Variety Show

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "...but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

My name is Mike Abendroth. I have not recorded a show now for about two weeks. I got this flu. I guess I didn't have enough faith. I guess I couldn't say, physician, heal yourself. And bronchitis, one antibiotic, two antibiotic.

And I still feel a little under the weather now, but I feel kind of lightheaded enough that I'm curious to know what I might say on the show today. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. I do know how to say that still.

Don't forget, if you're listening locally, you can attend Bethlehem Bible Church, where I am privileged to pastor. And I want you to know that we go to two services on March 18th, and that is 8 .30 is the first service, then Sunday school at 10, second service at 11 .15.

So I hate to go to two services, but I hate to turn people away, as Jonathan Gershner would say, even more. So I don't want to turn people away. So March 18th, 8 .30, first service, 11 .15, second service.

So there we have that announcement. Announcement number two, I still have some more books here, Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus. I notice Amazon is sold out. You might want to order at the author's discount price on our website, Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, and that's the second book I have written.

My third book, I'm shopping around now, I don't know the title of it, but it's a biblical worldview of sex. And so 30 days, 30 chapters, you read a short chapter, one per day, to think properly about this subject, a subject that is, in society, vulgar and rude and crude.

In my book, I talk to parents on how to talk to their children about the topic, how single people should stay pure, dealing with pornography, how the gospel relates to it. And I do anything but what Mark Driscoll has done, talking about what could be done or what couldn't be done.

The Driscoll book, by the time this recording airs, will be not old news, but certainly not new news. And so I'm not going to read the Driscoll book. I think it's a shame what he says about his wife. We are to cover things, not expose.

And I don't want to look at her and then think about what's in the book, and I'm not a Victorian prude. I was going to say people shouldn't write books about sex, and so I don't know why I did. The book that I wrote, though, is nothing like a how-to manual.

It's nothing that talks about that. It talks about how we biblically should view that topic. And so, anyway, I'm rambling. I almost went into some kind of Steve Martin thing. I'm a rambling guy, R-A-M-B-L-I, and rambling.

If you're old enough, you know what I'm talking about. What else do I have here on my desk? It's kind of a clear-off-my-desk time because I've got to clear my throat, clear my brain. I also hurt my back baptizing someone.

Can you believe that? One more reason to be a paedo-baptist is that you don't hurt your back baptizing people, pulling them up out of the water, unless the baby's really big. I was speaking and not thinking about what I was doing.

I didn't tighten my abdomens—abdomens. I didn't tighten my—the six-pack there wasn't tightened up, and I didn't bend my knees properly, bent over, pulled the guy up out of the water, and couldn't walk for like three days.

Should I file a worker's compensation? You know, is that considered a lawsuit against your own employer? All right, what else do I have here? We have John Owen's book, and it was written in 1642, just before the English Westminster assemblies of 1643 to 1649.

And what I liked about these old-time Puritans, they had long book names. So for me, my latest book on day one is called The Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, subtitled Bowing to the Gracious Despot.

So let's see, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve words. And so what I actually wanted was one word for the title, and it was king, but I got shot down. So what about this book?

It's known as his book called The Display of Arminianism, and so he critiques Arminianism only the way John Owen can, and that is a very thorough biblical fashion. By the way, when I went to Al Mohler's house in Louisville and went downstairs to look at his library, the first book I saw on his desk was a very old, first edition, John Owen, A Display of Arminianism.

That pretty much says it all, doesn't it? That was fun to go down there. I also like to see the little TV nook area. I think he has 25 ,000 volumes in that president's house on campus, very southern-looking house, very neat house.

And downstairs in the little library area, there was a little TV-watching area, and I saw some 24 episodes, season one, season two. That gave me full right. My conscience was then clear so I could watch the series 24.

Clean conscience. And so Danny Akin told me that sometimes he would get phone calls late at night. Al would say to Danny, Danny, come on over and let's watch a few 24s. Of course, Al is known for staying up really late at night and not needing much sleep.

Danny Akin also said to me when we went to Al Mohler's house, pull a book out of the bookshelf and then ask Dr. Mohler, what did you think of this book? And Mohler's response, according to Akin, would be something like, well, I enjoyed the book except on page 242, the author said.

What would you give for a memory like that? Is that a blessing or a curse? I don't know. It sounds more like a blessing to me. Here's the full title of John Owen's first book. 1642, Westminster Assembly started just a year afterwards.

The great Congregationalist John Owen. A display of Arminianism being a discovery of the old Pelagian idol free will. So you thought it stopped there. Although that would have been good enough. Being a discovery of the old Pelagian idol free will.

I love it when people call free will an idol. God can't save you unless you let him. I just was listening to a radio show with Ergin Kanner saying, you know, God can't move unless you allow it. With the new goddess contingency.

So you got the old Pelagian idol free will with the new goddess contingency, that there's a contingent factor that God must, you know, contingency that God must factor in. Comma, advancing themselves into the throne of the God of heaven, comma, to the prejudice of his grace, providence, and supreme dominion over the children of men, semicolon, wherein.

I need a subtitle with the word wherein. Wouldn't that be cool? We're in the main errors by which they are fallen off from the received doctrine of all the reformed churches with their opposition in diverse particulars to the, that sounds like, that sounds like something I had once and I had to go to the hospital for my diverse particulars, to the doctrine established in the church of England and discovered and laid open out of their own writings and confessions and confuted by the word of God.

That is fascinating. Now I'm going to say it once as fast as I can on No Compromise Radio Ministry before we get into our Bible topics. We're getting into just now Sudafed topics. Here is John Owen's work, the full title, The Display of Arminianism Being a Discovery of the Old Pelagian Idol Free Will with the New Goddess of Contingency Advancing Themselves into the Throne of the God of Heaven to the Prejudice of His Grace, Providence of Supreme Dominion over the Children of Men, wherein the main errors by which they are fallen off from the received doctrine of all the reformed churches with their opposition in diverse particulars to the doctrine established in the church of England are discovered and laid open by their own writings and confessions and confuted by the word of God.

Where's my inhaler? So today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, let me talk now for a moment about Christianity today. It is a magazine, used to be a Presbyterian magazine called Christianity Today that is not related to this unless, as some rumor has it, that this Christianity Today stole its name from the old Presbyterian magazine.

But Presbyterians today are typically liberal unless they're OPC, EPC, or PCA. So, by the way, when you drive past a church and it says congregational, if you see a U up there someplace, it's bad unless there's a great pastor trying to, you know, preach the gospel so people get saved.

If you drive past a Presbyterian church and you see a U anywhere, anywhere around there unless it's, you know, Bug City, if it's in the name of the town or the name of the church, that's fine. But if it's affiliation, if its denomination has a U in it, you know you're in big trouble.

If you go past a universal Unitarian church, the U's would also give that away. But if it's PCUSA, USA, Presbyterian, you know it's liberal. Just because it says PC, it might be okay. It might be PCA or it might be EPC, Evangelical Presbyterian Church, or it might be OPC, which is good, Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

I think if I was a Presbyterian, I guess I better settle this once and for all right now, since I love Jay Gresham Machen so much, if I was a Presbyterian, I think I'd have to be an OPC guy, Only Perfect Church, Presbyterian.

I think D .G. Hart would be happy with me. But since I'm a Baptist, I guess that's going to be very difficult. I keep getting emailers that will write me and say, why do Presbyterians accept the Roman Catholic baptism of infants as valid?

Maybe we'll have to do that show sometime. If you drive past a Methodist church, this is a game you can play, by the way. It's hard to play in New England because there aren't very many church buildings, but other places, Tennessee, Kentucky, Kentuckiana, it's probably pretty easy to play this game.

You can get high scores. It's a high-scoring game. You have to move it back to the 30-yard line before you play. You drive by a church, and then you just try to tell based on the outside of the church and its sign and its name if it would be a good church or not.

So you can play that game with the kids. I must be a fascinating dad, huh? Oh, man. So if it's a Methodist church, most of the time, well, if you see a U, that's bad too. But if it's an evangelical Methodist church, it'd be a free Methodist church.

I think there are some Christians in free Methodist churches, Christian denominations. Let's see, who else? Lutheran. This isn't Wretched Radio right now. Tony's not listening, I don't think. I don't think he listens to the show.

I don't think Rod Rosenblatt listens to the show. Methodist is easier to deal with than Lutheran. Lutheran, ELC, LCA, ELCA, I don't know which one's apropos for now, but all those are apostate. Missouri Senate and Wisconsin Senate, I heard, were more conservative, but it's the baptismal regeneration thing that just kind of bothers me.

But anyway, Christianity Today, the magazine, I'm looking at January 2012. It says, civil Christians in the age of rancor. What might it look like to honor God in politics? You know what? It's too easy to just bash Christianity Today and call Christianity astray.

And Steve and I like to go through this because I like to know what's going on under the broad term of Christianity. That is to say, not Buddhist, not Hindu, not Muslim, not anything else, but what's going on under the self-professed banner of Christianity.

It's not evangelical Christianity Today. Evangelical even, what's in a name? Do we want to keep that name? R .C. Sproul said he'd like to be called imputationalist. But evangelical is a, you know, at least it's a biblical term, but too bad we have feministic evangelicals, egalitarian evangelicals, etc.

But really, the magazine, I get it because I'm a pastor. Excuse me, but it gives me a cold. And it really, it's irrelevant. It's useless. It serves really no purpose except no compromise radio. And it serves a purpose of getting me mad regarding the demise of the magazine Christianity Today.

It's got a thing here, leading Christians address open questions, and it's called the Village Green. And this is under sports and violence. And so here's the question that it ponders with three different responses.

Is it ethical for Christians to participate in or watch cage fighting? I don't know, you know, that's something I often struggle with. I'm always wondering, what's that meat crob or something? What's the Jewish martial arts?

I know it's not meat crob, that's what you get at the Thai food place. But what's the, I can't remember, I'm too tired, too sick. But this is just, it's just, it's an irrelevant question. It's an irrelevant question.

Is it ethical? Well, do Christians have the liberty to do things? I think Christians have the liberty to do things. They need to do it in love. They need to think about other people. There's all kinds of issues, but for them to waste space, I don't even want to read the answer.

It's got all these ads in the back. There's an ECA, International Evangelical Church Alliance. And here's how it advertises itself. The Evangelical Church Alliance, providing ministerial credentials, education, and support since 1887.

Now, if I'm going to pick a school, if I can be frank on No Compromise Radio, I don't care about the credentials. If God has, in fact, saved me, gifted me, and impelled me into gospel ministry, if I've got accredited school or not, it's pretty irrelevant.

Sometimes accreditation is important in life, and if you're going to go to medical school and you need the right accredited school so that you can actually practice in the United States medicine, well, I understand that.

If you could say to yourself, would I rather be accredited or not, all things equal, okay. But nobody's ever asked me, is your master's seminary degree accredited? Is your Southern Baptist theological degree accredited?

You know, Ligonier Ministries, DMIN program, Doctorate of Ministry. It's not accredited. So when you sell something in the back of Christianity Today, we provide ministerial credentials. What are the credentials?

How does that work? Boy, that just drives me batty. I will have to say one good thing in light of Politically Correct. Well, can't you say anything nice? They did give top five books on Christians in politics on page 62, and I thought they actually gave some good titles.

Grudem's Politics According to the Bible, God's Statesman, that is Wilberforce, John Pollock, A Christian Manifesto, Francis Schaeffer, and then a couple of the other ones I don't know anything about.

A crossway book, though, Idols for Destruction, The Conflict of Christian Faith and American Culture. So my big thing on Christianity Today is, I guess it helps me do a radio show and fill time, but besides that, I wouldn't lose any sleep if I never got another Christianity Today.

I once did write World Magazine when they said the pope was the man of the year and never said anything about him in a critiquing fashion. After all, World Magazine is a Protestant, I believe Presbyterian-influenced magazine, and if it's Christianity Today and they're promoting the pope as a great man, I get that.

And even if World says the most influential man in the world was the pope in whatever year that was, John Paul II, they probably were right. But if I'm going to write about an influential man as a Protestant, I would have to say influential in these areas, yet lacking when it comes to justification by faith alone, sola scriptura, etc.

Fox News, a worthy New Year's resolution. By the way, you can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. I just learned the other day that we've had 615 ,000 downloads on iTunes and the website. That's pretty good, isn't it?

615 ,000, and I think I charge a dollar per download, so right now I should be in Fat City. I should be styling, beguiling. A worthy New Year's resolution. All right, so what was your New Year's resolution?

You've probably broken it now. It's probably been broken for two months, right? Dr. Keith Abloh, he's a regular contributor, he says here's a worthy New Year's resolution. So tell me how biblical you think this is.

Find your truth. So, that's the New Year's resolution. I actually thought thy word is truth, but you know, I'm fairly naive, I guess, when it comes to these kind of things. Define your truth. New Year's resolutions so often fail because they are statements about altering behaviors in order to accomplish something.

I resolve to stop overeating. I resolve to be more attentive to my spouse. I resolve to be a better parent. Admirable goals, but they're commonly forgotten by February. So why would this be any different is my question.

That's because flatly resolving to achieve something ignores one central fact. You are the person who has been running your life while you gained weight and disregarded your spouse or fell short as a father or mother, and since you're still the one in control, it's unlikely you will be able to chart a better course and arrive at your intended destination without examining yourself.

The inner set of emotions and beliefs that are truly elemental define your self-concept in the way you experience and understand the world around you. To use a metaphor, think of yourself as the captain of a ship.

Aye aye, skipper. You shied away from transatlantic journeys in the past, even when invited to undertake them, even when excited by the notion and now your intent on finally taking a ship across the ocean.

What does this story have to do with anything? Tell me why. New Year's resolution, he said, that will change your life forever. Single silver bullet. Resolve to find your personal truth. So I ask you, No Compromise listeners, what's the problem with that?

To find your truth. Well, we get back to this mysticism again. Why am I always harping on mysticism? Why do I keep banging the drum incessantly about mysticism? It's like the guy who says Christianity is true because it changed me.

That is not right. Stop it. It sounds so good. It sounds so pious. How can you argue with a changed life? Well, I can give people medicine and I can change their lives. But here's the issue. Christianity is based on a historical fact.

Christianity is true not because I've experienced it, not because I've made it my truth. Christianity is true and it's based on a historical event. Christ died outside the city of Jerusalem 2 ,000 years ago.

He was a real person. Oh, yes, he was more than a person. He was more than a man. He was fully God. But Jesus historically died in time on Calvary as he bore our deserved curse. He didn't deserve it, but we did.

And that is what makes Christianity true. A historical fact. I've been reading a lot about Machen and that's how Machen had to deal with these liberals. Oh, this is my truth. This is your truth. This is true because it's affected me.

Well, that's not right. This is true because it's a historical event. Yes, it's theological. Yes, the Spirit of God applies that truth and the theology of that truth to our lives in a personal way, in a very relevant way.

Obviously, making us born again, regenerating us monergistically. But friends, things aren't true because you've decided that they're true. That's not how you find truth is to say, you know what, make it my own personal truth.

Resolve to start admitting what you really feel about yourself, even the negative things, so that you can identify the areas of strength you can build on and others you genuinely need to change. Resolve to start saying more about what you really believe spiritually, politically, ethically, and morally because to the extent that you declare your truth, you start living with honesty and conviction.

Friends, without faith, it's impossible to please God. And so, without faith in Christ Jesus, all this other stuff is a farce. It's window dressing because being absent from your own existence, short circuits, all good intentions, you can't resolve to do anything and mean it if you are not in possession of yourself.

How do you start? Psychotherapy is the gold standard way. Read excellent books. George Weinberg's self-creation is another. Wonders that will change your life. Meditation can be useful. A spiritual retreat can also set stage for forward momentum.

Good luck in Godspeed in 2012. I, I, I, I, I don't know why I'm going back into pop culture. I'm the Frito Bandito. No compromise radio today. You don't find your own truth. The truth is found in the Word of God.

God has revealed himself in the Word of God, and it's all for you to just pick up and read, and you will know it as truth. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through him.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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