Lost Years Of Jesus

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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

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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.�

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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

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. It�s been a while, Steve, since I�ve had you in the studio.

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I think you even did last Tuesday, just like a solo show, because you were so busy. I think I was banned, you know, 30 -day timeout or something.

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Well, yeah, what do we do with banned books and stuff like that? That�s a good way to get people to listen more, just say, �Steve�s been banned for a week ,� and then you wonder what he�ll say the next week.

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Well, or go back in the archives, what do you say to get banned? Totally. Probably some rerun or something like that.

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Are you going to go to the Shepherd�s Conference this year? Hmm, let me think. Yes. It will be just a regular one, though, it wouldn�t be one of those uber -duber ones.

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It�s just fine. You know, the uber -duber thing, you know, it�s kind of overdone. I heard some of our guys say that they liked

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Spofford better than, Camp Spofford better than the Shepherd�s Conference. That�s true. Now, that�s not Horatio Spafford.

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No. What�s the difference between Spofford and Spafford? Spofford has a lake, Spafford just has a really nice hymn.

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Now, that lake up in New Hampshire, I appreciated, and I walked around it, and it was very pretty, but I didn�t like the road that was in between the campus and the lake.

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What would kids do? I don�t know, look both ways and, you know, and run, but, you know, funny story, the first night we were there, well,

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I guess it was the only night we were there. This was the Bethlehem Bible Church men�s retreat we were at, okay. So Harry takes us up to this cabin, and, you know, a bunch of guys in the cabin and everything, and I go, well,

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I needed to use the facility. So I use the facility, I come out, everybody�s gone. And I think, well, no problem,

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I�ll just drive back down to the thing. Well, except for my car was blocked in by everybody else�s car. So I�m like, okay,

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I�ll just go back, I�ll just walk down the way we came. Well, the way we came was down the road. It is completely black.

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I cannot, honestly, I could not see the difference between the road and the dirt. The only way

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I could tell is if I was standing on the road or not was by sticking my foot down and kind of feeling, you know, whether it was dirt or not.

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It probably took me about 15 minutes to walk back the, you know, half mile back to the thing because I couldn�t see a thing.

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Steve, I loved the retreat and hanging out with some of the men, and I enjoyed the singing and the sessions, and the food was excellent.

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I�m not kidding. It was just super. What was that final thing we had, Baked Alaska? I mean, to have that at a men�s retreat, homemade, with that ice cream in there was some, it was excellent.

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Deluxe. Yes. But I am fairly, I don�t know. I mean, when

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I travel around and someone just says, you�re going to be staying in such and such a place, and here�s your room key or here�s your room, whatever it is, if it�s nice, four -star, one -star,

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India, England, I just say thank you, and I think, you know what, the Lord is good, and I don�t deserve some five -star thing, and I just roll with the punches.

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I think I�m okay at that, but what I�m not very good at is we get there to the camp with all the guys, and I don�t need preferential speaker treatment or anything like that.

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I do. But it was, okay, there are three buildings, and those buildings were the

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BBC people will stay, and there they are. First of all, find the buildings.

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I didn�t even know which ones they were, and then you just go find a cot, and then with Christian love, you find the best cot, and then throw your sleeping bag on it and claim it or something.

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I just didn�t. Name it, claim it. I just did not. That�s just not my style. It was, you know, kind of high school youth camp kind of thing, or what

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I would imagine high school youth camp. If I had been a Christian, you know, way back then. So, my room was with Luke, my son, and Mark Arnold.

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Oh, you really lost out of the roomies. I know. What a couple troublemakers you had.

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Steve, in front of me, I have six famous symbols that don�t mean what you think. Uh -oh.

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Okay. How do we redeem this in a no -coast? I don�t know. Is this some kind of Jeopardy, let�s stump

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Steve, that sort of thing? I just saw this, and it was such a gross picture that I thought it might actually be interesting.

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Yeah, that is pretty gross. Yes. Yeah. Now, this is from Wikipedia, and of course, that must mean it�s true. Oh, absolutely.

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Everything on Wikipedia is true. That�s true. You�ve probably never questioned the logic that says a severed rabbit�s foot brings good luck.

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By the way, what� It wasn�t so lucky for the rabbit, that�s what I always used to say. Remember those old ones that they would be bright pink or yellow or something like that?

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They would dye the rabbit�s foot. I never saw a full rabbit like that except in a Jefferson Airplane video.

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Actually, you can breed them, you know, for the different colors like that. It just takes a while to kind of harp on some of the genetics.

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We used to have blue rabbits. Oh, blue. Okay. It was Alice in Wonderland or something. Blue rabbit.

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Walking under ladders, breaking mirrors, da -da -da -da -da. Well, it turns out the story of the rabbit�s foot is even creepier than the idea of dismembering animals for luck.

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The origin, the rabbit�s foot was thought to be actually the foot of a witch. Hmm. Now, this is on Wikipedia.

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Yeah. Yeah, I don�t know. In the United States, the symbolism of the rabbit�s foot most likely came from the American hoodoo folk magic,

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H -O -O -D -O -O. That was a pretty good band in the �80s. I love that hoodoo that you do. They believe that rabbits were frequently witches in disguise, so I don�t know if we like that or not.

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Do you think that�s true? I�m dubious. Okay. But, you know, people do all kinds of stupid things.

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Why do you think people are fascinated with witches? White witches? Black witches?

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I think, well, first of all, because, you know, it�s a power outside of God. And I think people are always looking to have some kind of � or exercise some kind of power.

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I mean, wouldn�t it be wonderful � and I mean this in a rhetorical sense � wouldn�t it be wonderful to just kind of have power to solve problems, you know?

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Okay, Steve, I think you�re onto something there. We live kind of in a closed system that is � we can�t go outside of our bodies.

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We have only a certain amount of power, which is a feeble, frail power, of course. And there are problems in life that we cannot solve and we need help.

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That�s right. And then we either believe in a natural system � there�s no supernatural

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God and it is what it is � or we believe in a supernatural God who can, whenever he pleases, for lack of a better word, inject himself into the natural realm.

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Is that a good way to say it? Yep. An intercede. Right. And so, you know, then witchcraft, what would be the attraction of that?

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Well, it�s some other source. You know, you don�t really have to humble yourself and go to God, you know?

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You can sort of � Yeah, witches aren�t thrice holy. Witches don�t require perfection. They�re there to help you a little bit, especially if you�ve got an ornery neighbor and you need some � what do they call those little figurines that you poke with needles?

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Would that be witchcraft? What�s that called? Voodoo doll. Yeah, voodoo, yeah. Voodoo doll, yeah. Oh, okay.

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Yeah. That voodoo that you do. Or hoodoo that you do. It doesn�t matter. It�s voodoo, hoodoo.

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Who do you voodoo? I heard Michael Horton give a John Wayne quote the other day.

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Well, I heard it today, actually, but this was playing the other day, not far away, the other day. I like God until he comes under my roof.

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In other words, far off gods I like. He can be transcendent, powerful, sovereign, but once he�s too close, then

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I want him to back off a little bit. Yeah, a little too close, as Robin Williams would say, too close.

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But during Christmastime, isn�t that what we get? I think it was G .I. Packer who said that God is by nature transcendent, he�s other, but by will, he is eminent, he�s close, and I think that is via the incarnation.

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God is a transcendent being, but he, the son, has not counted a quality with God a thing to be grasped, and he cloaks himself with humanity.

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Pete And comes and dwells among us. Robin Sounds like Luke, oh, my son

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Luke is back from Israel, so he knows a bunch of Hebrew now, and he thinks he knows how to pronounce

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Hebrew words better than I do, and that�s probably true. So he was teaching me, he said, �Dad, I want to teach you a new word.�

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I said, �Okay.� He said, �A Hebrew word.� I said, �Great.� And he said, �Emanuel.�

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I said, �I know that one.� Pete Emanuel. Robin Yes.

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Okay. I have in front of me, �New York Times.� That�s fairly, fairly scientific reporting.

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Pete Biblical. Robin Yeah. Of biblical proportions. Robin Many psychology findings not as strong as claimed, study says.

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Pete Shocking. Robin Now, first, let�s talk a little bit about God�s Word.

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It is sufficient, sanctify them in truth, thy Word is true, Jesus said. We have a sufficient

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Word, we would believe, do we believe in Sola Scriptura or Prima Scriptura? I think it�s

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Sola Scriptura. Pete Sola Scriptura. Robin So, I think it�s fascinating that with the Roman Catholics and others, and even some evangelicals in the charismatic realm, they believe in Prima Scriptura.

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Scripture�s first, but there are seconds and thirds, magisterium, experiences, papal decrees.

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I saw, a matter of fact, in Rome, the chair that the Pope used to sit on for ex -cathedra.

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Pete Are they having it refurbed? What�s going on there? Robin They needed an upgrade. It didn�t have enough gold on it.

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I�ll tell you what, when you see gold in the Vatican, it�s not a thin gold plating. It�s not paint.

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It�s not spray paint. It�s the real deal. You know why that is? Pete Because the popes are crooked?

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Robin No, because the weight makes it harder to steal. So, they don�t have to nail things down. Pete Oh! Okay. Robin Yeah, see?

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You know, getting back to Prima Scriptura, what�s the real message there?

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If a charismatic says, well, yes, scripture first, but we also have other sources.

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If the Catholic says, yes, scripture first, but we also have other sources, what are they really trying to say? Pete I find it fascinating,

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Steve. Steve What are they trying to say? Pete Hold on just a second. This is a radio show. Steve It�s going to be a roundabout route.

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Pete Yeah, I know we like those routes, Route 66. The charismatic would always say, if they�re thinking properly, the tradition of the

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Roman Catholic Church is not equal to scripture, the magisterium, ex cathedra statements, whether it�s

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Council of Trent and other, you know, any kind of official document, these things don�t have any weight.

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It�s the Bible alone, yet our charismatic friends are probably influenced by Grudem Systematic Theology.

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I�m on a big kick regarding that, how to turn your church to be a charismatic church in one generation. Use Grudem instead of Berkhoff.

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You say, yeah, but then - Steve What do we use in our systematic theology classes? Pete I don�t want to use Berkhoff. I mean

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Grudem anymore. Steve What do we use? Pete I don�t know. Is that what we�re using? Steve Yeah. Pete Yeah.

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That�s what we�ve always used. Steve I know. I�m changing that right now. It�s a papal decree. I�m sitting on the ex cathedra seat.

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Pete Well, it is a nicer seat than mine, that�s for sure. Steve Okay, back to the question again. What is the question?

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Pete I forgot. No. Prima. Steve Prima? Pete Yeah. What are they really saying? Pete Yeah, what are they really saying?

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Steve Well, there�s more than one source of authority. Pete Well, what they�re really saying is scripture�s good.

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Steve But. Pete But. Steve The second they say that. Pete Yeah. Steve I know the Bible is sufficient, but. Pete But if I have an experience that doesn�t agree with scripture, the experience wins.

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Steve Now, Steve, you don�t come across in person as a super smart guy, but I know differently about you.

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Pete Thank you so much. You know, he�s kind of a, you know, he�s slow, but you�ll have to kind of overcome that.

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Steve Let�s pretend like we�re on the White Horse Inn and we�re really smart and talking about these things. The experiential. Pete Would you like to be erudite then?

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Steve The experiential Christian. Isn�t this really a Schleiermachian deal? Pete Well, it is quite

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Schleiermachian. Steve Schleiermachian. I think at least every other show of the

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White Horse Inn, one of them says Schleiermacher. Pete And that would be wrong. Steve So, there are this big focus on experience and how we, can experiences be wrong?

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I mean, what if we�ve had a wrong experience? Pete Can experiences be wrong? Let me think.

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Yeah, sure. Steve Well, here in the New York Times study, not that long ago, reported by Benedict Cary, the past several years have been bruising ones for the credibility of the social sciences.

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A star social psychologist was caught fabricating data leading to more than 50 retracted papers.

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A top journal published a study supporting the existence of ESP that was widely criticized.

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And the final sentence of the first paragraph, the journal Science, that is capital S, pulled a political science paper on the effect of gay canvassers on voters� behavior because of concerns about fake data.

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Pete Well, I mean, there you go. That would have quite an impact, right? If the person who is asking you the questions, you know, is homosexual and, you know, very flamboyant about it, and they�re asking you, what do you think about homosexual marriage?

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Are you more likely to say, right to the person�s face? No, I don�t approve of it.

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And yeah, I think that clearly would have an impact. Steve How many different psychological driven so -called sciences do we need before we say to ourselves, why do we need 400 different psychological approaches if there�s one that�s really scientific?

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Call me simple. Pete Okay, I�ll call you simple. Well, I mean, it�s obvious.

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Psychology, even psychiatry. So many of the things that they do are just absolute guesswork.

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And you know what I mean? It�s nice that people go to school to do those things. Well, it�s not really nice.

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But I mean, I would say your person of average intelligence by the time they�re 60 could probably sit in a psychiatrist�s office and probably do just about everything that a psychiatrist does.

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Steve Show kindness, ask questions, listen, give suggestions. Pete And probably give better suggestions.

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Steve Talk therapy. Is there really a value to the whole talk therapy?

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That�s what they�re doing, right? You�re just talking through issues. Pete Is there a value to it? Steve I think initially there might be, okay, let�s just use biblical counseling.

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What�s your problem? Okay, let�s analyze it according to the Bible. Maybe you didn�t know about these Bible verses that talk about anxiety and worry is sinful.

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And then let�s motivate to replace it with other things and who the Lord is, who you are in Christ.

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But after a while, I mean, do you need to meet with somebody for 25 sessions to work through a problem?

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Pete No, but you know, hopefully it�s useful, I think, sometimes to just kind of get out of your own head, you know, to get, you know, there�s victory in an abundance of counselors.

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Why is that? Because when we�re just talking to ourselves all the time, we can get ourselves into the wrong rut.

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So you need somebody to come along like, you know, I�m going to talk vinyl here. You need somebody to come along and just kind of give a tap to the needle and get it over to the next groove, you know, so.

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Steve Remember replacing the needles. If you wanted to replace a needle, it wasn�t that bad, but the whole cartridge itself,

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I think that was a scam just so you�d have to buy more of a cartridge. How does a cartridge go bad?

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Pete I don�t know. I think it was a little bit of a scam, but I do remember those days, too. I still think I have my,

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I may have my turntable in the basement, you know, and I don�t think I ever got rid of it because it�s just such a cool one.

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And now vinyl�s coming back, I don�t know, I might have to hook it back up. Steve I think that�d be a good idea. Steve, did you know there are some unknown years of Jesus?

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Silent years, lost years, missing years. Pete Actually, I remember, seriously, I�m a brand new believer, and I was just like,

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I was a stupid believer. And so, I�m going to, you know, I went to the Christian bookstore and then

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I was like, I just wanted to see everything that said it was Christian, you know. And so, I went to a bookstore and they were like, oh, yeah, we�ve got these

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Christian books over here. And they were like, you know, Jesus in India, you know, and stuff. So, yeah, lost years, yeah.

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Pete Steve, I did not know this. In the late medieval period, Arthurian legends like King Arthur.

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Steve Yeah, yeah. Pete Arthurian. I never have used that word before. Steve Really? Ever? Pete It sounds good. Steve Arthurian, Arthurian. Pete Well, see, now it seems a little slow in public.

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Steve I know. Appeared, including stories that the young Jesus had been in Britain. I didn�t know that.

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So, between about age 12 and about age 30, we don�t know what happened to Jesus, those are kind of lost years, and he went to the

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UK. Pete Well, you know, he could walk on water. Steve Oh, no. No.

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Why don�t we know what happened? I mean, he said one day, I�m going to go for a walk, and he wound up in England. You know, who knew?

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Pete Let�s discuss with all seriousness, when the Bible doesn�t tell us something, it doesn�t tell us for a reason.

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So, the scripture�s silent for a reason about all kinds of different things. It could tell us a variety.

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Why do you think the scriptures don�t tell us what Jesus did from 12 to 30? Steve Well, in the military, we had something called need to know, right?

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And apparently, the sovereign God of the universe decided we have no need to know what went on in those years.

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Pete Is it enough to know that Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men,

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Luke 2? Steve Apparently, because scripture�s sufficient, right? And so, any kind of guesswork or attempts to sort of fill in those years,

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I would just have to, you know, throw those in at best speculative, at worst, sinful and demonic.

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Pete Unknown years. Maybe we could study the Essenes, and maybe they�ve got some scoop for us.

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Steve Maybe they do, and probably they don�t. Pete During the late 12th century,

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Joseph of Arimathea became connected with the Arthurian cycle, appearing in them as the first keeper of the

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Holy Grail. Steve Holy Grail, yeah. Pete This idea first appears in Robert de Boron�s Joseph de

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Arimathea in which Joseph receives the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sends it to his followers in Britain.

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Steve I thought it first appeared in Indiana Jones in the last crusade. Here�s the thing, just think about that for a minute, you know, because somebody might be listening and going, well, what�s wrong with that?

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Okay. Try to imagine somebody telling you that something happened 1000 years ago, because that�s what we�re talking about.

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We�re talking about, you know, like 1200. And so, you know, almost 1200 years before that, we�re supposed to believe what this person in 1200 said.

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It�s just kind of incredible. How would anybody know? You know, it�s just utterly silly.

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It�s foolishness. Pete In this particular article, it says rejection by modern mainstream Christian scholarship.

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So they pretty much, it says here, almost unanimously agreed that these travels of Jesus to Tibet, Kashmir, or the rest of India contain nothing of value.

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Pete Well, what about North America? Pete Is there some Mormon stuff coming out here?

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Just a little? Pete Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, this idea that he popped up here and there and everywhere, why not, you know, the

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Americas? Other sheep I have that are not of this fold. Pete Okay, true story.

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I first get to Bethlehem Bible Church 18 and one -half years ago. And a guy came up to me with John 10 and talked about that.

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And he said, I think, this was the man speaking, I think this verse gives us a little insight to the fact that Jesus has made life on other planets.

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Pete Calling occupants of interplanetary craft. Pete And I thought to myself, I think I should have a no -co -radio show about this.

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Pete You were looking around going, security, security! Pete Now, do you think that person's at the church any longer?

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Do you think they moved on? Pete Well, let me see. I'm gonna, because we haven't talked about this, no prep.

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I'm gonna say no. Pete Well, what the elders did is we got together, discussed it, and I gave them some white marbles, some black marbles, some red marbles, and some

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Jesus seminar instructions. Pete Good. Very good. Pete And we didn't let each other know what we were going to cast, but when the die was proverbially cast, we had to follow through.

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Pete Yeah. Pete Yeah, the words of Jesus. Pete And so is that person at the church or no? Pete They are not. Pete Yeah, see, I said that.

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Okay. That was correct. Pete Third, did you say Nephi or Nephi? Nephi.

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Pete Nephi. Pete Nephi. Okay. Pete Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.

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And it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words, the whole multitude fell to the earth. For they remembered that it had been prophesied among them that Christ should show himself unto them after the ascension.

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Arise and comfort unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, also that you may feel the print nails in my hands and my feet, that you may know

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I am the God of Israel, the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world. I was waiting for something more to be said in that quote, but I couldn't see on the other page.

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But that's Mormonism right there. Yeah, they just believe that he came to North America and showed himself. How about when the

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Japanese legend Shingo claimed that Jesus came to Japan when he was 21 years old?

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Shingo. Pete Shingo. Now, speaking of Japan, they're in the news, they are not allowing a lot of Muslim refugees come into their country.

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Now, are they racist for that or are they profiling or what's going on there?

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Pete Well, I mean, they're very, you know, I just know what

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I've read of Japan and previously they were very race conscious, you know, as evidenced by their attitude going into World War II.

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I just, and you know what, they're very xenophobic. So, I think this would just be historical behavior for the

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Japanese, really. So, you know, I mean, I think they're very generous and everything, but I just don't think this would,

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I would be shocked if they were taking vast numbers of Muslim refugees because Islam is just not gonna, that's just not gonna fly in Japan.

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Peter Steve, I never knew that according to this legend in Japan that when he was to be crucified, his brother,

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Isukiri, took his place and died in his stead after escaping Judea. Eventually found his way to the village of Hirai in Amorio Perfecto.

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He became a father, had a wife, and kids, died there at the ripe old age of 106. Pete Wow. Pete Yeah.

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Pete Huh. Pete Uh -huh. Pete That doesn't sound like Jesus. Pete It doesn't. That's your own personal Japanese Jesus.

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Pete Yeah, it might be somebody, but you know, it doesn't - Pete It's a Vapor song. Pete I'm turning

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Japanese. Pete Yeah, I really think so. Pete Yeah, but yeah. Pete Yeah, that wasn't it. Anything else you want to say as we wrap this stellar show up?

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Pete Well, it's great to be back on No Compromise Radio. You know, getting back to the retreat, we really did have a good time.

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I had a really fun time and I think the men were edified and we'd like to invite all our listeners.

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No, no. Pete I like the dress code there. That was kind of nice to just wear what you want. It was a men's retreat after all.

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Pete Yeah. Pete It wasn't high tea with hats and stuff like that. Pete No, it was just very manly. Pete I know. We should do some man, it could be called man camp.

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Pete Oh, that is good. Pete Man camp. Pete I like that a lot. Pete Okay. If you want to write us, it's info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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You can write TuesdayGuy or follow his Twitter feed. Pete The TuesdayGuy. Pete Yeah, the cutting edge.

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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 6. 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.