential so far.

Dear Pastor Mike Gabendroth, and you know what's so fun is to get a real letter, right? You get a letter that's written out, and this is actually in cursive.

When was the last time you did anything in cursive? The only time I ever do things in cursive is when I'm writing a check.

I heard some kids don't even learn how to write cursively these days. I want to thank you.

I know, sorry. I write to thank you for your Christ -centered ministry, in preaching, and radio, and your kindness to my family this past year.

I'm especially thankful to God for the Zoom call you kindly had with us before you got sick with COVID.

We're very happy about your steady recovery. In the months before God led us to true

Christ -centered, law gospel preaching, we were doing a Bible study which had Paul Washer in it with some friends of ours.

During the study, I was filled with many doubts, especially about God's character. I remember spending several fretful, terrifying months examining myself and my performance, wondering if there was anything in me worthy of God's pleasure.

This led me to deeper despair and dread of His just anger. I had no assurance of my salvation.

I knew I had and continue to break His law in every part. I wondered if Jesus' death and resurrection were nearly a push in the right direction only to try and earn my, push in the right direction, comma, only to try and earn

God's favor. If it only meant receiving a clean slate, only for the sinner to muck it up.

And suffer God's displeasure for failing. All this time, I had hoped that Christ could save me and somehow

God could love me. Whew. Could make you cry, reading it.

I remember crying out to God, All I desire is to be your loved.

My dear dad and mom tried to console me, reminding me that God was full of grace, that Jesus died for our sins.

But I knew I was nowhere near the level of sanctification and holiness set forth as a requirement in the study we were doing.

At this point, we had no understanding of the active obedience of Christ. My sweet mom had me listen to your

NoCo episode on Paul Washer. That was the first time I had ever heard anyone speak about law gospel distinction.

Afterward, during your Zoom call, I remember you tenderly said, God is not mad at Christians because He loves them and they are covered in Christ's righteousness.

At least I said something good. It was then that I started to understand with deeper clarity that we contribute absolutely nothing to our salvation, but our sin, as you often say.

And that's not original, I just took that from somebody else. From there, I started to grasp the wondrous truth that God loves

His children unconditionally and chose us before the foundation of the world. That salvation is the work of the triune

God alone for His glory alone, exclamation point. I rejoice to hear we cannot lose it, exclamation point.

For the first time, I am assured that God's favor and love do not depend on me, my performance, or my personal holiness because I am covered in the righteousness of Christ who has lived a perfect obedience to the

Father, lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father. My soul has been washed by His substitutionary blood and He has given me

His robe of righteousness. I think she's going to be a good Sunday school teacher, don't you think?

Good mom someday teaching her children, maybe to other ladies. To my surprise, though it has indeed taken a long time,

I finally feel safe in God's loving, all -powerful, sufficient arms. Finally, I can strive toward thankful obedience because I do not have to fear any angry, dreadful judge anymore.

I have a merciful, tender Father who loves me and sees me hidden in Christ. My soul is flooded with relief.

My salvation does not depend on me. I can rest in Christ for salvation and sanctification.

Now this young lady, she is listening, is she not? She goes on,

Were it not for God using you in your, this is the only part of the letter that's not correct.

Were it not for God using you, I mean, He did use me, but this next part, in your tender, grandfather -like kindness, your gospel tincture to encourage us and faithfully preach the real gospel,

I imagine I would still be lingering in dark doubts. Well, that's very, her first name starts with an

M, so I'm going to call her M. It's not a James Bond movie, but I'm going to call her M. And M, that was very sweet of you.

And I sometimes am not so tender. I am going to be a grandfather one day.

I mean, technically I am. I mean, the baby's as big as a mango, I heard in my daughter, in my daughter's womb, due later this year.

Maybe I'll be more grandfather -like later. I don't know if grandfathers just are more tender or they're just more tired.

It takes a lot of energy to be Henri. I'm very thankful God used you.

With unspeakable joy, my family and I have begun to grasp and cherish the riches of the doctrine of Christ, act of obedience.

I hope this has encouraged you in your faithful preaching of Christ. The complete gospel is truly powerful. I sincerely hope we meet you in person someday.

If we do, can you autograph my Bible? Just kidding. If we never meet on earth, we shall see you in glory.

Can't wait. With love, your little sister in Christ, M. I mean, seriously, when you think about ministry and getting into ministry, obviously, the priority here is the local church and we've had people in our church express the same kind of sentiments.

This is why I do radio, though. The Lord used radio in my life and I began to listen to people teach the

Bible on the radio and it was, I listened, I think my KKLA days, back 99 .5

in Los Angeles. I just remember listening. I think I probably even remember it was

Charles Stanley at 930, Chuck Swindoll at 10 o 'clock,

Raul Reese at 1030, John MacArthur at 11 o 'clock. Who was on at 1130?

I don't know, probably focus on the family.

Then everything went south when I started listening to the White Horse in Sunday nights at 9 p .m. But I love radio.

And so I wanted to be on radio for lots of reasons. One is to try to encourage. And so what I get out of this it's very, very simple.

And that is we don't want to act like papists. And obviously, there's a spurious faith.

There's a faith that doesn't save. First Corinthians chapter 6 says don't be deceived. But there are people that have truly been washed, sanctified, justified.

Such were some of you. And I want to talk a lot to the people who used to be unsaved and now were saved.

And I want to encourage them in the faith. And I want to show them Christ. And I want you to see that while I want you to live a holy life and you should sweat and strive and toil for holy living.

You should say no to sin and yes to righteousness. You should repent. You should feel remorseful and sorrowful when you do sin.

You should expect God's loving disciplined hand when you sin. You should give sin a wide berth.

You shouldn't try to tell people it's okay to sin. But the realism of all this is realistically

Romans 7, we do sin. And so what do we tell the conscience? What do we tell the sinner who sins?

It's okay. God doesn't mind your sin? Of course not. Where sin abounds, grace abounds more?

Of course not. Anybody who listens to this show for any amount of time realize that is not what

I'm saying. Just because I don't agree with a theological system of lordship salvation, quote -unquote,

I believe in lordship. I believe in holy living. I mean, how many times do you have to say it? I believe what the

Confessions teach. I believe what John Calvin taught about this, what Martin Luther taught about this, what Beza taught about this,

William Perkins taught about this, John Owen taught about this. Sin is horrible. I actually said to somebody last night, it's probably worse when we

Christians sin because we have the Spirit of God in us, the Spirit of holiness. He's driving us to holy living, the fruit of the

Spirit. I mean, even this last week, before the Lord, I knew

I had done something wrong and my conscience was after me and just a time of confession and a time of repentance and a time of then

I opened up to Psalm 100 and read it and then I was just singing songs around the house.

It's easy to do now because Kim's out of town. So I can just sing as loud as I want. And I want you to live a holy life.

We're not arguing that. Nobody in any of these camp, the Reformed camp, Lordship camp, anti -Lordship camp, non -Lordship camp, nobody says holy living is unimportant.

But what do we do when Christians sin? And so I'm just encouraged by Em's letter here.

And what I will say is if you keep looking to self, Charles Hodge knew it.

Pietism doesn't know it. Luther knows it. You look to yourself and if you're honest, you just see sin.

If you're not honest, you see a law light, a self -righteousness that actually can do the law.

And what we need to get back to is not just Christ to get into heaven, but Christ to get to heaven, to get heaven in you.

That's probably bad theology, but Christ for us, Christ in us. That's what we're after.

And that's why we regularly want to talk about Jesus because every pastor, every radio show host that's a

Christian, they're going to talk about obedience. And the emphasis is either going to be on your obedience, how you doing, how was your prayer life this week, or Christ obedience.

I wonder how his prayer life has been this week, constantly making intercession for us. That's all

I'm wanting to say. I'm wanting to say guilt, grace, gratitude. I'm wanting to say our motivation for obedience is thankfulness.

I'm wanting to say simultaneously just and sinful, simul justus et peccator. That's what

I'm wanting to say. I'm wanting to say Christ for pardon, Christ for power. I'm wanting to say we're not underneath a servile fear of the

Lord like unbelievers who have God as judge. We're underneath a filial, filioque is the same, where we get the same root, son, f -i -l.

It's son. It's adoption. It's father, son. I have a law from God.

It's not to condemn me because I've already received that as an unbeliever and Jesus took my condemnation.

And therefore the law of God now, the immutable law of God, it doesn't apply to me differently. It doesn't change because God doesn't change.

God's law is a reflection of his nature and character and essence. But my relationship to the lawgiver changes.

And no good father on earth who's tainted even by sin, everyone is on earth, would kick out their child if they disobeyed.

And so, what do we do? If I've got such a great father like that that loves me no matter what, I want to honor him.

I want to obey him. Hear me clearly. Somebody forwarded something this week that said something about I'm the new

Tullian. Tullian did not understand sanctification. He did not understand duplex gratia.

He taught wrongly. Some antinomians teach the right thing, but their secret behind the scenes and live a lawless life.

Some antinomians are theologically antinomians and they live lawless lives. Some people say, you know what?

I want to live a lawless life. Let me find a theology that matches that up. None of those apply here.

You can just talk to Mrs. Abendroth about that if you'd like. Oh, I'd love to be lawless.

No, that is not what's going on. What does the Bible teach?

Is the gospel so free? Is the gospel so unconditional?

Are there no antecedent conditions to faith? Does God justify ungodly?

It is true that when you look at Romans 6, it says, what should we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might abound?

By no means. I do not want you to continue in sin, Christian, so that grace might abound.

You can hear me say it again clearly. I don't want to do that. If you hear that from me, that's not what

I'm telling you to do. That is not what I'm saying. It's okay if you sin, and it's no big deal.

Just sin in God's face all you want. I'm saying, hate your sin. Turn from your sin.

Be sorrowful about your sin. Read the repentance book by Thomas Watson. Be contrite about your sin.

Turn from your sin. Old Testament word, shuv. Repent, run, get away from your sin.

That there's serious things that we have to do in order to get rid of sin, right?

Radical amputation. Not literally, but just taking care of sin. That's what we see from the

Lord Jesus, obviously. But we know that some people, while they'll take advantage of grace, we don't want you to do that.

We don't want you to sin. But if you've got a gospel like Rome that says, you know, it's faith and works, and should

I just do some bad works? Nobody would ever ask that question. What should we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might abound?

That wouldn't be asked. But the real gospel lends itself to that. And anyway,

I'm just rambling on and on and on. But I was super encouraged, Em, for your letter. I'm gonna save it.

I appreciate you and what you've learned. And for those of you who are listening who aren't 16, who are older, if a 16 -year -old gets it, there's hope for you.

I'm just kidding, man. 16 years old.

I love that. I love that, Em. Good for you. You've blessed me. And I'm very, very thankful for young ladies like you.

You can write me, Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com. If you've got any questions about Israel, I have a brochure and a registration form.

You'll need both of those. So if you want that, send me the $500 to Bethlehem Bible Church. Care of Israel 2023.

Don't send it to me personally. You can get the address, of course, on our website at No Compromise Radio.

Hopefully one of these days we're gonna have the Tuesday guy back. God bless 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 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.