The Blaze (Part 1)

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

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

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name's Mike Abendroth, and what's your name, sir? I have no name. I've been through the desert. I just was going to say that on a horse with no name. It's good to be out of the rain, actually.

Summer Catch-Up and Listener Email Banter

So Steve and I are back in the studio. We have not been in the studio together, are to tape a No Compromise show, record a show since probably the middle of June. In the middle of June? Yeah, and this is going to play in September.

Feels like months. A lot has happened. It has been months. What have you been doing this summer? Anything? Nothing. Nothing? Just kind of chilling. All right, we're going to start off the show on No Compromise Radio, always biblical, always provocative.

Always in that order. Yes. I got an email from our friend Ted. He's a regular stalker of ours. And his last name is pronounced Krajewski. Kajewski. All right, Ted.

And here's what Ted said. It's got your Krzewski, I think is his name.

I don't think you'll be the coach in four years. No? Okay. Hi, Mike. Hi, Mike. Sorry to send you emails on consecutive days while you're on vacation, but I'm listening to an NCR episode. What's that NCR?

Isn't that a public radio

Yes, it is. No The National

See, he's NCR, and I'm always like NOCO or something, but NCR, that's not bad. National Cash Register, I think it is. With Tuesday Guy, and he often refers to the California Pope. I just have to know, is he talking about MacArthur?

When are you talking about the California Pope? I'm talking about Tom Petty.

Tom Petty. I really, and I think my response to that was, without the context, I don't know, but it was either John MacArthur in kind of a joking way, or it was Rick Warren in a totally joking way. Ooh.

Okay, well, Ted goes on to say this. Ted Kajewski. I actually said, how do you pronounce your name? And he phonetically sent it. And he said Kajewski. Now, here's the funny part. That would be my first guess regarding MacArthur, but when I'm wondering, but then I'm wondering why you didn't take him to task for this.

Thisk. Thisk. Kajewski. Kajewski. Kajewski. Kajewski. After my first six months of listening to your show, I used an SPSS discourse analysis computer program. What you don't know, Steve, is he's a linguist.

Noam Chomsky is his father, but it was an adopted kind of thing. Really? Well, good for him. So he's a linguistical analysis, linguist analysis. He studies words. I don't know what he does. SPSS discourse analysis computer program to see what phrases you use most often to try to make some sense of your overall Weltschwing.

How do you say that? I have no idea. Weltschwing, you know, the worldview. Yeah, worldview. All I know is he's making it all up. Sorry, D .A. Carson taught me that word, and I can't let it go, he said.

Schwing. Do you know what the phrase came out as number one? So Steve, if you had to take all of our shows for the first six months, and you would do a computer analysis, and short of the Bible says this, Paul said that,.

Jesus said that. I know what the number one one would be. What is that? Get a life. Get a life.

All right, the number one phrase for No Compromise Radio for the first six months. Actually, we've been on now for how many months? 36 months. Well, yeah. So we've probably grown. We've probably matured.

I think it's about three years. You know, this show costs us money to be on.

Well, you know, it's often been said that I'm sharp as a 2x4.

All right, so the number one phrase for No Compromise Radio, short of, you know, this and that. Here it is. Number one. I like what MacArthur says. Dot, dot, dot. Well, that's very peculiar. Followed by any number of quotes from Johnny Mac.

So I have to assume Pastor Cooley is talking about someone else, but inquiring minds want to know. TK.

If it was denigrating, or, you know, in any way negative than I was talking about Rick Warren. But I really don't remember. Amazingly enough, as sharp as I am, I don't recall everything that I've ever said all the time.

He said on the email the day before, it's a special honor to hear you mention my name on NCR. I still had my earbuds when I mentioned, when I heard you mention Jean. Well, here I am. Your pronunciation of genre, or Jean, this time was actually pretty good.

And I note that your transposition of or with are is down to about a 46 rate. That's pretty good.

For a Nebraska boy, that's real good. Are.

Oh, all right. Okay, you know what? This is so funny, we're going to just keep reading it. Check this out.

Because it's related to you, Steve. It's going to be Ted's Wonderful Adventures.

That's the name of the show today. We've got to get to the other thing pretty soon. Recently, I got a taste of my own medicine. I had to go to court for a traffic ticket in tiny Vance, Alabama. Well, you know what?

Maybe I can't say this because I've already announced his name. All right. Well, I'm not going to do the rest of the story because it's not that he's a felon. It was just a speeding ticket. But he did say that somehow the police officer looked exactly like Ergen Kanner.

All right, enough of that. Steve, we've got today from the internet. An author outlines ten cliches Christians should never use. Posted on July 11th at The Blaze.

What do you think of this article in general? Do you really read The Blaze? Why would you give me such an article? Well, I go to The Blaze every once in a while. I did not give you this. This is Glenn Beck's website.

And when I want theological insight, I go to Glenn Beck. Is this really his? Yeah, Glenn Beck. I had no idea. Does he pay for these kind of things? Yeah, he started it. Well, it's his sort of drudge thing.

Oh, Blaze.

You know what The Blaze sounds like? It sounds like some wannabe church name that's emergent. Collide, Collision, Blaze. Wouldn't that be a neat youth group name? I think it has to do with Diogenes and the lamp and all that stuff.

We torch any theology that's older than ten years old. Okay, so let's go through this list. And Steve, I have to admit, I have not fully read the article, but that has never stopped us from jumping off into radio land here.

Why “Everything Happens for a Reason” Can Be Cold and Timeless Truths Matter

Phrases, Christian cliches that we should never use. Or maybe they're just cliches that Christians should never use. Some of these we're going to like, some we're not going to like, right?

Yeah, probably so. Okay, do you want to tell me which ones I'm not going to like? Ahead of time? No, just kidding. Okay, I think you're going to like number one. Alright, let's do that one first. And he says you should never use these, so we're going to just screw with him on number one.

Everything happens for a reason.

Everything happens for a reason. Well, when would be a good spot, a good time not to use that phrase? Well, I think like at a funeral,.

At a time of death or something. Well, you know, I just can't understand why he died. Well, everything happens for a reason. That would not be a good time to use that.

And I think that's what the author's going at. What's his name here? Billy Halloween? Billy Halloween, yep. Hallowell. I had you going. Yeah. Billy Halliday. His last name used to be Reformation Day, but they're all Saints Eve and they had to change it.

Of course, we would agree with him regarding a time and place. That's immaturity when you do the wrong thing at the wrong time, at the wrong place. And so, I would never go to someone who lost a loved one and said.

Everything happens for a reason. Or, you know, like after the shooting in Aurora, you know, well, everything... I mean, it's true.

It's just not always very timely. And I think it's probably better received if we were to talk about how God's sovereign over everything later as we were continuing to comfort the people and be involved in their lives.

It is true that God does everything for a reason. There can be tragic things that happen and good things that come out of it. My dad dies of cancer. It took about a year for the cancer to kill him in 1998 and 99.

In 89, rather. And out of that, God used that single event more than anything else to save me. Something good happened from that. And I hope I'll get to see my dad in heaven. I don't know. Humanly speaking, not a very good prognosis.

But God used that in both my life and my brother's life. And so, it did happen for a reason because God has determined everything and His decree stands firm. But I wouldn't have accepted that right then and there so much.

But now, looking back, I can understand with eyes of faith through the providence of God everything happens for a reason.

But in a vacuum, it sounds pretty cold and detached. So we want to weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn.

And Steve, do you know what I do when I'm around people who've lost a loved one? I don't try to give any biblical verses. I don't say Romans 8 .28. All things together for good. No, what I'd end up doing is I just usually grab them and hug them and that's about it.

And cry with them and I'm just there. And we'll get to talking theological issues later. And plus, I'll have my say at the funeral. I'll be able to say whatever I'd like in the proper context in the proper way.

Evangelism, Eternal Destiny, and the New Birth

Number two. Number two, if you died today, do you know where you'd spend the rest of eternity? In Sheboygan.

Well, maybe that's where the Halloween guy would spend his time. But I think they've outlawed Halloween in Sheboygan. They don't want to have any religious holidays. Even Anton LaVey's Satanists, they don't like that.

Steve just snorted there. Tuesday guy snorted. Hey, we need to get some new apparel for No Compromise Radio. Maybe some Tuesday guy shirts. Would it be appropriate for me to wear a shirt that said on the front No Compromise Radio.

TG. Tuesday guy. And then on the back it said Tuesday guy? Yeah. Or that'd be like you. And then we could put numbers. 55. You know, like a San Francisco giant shirt. It's black with some orange. SF on the front, but it's like NCR on the front, so our friend Ted Jean Krasuski.

Krasuski. So, I don't... It may be cliché because it's used so often, but we could then say John 3 16 is cliché because it's been used so often. But this EE question, evangelism explosion question essentially, I think it's good.

It's a diagnostic question. If you were to die today, do you know where you would spend the rest of eternity? And here's what Billy said on The Blaze. No, I don't, and neither do you. So stop asking such a presumptuous question as this that implies you have some insider knowledge that the rest of us don't.

Isn't that interesting, Steve? We do have knowledge because God has been pleased to reveal His mind to us in the form of special revelation called the Scriptures. We do know, and we're concerned about other people.

I don't know if I've ever had totally good motives in my life. Of course, I haven't. But I think my motives are usually pretty good, Steve, when I ask people the question because it's an uncomfortable question to ask.

If you were to die tonight, where do you think you'd go? I think that's out of love and compassion to both the Savior and obedience to His Great Commission and to the people, because we don't want them to go to hell.

Well, it's not presumptuous because John, the Apostle John, writing in the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit, talking about the Gospel of John, why he wrote it, he said these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.

So if you're going to know Jesus Christ through this book and that then you're going to have eternal life in that, well, I don't think it's presumptuous at all. It's basically the issue that John is presenting throughout his Gospel.

How do you know where you're going to spend the rest of eternity? Because you know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Steve, I know you'd agree with me. We.

Live in this world where people are basically so immune to everything because they're caught up in consumeristic hedonism. It's like the Night of the Living Dead. People are alive, but they're walking around like zombies from the next sports thing to the next working for the weekend, etc.

And so to ask these kind of questions of course are uncomfortable, but they are needed for the zombie-like people that are out there in the world, that there's a speed bump that they need to go over.

Heaven, Funerals, and Salvation by Death

I agree. All right. Okay. Number three. He or she, I guess this would again be at a funeral or, you know, after the passing of a loved one. The cliche is he or she is in a better place.

He or she is in a better place. Well, when I was in Santa Cruz this summer, we saw a number of transgendered people. And so I always when I talked about them out of earshot, I didn't point, although I think they want us to point at them.

But out of earshot, I would always say to my kids, I'd call that person a him-her. So this is the he-she. I'd call him.

A him-her. You know, I actually while I was working for the Sheriff's Department, I would interact with some of these people and especially minorities. It is just the saddest thing because they are just they're completely rejected and ostracized from their families because in the Black culture and the Hispanic culture, there is no room for this.

There just is none. And so it's terrible. I mean, whatever these people are going through, whatever's in their heads, their lives are just a complete wreck.

See, ultimate rebellion against God when you say to yourself, God made me this way and I am an image bearer and I have been born female, but I have to reject God and rebel against him. It's super sad.

And I'd see these folks and I would just, you know, my kids would know something's wrong. That's a man and he's got long hair and, you know, he's wearing some push-up bra or something and the kids are like, something's wrong.

So Steve, since this is no compromise radio and we've laughed plenty, so now we could actually, you know, I'm not purposely trying to offend people, but it probably will. You know what I would say to my kids when we would see a transgender person?

I said, you know the feeling that you get when you look at somebody who's transgender? You know that feeling kids? Yeah, Dad. I said, that's the feeling that I get and you should get when you see a woman in the pulpit.

Okay, well address all emails.

And my point was this, of course there can be varying degrees, but this is out of place. This is not right. This is not correct. Of course we are, you know, ontologically equal in the sight of God. See Galatians 3 .28, but we are functionally different and don't forget it and women don't function as men and men don't function as women and women aren't men and men aren't women.

Well, I mean.

There are any number of analogies you could make there. You know, homes where the children run the home. I mean, have you seen that before? I mean things that are just like, I'll give you another analogy.

The old Planet of the Apes movie where Charlton Heston finally realizes what's going on. The apes are running the planet and he's in this cage and he screams at the top of his lungs it's a madhouse and that's exactly right.

When things are upside down, when they're backwards, when they're the opposite of what God created, you know inherently, you know that this is not right. This is not the way things are supposed.

To be. I totally agree. Steve, let's go on. Well, he or she's in a better place. Talk to me a little bit more about that. Certainly if they're a Christian person with a strong Christian testimony, we would say, do you know what?

Absent from the body,.

Present with the Lord. We'd say that. He says here, this may or may not be true. Again, we have no real way of knowing. We may believe it, but to speak with such authority about something we don't actually know is arrogant.

You know, this just strikes me as being very, what's the word? Postmodern. Postmodern, yeah. Who are you to say? Listen, I've been to a few, there's nothing better in my mind. That's it. It's a madhouse.

Yeah. Charlton Heston dead, even though dead he speaketh. It is, when you're at a Christian funeral, I think there's nothing better. It really is a celebration of a life, you know, well-lived and now lived in the presence of Christ forever, and so there is no sorrow there.

But, you know, what the world wants to do is say, everybody who dies instantly gets wings. I mean, they become a little angel, you know, no matter what they were like.

When we stood around my mother's body, or Grandma Evie's body, and we were talking to the kids, and we were crying, and we were singing songs, and we were reminiscing about, you know, our times together on the earth, we knew that God had saved both my mother and saved Grandma Evie, and they both had a track record of Christian faithfulness, and evangelism, and stewardship, the list goes on.

And that was a comfort to me. She, in both particular cases, she was in a better place. But I'm with you. We go to these unbelieving funerals, and, well, the people there are unbelieving, and the person was an unbeliever until the last minute.

Maybe they were changed, but maybe they weren't. And their default is, he's in a better place now. It's... Salvation by death. There's no... Yeah, it's exactly right. There's no difference between that and, you know, I'm just going to just take a Quaalude to get through the service, because the Quaalude will numb me and relax me while I'm there.

And so this will relax me, too, because I'm just like that guy in the casket, and if he's in a better place, I'll be in a better place, and I can't... I don't want to abstractly think, if this happened to him, this is going to happen to me, and the list goes on.

Hell is a terrifying concept, and it's one that we need to consider. This is in a better place. For most people, no one goes to hell.

Hitler, maybe. Hitler, maybe. Mao, Stalin, Paul Potts, but everybody else... Charles Manson, you know, when he dies. I guess he's not dead yet. Number four. Can I share a little bit about my faith with you?

Well, first of all, can I tell you my first objection? I can't share my faith. Faith is not, you know... People talk about it subjectively, but it's really not subjective at all. It's objective. You know, I believe in a set of facts, but I don't just intellectually believe them.

I've been convicted of them. I believe them in my heart and my soul, but when people say, can I share my faith, I just say, here, give me a little bit of yours, and you can have a little bit of mine, and we'll all share our faith.

See, I don't like that part as well, Steve. The sharing versus proclamation versus a declaration versus a trumpeting kind of preaching thing. But that's our society today. We want to share, and that means then you get to share your experiences, and I don't like that part.

But where the guy's wrong is we have a mandate from Christ Jesus Himself to go preach the Gospel, and that's how people are saved. So we preach so they believe. Faith comes by hearing... Faith comes through hearing a message about Christ Jesus, and so we're going to preach, and if this guy doesn't like it, and he doesn't want the marketplace to be filled with Christians who saturate the room with.

Conviction, then I don't know what to tell him. Here's what he says, you know, too often Christians presume we have something everyone else needs. Yeah. I mean, how dare we evangelize, right? And he goes on to say down here at the bottom, he says, when your personal agenda is more important than the humanity of the person you're talking to, most people can sense the opportunism from a mile away.

Opportunism. Like me trying to proclaim the truth so that the person will be converted by an act of God. That's opportunism. What exactly am I hoping to gain? A notch of my Bible? You know, a new attender at the church?

I am looking out for that person's welfare. I don't want them to go to hell.

How is that opportunistic? And I'm quite confident that God likes us to talk about how great His Son is in His redemptive work at Calvary. Amen. Alright, let's see. We're never going to make this, so we might have to go faster.

Number five, you should come to church with me on Sunday. Or you should not. Number six. I'm all for inviting people to church, but our old saying is, you should preach the gospel to them first before you invite them to church.

That's what you should do. Number six. Did you want to make any comments, Steve? No. Have you asked Jesus into your heart?

I just got done blasting that. I'm preaching through John, and it's just amazing. John's talking to Nicodemus, and instead of saying all the things that the modern church says, you know, right where you are, Nicodemus, I just want you to close your eyes, bow your head, and receive me into your heart.

Nicodemus, just repeat this prayer after me, and if you mean it from your heart, then you're saved. He doesn't do any of that. What is he telling me? He tells me he must be born again. He tells him that it's not anything that he can do.

It's an act of the Holy Spirit to regenerate him. Well, I just don't think that would fly in most churches these days. That one I have to agree with.

You should ask Jesus into your heart. Well, you know what? I think we should extend this into the next time after some preliminary comments. We don't have to rush through. Steve, on this page of the blaze, and what you should not say are Christian cliches, it's got a picture of Jesus, and then it's got a picture of his heart there.

I wonder if this has anything to do with Roman Catholic immaculate bleeding heart of Jesus and Mary, and you go in this dollar store and there's all those candles there with the bleeding heart stuff. Is this related in any way?

Because the picture seems like it must be, because it's right above the, ask Jesus into your heart.

I don't know, but that's a remarkably European and rather unmasculine looking Jesus. Talking about a him-her. Yeah. I mean, I think Jesus is probably a little bit rougher looking than this. A little bit rougher.

I think his hands would probably crush us, you know, so he worked. That's what he did. Well, this particular.

Heart that Jesus has, it has, I think, a crown of thorns wrapped around his heart with like a.

Fire on top of it. Oh yeah, I see that, yeah.

What is that? What's the fire on top?

What would that mean? I don't know. Here's I think we can.

Solve the problem. Ted, would you please run an SPSS analysis on the blazed Jesus androgynous heart glow worm picture? And then we would actually know what this means. Oh boy. It does say here, as many times as I've heard this, I still really don't know what it means.

It's fascinating that an unbeliever allegedly doesn't know what this means. Why my heart? Why not my liver or my kidneys? This also makes Christianity sound like a purely emotional experience, rather than a lifelong practice that can never entirely be realized.

Well, he's got a wrong view of Christianity. Yeah, practice. But I do like it that he asked some of these questions, and we could respond. You want to write us with any negative comments? That's Steve at No Compromise Radio.

Negative. Mike. Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. See you. No Compromise Radio.

With Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

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

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE its staff or management.