Politics (Part 1)

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 usually start off with a weather update, but since I record this show a month ahead of time, it doesn't really matter how much, does it? Just trying to finish eating my 90 calorie little bar here in honor of Barbara in Northern California who thinks diets are satanic.

So it's not for my diet. It's my livet. Don't you hate it when people say that? That's about as dumb as I found it bumper stickers. I don't think my mother ever put one on her car, but I'm sure she endorsed the whole idea.

I remember seeing those. I think they were yellow with black letters. I found it. And then you were supposed to ask the person, what did you find? And then you were to tell the person about the Lord Jesus.

Well, good motives, bad theology. To this day, I remember driving in my mother's car. Well, she was driving and I was probably in kindergarten, first grade, third grade, something like that. She was taking us to school.

I was anxious to get home early to watch Tarzan or Batman. And we would listen to the radio and she would listen to AM radio. And now to think, after all these years, now her son is on AM radio. Actually my mother died before No Compromise radio started, so she doesn't know anything about this.

She doesn't quite care. She's before the Lord's throne and face, standing in his presence with great joy, and that gives me great joy. And we would listen in the car on the way to, can you get a load of the name of my elementary school?

First, I went to Laura Dodge in Omaha, Nebraska, some trailers, and I thought we were rich growing up. I didn't know a 1000 square foot house was poor. We had a boat and stuff and had a trailer on the river too for the summer.

And then a new school was built in town since it was the suburbs. Now it's part of the internal organism of Omaha. It was called Master's, the Master's Monarchs, Master's Elementary School. And then I went to Monroe Junior High, and then off to Northwest High School, and then University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Cal State Long Beach for just a class or two, and then Master's Seminary, then Southern Seminary, then Ligonier.

So we're always in school, but anyway, from Master's Elementary to Master's, I think the Master's College nickname is the Mustangs. Is that right? I don't think it's the Monarchs. So is that a politically correct name?

The Monarchs? Anyway, my name is Mike Abenroth, info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. God found us. Aren't you glad? When we weren't even seeking him, no one seeks after God. Oh, of course you think you were seeking him because you were being drawn.

And from your perspective, it seemed like you were, but ultimately the cause of salvation is, aren't you glad, our triune God. Well, what else can I say today? You can order the first couple books that I wrote for day one on Amazon, if you're interested.

I don't like to do a whole lot of self-promo, but those books do promote the Lord Jesus Christ. Both the first two books were written about Jesus. Sinclair Ferguson said, books about Jesus don't sell.

Well, he was correct. He said, Mike, books about Jesus don't sell. So I should have listened to Sinclair Ferguson when I could have. And then the next two books that I wrote are just, no publishers will take, so I'm just waiting.

Do I self-publish? Do I, I don't know what I do with those two. The Harvest House book will be out soon, probably at the end of this year or early next year with Byron Yawn and Clint Archer, Things That Go Bump in the Church, Scary Doctrines for New Christians.

And that is, like I said, Harvest House, that'll be out soon. And then next year, Lord willing, Zondervan will release the Romans commentary, Discovering Romans, Spiritual Revival for the Soul, S. Lewis Johnson, adapted by Mike Abendroth.

So happy about those. And there are three others in the works. They won't sell either. I'm 53. My goal is to have written 15 books by the time I'm 60. If you have no goals, you'll never get them. You'll never reach them.

And so how many will be published? I have no idea. I have no idea. That's not really the point now, is it? I think they're good for our local church. And beyond that, we'll see what happens. At least my kids will have something to read when I'm dead and gone.

For a generation, then I will too be forgotten. And that's the way it goes. That's Ecclesiastes. Today, I'd like to talk a little bit about the government. To talk about the government, I believe—I don't usually say much about politics on No Compromise Radio.

I think there's a No Compromise Radio that is actually a political station, a political blog, an internet site. I think they do some—I don't know if it's on a real station or not. See, now, well, we are on a real station, WV &E.

For how long? I don't know. If I keep talking about the horrible show that they put on at 430 People to People and causes all kinds of confusion and wreaks havoc on Christian families, maybe they're going to boot me out.

But I'd rather have them boot off bad teaching than me trying to say, you know what, stop taking their money and kick them off like every other respectable station has done once they're on. And they infect people with their lack of parental forgiveness that they deny.

And just like John MacArthur says, whenever Bob George's People to People—Bob George is defrocked and now gone somewhere else, maybe he's behind the scenes—is on, it hurts Christians. So quit hurting Christians.

Take that off. So maybe they'll take off No Compromise Radio. Who knows? They know my number. It reminds me of an old undertone song, You've Got My Number. Well, I don't talk much about politics, just radio politics.

And there's a reason for that, and that is Republican or Democrat, Independent, Green Party, Tory, or whatever else you are, there's a bigger need, and that need for you is to be redeemed. You are enslaved to sin when you're born.

You have Adam's sin credited to your account by the wisdom of God and federal representation. And you need to be forgiven. You need to be made born again, to be born again, to be made alive. That's what I wanted to say.

Submission to Government and the Need for Redemption

And so there are bigger issues for me. But since I want to talk a little bit about Romans 13 today, I think it is apropos and certainly within the realm of my radio show privileges, prerogatives. President Obama, I believe, speaking not for the station, not for Bob George, not for Bethlehem Bible Church, but for myself, I think he's socialistic.

I think he's probably even more than socialistic, but we'll just leave it at that. I believe he is anti-Christian. I believe he is anti-Christian family. I believe he promotes infanticide. Certainly I could prove that.

I believe that he wants to call evil good and good evil, homosexual agenda. And I believe overall, the way he acts and the way he speaks, he needs to be born again. And he is, in many ways, unrighteous and unjust in his policies and how he implements those and how he picks people to fill positions of leadership for our country.

And as you can probably tell, I did not vote for President Obama the last two elections. But do you know what? God did. And so what is the response of probably almost everyone else who's listening today, at least in WV and ELand here, 760 AM?

What's the response for the Christian? And the one word response for the government that we have for President Obama, whether that's our state senators and congressmen, women et al, et cetera, the response is with one word, submission.

Now, I know what you're going to say from the very get-go. Yeah, but what if they tell us to disobey? What if they say to sin? Now, we'll get there, but let's flesh this out a little bit. The one word response is submission.

If you'd like to encapsulate the Christian political attitude, it is submission. That does not mean that you cannot vote. I guess if you'd like to march, you can. If you'd like to have prayer vigils, you can.

If you'd like to run for office, you can. I have a little theory in my—here's my theory. I don't know if my poli-sci friends will like this. My sci-fi friends will like it, though. My Gene Roddenberry friends would like it.

Here's my little axiom, my paradigm, my equation for Christians and politics. To the extent that you believe and make known your Christian faith, inversely, that's as high as you'll go in political office.

Now, see, that doesn't really make sense. That's why I have to write it. That's like book number 13. What do I mean? If you want to be a compromiser and you want to just generally, generically be a Christian—oh, I'm a Christian, I'm an evangelical—well, you could go to your town selectman, you could do some local grassroots politics, but you're going to have to start biting your tongue and your lip the higher up you'd like to go.

You're not—you know, these days it doesn't matter because the first thing they do is they try to sniff out what's your view on abortion and what's your view on gay marriage. And then if you are anti-killing a baby in the womb and if you are anti-sin, you don't promote sin, of course you tolerate the people.

What a farce that is. You need to read D .A. Carson's The Intolerance of Tolerance, intolerant of people who don't agree with your views. So you're not going to go very far if you're going to be a Christian.

And I just think for all of the energy, time, sweat, toil that people put into politics, that's not really where the ultimate change is going to take place. So do I want Christian politicians? Yeah, I guess I do.

If someone at our church that I pastor said I'd like to run for politics and I'm going to be president someday, I would guide them along. So the one word for the Christian in response to our government is submission.

Now that doesn't mean you can't pray for them. That doesn't mean you can't evangelize them. Romans 13 would teach us that this talks about submission. Now J .C., not Ryle, but J .C. Neal, and that's not O 'Neal's, J .C. Neal said in Paul's letter to the Romans, his book, these seven verses of Romans 13, first seven verses, have caused more unhappiness and misery in the Christian east and west than any other seven verses in the New Testament.

But I don't think that's true. I think this gives me great rest, great comfort, great satisfaction knowing that God is sovereign, and that He does whatever He wishes, and that He has the most powerful men and women's hearts in His hand, and He turns them, to use the King James, whatsoever way He wishes.

That's comforting to me. It's comforting to me that I don't have to be involved in million-man marches to change the world. Now if you want to be in those things, you can. I have other things to do. I have better things to do than that.

I always remember Professor Montoya at the Master's Seminary, not the Master's Elementary School of Monarchs, but the Seminary, and he said, can you do unbelievers' weddings if you'd like? He said, yes, you can.

Of course, you can't marry a believer and an unbeliever, but if you'd like to marry two unbelievers and officiate that, you can. But he said, I have better things to do on a Saturday. That's no compromise.

I should have Alex Montoya on No Compromise Radio, but he would probably say, Mike, who? Although he did endorse, I think, my first book that didn't sell. Maybe there's a connection. Once I received, day one is an English company, and so you get royalty checks twice a year, and actually you get two per year from England, and you get two per year from the U .S.

Now, the U .S. ones are in dollars, and the English ones, surprise, surprise, are in pounds, British pounds, sterling. And so the checks will be cashed here. They will bounce. One time I got a royalty check there for six months for Jesus Christ, the Prince of Preachers, and it was for two pounds, seven, two pounds, 70 pence or something like that.

I should have just put it up on the wall, but I cashed it. I cashed it. If I were writing books to make money, I guess I wouldn't have to write about Jesus now, would I? That'd be the wrong subject to write about.

Romans 13 in Light of Justification and Romans 12

Okay, back to the topic, Romans 13. Now, let's think big picture, since this is going to be a several-part series. Romans 13 is connected to, or follows, and or follows, Romans 3b, 4, and 5. In other words, let's use a different illustration.

Romans 14 and 15, gray areas, legalism versus license, Christian taboos, Christian no-nos, what do we do with food, certain days of worship, extending into modern-day Christianity, alcohol, movies, tabacky, wacky tabacky.

No, wacky tabacky's out, although that is now an issue in evangelicalism. If it's legalized, then what about glaucoma? Can a Christian smoke marijuana? That'll be another show. If I would not have smoked so much marijuana when I was unsaved, I could probably give you comments now, but my brain is fried.

So, what does that tell you? Romans 14 and 15, Christian liberty and license, follows Romans 3, 4, and 5. So, you can't really study 14 and 15 until you really understand 3, 4, and 5. If your view of Christian liberty and legalism is skewed, unbiblical, and off, it's because you don't understand fully and then implement the doctrine of justification in your life.

In other words, God declares you righteous based on the work of another Christ Jesus, the God-man, and because He, with Christ's alien righteousness, different righteousness, declares you righteous, imputes Christ's righteousness into your account, imputes to Christ's account, sin, your sin.

There's nothing you can do to make yourself more loved by God, less loved by God. If you drink a Mickey's Big Mouth, you aren't less loved by God. If you smoke cherry tobacco in a pipe by the fireplace, you're not more loved by God.

There are a variety of ways to look at Romans 14 and 15, but if you don't look at it through the lens of what's written earlier in the letter, then you're going to be messed up. So, when Christians are legalistic, they don't understand justification enough to live it out.

If Christians are licentious, they don't understand justification well enough to live it out. So, see, it's connected. Similarly, it's not a simile, it's similarly, we too must understand Romans 3, 4, and 5.

We have no righteousness. We need righteousness. God provides righteousness through the person and work of Christ Jesus, His Son, fully God, fully man, perfectly kept the law, died for all our sins. God confirmed that and authenticated it by raising Him from the dead.

This is courtroom language. We think of words like impute, reckon, credit, forensic, alien righteousness. And so, in light of that, after all that God has done for you graciously, freely, wonderfully, you ought to do what He says.

Because Romans chapter 12 talks about what? Presenting yourself as a living... I just whistled when I said that. Presenting yourself as a living sacrifice. My dog just came over here. Not true. I've only recorded about three or four radio shows with my dog in the studio.

Her name is Jetty, J-E-T-T-Y, like the jetty in Santa Cruz, California. And she is a long-legged Jack Russell, known as a parson jack. Of course, if you're a pastor, you have to get a parson jack, because the man that bred this kind of Jack Russell—they're not the squatty kind—he was a pastor.

He was a parson. So, of course, I'm a pastor. I have to get a parson Jack Russell. Well, she's not in the studio today, but if she would have been, she would have come over, and she would have thought, it's time to go play, time to run.

What I like to do with Jetty, she's got a lot of energy. And so if you've got a dog that chews on stuff, wets, does weird things, then I'll tell you, Caesar the dog whisperer is correct. You've got to get that dog to work out.

I hate to say it's no different than a young boy. And I'm not saying dogs are boys, but as a dog needs to work out, especially Jack Russells, and to get some activity, burn some calories to exercise. Those dogs are wired and built for that.

So too boys. They need to be busy. My son has an hour's worth of yard work to do a day. Half the problem is me just trying to figure out what he needs to do, besides lifting, and he's into like 600 pull-ups a day, and 700 push-ups, and all these other kind of things as some 16-year-old.

But he needs to work. So how am I on this subject? Well, I'm back to the topic of submission. My name is Mike Gabendroth. No Compromise Radio. Info at No Compromise Radio. I think we're up to about 24, 25 videos on the YouTube channel.

No Compromise 90. You can pull those up. Those are usually 90 seconds, plus or minus a couple seconds here or there. And I'm trying to talk about a specific no-co topic. If you want to send me some of your ideas on these no-co 90 topics, I'd love to hear about those as well.

It's harder than you think because, you know, I'd like to be biblical, provocative, clever, interesting. If I've got 90 seconds—and I don't want to read a bunch of stuff. You can tell when I have to look over to the side of my computer to read a Bible verse or something.

I don't really want to do that. About a minute into it, I look over to see the time, because I'm not Todd Friel with all my production studio stuff. And so there's that. We need to submit to God. We need to present ourselves a living sacrifice.

In chapter 12, there are duties then that follow to the church, duties to our fellow believers, duties to those people who are in the society, our enemies. And then Paul moves to Romans 13, duties to civil authorities.

And he'll talk a little bit about loving one another later in chapter 13. And he'll say, because of what God has done for you. And because Jesus will come back soon, salvation is nearer than when you first believed, you ought to—one word again—submit to the government.

Submission does not mean agree. Submission is, I disagree, and I go along anyway. Ask a wife who has to submit to their husband. They disagree, but they go along anyway, knowing that God is sovereign and runs the whole deal anyway.

Friends, I don't want you as a Christian to have your day ruined by the latest poll numbers. I don't want you to be totally preoccupied with politics. I stop listening to the political hacks here in New England, even the right-wing ones, and even the ones that are nationally around.

I don't listen to those. If you want to listen to Rush Limbaugh and listen to 96 .9 and listen to Sean Hannity and Bill O 'Reilly and all these people, you can. But I think you're just going to get mad anyway.

And personally, I don't listen. I have better things to do. I have to do a radio show myself. So it's kind of like, why don't I read as many books as I want to read? Because you can't have it all. So if you're going to write, it's hard to read.

I still read a few books a week, but you get my point. Politics consume people, and sadly, politics consume even Christians. Time, energy, thought life, dominated by ungodly governments, maybe even dominated by godly governments.

Maybe you think Reagan was a great man and that he brought in godly government. Well, as far as presidents go, I think he was a great president. I like Ronald Reagan. Got to see him once. Well, I've not seen too many presidents.

I've seen Ronald Reagan, see George Bush Jr. That's it. That's it. Would I like to meet the other presidents? Oh, sure. I think they secretly listen to No Compromise Radio. We are a different people though, and we submit to the government.

We have been made born again. We are changed. God Almighty took us and made us sons. We were slaves and now we're sons. And so today is just part one on government, politics, submission on No Compromise Radio.

You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. You can go to nocompromiseradio .com and find the NoCo ever. Find Facebook, get us on Twitter. Ben has done a great job with Jonathan trying to get the Facebook quotes up and going.

I think you'll find that advantageous.

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.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.