Bad Book Titles

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.

Opening Remarks and the Radio Show’s Purpose

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth and it is real-time Monday, Monday, I don�t know when it is, October 29th or something like that, getting ready here at the church building for the big Halloween candy passing out.

It has been so long since I�ve been in the radio studio, I don�t even have the right height here for my show, and Steve�s not around, it�s Monday. I decided to work today because I need to take a different day off this week.

And so it�s, I don�t know, 7 p .m., in between Red Sox winning and I think the Patriots are going to win tonight, is that true? So if you want to email me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com. If you want to email Spencer, info at nocompromiseradio .com.

I thought I�d try to put the Facebook deal on here live. I don�t know if there�s anybody here, I don�t know if it works, if it�s recorded, but off we go. I need some new shows. Lots of shows were reruns.

I was on a sabbatical, July, August, and September, and a little bit of October. Added some, what did I add on? Vacation. All right, what do we do at No Compromise Radio? I like to talk about Jesus because he never compromised.

As we might say in Nebraska, natch, right? It�s natural. It�s a natural thing to say on this Christian radio show that Jesus said, even in John 8, I always do the things pleasing to the Father. And then I like to talk about the cross where Jesus and the Father�s attributes were not compromised and in light of that, I don�t want to compromise.

Critique of a New Fortress Press Book Title

So I don�t see any of this Facebook stuff going on. We�re just recording. I don�t know where it records to, but I guess we�ll soon find out. For those Facebook people that can�t see, I have a new release from Fortress Press.

You know, in the old days, you would think, okay, Moody Press, a name you can trust, or you would think of Word or Thomas Nelson, Banner of Truth, Soli Deo Gloria. And of course, these days, Crossway is a very evangelical publisher and Reformation Trust, Reformation Heritage Trust, is that right?

No, Banner of Truth Trust, Reformation Heritage Books, RHB. I think if I had to pick one favorite publisher, that�s who it would be, Reformation Heritage. But news from Fortress Press may actually move my rankings.

You know, we�ve got Reformation, then we�ve got Banner of Truth, and now Fortress Press, because there is a new�this is going to be backwards, I know, on Facebook, but I�m just showing you. There�s a new book from Fortress Press, and I�m almost afraid to say the word on the radio.

New from Fortress Press. I kid you not, this was in, I think, the Christianity Today magazine. It was in something, yeah. And this is the advertisement, �Is that poop on my arm I have done 2 ,000 radio shows for No Compromise Radio and quite a few guest hostings on Wretched Radio and Stand Up for the Truth, Stand Up for Truth, and other shows.

I�ve never said that word. I�ve said scubalon, I�ve said excrement, I�ve said fecal matter, but I�ve never said the word poop. This is the book title, though, so I have to say it. And it says �Parenting�, this is a subtitle, �No, that�s dirt.

Oh, man, this sweatshirt is too big. But it�s comfy. It�s cold out today. Rainy. Burr. We drove up to New Hampshire to grab something. All right, �Parenting While Christian. That�s the subtitle, and it�s written by Justin Lynde Ayers, A-Y-R-E-S.

And just for fun, let me read the description. Maybe it�s the greatest book of all time, I don�t know. Pastor and father of three, Justin Lynde Ayers chronicles his adventures and misadventures raising children and passing on his faith to them, teaching them to be compassionate, generous, quick to forgive, and to trust in God�s promises.

With stories full of humor, honesty, and yes, even some poop. This book is welcome encouragement for parents, grandparents, and anyone who cares deeply for the Christian, for the children in their life.

And it�s available October 1st, 2018 for only $16 .99. William Kent Kruger, author of �Ordinary Grace� said, �A beautiful braiding of the secular and the sacred that is by turns funny, poignant, and downright tear-inducing.

And I�m only going to say the word one more time in the next 2 ,000 shows, and it�s going to be in this next sentence, although it�s maybe not really a word, it�s a forward slash. Learn more at FortressPress .com forward slash.

Why Evangelical How-To Books Miss the Point

Is that poop on my arm? I think it�s probably safe to say that most evangelical books are probably in that category. And maybe that could be, is that the word I said I was going to say on my shelf are in the bookstore.

And I am not talking about books that are commentaries about the Word, the sacred Word. I�m not talking about biographies. I�m not talking about books about Christ, Christology, or His work. Something about sin, and who forgives sin, and books about the Trinity, systematic theology, the promises of God.

I�m not talking about any of those books, but just the how-to books. I�m trying to see the different books here in my study. And the how-to section is pretty small, and I would say that most how-to books in Christian life, those are the big sellers, though.

Those are the ones that people love. Those are the same kind of sermons that people like to hear, and instead of hearing a message about who the Lord Jesus is, they would rather know what to do. I think I said the other day, turn to the person to your left during a church service and say, �I�m enjoying this TED Talk.

Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4, 5, �For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants, for Jesus� sake. For God, who said, �Let light shine out of darkness referring to Genesis and the creation of light, ex in hilo, �has shone in our hearts.

That�s how God saves people, monergistic, instantaneous regeneration, �to give light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That�s what we want to do, is to proclaim things about who Jesus is.

Yes, there is a response to that. Yes, there are commands for the Christian, there�s obedience for the Christian, but it is not to be confused with justification. Justification and sanctification, when they are blended together, when our works are blended into the works of Christ, we have problems, because His works are perfect, and perfection is required by the Father, and our works are not perfect, and therefore cannot be used or are the basis for any standing before God.

And Luther was right, and the Reformers, when they taught, �You are justified by faith alone. That�s the category of justification, but that faith is never alone. That is a new category, �stop, period, new paragraph.

Sanctification is that category, and we fall into the Roman Catholic era of jamming justification and sanctification together, or in particular, because we want people today to not be antinomian, not be licentious, not be running around doing crazy things.

We add some sanctification into justification and blur the whole thing. Anyway, if you�d like to get a book like that, you can always send it to me. You know what I�m going to do? I�m going to be nice today.

Theodore Beza on Faith, the Holy Spirit, and Assurance

So, instead of just trashing a book and moving on, I trash the book, at least the title, and then now let me give you a book that you should read. It�s a little harder to get, but I think you can get it from overseas.

That�s where I got it from, Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland. The Christian Faith by Theodore Beza. And if you�re looking on the Facebook thing, normally they say on Facebook Live I get to see how many people are tuning in, if anybody.

Not that I care because I have to do this show anyway, but The Christian Faith, a little tiny, oh, I would say 110-page book that�s a good little systematic theology and how faith is necessary and what faith is underneath the chapter, the Holy Spirit, which I thought that was fascinating because if you look at 4 .4, the means which the Holy Spirit uses to create and preserve faith in us, quote by Beza, �In order to create in us this instrument of faith, and also to feed and strengthen it more and more, the Holy Spirit uses two ordinary means, without, however, communicating to them His power, but working by them, the preaching of the Word of God and His sacraments.

Further on, we will return to this. In the first place, we shall define what this so precious faith is and what are its effects and powers. And that just gives you a little sampler. Faith, he goes on to say, �I say that�s actually in the quotes, �Faith, I say, does not only believe that Lord Jesus Christ is dead and risen again for sinners, but it comes to also embrace Jesus Christ.

There�s lots of Bible verses you can look at. �Whoever truly believes, trusts in Him alone and is assured of His salvation to the point of no longer doubting it. That is why St. Bernard said, conformably to the whole of Scripture, what follows, quote, �If you believe that your sins cannot be blotted out except by Him against whom alone you have sinned, you do well.

Now, let�s just stop and think about that for a second. If you believe that your sins cannot be blotted out except by Him against whom you alone have sinned, you do well. That�s great. But yet, to add one point, Beza says, �That you believe that your sins have been forgiven you by Him.

This is the testimony that the Holy Spirit gives to our heart, saying, �Your sins are forgiven you. And a little antiquated English, but we get the point. Great stuff from Beza. I�d encourage you to read it.

If you would like to go to, I think, a Heidel blog, Scott Clark has a lot of books in his syllabi for students that give you an idea of what you might want to read. Basically, what I did, don�t tell Clark this because it might go to his head, and we�ll have him on maybe next week or the week after, I just looked at his syllabus and looked at the required reading and went down the line, and whatever I had, I thought, �Great, I might have to revisit that.

And whatever I don�t have, I just bought. And this is October 29th today, and my book allowance for the year is now gone. But that�s okay. All right, what else do we have here in No Compromise Radio?

Critique of Pop-Culture-Themed Sermon Series

We have stuff that, first we have the kind of fecal matter stuff that books are talked about. Then we have something that�s more reserved for maybe Caesar�s Vomitorium, and this is, and I can show the Facebook group, this is Director�s Cut, Admit 1, and there�s a picture of, I guess that�s a Star Wars girl with a lightsaber, haven�t seen the new ones.

There�s some penguins. I can�t remember what show the penguins are from, haven�t seen it, but I have seen the advertisement. And then there�s that guy who, I think that�s the Wolverine guy, but he�s dressed up like Barnum.

That�s the Barnum and Bailey, P .T. Barnum. What�s the name of the show? Haven�t seen that either. Director�s Cut. Now, this goes to, this was actually to Steve Cooley, and he gave it to me, and on the back it says, �You�re invited.

So, kind of a nice, you know, and again, I�m showing this, �You�re invited. I don�t want to, let�s see, I don�t want to show Steve�s address. �You�re invited. Join us as one of our most popular series returns for the fall.

Director�s Cut. During Director�s Cut. That, by the way, is the name of the sermon series. So, right now at Bethlehem Bible Church, I�m going to be doing part four this week of a series. And so, I think, you know, there�s nothing wrong with series, seri, for plural.

I�m going to do a series, and I�m involved in a series now, The Assurance of Faith, How to Know You�re a Christian. And essentially, if you�ve been listening, you would know that I could probably repeat the outline right now, loosely based on a Charles Hodge article.

Don�t look to any �isms, right? You can�t look to any kind of religion, Judaism, if you�re thinking about the writer of the book of Hebrews to those Jews. Don�t look to yourself. You�re just going to see Romans 7, sinful self.

Look to Christ. And then, to make it just very obvious, look to the love of God and the promises of God. And then, we�ll look to the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life, and then there�s some real subjective things that we can go over to guard us from simply the objective means.

But those are the primary means. Here, the title is not The Assurance of Faith. It is Director�s Cut. Now, I have many goals in my life. Here�s one of my goals, that if people listen to my sermons, ten years from now or fifty years from now, not that anybody would, Mike who?

Maybe somebody will try to do a Ph .D. on bad radio and evangelicalism. If you were to listen to my sermons, they would still be relevant in the sense that I don�t want to use a lot of modern illustrations.

I�d rather stick to the text, and since the text is chronological, trans-chronological rather, it is always relevant and not ever irrelevant, that that�s one of my desires. Well, here, there�s Lifesongonline .org, Lifesong Church in Sutton, Massachusetts.

They have actually two campuses, the Campi, the Worcester Campi and the Sutton Campi. You�ve got service times at 8, 30, 10, 11 on one campus and 10 on the other. And here�s Director�s Cut. It shows the pastor.

I think it�s a pastor, kind of a, that shirt�s not too bad, that�s a shirt, you can�t really see it. I�d like a little more color in the shirt, but that�s okay. There�s a picture of Spider-Man, because I guess he�s greeting you, and there�s somebody with another, let�s just approve the point, there�s a Spider-Man there.

If you ever go to church and don�t see Spider-Man, you might want to know what�s wrong. During Director�s Cut, we will explore the truths of scripture, small s, that�s Apra Poe, found in some of today�s most popular films, including The Greatest Showman, Madagascar 3, Dunkirk, and Star Wars, The Last Jedi.

I�m showing a picture to Facebook, is that blank on my arms? That is about the worst thing I�ve ever heard of. This is evangelicalism, that one person goes. Not only shame on the leadership there, but that anybody goes there.

You know, people heap up teachers after their own desires. If that�s what you want, fine, but you couldn�t call that church? That name�s already taken. And what do we do? Do we look at culture in light of scripture, or do we look at scripture in light of culture?

Here we say explore truths of scripture found in some of these. And you know what? I guess if you said something about common grace and themes of sacrifice and redemption and evil and triumph over evil and some plots and suspects and twists, but let�s just talk about Spider-Man, truths found in Spider-Man, and then we bring Spider-Man out in a costume, and then, you know, what do you do next week?

What do you end up doing the following week? Well, you�ve got to have another cool series, and the good news is new movies always come out. But this is the kind of stuff that just, I guess it makes my blood boil, and I guess it makes my stomach turn.

And I remember one time my daughter was in, just outside of Bethlehem, and her stomach was really, she ate some kind of funky shawarma or falafel or something, and I can just remember this kind of yellowish upchuck that she had.

That�s kind of what I�m thinking right here. Get the picture? Get the smell there? Really acidic, acid red and litmus blue, or is that basic blue? Acid red, basic blue, alkaline blue, I have no idea. When you get this kind of stuff, I mean, and what do they spend on this?

That�s a lot. That�s a lot. Okay, what else do we have going on here? Just a few things. If you want to pray for the ministry, I�m just trying to really revamp this and not start from scratch, but just a few changes here, so just pray that we might have wisdom.

And got a few different things maybe to help automate things. We got the low budget going on here, so we just have to work through all those issues. And what else are we doing? I do have the S. Lewis Johnson Colossians material that I should probably finish.

I�ve just been so tired, and last year was a difficult year, so I didn�t really get anything done there. Coming back to the book of Hebrews on Sunday morning, if you want to go to bbcchurch .org. I�m also working on a project where Daniel Lee and I, that�s L-I, he and I are putting together a book project with different authors, writing on some contemporary issues, and I don�t know what we want to call it.

Maybe director�s cut. Maybe is that director�s cut on my arm? I don�t know what people think. By the way, I have to be careful because I�m forgetting that I�m on live Facebook. I know Friel does that all the time.

Did I tell you that I was supposed to do Retro Radio just before I went on sabbatical, and I could not get this thing to work. I�ve got all this equipment that you can�t see here, and I tried to get it working, but I could not, and I�m sweaty and frustrated.

I even had this special solar pulp right here, and see his hand? I guess the sun�s not out. I guess I could do a whole sermon series on that. So anyway, if you just pray for the ministry, that�d be great.

My health, I�m feeling good, rode the bike a lot, thousands of miles this summer, literally, and I have an MRI this December, and then biopsy next May. Yikes. I�ve had a lot of those. Those hurt. I want to say about, well, three different times having biopsies, but a total of, I don�t know, 28 needles taking cores out.

Now see, my problem is I used to sell that stuff. I used to sell prostate biopsy needles. Back in those days, and I think pretty much it�s the same way now, you had two kinds. First one was FNAB, fine needle aspiration biopsy, God bless you, and the other was core, and the core, it�s got kind of two, let�s see, what can I use?

It�s got basically like two things like this, two like levers, and the first one flies out quickly, grabs a chunk of prostate, and then the other one slides up to catch it, and then you, ow, it is, so the first time, they said fine.

I didn�t have any anesthesia. They said you could do it, no problem. Second time, I think they gave me some kind of Valium or something. Third time, they gave me some Ativan, but that doesn�t take the pain away.

That just makes you relax, and you�re just not worried about the pain, but it still hurts, so this next time, I said, �You got to put me out, man. I didn�t say man, I said Dr. Zalewski, and I have mentioned before and talked to some people this summer even, if you are a man and you have been diagnosed with prostate cancer, you�ve got about ten options, and if you want to talk about some of those options with a Christian man who has been through it and has seen God�s faithful hand, even though sometimes I wasn�t acting that faithfully, probably worried too much, anxious too much, if you�d like to talk about it, I would talk to you, and you can give me a phone call.

Just email me, Mike at NoCompromisedRadio .com or Mike at BBCChurch .org, and I would talk with you, and if you�re an unbelieving man and you�ve got prostate cancer, I�ll talk to you. If you�ve got cancer, I�ll talk to you, and I didn�t really know I�d have this ministry, but the Lord gives me certain ministries that I never really asked for.

I never even asked to be a pastor, and to be a pastor, it is just the amazing treat of all time, blessing of all time, privilege of all time to stand in the pulpit and tell people about the Jesus who seeks and saves the lost, the eternal Son of God who adds humanity, who�s born a woman, born of a woman, you�ve got to watch how you speak, born of a woman, born under law, right, and perfectly obeys the law in our place, perfectly dies for our sins and has been raised from the dead, vindicating His work and providing justification to us.

If you want to order some books, I think I just sold 50 books to one church, Sexual Fidelity at quite the discount, or Things That Go Bump in the Church, we can also work on that. So I�m just trying to stall here at the very end, because I�ve got the next show we�re going to talk about, I think Lent.

I haven�t talked a whole lot about social justice, I think everybody knows where I stand. I didn�t sign the document because I�m not a big signer and that thing can go on without me, it doesn�t need me.

While I might think No Compromise Radio has worldwide reach, that�s I�m sure just in my own mind, it has worldwide reach in my pea-brained mind, and let�s see, what else can I say that happened this summer?

From Saskatoon to Portland to San Fran, we had some great opportunities for ministry. Anyway, my name�s Mike Gaben, you�re on No Compromise Radio, you can write me info at nocompromiseradio .com, 2 ,000 shows on the website nocompromiseradio .com, and if you want to just type any subject into the search bar, Joe Osteen, shows will come up, great search engine, Jonathan and Linton and Joshua, I think they all helped with that, but anyway, excellent there.

And we will talk to you next time as we look at Lent and the veneration of Mary.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God�s Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.