Pet Peeves (Part 1)

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

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

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I just got back from Israel, so it has been about two weeks since I've taped a show. I'm trying to remember my name and the ministry, and always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

I'm glad to be back. Shalom, bokurtov. We are planning the next trip already, 2013, February, March, right in there. A cruise, Paul's footsteps, Paul's missionary journeys, Patmos, I know that's not Paul, that's John, but Greece with Athens and Corinth, Rome, Berea, Thessalonica, Ephesus, et cetera.

Stay tuned to nocompromiseradio .com, our bbcchurch .org, if you'd like to go with us. We had a great time, 36 folks, and we were blessed. And I'll tell you more about Israel in future shows. No Compromise Weekend is coming up soon.

If you're in the Nebraska area, nocompromiseweekend .org, and that is for high school students, and I'm going to be preaching the gospel there four times. It is put on by, I think, Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

And if you go to nocompromiseweekend .org, you can find all about this, you can find everything that you need about this conference, March 26th and 27th, 2011. And so I'm really looking forward to that.

I like the name of the conference, nocompromiseweekend .org. Speaking of conferences, if you're listening here in the Worcester area, you need to know that Danny Akin, President of Southern Seminary, will be here to do his family and marriage conference, March 18th, 19th, and 20th, Bethlehem Bible Church, bbchurch .org.

You can order all those things, order, not order online, but register online. And we'd love to have you. If you've not been to that conference before, I've actually been to it before, but it was so good.

I said, three years later, come back and teach us the same thing, since we are so prone to forget. Isn't that the Christian life? We forget what we're supposed to remember, and we remember what we're supposed to forget.

And so Danny Akin will be here, Southeastern Seminary, Southern Baptist Seminary, down in the eastern side of the seaboard. I think it's Wake Forest area, something like that. I did, by the way, receive some CDs from a Roman Catholic, Lighthouse Christian Media.

I received three CDs, and I've only listened to one, and I will listen to the other two. But I'm thankful that a Catholic listener would care enough to send me some CDs, because either I'm right, or the Catholic Church is right, or we're both wrong, but we both can't be right.

See, when it comes to truth, there are Protestants and the Catholics, the beliefs that they have regarding salvation and authority, and many other things, are mutually exclusive. That is to say, you both can't be right.

Oh, if that's good for you, that's good. No. Catholic doctrine states that, since I have a certain view about the Eucharist, I am damned, I am anathema. Since I have a certain view about, I don't think justification is through infusion of righteousness, I think it's through the imputation of righteousness, then the Catholic Church says, I am damned.

Now, that's in their statement of faith, as it were. I don't have that in my statement of faith for the Catholics, but the implication is there, that if you believe the wrong view of Jesus and the wrong view of salvation, there's no hope of heaven for you.

If you think you get to heaven by being baptized as a child, and I've been to many, many Catholic funerals, and that's pretty much the first thing out of the priest's mouth, when the body's there, and the censer's there with the incense, is based, we know this person's in heaven based on their baptism when they were a child, and it's sad.

But anyway, I receive some CDs from someone who at least cares enough to send me something. You know, it's easy to just say, well, that guy's a Catholic basher. By the way, I would love anytime to dialogue just regularly and manly and over a coffee, if you'd like to get together with me, that'd be fine.

But I will bash the doctrine, because it's damning doctrine. It's deceiving doctrine. It's satanic doctrine. And so, you can just say, oh, you're a Catholic basher, but if you really cared about my soul, wouldn't you want me to learn the truth?

And so, we had someone listen, and they sent me three CDs. I'm Not Being Fed, Discovering the Food That Satisfies the Soul, Jeff Tavins, Lighthouse Catholic Media. And so, they sent me these things, and I listened to the second two.

I did listen to this one, and found it, I weighed it, and it was found wanting. That is to say, I didn't learn anything new about the Catholic Church. I understand how they try to argue with Protestants, but sadly, there was hardly any Bible used, and it was not convincing.

And so, I still stand, and I trust my eternal soul, and I will teach to the people that I'm able to teach to at Bethlehem Bible Church, and No Compromise Radio, and any place else I get to teach, that it is free, distinguishing, sovereign grace that saves people.

The merits of Jesus, Jesus' perfect life and death, are our only hope, and it is not Jesus plus sacraments, Jesus plus this, Jesus plus that, it is Christ alone. It is faith found in Christ alone. And so, if I die, and that gives me eternal hell, then that's the way it goes.

But I will trust what the scriptures teach in Romans, and other passages for my eternal life. And so, I just wanted to say thank you to the caller, that's not probably a caller, a listener. I'm not being deceived, discovering the food that satisfies the soul, Jeff Cavins.

I'm glad you had enough love for me to send it, even though I disagree, and even though we'd probably sit down and have lunch together, you'd find me not as mean as I come across on the radio. Mike Ebendroth here, No Compromise Radio.

We talk about all kinds of things, and we just try to talk about them bluntly, plainly, regularly, normatively. We just try to tell you what the scoop is. And so, today, I'd like to give you pet peeves.

Now, these are my pet peeves. So, this is No Compromise style pet peeves. I probably have a lot of pet peeves, but I have 10 on this list. And so, I don't know if I'm gonna get to all 10. I feel like maybe David Letterman, where I'll do a top 10 list, and work your way from bottom to top.

But I'll just keep with the list. I just scratched these down this morning at home while I was thinking. And these are some of my pet peeves, all with kind of an undertone to teach things. My evangelical pet peeve list is designed for you to ask the question, do you really think about these things?

And do you believe the things that I think are pretty stupid? Because if you do, either I'm stupid, or you're stupid. Oh, man. If only I was back in Jerusalem. But we'll be back another day. I have much to tell you about Jerusalem, but we need to get to the pet peeves show.

Some of these pet peeves, of course, maybe you believe in some of these, but you're a brand new Christian. And of course, if you're a brand new Christian, you have lots of room to grow, and I wanna be patient with you.

And for weaker brothers, I want to make sure I'm kind and all that. But this is No Compromise style pet peeve shows. Number one, pet peeve. This is not necessarily church related. I don't even know if it belongs, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

One of my number one pet peeves is standing in line at a Honey Farms, or a Cumberland Farms, or maybe you have them, Quick Shops, or Q Stops, or 7-Elevens, and having to wait in line behind five people who are spending $75 on lottery tickets and cigarettes.

I hate that. I'm trying to give them 19 bucks for gas and a soda, a Diet Mountain Dew or something, and they're trying to buy lottery tickets. And lottery tickets work well because they play to people's greed, and people are greedy.

And certainly we know greed is a sin because we're supposed to be content with what we have. We know God will never leave us nor forsake us, and he'll take care of us. And so then to use God's money that he gave us, he gave us the ability to make money and earn money, to then try to get rich.

We ought not to try to get rich because money, the love of money rather, is the root of all sorts of evil, 1 Timothy 6. And so if you want to smoke cigarettes, I'm not against tobacco. I actually bought a hookah pipe in Jerusalem.

And when I bought the hookah pipe, they actually said to me, do you want the good stuff? And I didn't know if that meant the good, I mean, what do you mean good stuff? And the guy said, good stuff for your headaches.

How do you know I have a headache? I've had a headache for 98 days straight. Anyway, he was trying to sell me marijuana, and I said no. And so I bought a hookah pipe and tried it out a little bit, but I don't really smoke tobacco on a regular basis.

I just wanted to try what a hooker was, a hookah pipe. So I'm not against cigarettes necessarily. I just find that poor, ignorant people tend to spend a lot of money trying to get rich and spend things like that.

And I just wish they had another line. Probably the biggest pet peeve though is when people buy scratch tickets and then they scratch them in front of you. And then if they win, they want to redeem them then.

I think if you're going to redeem them, you should get back in line and redeem them. Number two, churches that promote their church by saying you can come dressed casually. I did a show on this a while ago because I see lots of websites that promote the church dress casually, and I just think it is infantile.

I just think it's dumb. Someone got after me because I said some things and they didn't like it. Well, sorry, we disagree. You don't advertise your church. The shingle of the church is not dress casually.

That has nothing to do with anything. If you're an Indian, dress like an Indian. If you're in Germany, dress like a German. If you're in America, dress like an American. If you want to dress in shorts, come with shorts.

If you want to dress with a tie, come with a tie. That is irrelevant to what we're doing here at the local church and the worship of Christ Jesus. If you want to come with your loins girded, gird your loins, fine.

It is just so ridiculous. Somehow you're gonna get more people to come. Are they gonna feel fine when they do come? What are we going to do? What's the dress code for church? What's a dress code for a nightclub?

What's a dress code for the golf course? It is ridiculous, and so if you're a church and you've got that on your website, get that off your website. Why do you have it there? How about proclamation of Christ Jesus verse by verse?

How about a high view of the inerrant, infallible Word of God and biblical worship centered on Christ Jesus, energized by the Spirit of God to the praise of the glory of God the Father? How about something like that versus this, well, come to our church, you can dress casually.

Well, I think actually as you learn and you grow and you mature, you'll probably dress up a little more anyway. The analogy is not fixed, nor do I want to make it a prescription or sin if you don't, but I just would say that if you went to see the Queen of England or you went to go visit the President, I guess you'd probably dress up.

And even during weddings and funerals, most people have enough sense to wear something nice. And so if you say, you know, I wore a suit all day long because I work and now I can wear shorts to worship, I just think you've got a problem and your problem needs to work itself out through the text of Scripture, not a to-do list or a to-don't list.

So yes, you could go overboard either side, but I've got a pet peeve and that pet peeve is churches that have a website or any other kind of communication vehicle that say, dress casually. What to expect when you come and worship?

How about what to expect? Bible, Jesus, singing, praying, that's what you should expect. And if you're an unbeliever, you should expect to fall down in your face and worship God for surely he's present here, 1 Corinthians 14.

Well, what do I expect when I go there? I'm not sure if I know about church and what if I might feel kind of uncomfortable? Number three, God told me. That's a pet peeve of mine when somebody says, God told me something and does not give me chapter and verse.

If you say, God told me that he gives a greater grace, God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble. James chapter four, verse six, I will say with you right on. I almost said Funk's old brother, I will say right on.

But if you start telling me God told you something and it's outside of scripture, you can't find it between Genesis 1, 1, Revelation 22, whatever the last verse is. Matter of fact, what is the last verse?

That would probably be good to know for future reference. From Genesis 1, 1 through Revelation, I'm close, I'm gonna guess 22, 20. That's a complete guess, we'll just try it. Oh, 22, 21. From Genesis 1, 1 to Revelation 22, 21, if you can't find it there, God didn't speak to you.

Now, God may be using circumstances to guide and direct and can't go through this door, he can't go through that door, keep on knocking to get through it, don't go through it for wisdom. I'm not saying that God's sovereign hand is not at work, but I am saying this, this God told me, like God really spoke to me and he told me something he didn't tell you, that's just prideful arrogance or that is complete ignorance that God would tell you.

And most of the time, people who say that God told me, they usually can't even figure out anything to do with systematic theology. Their lives are usually a wreck, their theology is even more in shambles, yet God speaks to them.

I think if God's going to speak to people, he's going to speak to people who know what they're saying and know what they're doing, but why is it that the ones who are the most godly people that I know, God doesn't say anything to them, why?

Because what he has said is finished, the canon is closed, we don't need any more. And it's a sin to go on wanting more when God says, this is enough, stop here. No, I want more, read this. No, that's kind of dry and boring, I'm not really, I'm not a reader.

Maybe that would be another one of mine, Pet Peeves, I'm going to add it right now. This is like 3B, Pet Peeve 3B, I'm a visual learner, I don't really learn by reading. Well, friends, I got two words for you.

Buckle up, because God now teaches you through, yes, natural revelation, and you can see the stars and the sun and the skies, babies being born. But specifically, he talks through his revelation. And you can read Psalm 19, Psalm 119, 2 Timothy 3, Proverbs 30, et cetera, Deuteronomy 12, where God speaks through his word.

The way God wants to teach you is not beta, not VHS, not DVD, not MP3, not Excel, not anything else. He teaches through written word. First Hebrew, a little Aramaic mixed in, and now Greek for the New Testament.

And so if you go around saying, I'm a visual learner, well, maybe you want to be a visual learner, and of course that's a lot easier, and it just shows or could show that you're just lazy. But God's word is written, it's fixed.

There are verbs, there are nouns, there are clauses, there are dependent phrases, there are syntax, there's lexical issues, and this is how God intends you to learn. I think Luther said something like, God first manifest himself in the flesh and now manifests himself in Greek letters.

You know, there's a lot of truth to that. And so this whole, you know, I'm a learner. Friends, if the Bible's not enough, I don't know what to tell you. And that's why I have really no, conference is fine, Sunday school's fine, maybe a Sunday night here or there, but this whole PowerPoint presentation deal and this whole showing videos during church sermons, I think it's junior church.

I think it's Awana time. I think it's play time. I think you need a man of God controlled by the spirit of God with the word of God to stand up and preach. That's what you need. You don't need all this other stuff.

I need to kind of have a video of a movie, maybe Braveheart to show me what courage is. If your pastor can't explain courage, then you've got a bigger problem. And so please don't go running around saying you're a visual learner.

I know people can learn different ways. I know maybe there are propensities to learn certain ways and you can send me all your psychological data if you'd like, but I'd like to tell you that God's revealed word is in a book and you want to read and you want to take an English class and you want to say to yourself, I need to know the English language and I need to know proper diction and syntax.

I need to know transitive verbs and I need to know all this other stuff because that's how God speaks. And if the God of the universe, the great condescending eternal triune God speaks in dreams, then I guess you better be a dream expert.

If he speaks through pig innards, I guess you better be a pig innard expert. If he speaks in the spleens of a sparrow, then you better figure that out. But since he only speaks through the word of God, the written word of God, you want to know the mind of God?

You have one way to find out. You would like to know the will of God? You have one way to find out. You want to know what God says? You have one way to find out. Do you want to know what happened in eternity past?

You have one way to find out. You want to know what happens in heaven? You have one way to find out. And that's not some dopey farm boy who dies and then has some vision of heaven. It's through the word of the living God.

And so if you say, well, I'm a visual learner, well, that may be true, but don't ever, ever, ever, ever use that as an excuse to somehow say you can't get the word of God. I was so high all the time and drunk all the time that I wasn't a good reader.

I didn't read much. It was a lot easier for me to go to a movie than it was to get a book. I'd go buy books at Barnes and Nobles and Walden's and other stores. I was too high to read them. And then I got saved and stopped all the other shenanigans by the grace of God and then wanted to read.

And so if you can't read well now, just start. And then you can get better and better because the more you read, the better you read. And so just continue to read. I was reading on the iPad the other day.

You just tap a word, and if it says languid, and you can languish, you can just figure out what it is and the dictionary pops right up. Get a dictionary out, walk through those books, read the word of God, and you will be amazed.

Pet Peeves About Money, Media, and Local Church Giving

So today on No Compromise Radio, we're looking at pet peeves. Pet peeves, and we're actually, we did four so far. I guess I have to move it up to 12, but that fourth one, I called it 3B, but it was really four, and that is I'm a visual learner.

Number five, what's the fifth thing that's kind of a pet peeve? You can tell when I do have to do two parts on this. Pet peeve number five, ministries, either TV ministries, radio ministries, internet ministries, or any other kind of ministries that beg for money.

Boy, doesn't that make you mad? I listen to Hank Hanegraaff, it's the beg-a-thon every week, every day. Other ministries, I guess if they say it's the end of the year, it's a tough time, send some money, but don't we all know that ministries have to have money to be on and that it's always a tough time and gas prices are high, but people, it's just like the dog treats I give my dog, Jetty, the begging strips, over and over and over.

It costs a lot of money to be on radio. It costs even more to be on TV. So then to waste the time that it takes to talk about money instead of teaching the Word of God, it's just not gonna happen. And the day the no-compromise radio ministry has no money to be on the radio, it's the day we're done.

It's the day we're done. I'm not gonna beg for money and give you financial updates. We have a simple thing around here. We don't ask for money and we never get any. I think one person so far in the last 500 shows has sent some money and a guy sent in $100.

Great, we put it towards the ministry, but I'm not gonna ask for money and beg in tough times and everything else. It's just not gonna happen. And so that's a pet peeve of mine. If this is the will of God for us to stay on the radio, will not the God who generously and graciously and exponentially gives to His people, won't He give us everything we need?

Whether it's microphones and recorders and all the other equipment that I see in front of me and then access to the airwaves, access to the internet, access to iTunes, won't He provide those things? Isn't it just better to say, I'm not gonna have to ask people for money.

I'm just going to do the work of the ministry and let's watch God bless. That's kind of an odd thing these days. It was very popular in the days of George Mueller, very popular in the days of some of the older missionaries, the William Careys and the Adoniram Judsons and the Hudson Taylors.

But today people get on and what they do is they ask for money and they beg for money. And what happens is people who listen will give money to the ministries on the radio, probably some really good ones, instead of to the local church.

If you give money to the local radio station or program or something like that, it needs to be above and beyond your normal giving because your giving needs to be to the local church, period. That's where you need to give.

If you want to support a missionary, you've got a friend who's a missionary, that needs to be above and beyond. That's not in lieu of. Your money is to Jesus Christ through the vehicle of his bride, the local church.

So I do appreciate when I hear ministries, I think I heard David Jeremiah say this the other day, we know that the number one place to give is to your local church, but if you have extra, give to us. I did appreciate that, but even though I wish he wouldn't have said anything about money, at least he was honest and said, you know what, it's all about the local church.

And so, on No Compromise Radio Ministry, I like to talk about things that just interest me or things that I'm thinking about. Maybe have your own pet peeves that you'd like to write in. We've got lots of folks writing in now, lots of emails, lots of folks who, I'd say most of the time they like what I say, some that don't, that's okay.

I know I'm not here for the masses necessarily. I think it was my wife that one time said, honey, you never have to worry about being the pastor of a mega church. And I think she meant in a nice way with my personality, my style, my approach, my abruptness, my theology, that that was not going to happen.

And so no mega churches here, mega as we say in New England. We here at Bethlehem Bible Church are very happy though that God is blessing the ministry and we are buying some new land which should close in the next couple months and we're very encouraged by that.

MacArthur used to say, and he's right, take care of the depth of your ministry and God will take care of the breadth. So we are No Compromise Radio Ministry. Today is pet peeves. You can email us at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

Tell your friends about us, tell your enemies, I'm glad even though you disagree with me, you listen, so you're drawn in, you're compelled. What will he say today to make me aggravated, agitated, upset, exacerbated, conflated?

Nocompromiseradio .com. 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 six. 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.