Mike interviews Mr. Irish Calvinist - Erik Raymond

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. We're here to take your calls as well. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

This is your host, Mike Abendroth, and today we have a special guest, but before I get to my special guest, just two things of note.

We have a concert at the church, Bethlehem Bible Church, Friday, December 4th, and it's a

Christmas concert with all kinds of great music, the gospel preached, kids bell choir,

I don't know, whatever you want, we probably have. It's a good anti -postmodern concert. It's December 4th, 7 p .m.

You need tickets to get in, so just call the church, 508 -835 -3400.

We'd love to have you if you live in the Worcester area as a guest to come to Bethlehem Bible Church for a Christmas concert.

Maybe you have an unbelieving friend or grandparent and you want to bring them, that would be wonderful. And then item two, regarding these book burning contests, if you have a book that you'd like to burn,

I'd like to have the picture of the book and you before you burn it, and then what the picture of the book looks like after you burn it, and you send it in, and the winner,

December 31st is the end of the contest. The winner gets a bag of books that are good books, five books here from No Compromise Radio ministry, and then you can read those.

So what I need is an email with a picture before what the book looked like with you, and the picture after you've burned the book, and we'll see what we can generate here at No Compromise Radio ministry.

Well, on the line I have with me my friend and co -labor in the ministry, Eric Raymond.

He is from Massachusetts originally, and is the author and inventor, and I don't know what else you are,

Eric, of irishcalvinist .com, but welcome to the program, Eric Raymond. Hey, Mike, how you doing?

Thanks a lot for having me. You know, I want you to talk a little bit, Eric, and I want everybody to hear the homegrown

Worcester slash Lemonster accent, and I want you to correct me on air how I don't pronounce

Worcester properly. Yeah, I don't know how you, you kind of pronounce it with that Worcester thing going on.

I do. You gotta, just with them. You gotta be missional,

Mike, come on. Well, you know, I've got a problem. You're from Lemonster? Yeah. When people, when charismatics around Worcester cast demons out, you know, demons can't be everywhere, so you've cast them out of your church in West Boylston, you gotta cast them someplace.

I usually cast them to Lemonster. That makes sense. I've heard, can anything good come out of Lemonster? Well, you have the plastic factory there, right?

The plastic museum? Yeah. Eric, tell - Tim's Diner, too. I've been telling you for years you gotta go see

Well, I think I just might. Maybe the people at Tim's Diner are gonna comp me since they hear this on the radio. Hey, Eric, tell us briefly your background in Roman Catholicism and how

God saved you and then how you're in the gospel ministry now. Sure. Yeah, I grew up, like you said, in Lemonster, and, you know,

Catholic kid, going to Catholic churches, St. Cecilia's, Holy Mary, I mean, a whole family, and just growing up a typical

New England Catholic kid, really wasn't into it, just kind of did the, went through the motions and did that.

It really didn't have a framework of understanding biblical truth, anything with the narrative of the

Bible, just a lot of facts. It was really quite confusing, honestly. I remember believing in reincarnation and evolution and all kinds of other stuff.

So, you know, grow up, and eventually I joined the Air Force, left Massachusetts, got married, you know, really going through this quite fast here, but started having a family, and I'm in the

Air Force, and, you know, it's becoming evident that I need to grow up and be a man, but at the same time,

I'm just besieged by guilt and just uneasiness. You know,

I really identify quite a bit with Christian and Pilgrim's Progress, just that burden of guilt upon my back and the uncertainty of judgment, and, you know, really, it's not comforting me at all at night to go to bed and hope that there's no

God. I'm scared to go to sleep, because if I die when I sleep and then face God, well, this is quite uncomfortable, and it led into a period of, you know,

I would just call it depression. You know, I'm just completely dependent upon myself, seeing myself as worthless and unable to get out of this plight.

And, you know, I go to the work in the Air Force, and I grab this guy that I used to make fun of.

You know, I was that guy that mocked the Christians, made fun of them. I go up to him, I said, man, you need to help me. I need some answers.

And I explained him my problem, and he said, oh, I know the answer. It's, you've got a sin issue.

And he opened up his Bible. He carried it in his BDU pants, his military pants, opened it up, and just, you know, showed me through the

Book of Romans the issue of my sin, the issue of what Christ has done, the issue of how you could be forgiven by turning from sin and trusting in the personal work of Jesus, and that you could be forgiven.

And I just remember at one point in that conversation just grabbing him by his arm and saying, it is not that easy.

You've got to be kidding me. And he, all of my sin is charged to Christ. He said, that's the gospel.

And I was just blown away. And I had to go and read the Bible and try to figure this stuff out. And I'm asking him questions like, so is

Christ his last name? You know, and I don't understand any of these two testaments in the Bible. Who's Abraham?

Who's Paul? What's going on? Why does Paul change his name? Do I need to shave my head? You know, I had all these issues. I can't figure anything out.

And thankfully, he was a good Christian brother and showed me some things. And it was great.

You know, shortly thereafter, we're going to churches and learning. And I think God gives to me to teach and preach.

And that became evident early on. And I think God led me to Omaha Bible Church, where I met up with your brother,

Pat, and just a great guy that has poured into me and helped train me for the ministry of the gospel and came on staff here at Omaha Bible Church back in 2005.

It's about 10 years in between conversion and coming on staff at OBC. And so now you're the, what's your actual title?

You're the preaching pastor at Omaha Bible Church South Campus, or how does that work? You got it, yeah. Yeah, the South Campus is a campus of OBC where the goal is to be a church plant.

So it is under the same altar board right now. We meet down in Bellevue, which is about 20 miles south of the

North Campus. And we meet there on Sunday morning, regular Sunday service. I preach, I have a ministry down there, and we come together on Sunday nights and other events.

And if people want to have good preaching with a Lemonster accent, what's the website at Omaha Bible Church that they can go to to listen to some of your sermons?

Yeah, that's funny. They can go to omahabiblechurch .org, just forward slash South. And that takes us, we share the same domain.

Hey, Eric, how strange is it? You grew up in Lemonster, and now you're preaching in Omaha, and I grew up in Omaha, and I'm basically preaching in Lemonster.

It's hilarious. You know, it's funny. I don't live too far from where you grew up, and I go running and run through Tomahawk area, you know, where you grew up, and it's just hilarious.

Tell us a little bit about your website, Irish Calvinist. Is it com or .com or .org?

Yeah, it's .com. .com. And many times, Eric, you'll talk about the glories of Christ and Christ's majesty and wanting to increase the fame of Christ.

Is there a relationship between your desire to do that and your understanding of what

God saved you from your wretchedness and your sin and from God's wrath himself?

Yeah, absolutely. The website, you know, it's more, you know, selfishly for me to write and interact with things.

And then, you know, as things happen and grow, other people get a whiff of it, and they enjoy reading it, you know, because there's a kindred spirit, obviously, in the church.

So people, you know, read it and find those articles helpful. My main thing, as you mentioned, you have the glory of Christ, beholding that.

And that really comes from, you know, the concept of 2 Corinthians 3, where it talks about that we behold the glory of the

Lord, we're being transformed into that same image from one degree of glory to another. And that comes from the Lord who is the

Spirit. And that burden, really, to promote and enjoy the glory of Christ, that I need to strip the idols out of my own hands, and I need to constantly have my mind directed to the glory and greatness of Jesus Christ, and to look away from myself, to smash the mirror, to stop meditating and fantasizing about my own glory and greatness, and to find myself fixated upon the glory and greatness of Jesus.

And in doing that, you preach the gospel to yourself, you reveal idols, and you have the blessed hope of the second coming, and spending time eternally with Christ.

What's the most controversial thing that you've written based on feedback that you received? Most controversial, well...

Hey, this is no compromised radio. You know, the funny thing is, all time, the all time most controversial post,

I didn't even write it. I'm just, the Don Kingford of the Mike Tyson, that's your brother, he wrote an article on Rob Bell.

And I posted that, and that is still, I mean, it's just probably the number one most read, you know, you

Google Rob Bell controversy, and that comes up. So, you know, Pat wrote a stinging review of Velvet Elvis, and it went out there.

I'd say that's probably, you know, stuff on Joel Osteen, gets a lot of rise, you know, the

Rick Warren stuff, Immersion stuff, things that, you know, you write on, you know, some of the stuff you cover on your show, you know, whether it's music or alcohol, things like that.

It tends to get the dander up a little bit in some legalistic folks, so, you know. Well, when

I read your information, I think you're an excellent writer, and you write on excellent subjects, which is helpful.

And so what happens is, when I'm reading something about goodness and moralism, and why these things just don't help us,

I think that just resonates with people. Why do you think Christianity in general is so desirous to grab hold of what

I call it's good to be good and it's nice to be nice? There's two different religions, the gospel of grace and the gospel of goodness, and you write about that a lot.

Tell me why. Yeah, I think that's human nature. I mean, that's part of the fall.

You know, we're convinced of our own goodness, and we are, as Christians, trying to convince ourselves of depravity and the greatness of Christ, His goodness.

And that's the struggle, and the human heart wants to grab onto something of value and de -emphasize the value of Christ.

And it is frustrating. It's frustrating in my own life. It's frustrating in the church. It's frustrating in Christianity abroad.

But, you know, that just tells you you got work to do, right, whether it's writing on a blog or personally your own heart with the

Word, being reminded of what is true, or in a local church or wherever you happen to be.

I think Pat has told me stories where you have ministered together overseas and fellow comrades in the ministries, and the ministry has basically just preached moralistic, be -good, non -gospel messages.

Yeah, that's really frustrating. We've seen that, and Pat and I, you know, sitting next to each other, punching each other in the arm and then doing that.

It's frustrating because, you know, then what oftentimes happens is you reduce the Old Testament to just a handbook of moral rules for you to do to be good and try harder, do good, work hard, or be better, and you eliminate, ultimately, you eliminate

Jesus from the equation, and it just becomes a book of moral rules. And, you know, that's not Christianity.

That's moral anity. That is not what the gospel is. The gospel is what

Jesus Christ has done for us because we can't do what God has called us to do.

So, in effect, what you end up doing is giving the church law and telling them to do, do, do, do, do, which is actually can't save.

You can't console. All it does is inflate egos or bring guilt, and then you run back to yourself to atone for your own sin.

Now, all of a sudden, we're some type of Christianity, Hindu, Roman Catholicism, blended religion that doesn't do anything to earn and keep

God's favor, and that really undermines the whole thing. Moral anity. I'm gonna steal that from you.

That is excellent. And it's yours. That's a good book title. Speaking of Old Testament books,

Eric, you've been preaching through Leviticus, and I want, I don't know anybody who's preached through Leviticus yet.

I know I want to and need to, but tell the listeners on WV &E 760 radio why

Leviticus is such a wild, life -changing book for the Christian today and why they ought to read it and how they ought to read it.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, in terms of why we picked it, why I picked it,

I was, we finished Colossians first at South Campus, and I just sat back and thought, okay,

I want to preach an Old Testament book. And then, you know, with the pre -understanding of we want to put the glory of Christ in front of myself and the congregation, what's the bloodiest book in the

Bible? Because I think that would be the most Christocentric book. So I thought

Leviticus. So I started reading it and working on it. Hold on, let's just stop right there for a second. What's the bloodiest book?

Let's go into that a little bit more. Just, let's pick the bloodiest book. Well, I mean, you know, blood,

I think point, you know, thinking that it ultimately points to Jesus. So it's going to exalt Him. I mean,

I don't have a penchant for violence or, you know, anything like that. I mean, from a biblical perspective, it's going to point forward to Jesus Christ.

You know, you read Luke 24, when Jesus explains to them all the things in the law and the prophets concerning Himself and called them slow of heart for not believing those things.

And first Peter, that they were predicting the sufferings and the glories of Christ. You know, so the

Old Testament ultimately points to Jesus. He fulfills these things. Moses spoke of Jesus, John 5.

So going into Leviticus, it was just one of those things where, okay, I want to be faithful to the text. What does it mean? How does it, you know, as an expository preacher would be taking the text from the text, explaining it, understanding it, making appropriate application.

And then how does it fit in with the overall biblical narrative? You know, what does Hebrews say about Leviticus? It's quoted all over the place.

So how does, is all scripture truly sufficient? Is it all inspired of God, breathed out by God and profitable for teaching?

Well, that's a challenge before us. So take Leviticus, how does it apply to the Christian church? And what do you do with it?

Although there's a whole bunch in there from, you know, the call to be holy, the call to reflect

God, the priority of drawing near to God. That's a theme throughout Leviticus, the presence of God.

How can a holy God exist in the midst of sinful people? Well, you need a mediator, you need blood and you need atonement.

And so that's, you know, that's Christianity, right? Absolutely, and have the people there that you've preached to at Omaha Bible Church South, what's been their reaction?

That's been great. I mean, from my selfish way, I've enjoyed it. It's rocked my world, as you said. I mean, it's been radical change, everything from my time and time in the

Word and prayer and being impressed with Christ. But then just at the beginning, it was one of the things where I was trying to convince the

OVT South the need to study this book. We need to, I mean, I preached a sermon and one of our guys come up to me, he said, that was the worst sermon you ever preached because you suppose that we didn't wanna study

Leviticus. I was like, I think it was necessary. We needed to say, this is in the canon, we need to study it.

At the beginning, it was, you know, this is really interesting. Pretty soon it was, this vividly points to Jesus.

Pretty soon it was, I am so impressed with Jesus Christ. So you just see the progression that happens and then ultimately, you know,

I'm impressed with him. I love him, I wanna serve him. So really, I mean, it's been awesome. Tell us about some issues that you're thinking about in evangelicalism, issues that people should be concerned about, the latest controversial thing and how to buttress our minds against it.

Anything that you can think of that's happening right now that's controversial in evangelicalism? Yeah, I think, you know,

I know you had a Ted Kluck on a while back, so I won't reset everything he said, but I really enjoyed his book with Kevin DeYoung on the church, why we love the church.

I think just the de -emphasis on the institutional church and organized religion, as the book is subtitled, is huge, you know, with the kind of the momentum of the community and everything that people are emphasizing without emphasizing the church.

I think that's very dangerous. So I think they did a great job in that book. That would be something that I would say. Another thing,

I think probably for people, it seems to be for guys, say 25 to 40 year old guys, particularly people that are maybe coming out of a legalistic background and maybe have a lot of energy.

A lot of my friends find myself kind of in this stream, if you will, where we are coming out of kind of suffocating legalism or suffocating fundamentalism.

And so we have freedom, we have liberty. We want to engage culture. We want to be thoughtful with culture. We want to do that. We don't want to say you can't do this.

You can't do that. Whether it's, you know, movies, drinking or - Mahjong. Mahjong.

Mahjong. Exactly, go to concerts, right? So what is the opposite extreme? It's not necessarily -

Somebody's sick there, Eric? Yeah, it's my son, Luke. He's over here. He's got, he usually has the trifecta sneeze. I think he just -

Sorry. He's good. Okay, keep going. I have another child that sneezed seven professionally.

Oh really? That's interesting. I think that would be Schofield sneezing. Yeah, exactly, all right.

So, but the other side is to be, okay, we have been, you know, abstaining from all these things.

So now, man, we're going full boy. What's wrong with you for not going there with me? You know, so why don't you, let's say, you know, why don't you have tattoos?

What's wrong with you? You should. Why don't you drink? You should. Why don't you listen to that kind of music? And now they go back on the other side.

So liberty has become almost a new legalism. So you turn right around and you start acting like a fundamentalist that you're trying to distance yourself from.

So I think it's just really dangerous. I think it's really prevalent with young guys that are energetic, even gospel -loving guys that are like, come on, let's go.

You know, let's engage the culture. Let's do this. And meanwhile, you may turn your nose up on everyone else and now you become the standard, which is just legalism going the other way.

I think that's a great point, Eric. And what happens is sometimes the fundamentalists say, we're known for what we don't do.

We don't do this and we don't do that. And then the person who understands the gospel but doesn't want to focus on Christ, he wants to be known for what he's allowed to do instead of being known for following Christ.

That's exactly right. And I think, you know, we went through Colossians and I thought it was really interesting that when Paul breaks up that elemental spirit of the world, you know, and he ties it back to the gospel issue in chapter two.

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to the regulations?

And I think that can go either way. If you think that things on earth can either condemn you before God or commend you to God, earn or keep

God's favor or lose God's favor, things that you do with earthly things can commend or condemn you before God, you don't understand the gospel.

And I think that's his point there. You can enjoy things or you can abstain from things here because we are living with a kingdom mindset that we are here awaiting where we're going.

This isn't our home. Nothing can commend us, nothing can condemn us. It's only what Christ has done in conquering our sin that commends us to God.

So therefore, if we're clinging to anything else for righteousness, we're just as guilty as the other side. Amen, this is

Mike Ebendroth talking to Eric Raymond on NoCompromiseRadio .com, WVNE 760 here locally in Worcester talking to one of Worcester's finest,

I think, Leominster's finest, Eric Raymond. Eric, tell us a little bit about evangelizing

Roman Catholics. One of the things I love about you, I've seen it with my own eyes and I hear it a lot from Pat, your heart to preach the gospel to the lost, whether it's evangelistic training for other people, going to the prisons, you're just kind of,

God has given you just a heart to preach the gospel to the lost. What would you say,

I've got about four minutes, so let's make it three so we could wrap it up. In about two to three minutes, if there's a

Roman Catholic person driving down the street listening in Worcester today, what would you tell them about Christ?

Yeah, I think the question I love to ask is, you have learned in your catechisms in your church that God is a holy

God, that is, he cannot be in the presence of sin, and that he's a just God, but you also learned that he's a loving

God and he forgives sin. So how can all these attributes of God coexist? How can

God be both holy and righteous, that is, he punishes sin and he cannot be in the presence of sin, but also welcome and invite sinners to himself?

What is your answer to that? And a lot of times it'd be something that I can do and then you have to go right back to it and say, well, you're basing your standing before God based on something you can do, whether you are tipping the

Jesus factor over the scale or you're relying upon the church. At the end of the day, you are not resting wholly in Christ.

The only way that God can be both just and the justifier, Romans 3 .27, is through the work of Jesus Christ.

So if you're depending on anyone or anything, that includes your baptism, confirmation, your priest, the magisterium, your catechism, whatever, if you're depending on those things, you're not depending upon Jesus.

And you would have to be a really bad Roman Catholic in order to be a literal Christian because you would have to go against everything, even creeds and church canon, church dogma, to be trusting in Jesus Christ.

Does the Roman Catholic ever think about the resurrection and the validity of what the resurrection does for the

Christian faith? Is that something they think about? Probably not. I mean, I know as a Roman Catholic, I didn't.

I'm sure there are some out there that are thinking Roman Catholics. I think that that is a great point because you have to get back to the fact that ultimately that's

God's acceptance of what Christ has done. Absolutely. When I was a Lutheran and I was fairly

Catholic, I guess, in my mindset, it was a works righteousness message. Well, yeah, Jesus rose from the dead, but I had no reason to ask why.

Tell us, Eric, as we wrap up our program, how great is it to have your mother and father both born again by God from above?

Oh, it's fantastic. I mean, just growing up and now, listen, the conversations are totally different.

You know, just seeing my dad dig into the Word, hear my mom talk about what she's learning and enjoying and good expository preaching, it's fantastic.

Would you ever want to come back to Massachusetts? Yeah, I will. And pastor? I mean, you know, it's one of those deals where we'll have to make things clear.

I mean, our hearts are pretty knit to the group here at OBC, and it's been pretty awesome to do that.

So, you know, you strip some idols from, you know, Red Sox, the Patriots, all these things. Well, can you, speaking of stripping idols, what was going on with Belichick's call?

I mean, everybody's tried to spin it here in the radio, you know, Boston land with all these fishhacks and radio land here, but it is just amazing.

And people, I talked to one guy at the bike shop up in Leominster. He said, I went to bed thinking about the game and I woke up thinking about the game.

And I thought loving the Patriots with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That's how we're supposed to think of Christ.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Anyway, my name is, we've got about 20 seconds. Tell us the church website and tell us your website and we'll wrap things up there.

Sure, church website, omahabiblechurch .org. And we're on the South Campus, which is forward slash South. And Irish Calvinist is irishcalvinist .com.

Eric Raymond on live with Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. You've been listening to Thursday's show and we say,

God bless you. We'll see you next week. See you, Eric. Hey, thanks a lot, Mike. Take care. 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.

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