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Luke Kirkendall Interview
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, and as you know, we have sermons that I�ve preached here at Bethlehem Bible Church on Mondays. I used to play half of a sermon, or a third of one.
I think you get the whole sermon if you subscribe to the iTunes. On Tuesdays, I like to talk to the Tuesday guy, Steve Cooley, he�s my associate pastor here, talking about church issues. Thursdays, it�s usually whatever I want to talk about, usually a topic that is, you know, the doctrine of election or something like that.
And then Fridays, sometimes we go after some false teachers or erroneous ideas. But on Wednesdays, we have interviews, and I like to talk to fellow pastors, writers, preachers, theologians, friends. I don�t think I�ve had any enemies on, at least to start, but maybe after the show they were enemies.
So today, since it�s Wednesday, we have Pastor Luke Kuykendall on from California. Luke, welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. Hi, Mike, it�s great to be here. Well, Luke, tell our listeners a little bit about how we met, and then we�ll take it from there.
Well, it�s kind of funny. I first heard about you listening to Wretched Radio way back when, and you were standing in for Todd Friel. So that�s how I first heard about you. And then last March, I believe, it was at the Shepherds Conference, I was there with a friend of mine.
I had just heard Steve Lawson preach, and a friend of mine said, �Luke, you should read a book by someone that I know. And I said, �Oh, what is the book And he said, �It�s called Jesus Christ, Prince of Preachers, and it�s by a guy named Mike Evendroth.
So I said, �You know who Mike Evendroth is And I got all excited. And he said, �Yes, I know who he is. And I said, �I listen to his podcast. So by then, I�m listening to NOCO Radio. And he goes, �Yes, I know Mike very well, and his name is Loisa, and he�s a missionary out in the Czech Republic.
And so then suddenly, my friend Loisa seems like a great celebrity because he knows who you are, and he�s telling me a couple of stories, and I�m just�I�m laughing, and I�m enjoying it. And then I�m laughing with Loisa because Loisa loves to drop names.
He�s talking about being at his first Shepherds Conference where he sat in between Al Mohler and Steve Lawson, and I�m just laughing. And then while I�m sitting there laughing at him, another friend of mine comes over, and his name is Aaron Sasani, who�s from India.
And Aaron starts saying, �Oh, I know who Mike Evendroth is also. He said that Mike�s brother Pat supports his brother�s church out in India. And so I�m laughing because all these people seem to know who you are, and I don�t.
And then I get back from the Shepherds Conference, and I�m participating in a thing called Training Center at a local church out here in Southern California. And I find out that you�re the advisor, and you�re his advisor.
So now it�s making me laugh because originally you were just this guy who does a podcast and who I thought was pretty fun, and now suddenly there�s this circle of people that all know who you are. And then in this training program, I was assigned a paper, and I had to interview a pastor.
And so I said, �Well, I wonder if this Mike Evendroth guy will talk to me. So I emailed you, and then we got to talking on the phone, and now it turns out the circle is now complete. I know who you are.
Well, Luke, I enjoyed listening to the story, and you have such a good cadence and radio voice. You could have your own show. Have you ever thought about that?
I have, and I try to be like you, and it doesn�t work out as well.
Well, Luke, you�re pastoring now. I don�t think it�s technically in Marietta, is it? Is it Temecula at Southwest Christian Church? Tell us about the ministry there.
That�s correct. Yeah, we�re right next to Temecula, or Marietta, a couple towns that are close to each other. Southwest Christian Church is a church in Temecula. It was started about 23 years ago, and it�s funny.
It�s called Southwest Christian Church because we were supposed to be a megachurch in southwest Riverside County. So we�re about an hour north of San Diego. And so the idea was we were going to be this megachurch in southwest Riverside County.
It never happened. We�re not a megachurch, but throughout the years, they set all sorts of fun goals, you know, 595 or whatever, and they never happened. But Southwest Christian Church was originally a part of the Christian Churches, which were they grew out of the restoration movement in the 1800s.
And I kind of have a rule. Any church growth program or any church system that developed in the 1800s, just watch out for it. Be aware of it, because that�s where you�ve got the Jehovah�s Witnesses, the Mormons, the Seventh-day Adventists.
And I even think that some of the downgrade controversy that Spurgeon had to fight against came from the same time period. And so the Christian Churches came out of that. They were the original postmodernists, and it was called the restoration movement.
And what they wanted to do was restore the church to how it was in the first century. So they threw out all doctrines, threw out all dogma, threw out anything that had grown in the church post the first century, and they said, �We�re just going to start over with nothing but the Bible.
And I know that sounds nice, but really it�s almost like postmodernism, where it says, �We�re just going to start over and let our own interpretation be what it is. So there was the Church of Christ movement, and they were known for lots of splits.
A lot of them are non-instrumental. A lot of them believe that you can only have one cup at communion or one loaf of bread. Some of them don�t even have Sunday school, because you don�t see Sunday school in the Bible.
And the Church of Christ split and split and split, that�s where Disciples of Christ came from. And so finally at some point, a bunch of people got together and said, �Let�s stop dividing over this. We�re just going to have a Christian church.
And so now if you ever see a church that has the title �Christian� in the title, most likely it�s a part of this restoration movement, a part of the Church of Christ, or related to it. And they�re defined by being �baptismal regenerationalists.
So they think that baptism is what saves a person. They think that baptism is when a person�s sins are removed and when the Holy Spirit enters a person. They�re very Arminian, and they have a pretty well-structured Arminian theology, where they believe you must do five things before your sins are removed and before you�re granted to be a Christian.
And so that�s where our church history comes from. I was raised in actually the same church. I started coming to Southwest Christian Church in 1996 when I moved to Murrieta, the town that I�m in. I was 16 and started coming to the same church.
And then I graduated high school and went to a college affiliated with the denomination, the non-denomination denomination, and graduated college while still coming here. And throughout the years, different pastors were here, and they came and gone, and I sometimes like to say I was the last man standing.
And so here I am, I�m the pastor here now.
Well, before you tell us the next part, Luke, I�m interrupting you on purpose, I want to hold that, because it�s very interesting in the providence of God, that next chapter in your life. But while I�m thinking about it, this whole idea of �we�re going to go back to the Bible� and how they essentially ignore Sola Scriptura and turn it into Solo Scriptura, that is, we come to the text with a blank slate, and we have to have doctrinal and confessional and historical amnesia, and whatever the text says, it says.
What are some of the problems with that as you see it, where you have no, I mean, good tradition, that is to say, tradition that stems from the Bible, that is normed by the Bible? What happens when you just throw everything out and say, �I come to the text by myself without any systematic theology or anything else.
What are the obvious errors with that system?
Some of the obvious errors, well, first, I would say I would reject some of God�s greatest gifts. One of my favorite texts has been Ephesians 4, where it says that God has given the Church apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers, and their job is to equip the states.
And when we reject all of that, we�re throwing off some of God�s greatest gifts. I�m, of course, not going down the route of the Catholic Church, which is solely ecclesia, and which says the Church is the one that dictates what�s true and what�s not.
But I am saying that God has given us some amazing men. I love that phrase, �We stand on the shoulders of giants. And it�s going to be hard to come to conclusions like the Trinity without being taught from gifted men.
Some of my favorite authors, I really think, are gifts. And when I look at the Reformation period, we�re, what, a couple weeks away from Reformation Day. And one of my favorite things about the Reformation period is these men, they wrote volumes and volumes and volumes of books.
I think John MacArthur is a pretty smart guy, and he hasn�t written nearly as much as someone like John Owen. And so I look at these gifts God has given us, and that Reformation period, I think he gifted the Church with some highly intelligent men.
And for us to throw off everything that they�ve given us is to really spit on a gift of God. And then, as I said with the Trinity, we�re neglecting some great doctrines that have been handed down to us and worked out over the years.
If I look at some of the early Church Fathers, while they were closer to the truth, closer to the events when they happened, a lot of them had some terrible ideas, such as origin. Origin had some bad ideas.
And even if I look at Augustine and his developments and his thoughts on, let�s say, the Millennium, or some of the ideas of Killeism, I believe that�s how you pronounce it, where people started doubting the promises of God and really getting mystical about it.
Just because something�s closer to the origin doesn�t mean they�re always right. So, I would begin by saying, to reject some of God�s gifts as teachers is to reject what God has given us and where He�s directed the Church.
You�re listening to No Compromise Radio. I have on the radio with us today, via phone, Pastor Luke Kirkendall, out in California, Temecula, California, southwestchristianchurch .us. I�m sure you get asked this question all the time before we get to the second half of your testimony here.
When people say to you, �Well, Acts chapter 2, it says in the Bible, �And Peter said to them, verse 38, �Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Doesn�t that mean, Pastor Luke, that for us to have our sins forgiven, we must be immersed?
So, that goes into the baptismal regenerationalism, and that is a huge fight that we�ve had. I couldn�t tell you how heartbreaking it is to sit there and talk with someone, only to come to their conclusion, the false conclusion, that baptism is where a person�s sins are removed.
We have a baptismal in our church. We joke that it looks like a coffin, because someone made it a long time ago. So, we have this, I don�t know, six feet long baptismal, and it�s in our stage in the church.
So, it comes up about three feet, two and a half feet. It is the exact shape of a coffin, and it cracks me up. So, but we don�t keep water in it. We only put water in it when there�s going to be a baptism.
So, it�s the wintertime, and I�m meeting with a father and a son, and there�s one of our elders present, and he wanted to be baptized. And so, I�m sitting there talking with them, and I go, �Well, I can�t baptize you tonight, because it�s empty, and it�s really cold outside, and it�s really dirty.
So, we can baptize you on Sunday. We love to baptize people right at the end of our service. So, I said, �We can baptize you at the end of our service on Sunday. It�ll be nice and warm. It�ll be clean.
It�ll be all ready for you. And the father, he obviously gets upset, his face kind of gets red, and he turns to me, and he goes, �Are you okay with having it on your conscience that if I were to die on the way home, no one would be able to tell that I wasn�t baptized
And I�m sitting there, and I�ve got an elder right next to him, and the elder agreed with him, and that was one of my first arguments here at the church, talking about baptism being essential for salvation.
So, the way I�ve handled it, and we�ve argued about it, is we love to go back to the cross. We start at the cross, and we say, �What happened on the cross And we say that it was on the cross where sins were paid for.
The cross is where Jesus was actually atoning for sin, so much so that his last words on the cross were, �It is finished meaning that the requirement for justice has been satisfied for those that he died for, and so now there is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
The answer, Acts 238, I think a better way to translate Acts 238 is, �And be baptized because of the forgiveness of sin. I actually think that the word �ice� that�s there, that�s translated for, I think it actually can be translated as �because and there�s other instances in the New Testament where that word is translated �because or �because of something that has been done.
So I really think that that�s what�s going on. Also, if you look in Acts, that is actually a great example of conversion. Peter preaches this sermon, and at the end of his sermon, it says in Acts that they were cut to their heart.
Now what does it mean to be cut to the heart? Honestly, I think that that�s the Holy Spirit transforming a person�s heart. That�s the Holy Spirit regenerating the individual. And so after their hearts are cut, they then go to Peter and they say, �What must we do
And Peter says, �Repent and believe and be baptized. And so by then, something�s already happened in their heart. I will never baptize a person who already doesn�t believe, and who already hasn�t had a change in their heart.
So I look at baptism as something that happens after their heart has been changed, after their heart has been cut.
Does that make sense? Yeah, that�s exactly right, Luke, and when I was listening to you talk about �for the forgiveness of sins� and what that word �for� in English could be used for, not only in the Greek, but in the English as well, I regularly think of going to the post office and you see posters of people that have committed crimes, and there�s a little thing underneath it, at least in the old days, back in the cowboy days, cowboys and Indians, �wanted for murder, wanted for horse stealing.
And we use the word �for� there in the exact same way that it�s used in Acts chapter 2. �Wanted for the purpose of murder, we want this person so they can murder someone else. No. Because they have murdered someone, they are wanted, and I think that�s a good way to kind of think through it.
Mm-hmm. I agree, that�s a good example. So Luke, we are working up to the point where you attend the Church, you�re at the Church, and you�re not the pastor yet. What happens, and how do you become the pastor, and then what happens after that?
Well, first, I wasn�t� I was made the youth pastor in 1999. It�s always funny how churches take one of the youngest people in the Church and they say, �We�re going to put you over people. You�re not equipped, you�re not trained, but we�re going to make you the youth pastor.
We�re going to trust you with our children. So that was the funny part. And meanwhile, I�m going to a Bible college, and I�m going there and not really learning a whole lot. In fact, I would say I wasn�t a Christian, and it�s a little scary thinking how I thought.
I was reading a book by McLaren, Brian McLaren, which, don�t ever read anything by Brian McLaren, but I was reading a book by him, and he was talking about the cross, and he said, �Why did Jesus have to die on the cross
And he accused Christians of being vampires who want to drink the blood of Jesus. And he said, �Why did Jesus ever have to die And Christians are wicked talking about the blood. And I remember sitting there going, �Yeah, why did Jesus have to die
And I didn�t understand. If you would have come to me and said, �Luke, why did Jesus die on the cross Or, �How was someone�s sins forgiven I would say, �Because of Jesus on the cross. But I didn�t know why Jesus had to die on the cross.
And so, at the same time, I started going through an evangelism course. We went through Way of the Master, and I was totally opposed to it, because at the time, I thought evangelism is bad. Why should we force our opinions on other people?
And so, I went through this evangelism course, and it�s the first or second week. Ray Comfort is with him. He�s interviewing this young man on the beach, and he goes through the Ten Commandments. He goes through the law and helps this kid see his sin.
And as he�s going through it, I�m sitting there watching this video, and for the first time in my life, I understood why Jesus had to die on the cross. I understood what my sin was and how offensive my sin was to God.
And I remember walking out of that house that night. I had started the night being opposed to evangelism, and I walked out of there that night a Christian. I�ll never forget looking up at the stars, seeing all these stars in the sky, and being blown away by the hugeness of God that He created all these stars, and yet He would be concerned about little old me and die on the cross.
So that was around 2002, 2003, somewhere around there, and I became a Christian. Meanwhile, we had a pastor at our church who was the one who married my wife and I. He ended up moving away in 2006. In 2007, we hired another pastor, and he left in 2009.
And meanwhile, somewhere along the way there, I remember reading through Romans, and reading through Romans 9, and asking myself all the questions that Paul is asking, �Is God just to condemn people
Because I became a Christian, and I�m not like Paul Washer. I never woke up in a pool of vomit, but I�ve never been drunk, I�ve never done drugs, but my repentance was saying I was wrong. And I threw off all of that other stuff, and I fell in love with the old dead guys.
I started reading the Bible, and somewhere along the way, I became a Calvinist. I embraced Reformed theology, and I called up one of my elders, and his name is Richard, and I said, �Hey, Richard, I think I might do many people, heavily Arminian.
And so kind of behind the scenes, I began teaching it, and it�s probably not good for church unity to do things that way, but that�s what was going on. I did have a whole lot of accountability, so I�m a youth pastor, and I�m teaching Calvinism, and more and more people are starting to understand.
And then in 2009, the pastor randomly sent a letter to the elders and the leadership of the church, saying he didn�t have a love for the church. He said he�s not quitting, he just doesn�t like the church, and he�s looking for somewhere else.
Well, the elders received that letter, and they said, �Okay, well, you say you�re not quitting, but we�re going to. So by now, I�m kind of the associate pastor, and now that he�s gone, I�m preaching on a weekly basis.
And things weren�t very healthy at the church. We were, I said earlier, had this desire to be a mega-church, so we were very secretive that we�re there just because they had fun, because they liked the music, because it was kind of a social club, so to speak.
And so, and they liked me. People enjoyed me, and anything I said, they went along with. So it was the end of June, through a lot of fighting, a lot of debating, the elders brought me a pastor, and the congregation voted on me to become the pastor, and the last week of June, I was made the pastor.
Things weren�t easy, though. As I started teaching more, oh, I should say this also, I wasn�t grilled too hard on anything that I believed. Belief wasn�t that important in our church. And so, as we started preaching more, people started hearing what I was preaching, and they weren�t hearing me say.
We started having a lot of fighting going on, and so we had the first of people leaving the church. So we had a lot of people that were here because they knew what that Church of Christ theology was. And then we had a lot of people who stayed, and why people are leaving.
We don�t think it�s good to divide over doctrine. There�s that phrase, �In all things Christ, in all things unity. I forget the exact phrase. That was kind of big. A group of people who stayed because they didn�t care about doctrine.
And then as we were teaching, and the church really started growing theologically and doctrinally, there was a divide again, because now we have half the church that has a thirst for God�s Word, and we�ve got people who are really desiring to grow, and they�re beginning to read their Bibles, and they�re beginning to grow in knowledge.
Then we had the other half of the people that were here just because it was a social club, and they didn�t really want to divide over doctrine. And so they were starting to see that doctrine does divide, and doctrine does cut to the truth.
And so then we had a second split, where we had people leaving because of doctrine. Not because of what was taught, but because a line was being drawn in the sand, and here we are today. We�re about half the size of what we were eight years ago.
But honestly, I would say spiritually, the church is much more grounded, is much more solid. We�ve got groups of people that regularly go out and evangelize, and we�re now tackling neighborhoods. We go door-to-door, which is anti-culture here.
We go door-to-door, and we�re preaching gospel to people. And I would say we�re healthier than we ever were before, though we�re smaller than we ever were before.
Well, and that sounds like we�ve come all the way to the very desire of those first people there at the church. We�d like to be a New Testament church. We�d like to go back. Luke, you should get into radio.
I�ve enjoyed listening to you. I just felt like I was listening to a podcast of Southwestern Christian Church. Thank you for being on No Compromise Radio. That was a very fast 25 minutes. If people want to go to the website, it�s southwestchristianchurch .org.
I think I said U .S. before, but that was on your website someplace, I think. Southwestchristianchurch .org. Luke Kirkendall, thank you very much, Pastor, for being on No Compromise Radio.
Thank you, Mike. 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.