Exalting Christ Conference (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. ...talk

about a certain subject in a text that's unrelated, so I thought, you know what, let's start a radio show, and then

I can just talk about whatever. So on Mondays it's a recording of my sermons,

Tuesday I talk with my associate pastor about church issues, Wednesdays I usually interview pastors or theologians, or I've interviewed you before,

Phil, and you've been on the show, Thursdays I talk about kind of a positive doctrine, I call it K -Love

Thursday, positive, encouraging, because Friday's Woodshed Friday and we take people to the woodshed theologically, and so we just kind of mix it up.

Most shows are recorded sermons with other radio shows, and I thought, well, you know what, other men have more gifts than I do, and they just play their sermons, so let's try a different approach.

And so what we thought we would do at this conference is address this subject, but we'll do it kind of in radio style where we'll record it and it'll play back in Massachusetts when

I get there. For some of you that are doing radio, or maybe some of you that aren't, it's really great ministry because you can throw things up on the web now, and you don't have to pay for radio time, you don't have to spend a lot of money, it's just uploading things, put a trailer on the front and on the back, and you can play a lot of shows.

I just got an email from Alaska, and they said, can we play your radio show? You don't have to pay, we just want to have the show running, and I just said, sure, you can do that.

And so I'd encourage, if you've been a pastor for 10 or 15 or 20 years, you have a lot of accumulated knowledge, and so just sitting down with another pastor or elder and talking about things and putting it up on the internet,

I think, is a neat way to go. I used to be a punk rock disc jockey in college, and so I always loved radio, and so now

I'm back in radio. So I'll try not to say anything about Joe Strummer and the Clash today, is that all right?

You shouldn't be laughing, you shouldn't know who those people are. So we're just going to record this, and I'm going to talk to him like we're in a studio when it's just kind of like two men talking about this topic exalting

Christ, so you're kind of just listening in. Just imagine a big pane of glass here that you're looking through.

I think the first time I did radio was with Todd Friel, and I was guest hosting Wretched Radio in a different studio, and my son was with me, he was 13 at the time.

I said, Luke, do not knock on that door unless there's blood involved, because if you do knock on that door and there's not blood involved, there will be blood involved.

And so I'm doing the show, super nervous, sweating, you know, essentially national radio, and my son's head pops up.

He didn't knock on the door, but his head pops up, and he's distracting me because I need to be thinking through, this is radio, this is my,

I'm not, you know, an expert at this. And then my son Luke goes like this, and standing next to my son

Luke was Todd Friel, listening to me do Wretched Radio, and that made me even more nervous, so.

Anyway, I guess this is the studio, right?

So here we go. Here we go. Four, three, two, one. Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry, my name is

Mike Ebendroth. We have a little slogan around the radio studio, and that is

No Compromise Radio is always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

And so what we want to do at the studio is to get people to think biblically. So many people feel, and so many people emote, and we even talk to people this way.

Well, what do you feel about this? What do you feel about that? When people say to me, what do you feel about Jesus Calling?

I say, I feel like I want to throw up when I read it, but I think that it's damaging theologically for people to read.

And so we want to think, and Phil Foley is on with us today, pastor at Community Bible Church in Vallejo.

Pastor Phil, welcome to No Compromise Radio. It's good to be here, Mike, with you. Phil, I think our ratings from last time when you were on have went sky high.

I've had to get some new Arbitron ratings and hire some more marketing people because so many people were listening.

I appreciate that. Wow. It's hard to believe. Very hard to believe. It's very hard to believe.

Tell our listeners, if they've forgotten, a little bit about your ministry and what goes on at Community. Sure.

I've been here at Community since 1983, and as I told you last time, the kind of interesting story about me is that I got saved here at the church, and then later

God called me into full -time ministry here at our church. So I was basically raised up here and been in full -time ministry since 1996.

Well, we're recording this show up on the platform at the church, and I noticed the anxious bench in the back.

It's very interesting. And was that the anxious bench that you went up to receive Christ? The anxious bench, sure.

Tell us a little bit about the conference that you have for pastors and why it's important to get like -minded pastors together for encouragement and edification and sharpening.

Sure. Every year we have the Exalting Christ Conference for pastors and church leaders, and we do this because we know pastors need encouragement.

They need a time of refreshment. They're going through, you know, counseling.

They're in the ministry where they just need to get around sometimes like -minded brothers to just be encouraged, refreshed, stirred, and that's why we do this.

And we're glad that we're able to, praise the Lord. Phil, isn't it interesting in the province of God where some pastors' conferences you'll go to and you're the one that needs to be refreshed and encouraged because of a crisis or sin or something going on personally or health, and then other times you go to pastors' conferences and things are going well, right?

It's a neat time in your life, and the Lord is blessing, and then you get to minister to the folks who are hurting and other pastors who are going through that grind.

Amen. Amen. And that's why we do this because we know that there's guys in both areas. And even, it was interesting, some of our, we discussed with some of our, even some of our speakers who are going through difficult things, and they needed to be encouraged, and they're here to speak.

So. Amen. Well, let's talk a little bit about the conference and the title of the conference.

Why do you have an annual conference about New Thetic Counseling every year? What's the deal with that?

Oh, sorry. Excuse me. Exalting Christ. You have to have a little comedy in radio. Yes. I think there are three

New Thetic counselors in Job, aren't they? Aren't they his friends? There's some underlying idol of your heart,

Job. Okay, sorry. Back to the show. Yes. Exalting Christ. Why do we call it Exalting Christ? Because it is such a great title.

I mean, every year we need to be reminded that Christ is to be exalted. Amen. We need to be reminded of that more than every year.

Well, it's true. But this is my show, so watch it. Yeah. I'm under Phil's authority this entire conference except for these 40 minutes.

Well, Exalting Christ. Christianity is about Christ. Do I need to say anything else?

You know, and if it's about Christ, then we should be about exalting him and delighting in him and loving him and being mesmerized more and more and stunned by his beauty.

Isn't it fascinating when you look at the Bible and people will fall at the feet of an angel and the angel will say,

John, get up. Our people will fall at the apostles' feet and they'll say, get up. When folks fall at the feet of Jesus in the

Gospels, Jesus doesn't say, get up. He accepts the worship. And what happens with our

Lord Jesus should never happen for us. We should never accept such worship and adoration.

It is the Lord Jesus alone who receives glory and honor and dominion. And I think of that wonderful doxology in Jude where there's just kind of Roman candle -like burst of praise for this great triune

God. So let's ask a few questions here and kind of flesh this out for conferences.

And I don't know who wrote these questions, but they seem to be worded pretty well. Okay. Thanks for these questions.

What is Exalting Christ and why do we put such an emphasis on this? Let's put it this way.

In a world where everyone wants practical application and how -tos and how to have a better marriage and how to have better finances and how to have better relationships at church and better neighbors, specifically, is this even practical?

How is Exalting Christ practical? Great question.

Who thought of that? Well, the first boring part was yours. I added the second part that was really exciting.

Well, you think about Christianity and it can become a bunch of do's and don'ts.

And we forget that it's actually about a person. And all the commands in the

New Testament, they're centered in Christ, right? I mean, I don't know if you've noticed that, right?

I mean, work to the glory of God. Your marriage, it's for the glory of Christ.

Raising your kids in the disconstruction of the Lord. I mean, we could go on and on and on. It's all about it's centered in Christ.

And if you remove Christ, you have morals. You have religion. You don't have a relationship. And so, we need to be reminded, don't we, about this is about Jesus.

And it all flows from our relationship with him. Phil, what do you think about people who are celebrities in evangelicalism or celebrities in the world and they receive worship that only

God should receive? I think as I watch them unwind and unfold, this is not a good thing, to receive worship from other people.

Oh, adoration maybe or thanks or good job. But these people that receive worship, their lives are a complete mess.

Absolutely. How does that work? Why does that work that way? I don't want to be involved with something like that.

Because I see people getting struck dead for that in the Bible. Scary place to be. And eventually,

God will deal with them. I mean, we're about exalting Jesus. Who are we?

And so, I think a lot of that when we talk about exalting Christ, you have to remind yourself of who he is, what he's done.

And I think of Philippians, the more Christ is exalted, the more humble you are. I mean, think of Philippians 2, right?

You have that passage where Paul's exhorting us to be humble. And then he says, look at Jesus. And then when you start looking at Christ and what he did because of his love for the

Father, I mean, that's the context of that. He humbled himself, became a man, did all these things.

And then God highly exalts him. But the whole point of that is Paul's trying to be practical for us, right?

And when you see Christ and what he's done, then you want to be humble. Who are we, right?

I was thinking about Peter and Peter's thought of Jesus washing people's feet.

When Peter writes in 1 Peter, he says, humble yourself before the Lord. I think the

Greek is more put on the apron of a slave. And I know he had to be thinking about the

Lord Jesus and this great exalted king who's serving as a servant leader with humility.

We're on No Compromise Radio today with Pastor Phil Foley. Phil, tell us why exalting

Christ has to be tethered to the Bible. In other words, we have these conferences every year and we talk about exalting

Christ, but the foundation are the scriptures, right? People could say, well, I exalt

Christ this way. This is the way I feel I exalt Christ. And my feelings dictate this, that, or the other.

Why must the exaltation of Jesus be tied to the scriptures? Well, it needs to be tied to who

Jesus is. And we only know that from scripture, who he is. And what's beautiful when you study the scriptures, like you just mentioned, that one passage where you see this mighty king who's about ready to lay down his life for his friends.

Washing their feet. It leads to worship. And so we respond to truth.

Truth is only found in scripture. So we got to find that truth and respond to that truth of who

Christ is and what he's done. It reminds me of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10.

They thought they'd worship God the way they wanted to. I think they had a peaceful, easy feeling and they just went along with it.

And some people get the demographic here, I guess. I didn't like it when

I looked at YouTube. The demographics for No Compromise Radio are 45 -year -old to 54 -year -old men.

I thought, I feel younger than that. But I guess I'm not. It's all the Eagles references and such.

Nadab and Abihu, they decided to worship God in a way that was not revealed. And so we have a God who reveals himself, of course, generally in nature.

And we see his power and his wisdom. But we wouldn't know how to worship him unless he specifically said, this is the way

I'm pleased. And of course, you think of sacrificial system in the Old Testament, foreshadowing the death of Christ.

And I precisely want this kind of worship. How does that translate into even a worship service?

And I'm thinking kind of regulative principle and how the word of God spells out how he wants to be exalted.

Because you think about it, it's fascinating. I, the triune God, want to be exalted. And here's how

I want you to exalt me specifically. Yes. You know how

God wants to be exalted? It's through his son. We know that through scripture. And scripture tells us, like you said, we need to be careful in our worship because God wants to be a worship a specific way.

And the only way we can come to God is through his son. That's how we worship.

If you could be on a radio show and have a radio show host ask you anything about exalting

Christ, what would that question be? It's called filler. I'm just kidding.

You already asked me. I'm looking up a verse. How about your Sunday services back to the regular principle in exalting

Christ? Are you more Lutheran in your worship services on Sunday? If it's not said that we can't do it, you just go ahead and do it.

Are you more Presbyterian? We try to regulate worship prescribed by God. What's your philosophy at the church?

Presbyterian in that way. Yes. For sure. Okay. And is that by conviction?

Is that by church growth techniques? Or what would that be by? No. Not by church growth techniques for sure.

Let me ask you this question. I think it's important for the men to hear, especially who are pastors. What if you determined to exalt

Christ in your ministry and to preach him faithfully and everybody left? Except the elders and their spouses.

Would you change your philosophy? No. Well, there's bills to pay. No. We're going to preach

Christ, preach him crucified. We're going to exalt him. And the doors close, the doors close.

To me, that is so refreshing to realize. While I yearn for church growth, that is the maturation of the saints and God, the

Holy Spirit regenerating new people. I don't have to change any kind of style or format or presentation.

The gospel is powerful to see. Amen. I remember in Boston, I picked up MacArthur at the airport and he said, well, how are things going in Boston as new pastor,

Mike? And I said, they're not going too well. And I said, these people are hard and cold.

And you know, all the free spirited people, they moved to California and all the staunch New Englanders hunkered down.

And then John looked at me and he said, Mike, is the gospel powerful enough to save people in New England?

Yes, it is. Do you want me to answer the question? Absolutely. And so it is great to be able to have that freedom as pastors to proclaim the truth.

And if the word falls on soil that's fruitful, that's been made fruitful by God, great.

And we get to see fruit grow. But if it doesn't, that's not our responsibility because the word goes out and it either makes alive or it hardens.

And we are stewards and we are mouthpieces. And that's all we have to do. And while I went to study and make sure

I'm Christ -centered in my preaching, beyond that, we let the word of God do its work. It was like Luther, how do you start the

Reformation? We were just in Wittenberg a year ago. Remember how hot it was? But great speakers, they were hot and fired up as well.

And Luther was asked, how do you start the Reformation? And he said, I didn't do anything. I preached the word of God.

I went to Wittenberg and had a beer with Philip and Ansdorf, and I went to bed. I did nothing.

The word of God did it all. Can I say beer here? Yes. It was near beer.

It was an O'Doul's. I guess if you're in Napa, you can say whatever you want.

Sure. Do they serve real wine for communion in Napa? I don't know.

We need to ask our Napa friends. Sonoma? Okay. Well, it was interesting for me when I was in California just a couple weeks ago because we have a little summer place at Santa Cruz, a little mobile home.

They have now in the trade gluten -free bread for the communion. So the outer ring is regular, you know, matzah, and then it's gluten -free on the inside.

Cool. Is that okay? It's California. Okay. I wanted to try the gluten -free, but I thought, that's really dumb.

I should be thinking about the Lord Jesus, and his body was broke for me. Yes. I went to a church in India, and it was a liberal church, and they asked me to preach.

And I thought, sure, I'll preach the gospel. I did Ephesians 2, 1 to 10, bad news and good news. And the good news is great because the bad news is so bad, and we have this great savior.

And I preached, and then they said, would you help with communion? And normally, if I'm at a church, even on Sunday, if you said,

Mike, could you help serve communion? I would say, I'll do whatever you want. I'm here to serve. But there's a certain way people go about it at different fellowships, and there's not a lot of prescriptions in the

New Testament on, do you pray before you give out the elements or whatever. And so, I usually just let the local elders do that.

Well, here they said, we don't have anybody else to help. Will you help serve communion? I said, okay.

And I think, are they thinking that they're going to be getting grace from this, or all these questions went through my mind? But I went around the half circle, and I was giving them the bread, and I was watching the other pastor, and he was saying, the body of Christ is given for you.

And I don't know all the background for all this. So, I'm just doing what he's doing, because I just got done preaching the message, and I don't want to say, no,

I can't help. So, I'm like, okay, buddy. And they're just sitting there looking at me. I finally get to the other side of the half circle, and meet the pastor, and watch what he was doing, and he was saying, the body of Christ broken for you, and he'd take his thumb and break it.

And so, all these people here were waiting for me to break the bread to make it efficacious, and I didn't do it. And so, you're in trouble.

I was in big trouble. Back to exalting Christ. Yes. Is that what we're talking about?

This is radio. I mean, with the radio, you hear something, and you tune out, and you're ready to change that dial.

We have to spruce things up a little bit. I want to get back to the paradigm of theology leading to methodology leading to doxology, right?

And if your doxology or your methodology is messed up, go back to your theology. Remind us again, and our listeners, how theology, proper

Christology, will evoke the right methodology, which will lead to the right praise and doxology, because they're linked.

Any thoughts about that in general? Oh, well, I think what you just said was great. I mean, you have to know your theology undergirds everything.

What you believe about Christ, what you believe how he should be exalted, that's all coming from Scripture.

That's going to undergird everything that leads to your practice, what you do.

So, yes, that's a general answer. Okay, I like that. Other questions that I have is, what about exalting

Christ from the Old Testament? How would you just generally approach a passage? Let's just pick something interesting.

How about Song of Solomon? First of all, have you ever preached through Song of Solomon on Sunday morning verse by verse?

No, I have not. No. Okay, since this is radio and it's just between us, there's nobody else here, are you afraid to?

No, I'm not. Just haven't got around to it yet. I was trying to get through the

New Testament. I actually read a commentary that said it is inappropriate for a pastor to preach

Song of Solomon verse by verse on a Sunday morning from a pulpit in a local church. Wow.

It's the Bible. I know, I know. I think it's edifying. And it points to Christ.

How would you, well, which view would you have in general? Two main views. This is a man's love for a wife or this is

God's love for Israel or Christ's love for the church. Which particular view would you have? I would take it as more literal.

It's a man's love for his wife. And so then how do you get to Christ in your message if Christ isn't atomistically in the text?

Sure, that's a very fair question because I think it's real easy to preach

Christ wrongly from the Old Testament. So you have, you know, author's intent.

You have historical context of the book. I mean, all those things. But I think that we also, we know that the

Bible is a unique book and that there's an author behind the author, God himself.

And because of that, there is themes that run through the Bible and one of them is

Christ. And so I think it's legitimate that we should preach Christ from the

Old Testament. I mean, Jesus tells us that not only is the New Testament about him, but the Old Testament is about him.

He actually tells us that. So we have verses, John 5, where he tells his enemies, if you would believe

Moses, you'd believe me. He wrote about me. Luke 24, you know, where Jesus tells his apostles, you know, he goes back to the law,

Psalms, the prophets in the Old Testament. It says he explained to them about himself from those.

So the Old Testament is about Christ. We know that from the New Testament from Jesus saying so. So the question is, how do we faithfully preach

Christ? Because I think every piece of wood in the Old Testament is not a reference to the cross. It's Noah's Ark.

Thank you. So there is wrong and right ways to do this. And taking

Song of Solomon as an example, I would say, well, we know from the New Testament that the purpose of marriage,

Ephesians 5, it's really about a picture of Christ in the church.

So I think it would be a very easy and natural way to get to Christ from preaching on marriage in the

Song of Solomon because we have the New Testament. It tells us a mystery that wasn't revealed that Paul is now revealed that marriage is really about Christ in the church.

Phil, I think that's a great answer. And isn't it very legitimate to say to our congregation as we're telling them what this wonderful wisdom literature

Song of Solomon is about and then say to them, doesn't this remind you of marriage? Of course, it's all about marriage.

What about the greatest marriage? What about marriage that was in the mind of God before human and human marriage even existed?

And why don't we turn our Bibles to Ephesians chapter 5 and look at Christ's love for the church?

So then when I do that, then I'm not saying I'm importing a bunch of Jesus into Song of Solomon.

I said, genetically, but I'm homiletically saying, let's go to another passage where this reminds me of who

Jesus is. That's a great way to do that. And matter of fact, thinking big picture here, have you ever considered, listening audience, you have

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the gospel of Jesus Christ according to each of those men, happened before any

New Testament book was written. That is to say, while James might be the first book written, the events happened before, right?

The life of Jesus first. And when you think about Jesus in those gospels, there's not a lot of imperatives for the church.

Oh, okay, go make disciples, and I understand a few of those. But it's typically gospel. It's typically indicative.

So I find it fascinating, and I want your comments on this, Phil. The first book written is probably James, and now we have 104 verses, 52 imperatives.

With the response to the gospel, there is law. There's law from the hand of Christ that we need to respond to rightly.

So that is to say, when I read James, and there's no gospel, right? There's Jesus, the glorious one in chapter 2, but no death, burial, and resurrection.

There's monergistic salvation in chapter 118, but still nothing particular about who

Jesus is. I say this is perfectly planned by God canonically because I have the events recorded about Jesus, and what are the events recorded about Jesus having us to do?

Count it all joy in trials. This is the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and if he's your king, you can count it all joy.

So that's an easy tie -in for me to be in James and then talk about who Jesus is to make sure it's just not moralistic.

Count it all joy. Be doers of the word, etc. Do you think I'm on the right track? Oh, absolutely. I think that's exactly the way to do it because how else are you going to do it?

Otherwise, it's like you said, just you're trying to do it on your own and your own strength, and it isn't going to help you.

So if I'm in the epistles, I regularly take people to the gospels when I'm preaching to show an illustration of Jesus's point in person, incarnately, if you will, of what

Peter's trying to say. And when I'm preaching in the gospels, then I regularly take them to an epistle where it's got the law or an imperative that's the response to who

God is. When you think about paradigms, theology, methodology, doxology, there's another paradigm, revelation and response.

And when you see a baby born, you respond with, wow, that's general revelation or a sunset.

And when you see the revelation from God specifically, there should be a response. So I want to include that response and not just only teach indicatives.

So I just kind of go back and forth. If I'm in an epistle, I teach regularly from the gospels. If I'm in a gospel,

I'll regularly pull in epistles, and I can do the same thing with the Old Testament. Doesn't this remind you of marriage,

Song of Solomon? Absolutely. So what are you preaching through now? I am preaching through Acts.

I'm almost done. Okay, great. Well, in front of all these witnesses, I double dog dare you to preach through Song of Solomon after Acts.

What are you, afraid? Triple dog dare you? No. You know, normally we have three points in a poem, but with Song of Solomon, it's a poem with three points.

So that's what you have to do there. Here's a great question that you gave me ahead of time, and I think it's probably super important that we all address this and work through it in our own ministries.

Is it okay that the application of a sermon be, just be mesmerized by Jesus?

Is that a good application? Is there a better application? That's an awesome application.

I got that one from you. Oh, you did? I thought I got it from you. No, I gave you the question, but just talking to you, and you were telling me about preaching through one of the gospels, and week after week, the application was be stunned by Jesus.

Well, when you think about the just shall live by faith, that faith is in an object, right? Faith is just shorthand for faith in the risen

Savior, Jesus Christ, the sin bearer, who's the last Adam, the perfect man who did the law when we didn't, et cetera.

So then you think, okay, I have to walk by faith. It's present tense in Galatians 2. I mentioned this last night. Where I'm walking by faith, and I'm having the object in front of me, as it were, as I'm thinking about walking by faith.

And so to me, that is a great application. I am just so enthralled with who Jesus is that I can now trust him more because he's worthy of all my trust.

On the flip side, if Jesus isn't true, if he isn't alive, if he isn't the Savior, I'm willing to go to hell for that.

On my worst days of assurance, I think, you know what? But I'm still trusting who Jesus is. I'm putting all my eternal chips on the table.

If he's not the way to heaven, I'm going to hell. But since he said I'm the way, the truth, and the life, and since he said

I'm the resurrection and the life, and since he said I'm the bread of life, and since he said, what are the other I am statements?

The true vine. The true vine. I'm the good shepherd. I'm the great shepherd. I'm trusting in him.

I'm taking him at his word. And I think what we have to do pastorally is train our people.

It's a good application to just be impressed with Jesus. I think it's

Matthew, excuse me, Mark chapter 1 and Luke 4, talking about the preaching ministry of Jesus, and it talks about his fame was increasing.

His fame, he just had people ahead of him thinking, you know what? This is true fame.

If anybody should be famous, it should be Jesus. And so that's why we want to have that theme all the time.

Exalting Christ. Being stunned by him. Mesmerized. That's great.

When you just contemplate on his attributes, on his perfections, and then his love for you.

That he would love a wretch like you. That he would care for you.

And then he wants to help you. He wants to empower you.

And he has all wisdom, all power. And sometimes it's just good to meditate on that and remind yourself things are not as bad as they are.

Because I have Christ. We have to be kind and pastoral as we teach our folks through these things.

But if people hear about Jesus and they're Christians and they're bored, there's a serious problem.

And it's not with Jesus. Think about Isaiah, in Isaiah 6. I think he was everything except bored.

Right? You think Isaiah 6, and you've got these seraphim. They cover their face, cover their feet.

They fly around. And they're, as it were, blushing as created sinless beings.

Right? They're not even sinful, but they're still blushing. And you hear this kind of antiphonal, holy, holy, holy is the

Lord of hosts over here. And then the other angels on the other side of the sanctuary, as it were. The whole earth is full of his glory.

It's like a launching pad. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called.

And the house was filled with smoke. And I said, said Isaiah, I'm bored.

Woe is me. He just got done saying in chapter 5, woe to them. Woe to them. Woe to them.

Woe to them. Woe to them. And now he says, woe is me. I'm lost. I'm a man of unclean lips.

He's essentially saying, damn me. I don't want to be in your presence. I need to be away. I deserve this.

And if you hadn't read the story, what would you think is going to happen now? Isaiah has said, woe is me. Damn me.

Curse me. Send me to perdition. Then one of the seraphim flew to me.

If you don't know what's going to happen, what do you think is going to happen? If you're

Isaiah, what do you think is going to happen? You think it's going to be the death angel coming to grant your wish?

Justice upheld. Then one of the seraphim flew to me. By the way, seraphim is from a

Hebrew word, the burning ones. Just light and fiery and burning. Having a hand, in his hand, a burning coal that he had taken from the tongs of the altar.

I'm undone. And he touched my mouth and said, behold, this has touched your lips.

Your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for, are covered. Yom Kippur, it's covered.

I'll cover your debt. That's amazing. He asked for damnation and he gets grace.

God graces him. And then you read in John chapter 12, Isaiah said these things because he saw

Jesus's glory and spoke of him. And so when we proclaim who Jesus is and what he's done and what he will do in the future, the response better not be boredom or we have not reflected the text accurately as we preached or the people have not heard it rightly.

Okay. Any other comments before we wrap up the show? No, I'm good. That's good. Thank you, Mike. It's fun to talk about Jesus.

It is. It is. I'm excited about this. I don't know who else we could talk about like this.

There is no one. Dr. J? No. Larry Bird? You're from Boston, huh?

You know how hard it was being a Los Angeles Laker fan, moving to Boston? That's pretty hard.

I bet. I'd rather talk about the King of Kings. I know. I love the

Greek. Out of all the Lord's Lording and all the King's King, Jesus is

Lord. Jesus is King. I just thinking about how he saw Paul on the Damascus Road and Paul was basically begging for his life.

And what do you want me to do? And he's blind. And he's, I think he's screaming like a schoolgirl who's skinned her knee, just afraid for his life and God conquers

Saul and turns him into what? What Ephesians says, made captives captive. Instead of had the general in the army of Rome going to destroy all the conquered army and bring them back and offer them in Rome for the triumph in the house of Neptune and Jupiter.

He says, you know what? I'm going to give them new hearts and give them spiritual gifts and give them to the church.

Wow. That's Ephesians 4. And you just think, who does that? Who talks like that? I mean, the first book

I wrote is called Jesus Christ, the Prince of Preachers. And I wrote that book because it seems like only liberals want to talk about Jesus as preaching, right?

He only told stories and parables and all that. And you think about who your favorite preacher is. It takes a long time for people to say

Jesus. I mean, they're saying Conrad McBeeway and they're saying, you know, Joel Beeky and they're saying

John Knox and they're saying Calvin. I mean, Jesus was the Prince of Preachers. And then

I get an email from somebody, you can't say Jesus is the Prince of Preachers in the book because they think of Spurgeon.

And I think Spurgeon would say Jesus is the Prince of Preachers. He would. Actually, Thomas Watson said he is the

Prince of Preachers. And so you think about how he spoke and what he did and the power of his words and touching lepers.

I mean, the list goes on and you think, you know what? This is the Jesus we get to proclaim. Amen. So Phil Foley, thanks for being on No Compromise Radio today.

If people want to listen to your sermons online or listen to Exalting Christ sermons from this year or past years, what are the two websites?

cbcbolao .org and exaltingchristministries .org. exaltingchristministries .org.

I think some of the messages from back to the 2008 conference are there. And what's the conference title going to be next year?

Exalting Christ. Exalting Christ. Amen. Well, thanks for being on No Compromise Radio. All right.

If you're interested, we'll probably post that show when I get back around. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org