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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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

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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.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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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

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio. Mike Abendroth here.

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Pastor Steve is back. Yes, I am, and it's a pleasure to be here. Steve, now you just gave me the look like that was too loud.

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It was exceedingly loud. Yes, but see, I'm more deaf than you are, and so I usually have it louder than you do.

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Well, you know what? Maybe our engineer can adjust that for us. I think so. Maybe one of the several engineers.

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Don't forget here at Bethlehem Bible Church, October 4th and 5th, Pat Abendroth is gonna be here.

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You and Pat are actually friends. Yeah, well, he's the good -looking, smarter

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Abendroth. I can only say that because there's a certain distance between us, and I think you'd really have to stretch to reach me.

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The conference is called Behold the Lamb. Friday night will be for men, and then Saturday open to all.

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And so I've had Pat on No Compromise Radio, actually, and invited him on several times, and he's only been on maybe once or twice, stood me up the rest.

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Fun guy, smart. I think it's interesting to watch the two of you together. Quite fascinating.

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Quite fascinating. I want to also encourage the listeners to get something that I promoted throughout the ministry that God has given me, but I've never promoted this on No Compromise Radio.

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Ever. Ever. It's called Free Grace Broadcaster. Now, when you think of free grace, all grace is free, so why do they say free grace?

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To put the emphasis on the broadcaster. It's like,

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Steve, the accept this free gift. Aren't gifts free? Yeah, no. Well, it depends.

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Here's our free gift, and then you get the bill. Actually, that happened to me recently. They sent an unsolicited

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DVD to me. I think it was some gun thing or something. Yeah, and if you don't send it back, you owe.

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Yeah, and I'm just like, so I just finally said no. I didn't ask for it, and you sent it to me, so too bad.

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Free Grace Broadcaster. We know grace is free theologically, but this means this is a free magazine, free literature.

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And so it has a topic, and then it has a bunch of articles in this little booklet. It's got, what do you think, 50 pages?

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I saved that. I have it in my reading stack. And this particular free grace broadcaster is on babies, and so it's got

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John Calvin's article on God's image, Luther, Be Fruitful and Multiply, Manton, Heritage of the

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Lord, and it's from Chapel Library. You just type in chapellibrary .org, go there and say, send me your free grace broadcaster.

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So we could say free grace broadcaster, or free grace broadcaster. What if they charge for that?

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That would be pretty bad. I think they have a really good prison ministry, too, and tracts, and so if you like tracts, it's from Mount Zion Bible Church.

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You probably knew this from back in the Bible study days. Yep, way back in the day. Steve, tell our listeners again about the time when we had a special visitor named

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Tony show up at the Bible study. Let's talk about that. That's a fun one. I don't think the listeners know the connection.

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Oh, you mean Tony Miano? Yeah, yeah, you brought him to the

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Bible study. Yes, I did. And he didn't arrest me. No, he didn't arrest you. Tony the Lawman Miano, yeah.

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That's right. Why don't you get him on No Compromise Radio sometime? I'm going to. It's just that he's so busy. Did you know he's in London right now?

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I did not know that. What's he doing? Preaching in front of Wimbledon audiences or something? Yes, that's exactly what he's doing, and yeah,

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I posted some videos of him being, actually, he's preaching the gospel and people are shouting at him, crucify him, crucify him.

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And I'm like, it's kind of interesting. Well, I do remember the topic that night when he was at the

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Bible study. Was it hell? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll just tell you what he said on the way out.

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So I said, you know, kind of, what did you think? And Tony goes, you know, we don't have a single elder at our church.

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Now, this is way back. He was in a different church than he is now. He says, we don't have a single elder at our church that can teach like that.

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And I'm like, and he's only a deacon at our church. Well, I am full of admiration for his boldness and his tenacity and his desire to see people saved.

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And I thank the Lord for that. Well, you know, just real quickly, he, a few years ago, he got hit with a burrito when he was preaching at the

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Super Bowl, open air at the Super Bowl. And so I suggested if he was gonna write another book, it should be Your Best Burrito in Your Face Life Now.

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And I think he's working on that one. Well, hopefully it didn't, it wasn't half eaten. You know, if it hit you and then fell, you caught it or something, it was just like.

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I think it was still wrapped. I think one of the guys probably, you know, chowed down on it. Still wrapped.

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Reminds me of the Scotts Valley Fourth of July Day Parade and people with old jalopies and other things will drive down the center of town and then they throw candy out for the kids.

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And then this place down the street that sells Wienerschnitzel, they wrap up these hotdog things and foil and then throw them.

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Don't they have those at football games and at basketball games, Steve, those hotdog launchers and you can shoot them up into the balconies and stuff?

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I don't know. You know, I only go to the finer places like Fenway and they don't do that sort of thing at Fenway. Yeah, it's been a while since I've been to Fenway, although you've invited me.

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Yeah, and you shoot me down, just like Pat Avendross shoots you down all the time. See, you know what? What shoots around.

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Steve, I read the other day here, CBS News, fascinatingly, June 19th, 2013.

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Rochester, Minnesota, CBS says, I don't know why it says Minnesota and then CBS Atlanta.

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I don't quite get that, but it says, researchers find that nearly 70 % of Americans are on at least one prescription drug and more than half receive at least two prescriptions.

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Medical Mayo Clinic said, antibiotics, antidepressants, and painkillers are the most common.

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Second most common is antidepressants. Nearly one in four women ages 50 to 64 were found to be on them.

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And 13 % of the overall population is on antidepressants. 13%.

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That is pretty shocking to me. I think there are lots of comments we could make today on No Compromise Radio, but would you think this is a fair statement,

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Steve, that the marketing wing and the promotional wing and the sales wing with these companies has done a good job?

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One out of eight. I mean, look, you can get one out of eight people to buy gasoline and bread and milk, but any kind of drugs, that's amazing.

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I was talking to our friend Steve the other day, and Steve, when I first met Steve, he told me the different medicines that he was on, and a

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Christian man, new Christian, and Steve, I'll never forget when I was talking to our friend Steve.

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We were in the car on the way to CBD book sale. So that was fun, talking about books and everything.

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He told me he loved to read Christian books. He said his favorite author was C .S. Lewis, and I just smiled.

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I was glad he liked somebody. I knew he just needed to have some actual doctrinal stuff put in his hand, whether it was

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R .C. Sproul. My favorite books are the Silent Planet Trilogy, Deep Theology.

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Anyway, I'll just never forget it as long as I live. He said, I struggle with anxiety, and I know what it's like to be anxious, and I had a lot of anxiety issues before I got saved, and I just wanted to help him.

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I wasn't trying to slam him or say you're weak because you take medicine, or how could you, or I hate you, or you're not a

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Christian, or it was none of that at all. I just said, Steve, what's the opposite of anxiety?

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And he said, well, faith. I said, well, how about trust? He said, yeah, okay,

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I go for that. And I said, if Paul told the church at Philippi, and he's writing in jail, and he writes to them, and he says, do not be anxious for anything, and you're anxious, what do you make of that?

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What do you call that? I'd say I'm in a state that the

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Lord probably doesn't want me to be in. And Steve, here's the wonderful thing.

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When we talk about different psychotropic drugs and stuff like that, and it's not like we're getting out our six guns and shooting away people and trying to hurt them or damage them.

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This was in the context of friendship and just working through, and he said, he looked at me and his face got kind of white, and he said, sin.

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He said, that would be sin. And do you know, I have never seen a visible epiphany on someone's face before,

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Moses -like, you know, where the glory of God was shining on his face, except this time.

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Anyway, I was just very glad because Proverbs 28, 13 makes it clear that when you confess something as sin and forsake it, the

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Lord gives mercy. And so, while we're not trying to say you're a really bad person and a wicked person if you're on antidepressants and all these other things, we just wanna point to you and say, point you to the scriptures and say, the scriptures are sufficient, there's hope for you, and we think we can give you hope from the scriptures that a doctor can't give.

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The doctor can give more medicine or different medicine. But if my doctor says I need antidepressants, why wouldn't I take them?

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Well, that's a good question. I would have to try to answer it. Today's nice radio. Today's not no -compromise radio.

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I'm trying to be really nice. I'm almost ready to go on vacation and stuff like that. Your doctor,

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I don't think, maybe he's a Christian doctor. Maybe he knows these things. I don't think, for instance, let's say with lithium and schizophrenia and stuff like that, why do you have to go in and get tested on a regular basis?

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Well, because lithium is toxic, and if you get too much lithium in your system, you're going to die. Chemical imbalance is a good theory, but I don't know if they've proven anything with chemical imbalance.

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I'm sure we're gonna get the emails from that one. Well, don't they take brain fluid and actually measure it to see what's going on?

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Yes, I think so, and I would assume if you take medicine, you normally get better, and then you stop taking the medicine.

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But anyway, for us, we don't want to slam people who are struggling with things because I think depression's real.

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I think anxiety's real. We're just trying to point you to the one that we think you can trust in and receive joy from, and I don't think the doctors are going to give you everything you need, right?

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But what do Christians do? They say, the doctor helps us with our body, the psychologist helps us with our soul, and then maybe if we need the

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Lord, he can help us with our spirit. Why is that? Because we like to deny the sufficiency of Scripture.

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And you know, here's the thing, Steve. Let's talk about the depression stuff. There are things in life that are supposed to hurt.

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There are things in life that we have all kinds of laments and trials and suffering, and you know, that's one of the reasons why we don't only sing happy peppy songs at Bethlehem Bible Church.

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There are some songs that should be sung in a minor key, and when you look at Ecclesiastes, sometimes life is wonderful and sometimes it's very, very difficult, and there's a way to respond to difficulty and there's a way not to respond.

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Well, you know, just thinking about David, you know, how do you respond to Nathan? You know, when

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Nathan said, you are the man, I'm sure that he wasn't like, you know what? I am the man. Let me write a song about that.

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I am the man, the man, the man, the man, the man. Sounds like Joe Jackson wrote a song called I'm the Man. Yes, he did.

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See, normally you do that to me. Yes, you do. I do. But, and you know what?

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There are psalms of lament and times where he just says, basically, I'm a wretch.

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I'm a horrible human being. You know, in iniquity, my mother conceived me. All these kind of things where he gets it.

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He understands the depravity of himself. And, you know, sin will depress you.

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Other things make us anxious, but the question is, should we? You know, what did Jesus say about worrying about finances?

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You know, look at the birds of the air, you know, all these kinds of things. So what do we, we worry about things that we really ought not to be worried about.

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Steve, what I would say if a doctor said, you know, you really need to be on this. I would say as a pastor, he doesn't, he doesn't take a blood test and then tell you, based on your blood test, you need this medicine or else.

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So that's one of the things. Take a look at the prescribing indications, because they'll be all very subjective.

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You know, if six of these nine things happen, then you need this medicine. And I would also say what they don't do is they don't point you to the

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Lord. And so in Psalm 42 says, why are you downcast, O my soul?

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And why are you in turmoil within me? The doctors may ask that question. You may ask that question to the doctors.

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It might be what's just said earlier. My tears have been my food day and night.

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I think that's real. Those are real Christian emotions. But what the doctor doesn't tell you is the rest of the verse in Psalm 42, 5.

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Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my

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God. My soul is cast down within me, therefore I remember you. And so we want to point people to the

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Lord. I think the Lord can give people joy in the worst circumstances. Well, there's a time to weep, a time for all these things.

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And what we have to do is think, well, okay, there's a time to weep, you know, when somebody dies, when bad things happen, all these kinds of things.

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Yes, but ultimately, when we get bogged down in the circumstances of life, what we're really doing is forgetting what

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God has already given us, which is eternal life. We need to point even ourselves to the cross.

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You know, I take medication every day. It's to you, Trilosec or something. Well, that too, but a prescription medication,

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Gemfibrazil, because years ago, my blood was out of whack. But like you said, that was an objective test where they could take my blood, but it has nothing to do with depression, just has to do with one of the measurements of my blood.

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Steve, we've launched on this topic a lot in the past, and here's probably one of the things I'd like to clarify, or at least exhort in a nice, this is like, it's just like Caleb or something today.

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Nice compromise radio. Always nice, always compromise. In that order. And here's what

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I think, Steve. People don't, in our society today, know there's an alternative. And so if a

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Christian says, I want to be taking psychotropic drugs, that's their own responsibility before the Lord. And I would say sometimes,

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I don't want your depression numb down, because I want you to feel that, so then you flee to the

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Lord, et cetera. But they don't know there's an option. We feel bad. Look at 70 % of people in America are on drugs.

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And so what do you do when you feel bad? You go to the doctor and he writes a script. Well, the troubling thing to me again is the 13 % on antidepressants.

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Basically more than one in eight. What does that say? I mean, that is just, that's stupefying.

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That's a large number of people. And it's probably not much different in Christianity. Because the churches, generally speaking, aren't that much different than the world around us.

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Right, I met with somebody a while ago, they're a new Christian, and they said, I take some psychotropic drugs and want to know if that's okay if I'm at the church and take those drugs.

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I said, of course you're welcome at the church. Of course you can come.

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I said, you asked me a direct question, so I'll give you the answer. Of course you can come, you're welcome. I won't look down upon you.

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I hope other people won't. But I will, as time goes on, try to encourage you to talk to your doctor to see if there's a way you could be weaned off some of these things.

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What kind of hope can he offer you? And eventually, I think, as you rely on who

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Christ is, you can take less or none. And so that's where I'll eventually point you. But right now,

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I'm just happy you're here and learning. You bring your Bible. You know what this person said to me, Steve? You don't know because you weren't here.

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No, I wasn't. They said - Although I do bug your office. I've already talked to my physician and said, could we decrease some of these things that I'm taking?

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And he said, I think you're doing better, and I think we can do that. And I was really happy.

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You know, I'm gonna use a military metaphor because in the military, when they're firing artillery, they use what's called spotting rounds.

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And they have an observer, and they kind of adjust the fire until they get it just right. And, you know, we would think that that's a good procedure for the military.

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And my question is, you know, how is that scientific when we're talking about medication? You know, take this medication for a while.

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You know what, it's not helping, or it's really, it's making me so I can't even leave the house. Oh, well, then we need to change medication.

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Okay, or we need to add medication or whatever. And, you know, it's this, we're firing spotting rounds, but it's with your mind.

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And you're, you know, I don't understand why people would wanna do that, especially over a prolonged period of time.

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Steve, the philosophy that people have about medicine these days, I think it's trending on at least one level, trending in the right direction.

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That is, people know, you know, I shouldn't probably be on all kinds of medicines. You know, maybe whole foods are better, and organic foods might be better.

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Saturated fats are bad. Twinkies are coming back. Are they? Yeah. Okay. Like July 15th or something.

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Then the boardwalk will be complete again in my mind with deep fat fried Twinkies. Woo -hoo!

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That's the same boardwalk I saw John MacArthur at. Oh. Yeah, he had some kind of special alligator, crocodile hunter hat on trying to go incognito.

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But I could figure him out. I think he was trying to block off the sun would be my guess.

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I think he was trying to hide from Luis Palau. Do you, I'll never forget that.

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But do you really think he's such a celebrity in Santa Cruz, you know? No. Oh, look, it's John MacArthur. It was just sunny.

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It was sunny, so he had one of these hats on. But it was quite the hat. Did it have a boa?

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Feather in it or something? Psalm 43 says the same thing. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me?

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Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.

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We realize people suffer, people hurt. They are anxious, they have depression and they're down.

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But we're just trying to tell you that if you're locked into that, there's an alternative.

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And so I'm just happy that we can offer people hope. Isn't that something maybe that the medicine can't give you as hope?

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Tell us about that, Steve, where, you know, they can say this is the dose, increase it or change medicine or add medicines.

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But is that really hope for them? Can we tell people as Christians, can other Christians tell

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Christians, not even pastors, we're competent to give counsel and admonish? Yeah, I mean, ultimately, that's just masking kind of the symptoms here.

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You know, if I am like most Christians, and I think I'm really not that much different, every single day, here's what

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I do. I can recite a laundry list of my failings, my sins, my shortcomings, all the ways that I not only fail to do what

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I wanna do, but I do the things I don't wanna do. I'm like the Roman seven kind of guy. But here's what I think.

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I think, you know what? In spite of all my failings, my sins, my weaknesses, God sent his son to die for me and I have eternal life.

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I get so much more. And you know what? It's not even just heaven, just heaven, it's only heaven.

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It's not only heaven that I have, it's all the blessings that I have now. And I just look around at my life and think

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I don't deserve this. And if we can keep that perspective, and I'm not saying I'm not holding myself up because I really am just an average guy, as Mike will attest.

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But the point is, if you think about what you deserve and how God has blessed you in spite of what you deserve, that's kind of,

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I think it's pretty hopeful. I think it's pretty uplifting. Every day I thank God for all that he's done for me.

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Steve, I think you've hit the nail on the proverbial head because our society offers so much, right?

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You have to have everything above and beyond THX level, Dolby sound, so everybody's a winner.

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You can do whatever you want in life. Nothing can hold you back. And this is the American dream.

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And people drink that up, but it doesn't really yield itself as true to most of the population. Most of the population isn't rich and famous, and they never will be no matter how hard they try.

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So then when you think life should deliver a 90 on the scale of a hundred and you get a 30, then the difference is

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I'm downcast, oh my soul. And then if you say to yourself, what life should give me is hell, like a negative 5 billion, but I get to live and then go to heaven, then the result there is joy.

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And so we just think at No Compromise Radio that you can have joy no matter what your circumstances are, especially if you keep your eyes, just like Pastor Steve said, on the

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Lord Jesus. If you come here and you're on medicine, we're not gonna try to make you feel bad, but I'm just gonna try to tell you, we think

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Psalm 32 is true. I acknowledge my sin to you. I did not cover my iniquity.

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I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

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If you're anxious, say, Lord, I'm anxious, help me. Forgive me. And you know what? I'm gonna say,

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I've never been on medication, but I know without a doubt, there have been times in my life, especially before I was a

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Christian, where I was depressed. And you know what happened? What I did over and over again was just rehearse the things that I was depressed about over and over again, just ruminating, just marinating myself in my sorrows, in the bad things that had happened to me.

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I mean, I could write some really wicked country songs, you know, based on my life. And if you do that, it's no wonder you're depressed.

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It really is no wonder that you're depressed. On the other hand, if you think all these things, no matter how bad my life is for the next 30, 40, 50 years, you know, who knows, if I live to be 120.

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Doubtful. Right, in spite of all these things or how difficult life is, I get to spend eternity with Christ.

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And you just say, yeah, but I can't get out of bed. Why not? I've got eternity with the

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Lord. I'm gonna spend forever in the presence of the perfect one who died in my place and was raised on the third day.

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It says in Psalm 32, many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the

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Lord. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

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And so we don't have to be glad for our circumstances necessarily, but we can be glad in the Lord. I think I love to give hope to people who say, you know what,

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I've been on this medicine for 30 years and I'm just still just as bad as I was. And I think, you know what? There's hope for you.

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Yeah, there is hope. And part of that starts in changing what you do with your life.

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I think, you know what, if you're in a rut, get out of the rut, you know, if you start reading the

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Bible, believing the Bible, if you start praying, not just, Lord, change my circumstances, but Lord, thank you.

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Lord, I praise you for all the things that you've provided me with. I thank you that I can even be in a place where I can afford to just ruminate on the bad things in my life.

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A lot of people don't have that. You know, they're just trying to survive. And yet we have time to be depressed.

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Right, well, my name is Mike Abendroth with Steve Cooley today, and we are No Compromise Radio. You can listen to Steve on Saturdays on occasion,

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Tuesday guy, you can email him, Tuesday guy at No Compromise Radio. Please do, nocompromiseradio .com.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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