The Pactum and S Lewis Johnson

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry, Mike Ebendroth here, and today is a special No Compromise radio show.

I was interviewed by Pat Ebendroth and Mike Grimes of The Pactum about S.

Lewis Johnson and Colossians, the new commentary that's out.

And so today we're just going to play that show, originally aired on The Pactum, but today we're going to play it so you can get a little insight to the commentary.

So I don't have to redo the work. In addition, I want you to know about The Pactum. Most of you probably do. I was just there for a conference.

More about that later. But I want you to be able to listen to my brother. Great show, great topics, lots of good resources.

I think it's thepactum .org. But anyway, today we're going to listen, we are going to listen to Mike Ebendroth with Pat Ebendroth and Mike Grimes, Pat and Mike and Mike.

Sounds like it's some kind of Irish show or something, but we're talking about S. Lewis Johnson and the supremacy of Christ Jesus in the book of Colossians.

Here you go. Hello and welcome to The Pactum.

This is Mike Grimes here with Pat Ebendroth and this is episode 139. And on today's episode, we are talking about a brand new resource on the

New Testament book of Colossians. And we have a guest today to help us out with that.

Our guest has written numerous books, including The Supremacy and Sovereignty of King Jesus, Gospel Assurance, and Discovering Romans.

He is pastor of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts, as well as the host of No Compromise Radio.

Joining us on The Pactum is Mike Ebendroth, my brother. Hey, Mike, welcome back to The Pactum.

I am so glad to be on with Mike and Pat. I said it before on the last show, episode 33 or whatever it was called,

Mike and Pat has already been taken. It's so true. You can call me whatever you want. Mike Grimes.

It's true. It's true. The last time we recorded an episode, I think it was super noisy traffic, modest

Yahoo kind of sounds, right? You know, I forgot about that, Pat, because I was thinking about the preaching episode we did, but you were with me in Tel Aviv and we were sitting outside and I think we were waiting for the

Netanyahu protesters to show up. It's true, right? It's absolutely true. It was so noisy, but it was nice weather.

That was a great place to stay. I want to stay there again next time we go. Agreed. Remember, I think two times ago,

Pat, we were at some kind of rinky -dink place and both you and I were trying to figure out how to get to the gym and the gym was down in some heater valve place down in the furnace room with a bicycle with,

I don't know, training wheels on it. I think we had a fight over who got to ride the bike, remember? I do, because we only had an hour at 5 .30

in the morning and so you got it for half hour, I got it for half hour, and you kept saying, yeah, but I should get it more because I'm training.

I said, well, I should get it more because I'm fat. I can remember trying to get them to let us in early and Israeli police were down there working out.

What a weird kind of space. Oh, and then also, remember, Mike, when we were, I think they had the

Greg Lamond super old training bikes or something in Jordan. That's right.

Jordan, of all places, down in Petra area someplace. Indiana Jones, right?

Everybody had their phone out and they were playing the song when we were rounding the bend. Dun, dun, dun, dun.

Dun, dun, dun. Yep. Everybody was doing it. It was kind of fun. Sometimes when

I listen to you, Pat, I think, no wonder people think I'm so weird because I listen to you talk.

ADHD or something. So you're going to be with us here in a couple of weeks from the time we're recording this for the

All Things New Pactum Conference. Mike, why don't you tell us about what your assignment is?

What are you going to talk about? What's your lecture going to be about? Give us a foretaste. Well, I was gladly assigned the topic,

Darby's relevance for today. I'm really looking forward to that.

The more I dig into Darby, the more I realize how wonderful he was. A side note on Darby, by the way, he wrote like stream of consciousness and never edited his stuff.

And of course it shows. And he just typed and wrote and typed and wrote and typed and wrote and no systematic theology.

In all seriousness, I've been assigned the topic, the myth of final justification.

Since I'm Pat's brother, I'm probably going to amend it during the message. I don't want it printed this way, but it'll probably be amended title, the lie of final justification.

Because it's more than a myth. It's a lie. I'll just kind of use that as a little intro. But final justification is a doctrine that essentially stems from Rome.

Its derivatives are all from Rome. And it says that there's a different justification than our initial justification.

So when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, we have our sins credited to his account, his righteousness credited to our account confirmed by the resurrection.

And we are justified forever. Benjamin Keats said, once you talk about your first justification, there's no need to talk about justification in the future.

But what happens is people are afraid that that might lead to licentiousness and unholy living in a blunt statement like Romans 8 .1,

no condemnation now for those in Christ Jesus. Well, that means I could probably sin and get away with all kinds of things.

And so Rome doesn't want that. And a lot of other people don't want that either. So how do you motivate people to obey?

Well, if the answer isn't the Lord Jesus out of gratitude, as the Reformation would teach and Paul would teach, then it has to be more law.

So they have two justifications in their mind, initial justification, forensic, a legal declaration, and a transformative justification at the very end.

And that transformative justification is based on your works. It was R .C.

Sproul that said, why don't you just be simple? Why are you confusing things? We've already been through this debate.

Just say that works are fruits and evidences. Just to say that.

Say we're saved by faith alone and that faith won't be alone. But don't confuse the categories. So I'll try to talk about the myth of future justification, how it hurts assurance and how

I want to make sure that dear Christians never have to look to themselves to think, will they make it on the final judgment day because Jesus paid it all?

We should close. So the conference is October 6th and 7th, 2023 in Omaha, Nebraska.

You could go to thepactum .org for details. And if you're listening to this in 2025, you can find the conference audio somewhere on there.

There's that. And we'll see if Mike really changes the title on the fly. For sure.

Yeah. All right. So we're going to talk about this new commentary that's coming out. It's actually out, just came out hot off the press,

Discovering Colossians by S. Lewis Johnson. Also Mike Ebendroth, adapted by Mike Ebendroth.

So before we actually get into the book and talk about Colossians, let's talk a little bit about S. Lewis Johnson. Who was he?

Why do you like him? Why do you seem to keep going back to channeling S. Lewis Johnson, Mike?

I can take that a lot of different ways. You know, it's, he's the entry drug for lots of things that we talk about, kind of like Jerry Bridges.

But let me start at the beginning. S. Lewis Johnson was born, I think, around 1915 or something like that.

And he was a Southern gentleman, Birmingham, Alabama, loved to golf, decided to go to university.

And he picked classes based on golf schedule because he needed to, the only classes he could come up with that would allow him to golf all the time were classical

Greek classes. And so he became an expert in Greek. And then of course, in the providence of God, when the

Lord opened his heart and granted him new life, he instantly knew how to read Koine Greek because,

I mean, there's some differences, but once you know, I mean, I'm studying modern Greek now, it's pretty much the same as Koine Greek in terms of letters and pronunciation, all that.

So he got saved. Listening to all people, Donald Gray Barnhouse came down for a series of meetings that his wife insisted that he go to.

And so he went to the first meeting and the funny thing was the wife said, I've said to Donald Gray Barnhouse that we, you,

Mr. Johnson and myself are going to take him back to the hotel. Wow. He was truly mad because he wasn't a believer.

Now he has to have some pastor in the car, he almost answered all his questions.

And then the next day, Lewis came home from work and said, I have to go to the conference. And that week, the

Lord saved S. Lewis Johnson and then he became a seminary professor at Dallas Seminary for about 40 years.

He left because he had kind of a theological debate with John Walvoord, who is the president.

And essentially Johnson left because he insisted that faith followed regeneration and that Jesus died for the bride only.

He had, he, Johnson had listened to some Gary Long messages about definite atonement. And so that was the breaking point.

Walvoord was the president. And so off he went, he resigned, lost his pension, lost his benefits.

And then he moved to Trinity Evangelical School. When I talked to Grace, the daughter, and I'll let you guys talk here in a second.

And I was trying to get... This is not No Compromise Radio, by the way. This is the Pactum. Hey, but I'm the guest, right?

You are. You are. I called Grace Johnson and told her I wanted to work on a Romans, the

Romans material from her father. She said, can I ask you some questions? I kid you not. Question number one, sitting in this office, hi,

Grace Johnson, Mike Avendroth here, working on Romans commentary, thought I'd do this, that, and the other. She said, what's your view of the atonement?

I gave her the answer, particular redemption. And she said, because nobody that believes in unlimited atonement is going to work on my daddy's things.

That's a good story. That's super good. We like it if you're talking because you are the guest.

And so that's how it's supposed to work on podcasts, right? Guys, I think you probably get this. Sometimes I'm talking to people as the host of No Compromise Radio, and I'm listening to them.

And I forget I have to come up with another question because I think I'm just listening to them on a podcast.

And a good tip for somebody, if they are hosting a podcast, let your guest talk.

It's a good idea. That's why they're a guest. Let them talk. But we digress. We have the same mother, don't we?

I once heard that John Walvoord, let's see, Norman Geisler was too Arminian even for John Walvoord.

And apparently, S. Lewis Johnson was too much of a Calvinist even for John Walvoord. Kind of interesting.

Once I was in California, and I said to John Walvoord, I'd be happy to take him back to his hotel, his room.

And he was there speaking at a Dallas Seminary conference. And he asked me why I was at Master's Seminary and not

Dallas. And I was just trying to be nice. I'm just listening. And he said, no, I insist, tell me the reasons why you are going to Master's and not

Dallas. And so I said, well, Minneth Meyer psychology stuff is now in Dallas. And you guys are essentially training women to be pastors and lordship.

Little did I know that while I still believe the first two are valid reasons, the lordship issue is a little more complicated than when

I first thought. Maybe we'll link to the articles that you wrote in our show notes so people can check that out.

So how about first exposure to S. Lewis Johnson? When did you first read something by him or listen to something by him?

I think both of us were at seminary. And it was John MacArthur who said, the man that I listened to preach the most is

S. Lewis Johnson. I think simultaneous to that, Pat, is iPods came out brand new.

Never existed in the world, iPods. And you could get them preloaded with things as kind of a giveaway.

And somebody at Believer's Chapel got iPods loaded with all of the sermons and the staff at Master's Seminary and Grace Church all got those listening to S.

Lewis Johnson. And for a long time, the S. Lewis Johnson Institute website, maybe it even has it today, it says in the bottom, the person

I listened to the most is S. Lewis Johnson. And therefore, I started thinking, well, if John listens to S.

Lewis, I better as well. And I know our audience can't see it. But I started to get these binders and these binders were full of three ring binders full of old

Believer's Bible bulletins. And I started to write them and they would send these things to me for free.

And they were his sermons in print. And so I began to listen one after another after another.

And in our day, it maybe is kind of hard to listen to S. Lewis at the very beginning. Once you get his cadence and his demeanor and his accent, you'll really like listening to him.

But he's a gentleman. And I just began to listen to him thinking, who's like S.

Lewis Johnson? The only comparable person I can think of is D .A. Carson. I mean, when

I was growing up, I didn't let her in all the sports. I wasn't great at basketball and great at football and great at baseball.

We knew those kind of guys that were. But S. Lewis Johnson is one of those guys like that.

So he can write. I believe D .A. Carson said the best exegetical article ever written was by S.

Lewis Johnson on Romans 5 .12 about federal headship of Adam. He can preach and he can be a pastor.

And so I just basically fell in love with his style. And that's when

I first was exposed at the Master's Seminary. I think my first exposure was I had your

Theology II syllabus. So I never had George Zemeck, but you did. And he actually quotes

S. Lewis, that Romans 5 .12 article in there, an exercise in exegesis and theology.

And I remember reading it and rereading it and rereading it thinking, this makes sense. Federal headship,

Romans 5 .12. And then I eventually bought that book and found that book. It was written in 1974.

So super old. And we were in seminary like in, you know, 1990s, mid 90s.

So pretty cool. And I have a copy of that chapter from the book that you own with your handwriting in there.

Okay. And you're much better at marking up books than I am. So I might say frowny face or exclamation or Q for like a quote or something like that.

Right. But you in all kinds of good little nuggets and you're writing things. And so I should probably steal your style, but I just admire it instead.

So I had lunch with S. Lewis in downtown Dallas one time. And by the time I got home, driving home,

I already had a letter, handwritten note on his little letterhead from him thanking me for lunch in my mailbox.

And then it had a John Owen like typed out quotation about limited atonement. I still have it today.

I like it. Once, once he grasped limited atonement, he put it everywhere.

I mean, it was just part of it because he was a Dallas and so there's a lot of rub there. But I remember he said that he was really sick.

Somebody gave him five or six cassettes of Gary North. I said, yeah, Gary Long, excuse me, Gary North.

And S. Lewis became a theonomist and moved to Moscow, Idaho. And after that,

I mean, you can just hear him talk about it all the time. Anytime S. Lewis Johnson and he goes by Lewis, his first name was

Samuel. Anytime Lewis could drop that in, he would drop it in. It's good. My only other story or when

I got to talk to him one time, it was at a prophecy conference in Dallas and Grant Jeffrey was speaking and it was something, it was made up hocus pocus future snooper kind of stuff.

And we saw S. Lewis Johnson was there and I think he had like a Hebrew interlinear and maybe in his

Greek text under his arm. So we wanted to go ask him, Dr. Johnson, what did you think of the talk and his accent that I can't really imitate well, but he said,

I believe that was rather hokey and it was awesome. It's not a bad impression.

That was when Grant Jeffrey's was promoting the signature of God. That's right. You put the

Bible in some type of, I don't know, computerized thing that it has all these special codes and stuff and you can do the same thing with Quran and you can do the same thing with Moby Dick.

Rather hokey. So let's talk about Colossians and the commentary.

Well maybe we should talk about Colossians just for a moment. What's the big takeaway? Why is Colossians such an awesome, awesome book of the

Bible? What's the emphasis of it? Well, I think the subtitle that I put for the

Colossians commentary, it's called Discovering Colossians because it's in a series, Discovering Romans, now

Discovering Colossians, the supremacy of Jesus Christ and in a world that either functionally or theoretically denies or minimizes or subtracts from the greatness of Jesus.

This book that Paul writes under the inspiration of the spirit of God, extols the

Lord Jesus. And there's that old phrase in Latin, by the way, Pat, I'm doing Duolingo Latin now.

The last time I was around you, you were doing Hebrew, like modern Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Spanish.

I thought I might as well do all four so you can speak in tongues. And it's the phrase called duplex gratia.

And I've thought about even changing No Compromise Radio's name to that. And I could kind of follow you, right?

You have to have a Latin name, the pactum, duplex gratia, duplex like a house.

There's two houses in the one, so double. And then gratia, grace, a double grace. And so what's the double grace?

The double grace is Christ for us. That's in the category of justification, standing before God.

Jesus did everything for us, imputation of his righteousness that he earned by keeping the law, our law breaking credit to his account.

And then also the second part of the gratia is Christ for power. And Christ for power is the

Spirit of God is given to us by the Lord Jesus and the Father so that we are enabled to say no to sin, mortification, and vivification, which is yes to righteousness.

And really, that's the book of Colossians. Here's how great Jesus is. He's greater than whatever kind of weird

Colossians 2 stuff that you can think of from Gnosticism, pre -Gnosticism, proto -Gnosticism,

Harley -Davidsonism, I mean, whatever you want to go, he's greater. And then since he's so great, then how do we live as grateful

Christians and show fruit and evidence? And so everything changes in the early parts of chapter three with a big therefore.

And so that's Christ for power. So it's all about Jesus. And what's so great about Colossians is it's trans -chronological and trans -cultural because it's the word of God.

And I bring that up because Johnson writes these articles for a seminary journal called

Bibsack in early 60s, 1960, 61, 62. So that's 63 years ago,

I was born in 1960. And when you read it, you sound like it's for today. Unlike some of these pop preachers that everything's based on Toy Story and the

Agatha Christie movie and everything else, I mean, these things just come and go. But when you tie things to the eternal word, it sounds relevant.

So when you read Colossians today, even though it's 63 years old, the commentary, you'll think, oh, he gets it.

He sees things that is Paul. And Lewis shows you how Paul examines the landscape of what could be today called evangelicalism and sees the error and points everybody back to Christ.

And if I could sum everything up, the ministry is for Paul and for every gospel preacher, him we proclaim,

Colossians 1, 28. And that's really the banner. I believe it was

Graham Goldsworthy that said lots of people have a theoretical gospel in their church, it's in their statement of faith.

Every church does. But they don't have a practical Christology in their church.

So he's mentioned in their statement of faith, but in practice, he's not mentioned very much. And every sermon sounds like a moralistic to do sermon, right?

What's Christianity about? Just do something. But Paul, the apostle won't stand for that.

And Lewis recognizes that as he is talking about Paul's message, as he gives kind of a devotional at times, exegetical at times, and expository lectures in the book of Discovering Colossians.

Mike, sometimes people hear about commentaries, they get a little worried about being able to understand and keep up with this commentary.

Who's it written for? Who's this Discovering Colossians commentary written for? Who would benefit from it? I think it's probably mainly for Mark Driscoll's congregation.

I'm just coming up with random ideas. So he wrote this after preaching it several times and teaching it at Dallas Seminary.

And at times, Mike, you'll think this has a devotional flavor. At other times, you'll think he's exposing me to the meaning of the text, and I can understand it.

And then in the footnotes, you'll see textual variants, that is to say, different manuscripts that have different things in terms of pieces of text that we have in church history.

And so really, if you're a PhD, you could read it. If you're a mom, and that you want to just understand

Colossians better, I put a bunch of questions at the end of every chapter to make it kind of simple.

And I'm not trying to just say this to sell it, but I'm saying it because anybody could really pick this up.

Our friend Christian Harris, he's going to go through a Bible study with some men he's discipling. They've never owned one commentary in their life.

They're going to do Colossians with this commentary. So if you want to dive deeply, you can in it.

If you just want to read it, you can too, Mike. So that's probably the answer to this question. So how in the world did you start?

You did Romans, and now it's Colossians. What was the connection? How did you make the connection with family?

How did that happen? I think I even put it in this book and Romans, all my best thoughts come to me when

I'm on a bicycle. Amen. That's when all my worst thoughts come. I mean, carbon fiber, spandex, rock helmets.

You can hear the tires. When I was younger, I'd ride with 23s, and now they're 28s and 30s in size of the tires.

And I just have a lot of time to think. I usually listen to podcasts. And at the time,

I was listening to Romans by Samuel Lewis Johnson Jr. And I thought to myself, if I could only give a copy of this in a book form to everyone at the church that I pastor,

I mean, the three ring binders, nobody really reads, podcasts, will everybody listen?

I don't know. But I think I want to put it in book form. And so I thought, you know what? Not like the Lord said anything to me out loud, but I thought,

Lord, if nobody else will do that, I'll do that. So I went home. I called up Believer's Chapel where he was preaching for a long time.

Interestingly, when his wife Mary died in 1980, he remarried one year later and he remarried

Martha. And then he stepped down from being an elder because he thought, I'm no longer a one woman man anymore.

And so he preached every week, but it was no longer an elder. And so... Kind of an odd view. Yeah. I mean, out of all the views that I think that I've learned from him, that's one that I haven't.

We all have clay feet. And so I called Believer's Chapel. Basically they said, get in line.

Lots of people have tried to do this. But eventually I got passed to Grace Johnson Monroe, his daughter, who's since gone to be with the

Lord. And I called her. As I said earlier, we went back and forth. I had to send her some of the books that I had written.

She said, you know, you quote all the same people my daddy quotes. And then she would tell me stories about she'd opened the door of the bedroom in the morning.

It was cracked open and she'd peek in and he was on his knees praying. So I flew to Dallas and like any wise person,

I brought my wife, tried to go win over the Johnsons and I went to service there at Believer's Chapel.

I met with Grace. I went to S. Lewis's home and met Martha, his second wife, got to sit in his study, got to see his computer.

The monitor was this, you know, big wide thing, see his typewriter. Actually, Grace Johnson almost gave me his library, which is now at Believer's Chapel.

But anyway, got to meet the family and they said, go ahead and do it. So that's how I, just out of necessity,

I need a commentary by Johnson from Romans, therefore I'll try to write it. And so Zondervan published that.

They said no to Discovering Colossians. Grace had died. His Lewis's other child,

Samuel, who's in publishing business, lives in Nashville. I worked through him. We came up with an agreement to publish

Discovering Colossians and it's out now on Amazon. Super. So is it true that there's covenant theology in Discovering Colossians?

Talk to us about that. Well, Pat and Mike, when I first made reference to S.

Lewis and Jerry Bridges, one of the things we like to do as pastors and Bible teachers is we want to try to tell our congregation and those we're teaching, what we're coming up with isn't new, right?

So you're preaching, why do we quote someone? Well, A, they can say it better than you can, but more importantly, it's giving witness or evidence that we're not coming up with a new novel doctrine.

We don't want to do that. We want to say, well, this is what the church has taught. And so when it comes to Lewis, I forgot what your question was.

Is it true that there's covenant theology in the Colossians commentary? So we know there's some in the

Romans commentary because of chapter five, even from 1970s. But talk to us about covenant theology, even from 1961 to 1964, when he originally wrote the articles.

Well, let me quote it for you because I have it open. Here's what he says in his Romans Colossians commentary.

Now, hold on a second, Mike. I'm going to interrupt you. So is it true that when I buy the book from Amazon, it'll automatically fall open to this page?

Well, it was Dr. George Zemeck at Master's Seminary, and he was in Romans five and systematic theology class talking about a headship and different views and federal and seminal and all that other stuff.

Because 512 is so key. He said every good theologian, when they open their

Bible normally and naturally, it should open to Romans five. So we were all putting creases in our

Bible. So that would happen. And Lewis, I think really helps as a stepping stone because he's so respected by dispensationalist and respected by covenant theologians.

He is like Jerry Bridges in the sense that I can say, you know what, I'm not coming up with this. This isn't new.

Lots of theologians have taught this and I don't have to go to the 1500s or an older confession.

I can even tell you here lately, and so S. Lewis Johnson in his commentary on Colossians talking about the law, he said,

Christians are not free to break the moral law since it is a revelation of the character of God, but they are no longer under the law as what reform theologians called the covenant of works.

In other words, instead of the law judging them, it now directs and guides their lives as children of God.

Isn't that good? So the first use of the law, it's a mirror. It shows sinners their need of the savior. And then the third use, a guide, right?

And so what Johnson is saying is, well, God is immutable. He doesn't change. Therefore, his law doesn't change, but our relationship to the law giver changes.

And now instead of God as creator and judge, because we're unbelievers through the work of Christ, we're sons and daughters.

And so he guides us. And so what I did in the footnote is

I said this, the reformers taught three uses of the law. The first use is to show unbelievers their sin and misery, so they might look to the savior.

The second use is for believers and unbelievers. The law curbs sin in a civic area.

Third, the law guides and directs Christians. God does not change and neither does his law, but the relationship people have to the law giver changes.

Because of Christ's work, believers receive the law as a guide from the father, no longer enemies.

So I would add in things like that when appropriate, not wanting to change what Lewis believed or taught there because I made that promise to Sam.

But the longer Lewis lived and the more acts of Jesus he did, the more covenant theologian he became.

He subscribed and believed covenant redemption works and grace. And when he died, he wasn't quite on mill, but he was going in that direction.

He died certainly in between historic pre -mill and on mill, but he was one people of God, covenant works, covenant redemption, covenant of grace.

I don't know how many times I've recommended those lectures on the divine purpose. So we can link to those as well because it evidences, it proves what you just said.

Yeah. S. Lewis Johnson, that's the sljinstitute .net is where you can find all of the information. Yeah. Oh, if we only had the internet back when we were in seminary, we wouldn't have to write to believers chapel to ask them to send the, the notes.

I remember getting the binders, I remember getting the notes and their staple, every sermon was stapled together. So then you had to take the staples off and then find out who else wanted a photocopy of the whole thing.

That is so wild. Right. Well, I think that's the, the divine purpose, 33 messages

I really liked about S. Lewis. He was honest with his, with his theological work.

So what he said was, all right, let's talk about covenant theology. And instead of just creating some bug a bear or, uh, you know, making something up, he said, no, let's take what's, what's good in this and, and work through it.

And of course he tells the story that when he was at Dallas seminary, he asked a theology three professor and theology three includes eschatology, end times and ecclesiology, the study of the church.

What books of amillennialism do you recommend your students to read? And this professor said to Lewis, well,

I don't recommend any, I don't have them assigned to any. And Lewis said, well, this isn't like a local church where you're trying to help people or protect people or something like that.

This is a seminary. And he said, every single class for eschatology, I, Lewis recommend

Anthony Hukamas, uh, Israel and future times or whatever it's called, like any remembrance it's up there somewhere.

And he said, I lose someone to amillennialism every once in a while, but I need to be honest. And in that series, the divine purpose, those 33 messages, he's honest.

And I really appreciate that about Lewis. Great. So what's the best way for people to pick up the commentary?

It is out, uh, just came out. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, Amazon only.

Uh, like I said, Zonovan didn't want to pick it up. They had first rights. They said no. And so all they have to do is go to Amazon.

If you want to order 10 or more, you can email me, Mike at no compromise, radio .com. Other than that, you just click it in two days.

It's there. Awesome. So what are you working on? What's the next thing? What have you done for me lately? I'm thinking

I'm working on a new commentary, discovering Q it'll be a big seller.

It's Q a Q and non now. That's funny.

Um, I am trying to update sexual fidelity out of all the books that I've written.

That's got the most traction. It's not, would you say the book you said,

I'm trying to update sexual fidelity. And I said the book, the book, uh, out of all the books that I've written, that's probably got the most traction.

So I would have conversations with Luke about that topic. And then I thought, you know what?

Other men need to be encouraged to talk to their children properly and righteously and in a godly way about sex.

And so I, I put down these 30, 30 short chapters. It wasn't gospel less, but I think it could be, have some categories of law gospel in there that would be better.

So I'm just trying to spruce it up a little bit and I'll redo that and put it on Amazon. I'm working on a book now that's,

I don't know the name of it, but in my mind it's pilgrimage to Mecca. No, it's just pilgrimage and it's from and to.

So I wrote the first chapter that's on Clark's website from lordship to law gospel and other chapters include from moderate, from synergistic sanctification to monergistic, from biblicism to confessionalism, from dispensationalism to reform, all those kinds of things.

And so I'm working on that and almost like I want to give to my friends that came out of the same background that I did and said, you know, there's two sides to every theological story.

Why don't you try to read this? Kind of. Yep. I think she called it the water's warm. Right? Well, then they'll think it's probably about baptism.

Exactly. Exactly. So we started supporting the new missionary, speaking of which, and I've been to his place in the

Czech Republic and if it's a grandmother who gets saved and wants to be baptized, they find some place inside.

But if it's a hardy young man, they have a crew and that crew goes and chops the ice out of the top of the pond and down they go.

And I thought to myself, what kind of ministry must that be? So you say, well, what's your ministry? I'm an usher. What's your ministry?

Well, we cook, you know, we bake cookies for the visitors. You know, I'm security. I'm the ice chopping ministry.

I'm the ice chopping, ice chopping. That's awesome. That's, that's great. It's a good incentive.

I bet they have more converts in the summer. I am trying to write a book on law gospel based on that American gospel series

I did on law gospel. That's just a, you know, everybody just keeps, you know,

Pat, you know what it's like people in our circles call you and say, well, what about this and what about that? And, and Mike and Pat, you both know people listen to do this and live series a lot.

You just replayed it again. So I'd like to do something with that. And then lastly,

I'm working on a parenting book. I knew a guy in seminary, his kids were like five years old and he wanted to write a parenting book.

That's the time to do it, right? When you know everything. So the working title is common parenting mistakes because I'm an expert.

You don't write a book unless you're an expert on something. So something like that, similar to me saying, here's how you should talk to your kids about sex.

Here's some kind of maybe parenting tips. And then that's basically because I love the people here at the church and I want to try to help them with their parenting.

So I don't know if I'll make it to write all these things. Usually at 10 o 'clock now, instead of working hard,

I'm, you know, passed out or watching football or something. Growing kids,

Mike's way, Mikey wise. That is so not true.

We've experienced a lot of interesting things in our lives, theological pilgrimages.

We don't say journey. So that's positive. So Mike, thanks for being on. We really appreciate it. I'm looking forward to seeing you sometime soon here in Omaha, Nebraska.

Yeah. Well, I think it's been like, how many years have you been at the church, Pat? 25. Okay. So it's been five years since I've been to Omaha.

I think that's the longest time I've been away from Omaha in my entire life. And I love to go back to Omaha to see you, your wife, your children,

Marcy and her husband and daughter and just OBC people. I mean, over the years, because of Carla Abendroth, our mother and the ministry of OBC to her when she had cancer.

And she taught the ladies Bible study, of course, Israel trips together, meeting in San Diego for conferences.

I know so many people at Omaha Bible Church, it kind of seems like it's, you know, sister church, you know, a home away from home.

So I'm looking forward to being there. It's going to be fun. It's going to be great. So if you want to reach out to Mike, you can find him on Twitter at nocoradio, nocompromiseradio .com

for the website, or you can also go and listen to Mike's sermons at bbcchurch .org.

We want to thank you for being a part of the Pactiverse as always, you can find us online on Instagram and Twitter. You can be emailing us connectatthepactim .org.

We'll see you next week on The Pact. Bye.