Fellow Laborers

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm happy to have my son, Luke Abendroth here with me.

No, I have a different guest with me, and I'll introduce him in just a moment. You can always write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com.

Please be patient. We're trying to get the website updated for some newer shows. Mario's working behind the scenes, and so that's in the works.

Also the newest book, The Chosen, subtitled The Beauty of God's Eternal Love, I put together.

And one of my favorite parts about this book is not the stuff that I wrote, but the appendices.

It's got things in the back of the book regarding unconditional election by J .C.

Ryle and B .B. Warfield. And the Warfield article, I had never read this article for probably my whole life, and he has some interesting insights on unconditional election that I haven't heard about, but are devotional, and I think you'll like them.

Well, in the studio today, Austin Hobbs, Pastor Austin Hobbs, Assistant to the Pastor Seminary graduate is here.

He's now been on the payroll of Bethlehem Bible Church for - About a month. About a month. And he's in the

Parsonage right over there with his wife Ashton. And I wanted to just introduce him to you on No Compromise Radio.

Austin, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you, Mike. Happy to be here. So let's just go way back in the time machine,

Austin. I first was contacted you via the email, I think, when you were still maybe a college student at Texas A &M?

That's right, yeah. I was a Texas A &M college student my senior year during 2020, crazy year. But I think

I direct messaged you on either Twitter or emailed you, but we ended up talking about seminary and just kind of getting to know each other a little bit because I've listened to NoCo for a little bit, followed you all on -

For a little bit. During college, you know, during college. And of course, I follow Pat Abendroff, your brother, on Omaha Bible Church.

And so I kind of knew of the Reformed Baptist sphere, and so I figured I'd get your thoughts on seminary. I think when

I look back at the email, something like 20, was it 2020 when you first emailed me?

I think it was 2020. Okay, yeah. I think, did I send you a sexual fidelity book or no? Yeah, you sent me two books.

Yeah, I had the sexual fidelity book and things that go bump in the church. Okay, did I charge you for them? I don't think you did.

Okay. I don't think you did. Good, good. And so now fast forward,

Austin has graduated from seminary and is on staff here now, two -year program, kind of an internship.

Austin, tell me about your conversion and how the Lord saved you. And we're just gonna kind of walk through, we'll talk about your wife and seminary, but it's always good to hear testimonies of God's saving grace.

So in a nutshell, what's your testimony? Yeah, I grew up in a Christian family and it was actually sprinkled in a

Lutheran church. Didn't really know like really the gospel growing up. I heard a lot of cool stories about Noah, Abraham, David, just about how

I should follow their good example, but never really about their sin, never heard about Noah's drunkenness, never heard about David's sexual infidelity and their need for Christ.

But we started going to a First Baptist in Caldwell around almost close to middle school.

And that's where I began to understand the gospel that, hey, baptism is what Christ commands us and that I wanted to follow

Jesus. I'm a sinner, He's the Savior, something very simple like that. And it wasn't really until high school where I started getting more questions about my faith, about what the

Bible taught. I started reading the Bible every day and naturally questions just arise. And then

I started just going to internet for answers. And I could have gone so in different directions, but the

Lord and His grace really kept me. And I ended up finding this website called gotquestions .org

and they have a lot of questions, a lot of answers. So I used to just come home after school every day and just scroll down and click on them, read the article, gain more knowledge.

And it's funny, in high school, I liked this Roman Catholic girl and I started going to her youth group. That's really where I started to think about, does theology matter?

Does it matter? Why do we have these different churches? So I started looking to the five souls of a reformation.

Why does it matter that we believe that we're justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to the scriptures alone.

And that's where I really started saying, well, I'm really saved by grace, like grace alone. And I can't lose my salvation.

It's totally found in Christ's arms. Did she break up with you or did you break up with her? No, I mean, it's just this thing where I liked her and she kind of dragged me along for a little bit as a friend, but no, no, it was more,

I mean, I made it clear where I was at and we remained friends. Was that at Texas A &M? That was in high school.

Oh, in high school, okay. Caldwell High School. And how far was your home from the Texas A &M campus? It's about 30 minutes away.

All right, so you can go home on weekends and do laundry. Right, exactly. I could always come home for dinner one night.

What'd you study while you were there? You know, at Texas A &M, I got my degree in philosophy. Oh, really?

Yeah, right. Wow. Yeah, I decided to get my degree in philosophy because I had gone to a

Young Life camp after high school and I kind of came on as a student leader. And at that point,

I had, you know, scheduled to sign up for classes for majoring in stats. So I thought I could be like something like a

Moneyball guy, be like the movie for Brad Pitt. But, you know, I went to the camp,

I was student leader. I got to help facilitate camp time discussions after speaker sessions and do one -on -ones and just hang out with the guys at camp.

And I remember one night, we talked about lacrosse. The narrative of the crucifixion of Christ. And I just remember talking so passionately about my guys, about the gospel, about what

Christ has done on the cross to save them from those sins that, you know, I went to bed that night thinking like, wow, I just have to do this for the rest of my life.

So that's where I felt first called to ministry. So I thought, you know, the degree I should get in college should, you know, prepare me for that.

So I thought philosophy would be the best degree to get before going to seminary and before going to ministry because it teaches you just logical thinking skills, reading skills, writing, analyzing arguments, and also thinking about different worldviews.

You know, like how, like what does it matter what we believe about the world? How does it affect the way we live? Well, to jump in there for a second,

Austin, tell our listeners a little bit about why a Christian could study philosophy.

Probably a lot of viewers are saying, you know, all philosophy's bad and doesn't have any answers and sola scriptura, we only need the scriptures.

I don't mean that's what sola scriptura is. Scripture is the final authority. What's an upside for Christians to study philosophy?

And if there's a viewer out there that wants an intro to good philosophy, what would you recommend? Yeah, right. So I think the reason why it's a

Christian thing to study philosophy because, you know, we're called to study how to live in God's world, you know?

And so God has two books. He has his book of scripture, which we all know and read, but also has a book of nature, like general revelation of what

God reveals through the created order. And, you know, all throughout history, we as Christians, we dominated the field of philosophy from Justin Martyr to Augustine to Aquinas, and there's a lot of philosophical works in the

Reformation. And so Christians all throughout history have really led the way in studying like, you know, what is wisdom?

You know, what is, you know, metaphysics? You know, what is epistemology? What is ethics? How do we all live in that? What are those, define those three things.

Yeah, metaphysics. It's really, metaphysics really talks about - Not that I need it, but Mario does. Yeah, like really talks about, you know, first principles.

Like, what do you believe about the very fabric of creation itself, you know? You know, are things like human nature, is that something that we give a name to?

Because that's nominalism, you know? Nominalism is where you simply, there's no real form. There's really no real essence to what it means to be human.

It's just something we impose upon just things we see, feel, and touch, you know? Realism is this idea that, no, there is something true.

There's something objectively true about human nature. It exists apart from our minds. It's something that we have to submit to.

And ultimately, we believe that God designed us to be who we are as the image of God. And we were designed to glorify

Him and to enjoy Him forever. So there's real purpose. There's objective woven in purpose into the created order.

So it's basically, metaphysics can be summed up as what you are and what you're for, essentially. Talking to Austin Hobbs today on No Compromise Radio.

You can always write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com. Austin, as you're thinking through call to ministry, seminaries to go to, did

I give you good advice to go to a good seminary? What did I tell you? Yeah, you know, I started listening to you and Pat and just other people throughout my time in college, that a lot of y 'all, y 'all just recommended

Westminster Seminary in California. And so that was actually the first seminary I visited. And so I actually visited during COVID, like right as everything was canceling, shutting down.

I mean, I was at the Houston airport and I got an email from Texas A &M saying that they're shutting down class the rest of the semester.

So, but I mean, I visited and so I loved the West Cal, I loved all the people who, you know, like R. Scott Clark, Michael Horton, Dave Van Druinen, you know,

Dennis Johnson, like all those guys I've actually read during college and I really liked their work. It just, it was pretty far away.

You know, it was about a 24 hour drive away from, you know, College Station, Texas. Whereas, you know, RTS Jackson, you know, they had just gotten

Dr. John Fesco. Yeah, I read his book on justification. Actually, I listened to him speak at the

Omaha Bible Church Conference when it was named that, not until it was recently called the Pactum, but listen to him talk about justification.

I read his book on justification. I thought, you know, this is RTS reform theology. You know, John Fesco's gonna teach the word really well.

And I really trust him on that Christ -centered preaching, the assurance of salvation, law gospel. It just made a lot of sense to go there if it was close by.

Sounds good. And did you have other professors that you really liked there at RTS? And if so, who?

Yeah, you know, I was a teaching assistant for Benjamin Glad. Benjamin Glad, he was a

New Testament professor at RTS and a great biblical theology scholar.

You know, he was a student of Greg Beal. Now, currently, he's actually the executive director of the Carson Center of Theological Renewal at the

Gospel Coalition. And so, he's written a lot of work on biblical theology, and he really helped me understand even more precisely the

New Testament use of the Old Testament, just how, you know, that this, and also just seeing how the Bible's theme hopefully unfolds in Christ, who is the true

Israel, he's the true temple, last Adam. So, he really helped me, like, understand these things even more clearly.

So, he's got a new Bible out, not that he wrote the Bible, but notes for the Bible. Tell us about that.

It's Connecting Scripture, what's it called? Yeah, it's called Connecting Scripture. So, basically, it's a New Testament. And what they did, the project they underwent, was that they redid all the cross -references in there.

So, they completely redone it so that it's a lot more accurate. And also, what they did is that they showed the allusions, the

Old Testament allusions, the Old Testament quotes. I believe the allusions are in green, the quotes are in blue.

And so, it's supposed to be a lot more precise cross -reference, a lot more, it helps give you comments in the margins about how the

New Testament author is using the Old Testament. So, I think it's a fantastic resource. I think you'll definitely enjoy it just for your own personal

Bible reading. So, I think - I think everybody needs it. I mean, I have it, and I'll look now at every passage that I'm gonna preach.

I'll look in the Connecting Scripture Bible. Very, very helpful. As we know, Austin, red letter

Bibles, what Jesus said is more important than what Paul said. So, is what's said in blue in the

Connecting Scripture more important than the black? No, it's not. Just kidding, just kidding.

Okay, so, you're in seminary, and how did you meet your wife, and how did that all happen?

Yeah, so, I met my wife, Ashton. We met my first Sunday in Jackson at church.

So, I was an intern at Harvest Church in Ridgeland, Mississippi, and I was gonna be an intern there.

And I just, I was there the first Sunday. She walked up and met me and my fellow intern, Moses Houle, and I met her.

We joined her Bible study, young adult Bible study that she was in, and - So, let me interrupt you just for a second. So, when you saw her, what'd you think?

Well, here's the thing. It was during the COVID era, we're still wearing masks. So, I couldn't see her face, and that's what

I told my wife. So, maybe she had all kinds of scars, and she had no teeth. You know, that's what

I told my wife. One of my biggest regrets is that I couldn't see her face the first time I met her. Oh. I would love to just know the experience of seeing her beautiful face, and just being in awe.

But eventually, I got to see her without her mask. Oh, wow, she's really pretty. You know, like - That's true.

That's why I have you on this show, because we went the inside scoop. And then, after that, you began dating, or how'd that all work out?

Well, you know, we were just friends at the very start of it. She had gotten in a relationship, and it's funny, I'd asked her out a couple times, you know, but she just wasn't ready.

And she told me that I wasn't allowed to ask her out until she told me I could ask her out. But eventually, about a year later, she told me that I could ask her out on a date.

We started hanging out more, spending time together, and she wanted to start dating, and that went well. And so, had a little rocky start.

It was a little bit rocky after that, but we're here now. And she really loves me now, that's the main thing.

I'm happy she loves me. Took a little convincing, but we're here. Till death do us part.

Right, right. She's a wonderful addition to the church as well. When I just see her, I see her effervescence and the joy of the

Lord on her face. And so, I married up, so did you. Yeah, I did, for sure. And so, let's talk a little bit about preaching,

Austin. Philosophy of preaching, why it's important. I know you've been here now a month, and you were preaching a lot back at home, and now you're not preaching so much as you're getting your feet wet.

What's your philosophy of preaching? If people are watching, they're saying, I don't preach, but I teach the

Bible. There's some similarities there. So, just off the cuff, what would you say about preaching, teaching the

Bible? Right, yeah, I think my philosophy of preaching is preaching expository preaching, verse by verse, book by book.

You get to see the full counsel of God, just more so than when you could do a topical sermon. I think you could run out of ideas if you're just doing topical preaching.

And plus, preaching verse by verse and book by book requires you to address all the issues that God brings up and all the ways it applies to our lives.

But even more centrally, I think what people even miss about expository preaching is that the Word is about revealing who

Christ is to us as a means of grace to us. And that Christ has come to save sinners is the chief and most important point about scripture.

And all of these things, the way we apply the Bible, even the law of God to our lives is through the lens of Christ has finished work for us.

The law comes to us by the hand of Christ. So, it's not just simply enough to do expository preaching, you have to exalt

Christ in that. And luckily, when you do expository preaching, you get Christ. Do you say luckily?

Yeah, providentially, providentially. Austin gave the announcements before our worship services last

Sunday, and he was talking about our pot providence or pot blessing, but really they're called potlucks, but we just try to excise that name around here just for fun, but go ahead.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so you need to exalt Christ. You exalt Christ expository preaching because the

Bible exalts Christ. I believe it's Hebrew says in many times, in many ways, God spoke to us by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son.

So, Jesus, he is the climax of God's redemption story. He is the climax of everything God's bringing to pass to bring us new creation and for us to be saved, us to know

God. So, without Christ, you can't know God. Now, he is the way to the father, so we have to exalt him in our preaching.

I was thinking about the transfiguration in Luke 9, Austin, and Moses is there,

Elijah. By the way, that's a good trick question for Bible trivia. Did Moses ever make it into the promised land?

Answer, yes, transfiguration. Yeah, yeah, right, right. And can you imagine the law, the prophets summarized in these two men, and all of a sudden they're gone, right?

The father says, listen to my son. These guys are gone. And it's just a good exclamation point on the focus is learning about the son, believing in the son, listening to the son, heeding his words.

What about preaching Christ to believers? Because almost everyone would say, the only way to God is through Christ.

Make sure you tell unbelievers about that. Give them the good news. But what about good news for Christians?

What about Jesus dying for the sins of Christians, too? What about preaching Christ for power to overcome sin and live righteously?

What's your philosophy of that? Yeah, yeah, I think, like you said, Christians need the gospel, too. Christ died for the sins of Christians, too.

And a lot of preaching I heard in college, the preachers are very passionate about making the gospel clear to unbelievers, but not so much for believers.

A lot of the sermons I heard that it was like 45 minutes of topical, explanatory preaching about just do all these things, a lot of bashing people of law, honestly.

And the last minute was, here's the gospel for unbelievers. Never applied to believers. And so it's really important because we can really struggle with the assurance of salvation.

All we're hearing about all the things we ought to do and how we failed that, I mean, we're gonna be very discouraged

Christians, but we have to understand that Christ said it is finished. Like he has done all the work for us.

And Paul, he tells us in Galatians that the life I now live in the flesh,

I live by faith in a son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

And Paul, he doesn't move on from the gospel, but every day, every breath, he is relying on the finished work of Christ to strengthen him, to comfort him, and to empower him to live the

Christian life. And even to understand that our union with Christ, if you want to be sanctified, if you want to keep God's law, that's only through the power of Christ working within us through the

Holy Spirit. So we can't move on from the gospel. We're gonna be crushed by the law and not have assurance, and we'll have the power to obey him without Christ.

And of course, the other option, and this is my default, if I hear the law without it coming from the hand of Christ, then instead of getting crushed,

I just make the law a little lighter and lower its standards a little bit, feel like I do it, and then

I become self -righteous, right? So there's almost two kinds of people that you preach to. And if it's a gospel -less law, then they either become discouraged, doubt assurance, or they become self -righteous.

Those are the kind of two things. And we know the Latin phrase duplex gratia, right, a double grace.

It's Christ for pardon and Christ for power. I just was reading Jerry Bridges, and he's so good at just breaking this down in simple terms for people to understand.

And he was talking about Galatians 2 .20, how that was a present reality for him, something that happened in the past when he was justified, but still he's thinking about it because now it's not performance -based.

Now he can still say, my sin is still awful against a holy God, but I have a right standing.

And so I'm continually, to use Bridges' words, preaching the gospel to myself. Right, exactly. And he writes in the gospel for a life that we have to dwell on the immeasurable riches of grace that we have in Christ Jesus.

If it's immeasurable, we should be going deeper and deeper into the gospel. We can never get enough of what

Christ has done for us. That's why we have to live by the gospel, live by faith every day. That book that you were talking about from Bridges, I like the section where he talks about the

Lord casting our sins into the deepest sea. And Bridges goes on to say, God is not a reluctant forgiver.

He casts them, he hurls them with force, with emphasis. It's not like, well, you know,

I don't really want to throw them overboard, but I will. No, no, he hurls them into the depths of the sea.

So he delights in that. That's right. So you move from Mississippi a month ago here to New England.

You talked about a big move to California and you didn't do that, but now a big move and then it snowed two and a half feet or something.

What have you been thinking last month? Well, we've really enjoyed being here. It's not as warm as Texas, not as warm as Mississippi.

I think Christmas time for both in Texas and my wife's from Orlando, Florida is like 75 degrees here.

So it's a lot different. But the biggest thing that went into our decision -making was that, where are the churches?

That's where home's going to be. There's still a sweet fellowship in the gospel that we're not going to be isolated, we're not going to be alone.

We have God's people here. And I thought, the decision of coming here is that I felt like I could trust the leadership here at the church and the beliefs and the direction that it was going.

And I felt like I would be shepherded well, my wife would be shepherded well, and that I could trust the direction our leadership was going theologically.

And plus, we just have a lot of just going through college and thinking about law, gospel, assurance,

Christ -centered preaching, that we would just have a lot of commonality there, that we wouldn't be butting heads on that. It just made sense to come here early in my ministry and learn and develop and serve the church here.

Well, Austin, we've talked about it, and Steve and I, and many other people, it would be hard to go to a church and be on staff if you're not the senior pastor, whatever title we have, main preaching pastor, if you had a huge discrepancy in what you believed in philosophy of ministry, and had to sit there and listen to the preacher preach every week going,

I'm dying on the vine, he doesn't get law, gospel, he doesn't get Christ -centered preaching. And so it's very difficult.

And one of the things I said to Austin, before you come, make sure you could say to yourself, I could sit underneath that ministry every week, right?

Frail man, sinful man, that's true, but preaching Christ. And so you know better, you know rightly, and I want to make sure that when you leave here, if you ever do, or I die first, that these are the non -negotiables, preaching,

Christ -centered, law, gospel, law in the hand of Christ, and so much more.

T. David Gordon wrote that book, Why Johnny Can't Preach. And he said, a two -minute discussion of Jesus at the end of the sermon, the gospel, call the gospel's good news rather, and then call to the gospel, can't rescue a

Christless sermon. And what I did remember two years ago at Omaha Bible Church, I said to the men who were in the preaching seminar, don't get out preached, don't get out preached by King James -only fundamentalist with slick back hair, because at least at the end of their sermons, they give an altar call and talk about Jesus.

And half the time when people are doing the atomistic, myopic, I'm in these three verses, and here's an objective genitive, and here's a subjective genitive, and here's a nomic aorist, and here's all these things.

Wait a second, these are real people in front of you, feed them. Yeah, you have to shepherd the people of God with the great shepherd when you're preaching, for sure.

What do you want to have accomplished in the next couple of years? What are some of your goals that you would like to do here at Bethlehem Bible Church in the next two years?

I'm sure you have some, I'm sure some will be delegated to you, but what are some of your goals? Yeah, yeah, well, I think one of the main reasons why

I came here was to work in the youth ministry. So it's called Cornerstone, and I love to just teach them, to shepherd them, and be someone who's steady and constant for them, and again, exalt

Christ there for them. So I got to develop a curriculum for them that I presented to Pradeep recently, and so I'm excited to implement that in my time here, and to help our young adults ministry, our college and career ministry, and teach the

Word of God, do Bible study, hang out with them, spend time, shepherd. And of course, just help out, wherever you and Steve need help, and Tina need help, and just be part of how the church functions and flows, that I can be part of the administrative help, and again, here to serve, here to serve.

Wonderful, and to bring us into the 21st century, an app, we're gonna actually have an app. Yeah, church management, yeah.

Maybe have a website that's, you know, got all the service. Right, right. What you don't know is that before this show, we were just talking in between shows, the three of us,

Mario, Austin, and I, and I said, what are you doing in the next 30 minutes? And Austin said, well,

I'm gonna go work on whatever. And I said, well, come in and let's record the show, and Austin goes, okay. Yeah. And then

I could see his Adam Apple go down a little bit. Gulp. Oh, yeah, he didn't come to the office to help us plan to go on no -code today.

Something new every day. Well, it's been fun to watch Austin.

Ashton's been gone for the last week or two, or I was gone, then she was gone. One of the things that you probably don't know about Austin, although you've heard how articulate he is, easy for me to say, and smart theologically, he is brilliant theologically.

And so I have to watch my P's and Q's theologically when I'm talking around him, because I don't wanna make a

Trinitarian error and go into a Polynarianism or Sabellianism or something like that.

But in all seriousness, I appreciate the Lord's gifting in your life, including your mind.

And so I'm glad for that. So you're gonna see all kinds of great things, hopefully, coming through no -code, social media.

I was gonna call it no -so. No -so. No social media. And kind of that's what we've had for the past 20 years, not much social media, until Mario got here.

Any questions you have for me, we've got four minutes to go. Something you wanna ask me that maybe you think they might wanna know.

Okay. Okay. Let's see. If nothing pops in your mind, that's okay. Okay, let's see. Well, Mike, what really got you -

That's Pastor Mike. Pastor Mike. Oh my gosh. Yeah, Mike, what got you in the direction of law gospel preaching, prior to prioritizing assurance, match people of law?

How'd you get on this directory, this path? Well, many people know of the man named

S. Lewis Johnson. So Samuel Lewis Johnson taught at Dallas Seminary, then he went on to Trinity, after essentially he got fired for believing limited atonement, and for believing that regeneration precedes faith.

And so he, when he was at Dallas Seminary, he would wrestle with biblical truths.

And he would say things like, I believe in the covenant of redemption, covenant of works, covenant of grace.

And while some people don't want to call them covenants, these are true theological covenants, even with the word like Trinity, not in the

Bible, but three in one, one in three, et cetera. And so he started working through some covenant theology.

And I was listening to that, and I thought, you know what? I can embrace those things as well. That the

Father and the Son in eternity passed with a spirit there as a witness, made this pact, this covenant to go rescue sinners, et cetera.

So it was that, and then in 2015, I heard actually in this room that I had prostate cancer.

I had done a two -hour live wretched radio show. I picked up the phone, it was the doctor, and I had prostate cancer.

I, Austin, didn't handle it like I think I should have. In front of my wife and children, praise the

Lord I did. In front of the church, praise the Lord I did. Privately at home, much more anxious, much more,

I wouldn't say depressed, but just like discouraged and wondering. And so I started thinking, am

I really a Christian? I've written a book on the sovereignty of God. And if you said to me in 2014, if you get diagnosed with cancer,

Mike, how do you think you'll respond? Well, I'd be sad and sorry and go to chemo, and I'd still be trusting in God who, though He slayed me yet,

I'll trust in Him. Now I still think all those things, but I wasn't relying on the Lord like I should. And so I started wondering about assurance, and I'm searching for answers.

And I realized the answer wasn't in me subjectively. Am I obeying? Am I praying?

Am I trusting? Because those were low at times. I was then taught to look externally.

Scott Clark helped me and some others at West Cal, Michael Horton, to look externally first.

So objective assurance, the object of our faith, then subjective assurance. Do we do what Christians do?

Does the Holy Spirit convict us, et cetera? So it was really, number one,

S. Lewis Johnson, number two, my own trials and cancer, and number three, I was preaching through Hebrews.

And these people who received that letter had a lot of persecution. They hadn't died yet, but probably soon would, taking houses and possessions.

And what does Paul or whomever the writer humanly would be? Here's who Jesus is. Chapter one,

He's God. Chapter two, He's man. Chapter three, He's better than Moses. It just goes on and on and on and on.

And then there was some exhortations, but that was really what did it. Hebrews, cancer, and S.

Lewis Johnson. Yeah, so you really experienced how the law had to break you before the gospel could comfort you. And if I needed that comfort, why wasn't

I giving it to the congregation? I'm sure there were some times I was, but it wasn't near as prominent as after I realized

I needed to be soothed and comforted by the balm of the gospel. So do these people.

My name is Mike Abendroth, this is Austin Hobbs. If you come to Bethlehem Bible Church, I hope you say hello to both

Austin and his wife, Ashton. Did you get to meet the people out front on Sunday? Out front? Yeah, yeah. Out front?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, nice. And so you'll walk in, and my default is stoic German face.

Austin's default is a smile. So gravitate over to Austin. Thanks for being on the show today. I appreciate it. Thanks, Mike, appreciate it.