Flipping Churches

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.

Boardwalk Rules, Law, and the Difference Between Law and Gospel

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Mike Abendroth with Steve Cooley here. Steve, it�s actually September 1, 2017. This is the fourth show we�ve recorded.

That�s amazing. We just work and work and work and, you know, the money keeps pouring in from all over the place. I know. As we sell, you know, our prepper supplies and everything online.

Well, there�s a lot of different ways to make money, but we haven�t figured out any of those yet. And our pizza in a bucket. No, that�s true. I saw some of those. I went to the boardwalk at Santa Cruz a while ago and took a picture of the safety guidelines.

And so there�s a little theme here. These are the safety guidelines of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

These are things guaranteed to keep you safe. Okay. This is legit. Okay. No pets. Okay. I don�t know how that keeps me safe, but okay. No smoking. Well, that�s obvious, right? No wheel. Unless it�s ganja.

Slash. Roller devices.

Well, no smoking. That�s tobacco. That�s vaping. That�s clothes. And that�s, you know, THC stuff. Really? That�ll get you covered for all that. And that�s not allowed. No weapons. No weapons. What if my hands are registered as weapons?

Well, you have to chop your hands off. No glass containers. Right? You don�t want that on the beach. Makes sense. No soliciting. At least we don�t have any Jehovah�s Witnesses down there. Oh, that�ll keep you safe.

Moonies. And no disruptive or gang-related behavior or attire. And for the first time, and I�m sure they�ve been there before, but for the first time I saw quite a few Muslims at the beach boardwalk.

Are they allowed to wear their gang-related attire?

They have special related attire that they are allowed to wear. And you know, I just thought, here, the boardwalk, it�s all law, no gospel. No, no, no, no. Don�t we love the law? Law. I love rules. Rules keep me safe.

And you know what? We do love, you know, I love thy law, David said. That�s fine. Comes from a good source.

But gospel, I like. Yeah, it�s interesting. He says, I love thy law. And you know, he does talk about keeping thy statutes and things like that, but he doesn�t really. David doesn�t really keep them? No.

No, there are no law keepers, they�re law breakers.

Promise Keepers, Cultural Drift, and the Limits of Men’s Movements

I feel I only could like go back in time for 20 years and start some kind of men�s movement. I could probably become really popular and famous and rich. Just like, let�s see, oath keepers.

And you had to go more like 25, 30 years. Promise holders. Promise containers, promise I�m working.

I submit to you, Steve, that if the promise keepers came out today, one of the seven promises back in those days contained a race element, and it was worded in such a way that if you didn�t affirm these, you�re almost like a racist.

But I submit to you that it would have something to do with LGBT stuff. Welcoming.

Probably. I mean, that really is kind of the trend in evangelicalism today. I mean, I had, when I was on the sheriff�s department, one of the last things that they kind of implemented that really just kind of didn�t sit well with me was the whole, as a leader, I will fight against discrimination, against LGBTQ people, and I will uphold them, and I will fight for their rights.

So yeah, that�s crept into the corporate world and into even government. So it wouldn�t surprise me if it would be in the promise keepers.

Good job, Steve. Well, I just got up, went outside, shut a door because there are some kids out there making some noises. Racket. You know, I told them, this is all law here. No fun, no weapons, no burgers.

As we sit here in the soundproof. I was preaching in California, Northern California last week. I was in the pastor�s study and he has his own bathroom in there in case, you know, he needs it and all these little special rooms and everything.

I just was imagining one day having a new building where we could have a little NoCo studio. I think NoCo studio could have its own bathroom. That would help.

Yeah. And maybe like a 15th floor, you know, view, high above West Boylston.

Why Moralizing Old Testament Characters Misses the Point

Before we get into the topic today, Steve, two things, a biblical archaeology review. Have you ever subscribed to it? Yes. Yes, I have. Yeah. And it's less than a dollar an issue and I know why, because it is awful.

It's liberal. The only, I don't even want to say saving grace about it. I mean, you do kind of see some cool archaeological things, but there's just so much sifting you have to do. It's just not really worth it.

I did find it funny when they were talking about the five-star opal anniversary rings and it said, add some wow to your vows. And then I just thought, what if you're German or you're Indian? Some vow to your vows.

Some vow to your wows, because they reverse the W's and the V's, and so.

Turn your Bible to worse 16. I didn't know there was a bad one. This is a worse 16. Okay, Steve. And this is the second thing. This is not on topic yet. There's a new book out by Adam Hamilton called Moses, and it's in the footsteps of the reluctant prophet.

That's the subtitle. And it just is released on Abgen Press. And it is one of those books that, you know, get an Old Testament character and then be like them, you know, moralize in the Old Testament.

Turn your reluctance into boldness by walking in the footsteps of Moses. Dare to be a Moses. It's bad enough to just turn Jesus into an ethical example only. You know, he, in 1 Peter chapter 1 is described, chapter 2 rather, is described as someone we should emulate when we suffer, right?

So there's an ethical element there. If it's all ethics and no atonement, then that's not going to do us any good, but primarily atoning work of Christ, perfect life for us. And there are elements of ethical issues with Jesus.

But what about Moses?

Here's what I would say. Moses wouldn't want you to follow Moses. I know.

Where's this going to lead me? Killed on the top of Mount Nebo and buried where nobody knows where I am? See, why don't they put those things in there? And maybe they do, you know, Moses hit the rock and he wasn't supposed to, but he asked for repentance or something like that.

And so you should ask for repentance too. But these character studies, there's no end to them. And people just gobble them up. I should see Steve's face right now.

Well, it is kind of amazing when you have Paul saying, you know, I mean, the closest you'll ever see anybody say emulate me, he says, you know, follow me as I follow Christ basically. And I'm like, okay, that's, you know, as humble an approach as you could take.

But I mean, we can take anybody from the Old Testament. And I dare say, if we could bring them, if we could somehow bring them in, you know, via necromancy, which would be a sin. But if we could bring them in and say, you know, should we follow you?

They would all say, don't follow me. I mean, can you imagine? I mean, my favorite example, of course, is dare to be a Samson, you know, and I'm just like, you know, live like your life is all about you.

And then just trust that the Lord would save you at the last possible second.

What about dare to be a witch of Endor? How would that work out? Lessons from the witch of Endor, what to do or not to do.

Follow in the footsteps of the witch of Endor.

And one of the reasons why I know this is wrong, well, there are several. I mean, you could look at John chapter 5 and Luke 24 about speaking of Christ Jesus as we see the general redemptive sweep of history.

Yes, of course. Romans chapter 15 talks about examples in 1 Corinthians, about examples and kind of what not to do. Okay, I could understand that. But this uber moralizing of Old Testament characters.

Steve, if you studied the life of Moses from the Torah and I studied the life of Moses and we were going to preach a message to a seminary class, shouldn't we have the exact same message? We should. Because we're studying the text and we're getting our message from the text, exegetical work, authorial intent.

What's the message of the author? Not even Moses, but the Holy Spirit through the human instrument Moses. We should get the exact same data, right? We might say it differently because of our personalities are different, etc.

But it should be the exact same message, right? If I give you Matthew 28, 18 to 20, come up with the exegetical outline. You would say make disciples by going, by teaching, by baptizing. Is that correct?

Yeah, because making disciples is the controlling verb. There you go.

We all know that. So don't we know this moralization of Old Testament characters is flawed at the outset when everybody has their own 14 different ways to follow Moses? Because they just pick and choose as they please.

Otherwise, Adam Hamilton can come out with his own book, right? Because it will already have been said. Oh, yeah. And I plagiarized this from, you know, 35 guys before me who said follow Moses, you know, so.

Now, if you write a book about Moses and how you can learn about God as you study the life of Moses and it's, you know, it's kind of like mirroring Exodus. Of course, I don't have a problem with that.

But I'm sure he doesn't have in this section in his book on Moses. And I will be corrected happily if I'm wrong. What about when his wife, Sapphora, throws the bloody foreskin at the feet of Moses? What about that part?

What would that mean? Following in the footsteps of Moses. Make sure you circumcise your kids at the right time at the hospital or else your wife might take the foreskin from the nurses and throw them at your feet.

See, it just, it's so selective. You should see Steve's face right now.

Well, I mean, just think about your own life, you know. And I don't care who you are. I don't, you know, if John MacArthur is listening right now or R .C. Sproul or whoever, you know, and think, okay, would you want a book written about you that said, follow in the footsteps of, you know, you?

And you'd just be like, no, no, no. It's like, don't even climb on my shoulders. Dude, follow the Lord, you know. Work out your own sanctification. Don't try to examine mine because you're not going to like what you see.

Scholars would talk about this as, do we look at characters in any kind of exemplary way as an illustration to follow or maybe somehow to avoid? And I do think you have to look at the Old Testament where it says, for whatever was written in former days, Romans 15, 4, was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of scriptures we might have hope.

I have to admit that. And what's the verse in 1 Corinthians that I'm thinking about, Steve, about these things were written to you as an example? Is that chapter 10? Now these things, chapter 10, verse 6, took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did when it comes to Israel.

And they were baptized into Moses, drinking the same spiritual drink from the spiritual rock that followed them. The rock was Christ. Don't engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, 23 ,000 fill in a single day.

But I don't think that's what he's doing here with Moses.

Doubtful. And I mean, again, you know, to be fair, if it's let's say it's Fair? This is no compromise radio. Let's say it's 200 pages. It probably would have to be, you know, 500 pages to include all the negative aspects, you know, of Moses' life, which would be like, OK, you know, here are places to emulate Moses.

Here are places not to emulate Moses. So that would be a lot that would be a better way to go. But the best way to go is to just say let's emulate Christ, you know, and

Do you think he somehow said Moses is God or something? Learning about Moses is God or OK, well, even if he wrote the perfect book about Moses, which the subtitle doesn't lend itself to that kind of perfection, there is this desire.

Let's study the life of Nehemiah because he's a great leader and how do we learn about leadership?

It must be from Nehemiah. How about learning from the failures of Moses or something, you know, something like that. You go, OK, well, you know, where he messed up,.

I don't want to do the same. He wasn't trusting in God and his word. And in spite of all the evidence contrary, that is his eyes and his ears and his smell, it all told him to do one thing, but he was to trust God.

He was not to lean on his own understanding. He was to trust God. I'm not going to condemn anybody for that, but I will go back to my earlier statement. One of the reasons why I know this is wrong, this is not the only reason, the main reason, but one of the reasons is because if every scholar does this study of Moses in the Pentateuch, we're going to have different we should have the exact same data revealed because it's a fixed, outside-of-us text.

But we have you have 16 illustrations, I have 19, somebody else because they just pick and choose whatever they want. That's so subjective. Yep. What about Deuteronomy 18? I wonder if that comes into play here at all.

Verse 15, The Lord your God, Yahweh your Elohim, will rise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen, just as you desired of Yahweh your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, et cetera.

There is going to be a better prophet, and maybe he talks about the ultimate prophet who comes. I mean, that would be a good book, right?

The better prophet, the ultimate Moses. That would be a good book.

It sounds like that's the book of Hebrews. Better than Aaron, better than Moses. It is fascinating in the book of Hebrews, chapter 3, the writer does not condemn Moses. He says Moses was faithful, but Jesus was more faithful, and Moses was simply a builder, and Jesus is the son.

So who do you trust more? Who's more valuable to the father, the builder, the contractor? Speaking of which, Steve, I said on social media a while ago, we're not going to get to the Machen article until next time.

There's all these shows, flipping houses, flipping bars, flipping things. Let's have a show. Flipping churches. So you've got a church that's not doing very well, and they bring us in. They bring you and me in.

I'm so in favor of this. Okay. And we have the film crew. Mercedes is filming all the stuff. HGTV. Mm-hmm. And we could flip churches. Home Gospel Television. Yeah. Get rid of this little Narthex area and put the coffee shop there with a double shot espresso deal and the drip pour over stuff.

Is that how we win them over? Yeah.

I mean, we could flip these churches. Or we could say to the lady pastor, excuse me, why don't you let me preach this week? Well, what are you going to preach?

The gospel. The what? The social gospel? Oh, yes. We're having the poor outreach today. Who did that a while ago? I know Passion City Church. I think of Lou Giglio fame. They were going to have two weeks off or something.

They're doing that right now. I saw that. What's that about?

How does that work? A sabbatical. Well, I think, you know, it's a fancy way of maybe clearing out the place and getting an overhaul done to the sanctuary. Who knows what it's all about? I mean, to me, or, you know, maybe the production team needed a couple weeks off.

That's a fascinating concept. Had to get rid of the props and bring in some new props.

And so, you know, got to take it. If you have not watched some of the videos, and I've been trying to get Steve to do these videos, but he's usually busy on those recording nights. With the dance team.

Uh-huh. I've been trying to get Steve to record these No Compromise videos. So you go to YouTube, No Compromise Radio channel. There's 50 or so. Well, one of them is Be Like Mike. It's a new Bible study that's sweeping the nation.

As you know, sometimes I'm not, but I try to be on time, and most of the time I am. So Be Like Mike, be on time. I read my Bible most every morning. I get a cup of coffee, read my Bible, and that's a good thing.

Be Like Mike, read the Bible. I'm going to write a book called Be Like Mike. I know. It sounds like an old 1970s commercial. Be Like Moses, Be Like Mike. Uh-huh. So you don't even need the Bible. You just find something about someone that you like.

They do some things pretty well. You emulate them. Glom onto it. Yeah. It is a glom factor. But back to Flipping Churches. I think the show would not really sell to the H... What's it called again? HGTV.

HGTV.

I was going to say HDTV. See, I think it would, because instead of house and garden television, it would be house and gospel. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. See? That's like that little thing we saw, the Leading the Way.

T-L-T. But I think it would be great, because people would be like, yeah, I'd love to see the interviews afterwards, you know, with the congregation. Yeah, I would. They're like... Pre and post. Well, we've never heard the Bible before.

That was really weird. No, we do the whole reveal, right? And you bring the pastor back in, and they open up the curtains, and it's the reveal to all these people holding their Bibles, you know, anticipating like little birds in the nest, you're going to feed me again this Sunday.

It would be perfect. But the problem is, every one of our solutions would be the same. Just begin to preach the Bible verse by verse and show people the riches of Christ Jesus and his exclusive salvation.

It seems like to me,.

Female Pastors, Church Flipping, and the Need to Preach the Bible

They don't want the same thing. Well, exactly. And, you know, week after week after female pastors get fired left and right, it's going to be a rough go, right? Well, surprisingly, after 20 shows of female pastors getting fired, here we have another female pastor getting fired.

Well, I don't have that much experience with female pastors. There is a female pastor across the street from the place we stay at in Santa Cruz, and her name is Reverend Blessing. You know what? If you're going to pick a pastor's name,.

That's pretty good. That's right at the top. Reverend Blessing. I mean, she's revered, and she's a blessing.

What if it was like your last name was Cursing or something? Reverend Cursing. I think I'd have to change it. Seriously. There is a pastor in Vermont, a very faithful pastor, as far as I know, has a Bible Institute and all that stuff, trained Southern Seminary guys.

His name is West Pastor. I like that.

Pastor, pastor. I mean, I could think of a lot of, you know, I mean, a lot of last names I'd like to have, you know, Baptizer or something like. Oh, that would be good.

Yeah. Pastor Baptizer. I was at a conference years ago, probably over 10 years ago, in India, and it was a Saturday conference, and somebody came up to me and said, would you preach at our church tomorrow?

Our pastor's gone. So I said to the people that I was with, is that okay with you? Because I'm under their authority kind of thing, and I don't know, maybe it would have been a bad thing. He said, well, it's a liberal Methodist church, so just preach the gospel.

And so I was going to do Ephesians 2, and I did do Ephesians 2, 1 to 10 without notes, my first sermon ever without notes, good news and bad news. We're going to look at some good news today, but first you have to see the bad news, and I'll make the good news even better.

2, 1 to 3, 2, 4 to 10. So I walk in, and there's a bunch of women who are running the place, and they're the leaders, and they're telling me what to do and how to do it. And then they said, and we know your views about women in ministry.

I said, oh, I said, well, they've probably seen the TV show, Church Flipping. They did. And I said, well, the film crew's right here. It was an interesting morning too, because the lady who asked me to speak, she said, well, I'll pick you up at 830 in front of you, the YMCA there, where we were staying.

And we lost power that morning. And so the water is connected to the power. So I had to use bottled water, Bisleri water like Evian, to pour on my head, because I actually had hair then. Oh, that must have been a long, long time ago.

Yeah. Oh, funny. And I said, well, what time will you and your husband be picking me up? Oh, I'll just pick you up. And I said, you know what, ma 'am, I don't know the culture here or anything, but short of emergency, I just can't ride in a car alone with the lady.

Sorry. And so she wasn't too happy. So she got her husband up, because he normally doesn't go to church. And that was a good way of evangelizing, too, because. Otherwise, otherwise he would have been going to the church of the Ricochets.

Uh-huh. The Eldorena's husband doesn't show. She wasn't running her household well. I don't, I don't think, I think that's part of the qualifications for ministry, isn't it? Yeah. As an Eldorena. Yeah.

Pastorette. And so they wanted to confront me about my women's views. Then I said, well, I was just here to preach Ephesians chapter two, one of the greatest chapters in all the Bible. And I just dismissed it.

So she did say to me, this was her last bit of, of, of exhortation, behind the pulpits, holy ground. And so we'd appreciate it if you take your shoes off. I thought,.

Okay. It allows the electricity to flow better. The anointing.

So I took my shoes off, walked over to the pulpit when they introduced me, when she introduced me. And somebody had watered all the plants, the special flowers and everything. And India is a rough place, but they have beautiful flowers.

And the carpet was soaking wet. I've got my socks on suit, the whole sermon smashing and slogging and sloshing that stuff. So the moral of the story is just don't submit to the woman. Church,.

Church flipping. So what, what was the reveal when they came back to, you know, did all the, did the congregation vote the ladies out or,.

Well, yeah, they had to close shop because there was no regenerate people there. It was like Sardis. I said, you know, I got, this was my introduction. This church reminds me a lot of a new Testament church.

Sardis. And they all started laughing. Yay. Sardis. Oh, that's the dead church in Revolution. What a burn. I think I stole that from Howard Hendricks. He used to say, oh yeah, this church, he was a guest speaker.

This church really reminds me a lot about that new Testament church. They think they were going to be saying Ephesus. And I said, Sardis.

Sardis Bible Church. You seem to have lost your first love. That,.

See, there'd be humor in this flipping show. Oh, it'd be great. Uh-huh. Church flipping. Why don't we get that going? Well, I, okay, let's have a little, uh, could somebody start up a GoFundMe? GoFundMe page.

I wanted to start the GoFundMe for my, my cancer treatment. And I thought, nah, better not. But for this, I would do it. Yeah. To get us on HGTV. What do you think that's going to take? Probably $1 ,500, $2 ,000.

GoFundMe. Mike Abendroth, Steve Cooley, NoCompromiseRadio .com. Aren't you glad we're back live? Yeah. Somebody's going to start that GoFundMe. I promise. 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. 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.