Luke Abendroth Ministry (Part 2)

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 Avendroth.

Luke Avendroth Returns for the Third Interview

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry men. It's Mike Avendroth. And for interview number three, three and final, Luke Avendroth, welcome back to the studio of No Compromise Radio. Thank you. It's a pretty large studio, isn't it?

Yeah, it's huge. A lot of books. It's pretty. Sometimes we've had some visitors to Bethlehem Bible Church. I don't know if I told you the story, Luke, and they said, oh, we listen to No Compromise Radio and we're here from Ohio.

And then I say, oh, do you want to come into the studio? And then I bring him in, they're like, that's it?

Yeah, well, you got some stuff strewn around here.

Yeah, there's a variety of things, the message Bible for the message moment. I think maybe we should have a little audition between you and Pastor Steve, the Tuesday guy, and then we can figure out who should be on the Tuesday shows.

You could, Usurp, Usurp, Usurp, Usurp, Usurp. U-S-U-R-P. Thank you. Luke, tell us a little bit about yourself. You're at what college, what year, what are you studying?

I'm a sophomore at the Master's College. I just switched my major from political studies to business and just going to Grace Community Church and I'm excited to get, I'll be back in about a week. So do you think it'd be hard to come back to the studio every Tuesday, but if you've got the money.

Honey, I got the time, right? Little Hank Williams Senior. I think Junior probably saying that too.

You don't listen to much country, do you? Roger Miller, King of the Road. Oh, nice. Trailers for Sailor Rain. That's right. So Luke, tell us about, what do you like to do? You like to surf? Why do you like surfing?

That's a good question. I think, you know, mom took me surfing early on. I remember she would take, make me, force me to wake up early, five or six in the summers from grandma's house and crying, didn't want to go.

She was crying or you were crying? We both. No, I'm just kidding. We both. No, just me. So, and then she'd take me out surfing and, you know, just forced me to go and then I started to love it and get into it.

And then as an unbeliever, just really wanted to surf all I wanted to do. And then still, I love to surf. It's a great, it's fun to be out in nature. It's nothing like nothing else. Not like skateboarding or snowboarding because it's so different every time.

You're just totally dependent on the waves and when they come in and when they don't. So it's a lot of fun.

Luke, I think Kim had some steadfastness when it comes to, okay, ice skating, snow skiing, surfing. When you have four children, by the time you get all their skates on, by the time you get, you know, all the surfboards down to the beach, by the time you get all the skis on, then it's already, you know, then one of the kids is already ready to quit and it's hard to do, but the payoff is there.

That's right. Everybody carries their own board.

Everybody does their own stuff. I can't tell you all the boards, but the surfboards. You a long boarder or a short boarder? I do both, but probably better at longboarding.

All right, and where do you like to surf the most?

The Hook in Santa Cruz, Pleasure Point, just all over Santa Cruz is where we live in the summer. I love surfing there. Know people out in the water and good waves. But I surf down south in Ventura and stuff when I'm at school.

So try to surf before the 9 .35 class. You got to get up at like five, so it's an hour drive. Drive, surf for a little bit, come back, go to class all wet.

Worship, Laziness, and the Pull of Surfing

Why is there such a drug culture associated with surfing? I mean, you don't have to be into drugs to surf, but why does it seem like that is such a drug life, such a lazy man's life if you're not careful?

I think it just sucks you in just like anything else. You got to find something to worship. So if it's going to be surfing, then you got something to do or waves. It's a lot of fun. You could easily get sucked into it and waste too much time.

But I think it's something, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question, but.

Yeah, I think you answered it. When it comes to everybody's got to worship something. I remember when you and I went to London, we saw a lot of Churchill stuff. Then we flew down to South Africa where I was teaching.

And we were trying to figure out how to get you to surf there. And we had Neil Anderson, not the spiritual warfare guy, but a different Neil Anderson take us all around, bad waves. And then one time we found some waves.

And where was that place? It starts with an M.

Oh, oh. Do you remember? I remember, but I can't remember right now.

And so in South Africa, because there's so many sharks, they have flags up that would tell you things and they have spotters. And if there's no spotters, because it's too windy to spot the sharks, they put a certain black shark up or black flag.

I don't know what it is, black circle. And that was the kind of day it was when we were there and you went out surfing when there are no spotters. Were you afraid?

I think I was a little afraid, but you know what? You forget once you're out there and it's okay. That's right.

Why College Students Must Serve in a Local Church

All right, let's talk about some spiritual things. Why do you think young people, college age people, whether it's at Master's College, when they go to Placerita or Grace Church or wherever they go, or people here, they're at WPI here in Worcester, and then they come to Bethlehem Bible Church.

It's hard for young people then to get involved in a local church. And we know what the Bible teaches about getting involved and serving in the context of a local church. Why is that so hard to do? For young people?

I mean, let's just, I mean, I don't know.

Maybe you're just lazy. Probably, that's probably a good answer for me. I can speak from personal experience, but you literally, you have absolutely no excuse, especially in college to not be involved in church and totally, totally involved.

I just actually, one of the cool opportunities that I had to teach while I've been here was to the high school Sunday school. And I did a first Corinthians chapter seven talking about marriage and singleness, but mostly singleness and how it's just such an opportunity where when you're married and you have a wife and kids, you're gonna worry about worldly things.

But when you're single, this is a time to secure, like the passage says, to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord. It's not a time to twiddle your thumbs and mess around and whatever. This is an important time where we need to be, a single people need to be serving and sold out and just, we don't have anything else to worry about.

So if the question is, why is it so hard? It's not hard. It's why are people lazy? Too lazy probably is a better question or too scared or whatever it is. I can say from personal experience.

Sometimes people say, well, I'm getting my Bible teaching at chapel. There are Bible studies and other things. And so Sunday worship services aren't as important to me. And therefore, then if that's not important, how can ministry in a local church be important?

That's probably a factor too.

Yeah, well, you know what, that's what Jesus said, talking about to the apostles, said to Peter, upon this rock, I will build my chapel. You know, the church is the only, is the way in the New Testament that we are supposed to learn and grow and serve and have fellowship.

So you can say all you want and make things up. Well, I get my Bible teaching elsewhere, but then your authority is now your own opinion and not the Bible.

Look, I'm sure I'll miss some people and leave a few folks out. But when I think of some young 20-year-old students that went to WPI, Worcester Polytechnic Institute here in Worcester, and then would come to Bethlehem Bible Church and get involved as members serving, ministering here when the doors were open, even as college students at a difficult college.

I think of Wesley Blackstone, Andrew Smith, Anitra. I forgot Anitra's name before, her maiden name before she married Andrew. But those are the kinds of people that I think, that's what you're supposed to do.

You're in college and you're a Christian. Aren't you supposed to be involved.

In the life of the local church? Yeah, and I think I blew it in that regard. In the first, for my first year at master's, I would just go to grace and not do anything and just kind of take up space in the pew.

But I'm really excited to get back to grace and try to serve as much as I can. So it's gonna be exciting. It's always good to go back to grace.

Because I think the thing short of grace would be maybe mercy or then judgment. If you ever leave grace. Judgment Bible Church. They probably have them, which just makes me think a train of consciousness thought, what about churches, Luke, that just have these funky names?

Verve, Splash, I know, Splash, Rejuve, Region, yeah, Real Life. Well, you know what? That's the reason.

Well, I'll tell you the reason for real life. I know that one for sure, because every other church is not about real life. It's just about, yeah, exactly. So they just wanna make sure that that's clear.

Foe existence.

Bible Reading Plans and Evangelism Without Apologetic Baggage

Tell me what you like to read. I know you're an avid Bible reader. Tell us about your plan for Bible reading and then what else do you like to read?

So what John MacArthur recommends to do in the Bible reading, which I like trying to do right now, is to pick a book, if it's a shorter book, and then to read that book every day of the month for one month.

And then for larger books, like right now I'm going through 1 Corinthians, to split that up into, let's say, four chapters. So I'm reading four chapters every month. I read four chapters of 1 Corinthians every day.

So November, I guess I did one to four. December, I did five to chapter five, chapter eight. And then now I'm reading through chapters nine through 12. So I'm reading through those every day. And then I usually read Psalms and Proverbs.

And then what you recommended, since I've been here, was to try to read 10 chapters of the Bible today. So I think when I go back to masters, I'm gonna try to work in some reading through one gospel every week.

And that will probably get to my 10 chapters a day.

Luke, what did you tell me? If you read 20 chapters of the Bible per day, just on simple averages, how soon can you get through the entire Bible?

20, I think it's 20, might be two months. 20, 30 chapters, I think you can read it in one month. Because I think there's like 1 ,180 chapters in the Bible or something. So whoever's good at math can figure that out.

Maybe those WPI students might be good at math. Right, yeah, we need them here. How about evangelism on campus? I know you like to go for outreach. What if you wanna go evangelize and you don't know about rock strata, carbon dating, archeological evidence, you've never been to Israel before?

I know you have been. But how do you evangelize if you don't have all these evidences down? Is there a strategy that you have?

I think it comes down to whether you believe the Bible or not. So if the Bible says in Romans 1 that everybody knows in their heart that there's a God, you either can say, well, obviously since there are atheists, the Bible is wrong in that regard.

And so I need to somehow convince people that there's a God before I preach the gospel of them. But I think if you really believe what the Bible says, that everyone in their heart, they know that there's a God.

I mean, that could be twisted and they can move farther along into, I mean, their reprobate mind or whatever. But do you believe that? And if you do, then you will preach the gospel of them. And that is the gospel that Jesus came down to this earth because for sinners, because we're all sinners, because God's holy and perfect and just, and he can have no fellowship with sin.

And sinners have broken all of his laws by breaking one of them. James 2, chapter 10, James 2, verse 10 says, for whosoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.

We've all, we can have no fellowship with God because we're not holy and pure as he is. And so Jesus came down to this earth, lived a perfect life that we could never live and then died on the cross for our sins.

And then to prove that everything he said and what he did was true and to prove that his sacrifice was acceptable, he rose again from the dead on the third day. And if we put our trust in him and repent, then we can receive salvation and all of his perfect life will be put into our account and all of our sins will be put to his account on the cross.

And I think that's the gospel and that's all we need to tell people. And of course, if you have a relationship with somebody, I had the opportunity working with someone this summer that was not a believer, to preach the gospel to them early on in the summer.

And then I work with them basically every day. And then we've talked about all kinds of things and say, well, isn't this interesting how this backs up the Bible? And I think that's helpful and it's helpful for believers to be strengthened in their faith by let's say classical apologetics or evidentialism.

But I really think it comes down to, do you believe that people know there's a God in their heart? And if you do, and you believe that people are dead in their trespasses and sins, then only God can save them.

So, and then your only responsibility is to preach the gospel. And that takes a weight off your shoulders, I think.

Look, I like that style where you just preach the gospel up front. And then if you wanna talk about other issues that are interesting to them, we don't disregard them as people or these things aren't important because they don't fit within our presuppositional framework.

No, let's talk about it later. But now that you know what the gospel is, now I'm free to be able to say everything else versus I'm slowly building up

Because what if I convince you that there's God? There's a God. And then now you're a deist, which everybody knows. There's a God anyways, but let's say that they didn't. And then you die and you go straight to hell.

So it doesn't help you out very much.

Right, well, what I like, Luke, is when we say to ourself, the gospel is the gospel. It's good news about this historical fact that has theological ramifications. And if I meet somebody who's Jewish or Gentile or male or female or old or young or whatever else, I can just give them the same gospel.

I mean, to Mormons or Muslims, I say the same thing. Right, right. All right, let's talk about other things that happen in the life of a college student. Tell us about the chapels there and some of the chapel speakers and who would be one of your favorite chapel speakers?

Obviously, my pastor, John MacArthur is What do you mean? I'm your pastor. No, no, no. Yeah, obviously, I like John's teaching a lot and it's really great. His messages, I like a lot. And then we have all kinds of speakers come.

We have random people. Mark Dever came last year. Just, I can't, on the top of my head, Alistair Begg comes. Ligon Duncan is going to be there for our conference in a week or so. We have a truth and lie mandatory conference right before spring semester starts.

So Ligon Duncan, Nathan Boussinesq, Grace Community Church guy, all kinds of people. H .B. Charles, Al Mohler. I think Al Mohler's come before when I've been there. Just all kinds of different people come and preach.

Sinclair Ferguson, all kinds of people. So it's really a great time. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we have mandatory chapel and it's an awesome time to just hear God's word and be encouraged and worship together with the college.

So I love chapel and I think it's a great time. It's just one of the important things is like we were talking about earlier. You can't let chapel replace church. So I think that's important.

The Humanity of Christ and the Danger of Denying It

Luke, I was listening to Sinclair Ferguson this morning and he was talking about Luke chapter two, verse 52 and the humanity of Jesus and how to be a real representative, he had to be fully human. And he was talking about, and Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

And he said he was wiser at 13 than he was 12. That's wisdom. He was taller at 13 than he was at 12. That's stature. In favor of man, his parents appreciated his obedience. More at 13 than 12. And then he said, and in favor with God.

And how can you be more in favor with God? And then he talked about Philippians two and obedience and obedience to death, even death on the cross. And how as a real human, when Jesus was tempted, God didn't say, oh, let's inject you with some more divinity to bolster you against this temptation because then it wouldn't have been a real temptation.

It would have been a real human as a representative. And so when I hear that Masters College has the Sinclair Ferguson's there to speak, I just think, man, that's awesome. I wish I could go back to college again.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's interesting what you're just talking about where people deny the humanity of Christ or the deity of Christ and all these different heresies and stuff. And that's another thing I encountered in Israel is just like wacko people who will jump all over you.

And this is, I mean, I don't know how I'm thinking of this, but it's just interesting to see how people are so, even Christians and I can be influenced by this, are so hesitant to say things that are considered hateful or intolerant where we really need to just be upfront, especially about the nature of Christ and who he is.

This past semester, people were getting all over me because I was saying that if I think that 1 John talks about if you deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, I think that's talking about Jesus's humanity, then that's the spirit of the Antichrist.

And I mean, you can, I think you would agree with that, but it's just, it's, and people were, oh, well, how can you think that, that that's Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? You know, how can you think that all these people aren't saved?

And I think it's, I don't know what churches believe that, but it's just, people will just get all over you. Like somehow, if you decide that these people are going to heaven, they're gonna change, it's gonna change their eternal destination.

So I just, a lot of that, it's just, it's too bad how much we're influenced by our culture of political correctness and things like that.

Biblical Boldness, Love, and the Offense of the Cross

Luke, we see pendulum swings all the time and you either overdo something or you underdo something. And that's just the nature of how sin affects people, both unbelievers and believers. And, you know, for years, I would say this is a man-dominated culture and man-centered culture, a man versus woman, that is, and, you know, you've got women's rights and all these other things.

And I'm sure men, you know, overdid it and they, you know, exacerbated the problem. But now it seems like we're on the other side of the pendulum where there's feminism everywhere. And even the way we talk to people, I have to say to folks sometimes, I don't wanna be rude or crude, but I'm not a woman.

And so I speak more directly. I speak more confrontationally. It seems to me, and you can give me your opinion, Luke, but if I say what you just said from 1 John 4, every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

And interesting, it says Jesus Christ, putting the humanity there, Jesus's name before his title of Messiah. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And you just make those statements.

Well, you know, you need to nuance it better and you need to talk this way a little bit more. I just don't think that's the way John the Baptist, Ezekiel, Jesus, Paul, Peter, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John MacArthur, anybody like that, but that's not the way men talk.

And it's not an issue of what's unloving or not. It's unloving to try to be too ashamed of the gospel and ashamed of what the Bible says, that it's so exclusive that it excludes these people. It's an issue of, I love these people enough to call them out and tell the other people in the church about their problems so that they will preach the gospel to them.

And so it's an issue of love, real compassion. People say, oh, we need to be, I was just listening to John MacArthur's sermon, we will not bow. People need to be compassionate to people going through gender transition.

John basically says it doesn't, which doesn't exist. I mean, you can't transition to your gender, no matter what you mutilate yourself, how you mutilate yourself. But of course we need to be compassionate to these people, but the compassion that we have comes in preaching the gospel.

We can't have this idea of love and compassion that's influenced by the world's idea of love and compassion. Love and compassion is to tell them that they're a sinner and without Jesus Christ and his perfect work, substitutionary work on the cross, they're going straight to hell for eternity.

That's what's loving, not this whole, I'm going to let you live the way you want and end up in hell, or you have to be friends with you first before I tell you this news.

It's unbelievable. Luke, it seems to me that if you say to yourself, if love defined by the culture is, I don't want to offend you or upset you or anything else, taken to its logical extreme, I can't evangelize anyone because the cross is offensive.

You look at cross as folly to those that are perishing, 1 Corinthians 1 and then chapter two, that's the only cross, the only Christ that Paul preached, the crucified one, the offensive one. How do I love somebody if love is, well, I just don't want to upset the apple cart, when real love is I want what's best for you and what's best for you is to be reconciled to God.

Yeah, and interestingly, there's an atheist, I forget his name. Was it Penn something? What's his name? The magician. Penn Teller. Yeah, he says, I've seen a quote by him where he does not have any respect for Christians that will not come up and what he says, try to proselytize him, because that means that they're content with him going straight to hell when he dies.

And even though he's an atheist, he doesn't believe hell exists, or he says he's an atheist. He at least sees the point of view that we should have, even a self-proclaimed atheist can say, you know what, I have no respect for people that don't care enough about my eternal destination.

So.

Luke, I don't think you know this, but in 19, I believe 89, your mom and I were newlyweds and I wanted to surprise her for a date night. And I got tickets, it was at the front row to see Penn and Teller in Hollywood.

And I got pulled up on the stage for a demonstration.

What was the band that you got pulled up on the stage for to see, they wanted you to sing the song?

That was a reggae band, Oswad. Oswad. Uh-huh, and I was dancing on stage with your mom. I didn't like to dance, I don't wanna be on stage, but I was trying to win the girl. I think we were dating. It's worth it.

Best things happen while you're dancing.

The best things happen while you're dancing. That's so funny.

When we went to the Johansons as a family and they had their family, we watched White Christmas and I just was watching everybody sing along to all the songs. I'm gonna wash my hair with snow. All right, let's see what else we wanna talk about.

Goals for Ministry, Work, and Future Service

Any question you wanna ask me, Luke, on national radio?

Any question that I wanna ask on national radio?

Yeah, anything you've been wanting to know or you want everybody else to know? Something about my old Lutheran Bible or something? You found that the other day, one of my first Bibles as a Lutheran, we were going through the pages of it.

I'm gonna use that as an illustration on the show soon.

That's got a little pronunciation help, so you need that one. I definitely.

The English pronunciation. Absolutely. Tell us about goals, what would be your goal? I know the Lord's sovereign, but what are some of the things you're gonna strive toward in terms of the future and work, ministry, marriage?

Probably just increasing commitment to the Lord and of course, I think that should be every Christian's goal and just more passion in my time in the world and prayer and ministry. So, of course, those things generally and then I just would like to be able to serve in whatever capacity that

Serve or serve? Both. Both. Both. You just gotta say it a certain way so it encompasses both of those. But, or serve through surfing. But I just would like to be able to, like my dad said, be able to teach if I had to, but just serve in whatever capacity that is and then have a job and things like that.

So, I'm not really sure what the Lord has for me in the future, but whatever that is, I wanna be willing and to go anywhere or do anything and just be able to serve him however I can and then, of course, I have other goals and stuff to maybe learn how to fight.

Going to Krav Maga tonight. Yeah, that's exactly right. Israeli martial arts and so, there's little things, but more importantly, of course.

Well, if you have a question for Luke, you can write me at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Maybe you have a young high school son or daughter and they'd like to know a little bit more about the Master's College, you can write me and I'll forward it to Luke at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

If you happen to make it to the Master's College and have a tour of the campus and you have Luke, make sure you greet him on my behalf and tell me if he's doing anything bad. I want you to go check out his dorm room, make sure it's clean.

I need to have some more spies at the Master's College. How's that work? Sure. Sure. Luke, thanks very much for being on the show. We didn't script any of these questions. We just sat down. I can already see your growth from last year to this year, so can't wait till next year.

I know. I know. Info at nocompromiseradio .com. You can also pick up the book that stemmed out of conversations just like this between Luke and I, Sexual Fidelity, No Compromise, and you can order that on the website.

God bless 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 six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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