Nahum O’Brien Interview 

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm glad you tuned in today. I even use the old jargon, tuning in, like when you had a radio and you had to actually tune it with your fingers in the car.

Remember those preset buttons you'd have to pull out and push back in? Of course, you can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com. I'm trying to think if there's any special announcements that I have.

The new law gospel primer should be out. The mini version of Cancer's Not Your Shepherd entitled Jesus and Cancer should be out. And that's about it. As you know, on Wednesdays, I try to have guests on, theologians, pastors, friends.

I haven't really debated anybody because that's not my style here on the radio. And so today, in spite of all the talk about how bad social media is, I have a friend via social media. And so, Pastor Nahum O 'Brien, welcome to No Compromise Radio.

Thank you very much for having me on.

Hey, how did we meet? What was our first interaction? Did you reach out to me or did I reach out to you? How'd that work?

Yeah, well, we first met at a conference in Cleveland. It was the one where it was a judge not conference, I think.

Oh, yeah, that's right. It was Justin Peters was there. I'm trying to remember the host pastor, but yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Yeah, Phil Johnson was there. J .D. Hall was there. Striving for Eternity, maybe. I can't remember now.

Yeah, Andrew, was he there? I'm not exactly sure. Whatever happened to him? I don't see him around anymore. Is he still alive?

I don't know.

You don't know. So we first met there, and then we had some interaction on social media.

Yeah, and then I had you on my podcast, I think.

Oh, you are right. So I have a lot to talk about on the show. I'd like to hear about what you're doing now, Norway and all that. But let's start off with how our hearts are particularly knit together these days, and that is through cancer.

Could you please give our listeners an update on what you're going through, how they can pray? And I think we'll start there.

Yeah. So as you alluded to, I was a missionary in Norway. And in 2022, we discovered that I had stage three, a very rare form of colon cancer that they have linked to my military service in Iraq. The burn pits over there are putting off toxic fumes to the soldiers.

And I'm one of the blessed few first men that come down with strange cancers. And they're saying that it's going to be quite epidemic in the near future. So we came home and had about a year of chemo and radiation, then went to clear scans for about two years.

And then early this year, about June, July timeframe, we found out that the cancer had come back. And then I believe I connected with you through Steven on Twitter. The one that does your book covers.

Oh, that's okay. Well, he served in the military as well. Now, back to the Iraq situation. Do they, are you kind of one of the first men to experience this? Are you kind of the, I don't want to call you a guinea pig, but are they kind of experimenting with exactly how to treat you so they know what to do with the rest of men?

How does that work out?

Well, yeah, I'm not one of the first. I'm one of the first from my unit that I know of. But there have been lots of veterans from earlier in the wars, maybe 2003 to 2007, that are coming down with strange cancers.

And there's a list of about 10 to 12, I think, that the VA recognizes that come from the burn pits. It's supposed to be about similar to the new Agent Orange from the Vietnam generation.

Okay. And so I think you actually had treatment this week. What are they doing for you currently?

Yeah, so they don't really know what to do. The original cancer was two types of cancer that were growing in the same tumor, which is rare. But then the spot that it was growing in the large intestine was even more rare.

And so we went to the Cleveland Clinic. We went to the MD Anderson in Houston. And basically everyone told us the same thing, that no one really has any idea what this type of cancer. And so they're going to treat it as best they know how, but there's really no standard plan.

When you first go ahead, I'm sorry.

No, and then they've been treating the more aggressive form of cancer last time. But what reappeared was the less aggressive form of cancer, which is more of your standard colon cancer. And so that's what they're treating this time around with no radiation, but just chemo.

You know, Nam, as I've kind of chronicled in my book and you've chronicled some in your podcast, we go through these things and we're putting these trials by the Lord in His sovereign hand. And as William Cooper called them, you know, frowning providences.

What have been the highs and the lows? I mean, sometimes people think pastors and missionaries, they never struggle. Other people think that if a pastor or a missionary ever says something about their own weaknesses, that they're disqualified or pushed to the side.

I know you've been open about some of the struggles. I have as well in terms of worry and anxiety in the future. How have you processed all that and what are your thoughts about it?

The original low was the questions of why. We had only been in Norway for probably 18 months. We had a lot of struggles there in the first 18 months. And then I was on the back of raising support for four years.

And just kind of wondering why God would allow us to get to Norway. And serve for about 18 months and then get yanked off the field. And just kind of processing, not necessarily questioning what God was doing, because we had an absolute trust in His sovereignty and providence, but just wanting to know what He was doing with our lives.

And then what came about with this more serious diagnosis of the cancer, when we first got back to the States, they basically said you might only have months to live. And kind of processing that as a 36-year-old, and immediately struggles that I had back in my teenage years, with the kind of IFB background that I grew up in, was immediately the reappearance of assurance issues.

And just working through those with scripture in hand, and getting counsel from pastors. But the highs have been kind of the platform that God has given through cancer. Being able to serve in a local church here, near my hometown that had supported us in Norway.

And when we start serving there, we realize that the pastor, the previous pastor, his wife had passed away of cancer. And so the whole church had to watch her get the diagnosis and decline. And just to say it politely, the pastor kind of buckled under the pressure of all this.

And resigned after a couple years of, let's just say, lack of shepherding. But still being the pastor of the church. And then I quickly found out that there was about six to ten other people in this church, who had cancer, currently had cancer, or were going to come down with cancer since I've been there in 2023.

And so just being able to walk with these people, as they get their diagnoses, as they get their bad scans. And we are doing it with them. We had good scans and we've had bad scans. And just being able to help shepherd these people, as we all go through similar trials.

Now, as you have walked by faith and not by sight, you have a lovely wife, and I'm sure she supported you through this and been there by your side, probably just as my wife has, just as a rock. Every treatment I go to, she's with me.

What have you done to try to help shepherd her through that?

The first thing has been trying to be a good listener. Because she is not so much open to talk about the hard realities of the situation, maybe. She seems more optimistic and positive, where I'm probably more of a realistic person.

And not necessarily discounting or discrediting or anything. My wife has a lot of hope, of course, in possible miracles, and possible the Lord doing great things. And my mind is more realistic, where the doctors tell me I have two to three years to live, outside of miraculous intervention from God.

That's going to be the case. And so it's been a bit of an experience trying to listen to her, and just encourage her. And she has also gone through various struggles through this whole experience. But like you said, I'm just so thankful that she's there, and that she is taking care of me so well.

And just encouraging her, and being able and present to answer questions that she has along the way.

I was in Germany for a sabbatical, and I knew I had to have the prostate cancer procedure. And I was really worried about it, and it was weighing heavy on me. And just trying to fight all that. I mean, many times I didn't worry, but sometimes I did.

I was riding a bicycle. And someone loaned me a nice carbon fiber bicycle, but the brakes weren't that good. And I was coming around this corner, and a car didn't see me. And I thought, I'm dead. I can't stop in time.

I've got really bad brakes. And I'm dead. And a couple times on the bicycle when I thought I was going to get hit or killed, I just screamed out. I mean, that's just my reflex. I don't even know why I did it, but just with terror, just like, ah, like waiting for the collision.

And it missed me by a couple inches. And then I thought to myself, how stupid am I, Mike Apendroth, to spend time sinfully worrying about something when it might not even occur? You know, all this worry about prostate cancer, and then I'm dead on the bike.

So, obviously the Lord could come back within two or three years. Miracle, like you said, supernatural healing, doctors figure something out, all that stuff. How are you working through, or maybe how can you shepherd the people that are listening that have a loved one that's got something?

I mean, it could be anything and not cancer. How do you process that thinking, you know what? Theoretically, I know I'm going to die one day, but pragmatically, it could be within about a thousand days.

Yeah.

I would say it begins with an absolute trust in the sovereignty and the providence of God. When you know that God is sovereign, that he has numbered your days, there is no amount of anxiety and worry that can change the date of your death, that he has appointed for the Lord time again.

And so it might be somewhat simplistic, but I trust God with the day of my death. He knows when it's going to happen, and I leave that up to him. Not that we can't do anything in our power to extend that as much as possible, but ultimately he is in control, and he knows what's best.

He is good, and he is kind, and he is gracious, and there's nothing, or I should say no one, that can be trusted more with our lives.

Amen. Let's transition a little bit and talk about Norway. I'm interested to understand what happened in Norway in terms of what is happening with the evangelical culture, if there's anything. The only thing I really know about Norway right now, at the top of my head, besides cold and snowy and they don't give you medicine for colonoscopies.

That's all I know.

Yes.

You put that in your blog. I read that this morning. I thought, wow, at least I got Versed in a little fentanyl. I don't remember it, and you knew everything. You probably were preaching to them while you were having a colonoscopy.

Oh, it was an experience. It wasn't my first colonoscopy, because I got one when I left the military, but I don't remember that one. This one was completely drug-free, at least no Twilights. They did give you something to help you relax, but I was completely aware.

I was talking to the doctors and the nurses, and they were fascinated by my English accent. They don't get to talk to Americans all the time. It was quite the awkward experience. Thankfully, there was no pain, but just awkward, I guess.

Norway is an interesting place. They have a state church that is connected to their Lutheran background. I believe it's a national church now. I'm still fuzzy on the details even today about what the difference is between the state and national church, but they have switched from the state to the national church.

Actual believers there have been estimated between 4 to 7 of the entire population, even though about 70 to 80 would still be a part of the national church, typically because of the baptism rites of the Lutheran church.

My wife and I went to serve alongside a young reform movement that's there. There's probably less than 500 people in the whole loosely defined reformed world. That would include now Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians and a few Presbyterian groups now.

We went there to serve in a church called Shielden in a city, Stavanger. We were there for about two years and kind of working alongside the reform movement. Thankfully, they're still there, and they seem to be doing very well.

Tell me a little bit about the language. How hard was it or how hard is it for you to kind of process all that? It seems to me that it's difficult.

I would say it's harder than you think because it's so rare. Not many people around the world speak Norwegian. That being said, it is a Germanic language, much like English is a Germanic language, so we do share a lot of similar words and sounds.

It's not as foreign as you might think, but it's difficult to pick up, especially since most Norwegians speak English. A lot of times when you want to practice your Norwegian, they don't really want to spend the time helping you, so they'll switch to English.

Then you'll have the rest of your conversation in English.

When you preached there, did you preach in English?

Yeah, we did not. We were probably on a fourth grade level of Norwegian, and so we mainly spoke English in church and things like that. My Norwegian host pastors, or the guys that planted the church that we were with, they all preached Norwegian.

If you get better, and we want that, are you headed back?

It wouldn't be until five years clean, and we're open to the idea, but it seems highly unlikely at this point. We are still working with them in various ways. We try to bless them with materials, and we've been helping them print off books and stuff in Norwegian.

We're trying to do as much as we can from afar. Right before we left, we were opening an online Bible Institute, and it sounds like that has finally been reopened and being run by some of the Norwegian pastors there.

Nice. Well, if people want to get in touch with you or look at what you've done, there's a feargodnotcancer .blogspot. If you don't know how to access that, dear listener, you just go to Twitter at Nahum O 'Brien, and you could find his Twitter spot there.

I think you'd be encouraged by that. Speaking of printing and things like that, I'm going to blame you in front of all my listeners, my 10 listeners. It was your idea to make The Cancer Is Not Your Shepherd book a smaller kind of handout, ended up being Jesus and cancer.

Nahum, when you first said, hey, could you condense it? I thought, yeah, good idea, and I just went about my life, and then you kind of bugged me again and reminded me, and then I thought, it's hard to write a book, but it's not that hard to condense something.

So it didn't take me hardly any time at all, and so condense Jesus and cancer, and so thanks for the idea. I blame you.

Well, I'm grateful that you did it, because what happens is you go to these cancer centers, and you'll find all sorts of things that people that have cancer leave behind, knitted scarves, knitted blankets, but rarely is there any things that address the spiritual condition, and I thought, you know, your book is great, The Cancer Is Not Your Shepherd, but especially when you're on chemo, sometimes you don't like to read, because your mind is engaged with chemicals, and so I thought a cheaper form of the same book that's condensed would be of much help to the cancer patients there, and I know you and I trust you, theologically, and so I thought it would be a good idea, and I've been leaving them behind, and I still need to get that massive order from you.

Well, I'm not going to hold you to it, but I think early on you said something like, I'll order thousands of them, 5 ,000, 2 ,000.

Oh yeah, I was planning on it.

Yeah.

Well, anyway, we know the Lord uses his word, and I think of Isaiah 55 and how it goes forth and does its work, and we're thankful for that. Tell me, have you ever preached through Nahum, the book of the Bible, the oracle concerning Nineveh?

I've never preached through it, because I felt like it might be a little pretentious, but I did challenge my youth pastor once. I was probably 12, and he was teaching us every week, and I challenged him, like, your job's not that hard, and so he challenged me to preach on any book of the Bible I want, and I went home and bought a J. Vernon McGee commentary on the book of Nahum, and I studied for a week and prepared a sermon that was two pages long and lasted about three minutes, and after he mocked me for doing a very short and condensed version of a sermon, he had another one planned, but that experience really drove me into wanting to study the Bible more.

Wow, that's a good providence. I had not preached through Nahum ever in my life. Of course, I've read it many times, and if our listeners remember, it starts off after the intro verse. The Lord is jealous and avenging God.

The Lord is avenging and watchful. The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies, and then it says in the very next verse, the Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.

His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet, and then the question, who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? I read those verses, and I thought, this is going to be heavy, yet then there's the kindness of the Lord there as we see both of those.

So I did preach through Nahum all three chapters probably two to three years ago, and I think the congregation was really encouraged to go through it.

Yeah, when you speak to people, most people are only familiar with Nahum 1 -7, where it says the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, but they don't really understand the context of Nahum coming about 100 years after Jonah to the same people of Nineveh.

Well, I guess the next generation or two, but it's quite a different book than what happens in Jonah.

Right.

And the way it ends, too, there's no easing your hurt, your wound is grievous, all who hear the news about you clap their hands over you, for upon whom has not come your unceasing evil. And I just think, wow, woe to Nineveh, and aren't we glad we don't have the woes pronounced to us now because of the Lord Jesus.

Nahum, if you had to give your testimony in about a minute or two, what would you say?

I would say the Lord has rescued a wandering sinner, someone who has rebelled against Him time and time again, and who had no interest in following Him. But at some point as a young child, the Lord changed my heart and began to draw me close to Him.

And no matter what has happened in my life, He has, and though I failed Him time and time again, He has never failed to bring repentance to my heart and give me the faith to trust Him. And at this point, I'm kind of in a place where the disciples, where else do we go?

Again, the Lord is the only one that has truth. He is the only one that has salvation. And so we trust Him completely no matter what comes to pass. And we trust in His atonement that He has made for us for the sins that we have committed.

And we hope in the resurrection.

Amen. Well, today on No Compromise Radio, we've been talking to Nahum O 'Brien. If they want to get a hold of you, where do you direct them? Do you have a YouTube site where they can listen to some of your sermons?

I don't have any of that in front of me, but how could they get in touch with you, especially if they have cancer and they would like a pastor to talk to?

Yeah, well, I'm pretty easy to find on Twitter. I'm pretty sure I'm the only Nahum O 'Brien in the world. And my Twitter account is just I think it's just Nahum O 'Brien. And like you said, I have the blog, the FearGodNotCancer .blogspot, or I guess .blogspot.

And outside of that, I preach at Fairview Missionary Baptist Church. And those were I've been preaching through the Book of Job as long as and some breaks along the way for my advice from my good friend, Mike.

But we've been studying through the Book of Job because the church has been struggling with themselves, with the suffering and cancer and things like this, and being able to see how Job has responded and the questions that he brings up.

It might be very helpful to those who are struggling with suffering and things like that. But yeah, I'm pretty easy to find, and feel free to reach out.

Amen. Well, Nahum, thanks for being on the show. Thanks for your friendship. We trust in the Lord no matter what, and He does do great things. I just was preaching through Luke 7, and it talks about the Lord's compassion.

He was moved with compassion because of the widow who had lost her only son. And he didn't even respond to her request because she did not request anything. He just came right up to her, healed her son, and the son began to talk.

And it's just a wonderful story that reminds me of the Lord's compassions. And so we're going to be trusting in His compassion and His mercy and His kindness and His sovereignty. And so in about 10 years, we'll look back on it, and we'll look at my cancer in the rearview mirror, and Lord willing, the same thing with you.

And that will be our prayer. And so dear No Compromise radio listeners, please pray for Pastor Nahum O 'Brien, and we're glad that he was on the show today. Pastor, thanks again for everything, and thanks for coming on today.

Thank you for having me once again.