Radek Kolarik Interview (Part 2)

No Compromise Radio Opening and the Meaning of “No Compromise”

At the 13-second mark is the time to begin talking. My name is Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. We used to say no compromise because we didn't want to compromise, and that's still true.

Except now, over the years, no compromise is about Jesus Christ, the one, can you imagine, who never compromised. And at the cross, not one attribute of God was compromised, right? You see everything from the holiness of God to the love of God.

Well, again, Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. It's good to be back after a summer hiatus, thanks to Spencer, who played a bunch of my old Hebrew sermons. So it was a summer in Hebrews when I was gone, and now we're back, I think it's the week of the 20th or 22nd or something like that in NOCO time, and we're back on.

So thanks for staying there with me. You heard yesterday a special guest, and I've got him back on today, which just seems like time flies. It seems like an hour ago. It was like a day ago, you were on.

The Spiritual State of the Czech Republic and Its Churches

Radek, thanks for being back on the show. Tell me again how to pronounce your last name. Kolarzyk. Kolarzyk. Nice. Nice. Radek was a student of mine, but you've taught me many things, too, so I can be your student.

Except 14 years ago when we met, you had no gray hair, and I had hair. I had hair back then, too. Yeah. If you haven't listened to yesterday's show about the Czech Republic and Jan Hus and other things, I suggest you listen, because we're going to pick up on some different topics today, assuming you listen to the show.

Radek, tell me a little bit about the state of the Evangelical Church in Czech, because here in New England, it's about 80 professing Roman Catholics, not that many practice, but if you said, where do you want to get married or a funeral, they would say in the Roman Catholic Church, and so it's about 80%.

What are the percentages like in Czech?

So how we said the other time, it's like they say that Czech Republic is one of the most atheistic countries around the world. They say that there is only like less than 1 of Evangelicals. So a lot of people that are unbelievers, then when it comes to the believers, it would be Roman Catholics mostly, probably just like here.

Then when it comes to the Evangelical Church or born again people, people who believe the gospel, love the Lord, love Christ, follow Christ, saved by grace alone, through faith alone, then that would probably be less than 1 in a country of 10 million people.

Wow. If you get up and say something about homosexuality being a sin or women can't be pastors, do they care that you talk that way or they could care less?

It's a little better than over here. You mean the Christians or the state? Yeah, both. Both? Yeah. So it's a little less crazy than over here, but we are catching up with you guys. So we just had a, you know, Prague Pride parade in Prague the other day and thousands of people, you know, people from government showing up there and basically saying the same things like here, you know, like if you are against homosexuality, if you call homosexuality a sin, then you need to get a doctor, you need to, you know, go get psychiatric help because you are homophobic and all these kind of things.

And sadly, you know, and that's a sad thing because like in the past with Jan Hus, John Hus, there were a lot of faithful Christians in the Czech Republic and during the communism, you know, when we were persecuted, there was a lot of faithful Christians as well.

But now with the freedom, there's also a lot of compromise also in the churches. So that's very sad.

Czech Food, Seminary Drift, and the Need for Biblical Training

When people come and visit the church that you pastor, what's it called? Christians of…. Yeah. Křesťané Kuřim. The Kuřim Christians. Yeah. Wait a second. Now did I, when I was there, did you take me out for, I don't know, we had some kind of little cheese things, little triangles of cheese baked or something like that.

Was there some kind of cheese appetizer that's big in the Czech with Marcus Denny or somebody? Little cheese thing?

Was that with Lance? That was either with Lance or with Marcus and yeah, yeah, probably KFC or Ikea or something.

Fancy like that, you know. Is there a cheese appetizer in the Czech?

Well, in the Czech, they do a fried cheese. So maybe it was a regular restaurant. But yeah, we, you know, you put a cheese through breadcrumbs, the flour, the egg and the breadcrumbs and then you fry it like a schnitzel kind of thing.

Okay. Maybe that was it.

That was probably it. What other foods, if I went there, what other foods would you say, oh, this is Czech food all the way.

You must try this. So we have something that's called svíčková, which would be a piece of beef. In the Czech, we do a lot of like sauces, you know, like you have a meat, but you don't have it dry. You have like all different kinds of sauces.

So you'd have a beef with a sauce and then with a dumpling. So it's like a French bread, kind of like a cut it on thin and instead of potatoes or rice, you have this kind of like a dumpling. Okay.

I like that. Are there theological seminaries in Czech? And if there are, what is there bent theologically?

So, there are some at the Charles University, for example, and the bent would be, you know, liberal, which is sad. And then, yeah, so, you know, not many Christians, not many theological seminaries. If you have like an official theological seminary, it's usually one that you don't want to go to.

I had friends who went in there and they wanted to be a pastor. They believed the Bible and they would come out and, you know, that's the last thing I want to do, to be a pastor. And they went and believed in the Bible and they came out literally like, oh, you know, the Bible is not a word of God and we have all these great reasons why we don't need to believe it.

You know, so it's like, I don't want to go to a school like that. I don't want to send anybody to school like that. So I'm thankful that, you know, that you mentioned Lance, Lance Roberts started with Lojza Klapáček, the local pastor in Kroměřič.

They started the Czech Bible Institute years ago and, you know, they train men, they try to train men.

And I think they have the MacArthur Study Bible in Czech, is that true? They wouldn't let us.

So in order to do a MacArthur Study Bible, you have to contact the company that owns the Czech Bible. And when we asked if we can do a study Bible, they went to some crucial passages in MacArthur's study notes and they didn't like them and they didn't let us use their Bible to put MacArthur's notes there.

So we just had to publish the commentary without a Bible. Oh, interesting.

Is it true that in EBTC, are they doing a new Bible translation? I hope so. That would be nice.

They have the capacity. They have some really sharp professors and guys there. So I would not be surprised if that would be the case.

Well, I love it that there's a place that there's some theological training there in the Czech Republic. I spoke with Aloysia and Lance when they were part of the denomination, some Baptist denomination, and there was a youth camp.

And there was a couple hundred people. Were you there? Yeah. I translated for you. Oh, you did? Come on. And remember how much trouble I got in when I stood up on the chair? Can you explain what happened?

Well, if I remember correctly, you committed a grave sin of standing up on a chair because in the Czech Republic, we don't stand up on the chairs. And I didn't take my shoes off either. And that was the second problem, yes.

So it's a different culture.

Well, what I was trying to do is keep their attention, right? You have a bunch of young people and they're listening, plus a translator and everything else. And I thought, I'm just going to stand up on this front row chair.

And it helped.

I mean, in a good way, you know, it helped.

But I didn't know that was what we call the French word faux pas. That was something that was wrong. It was good. It was good. You know, one of my memories of that conference, obviously wasn't that you translated, but one of my memories, I should have known that because...

I had hair back then, so I know it's hard to remember.

I spoke at the final session and then I walked to the back where the soundboard was because I just, okay, I've done my responsibilities and I'm just put my head down and just walk to the back. I don't need to stay in the front or anything.

And so then they had communion and it was with a common cup, right? And a napkin. And I thought, oh, I should have stayed at the front. I'm now going to have 200 teenage Czech children, young adults drinking, at least it's real wine, that has some alcohol in it.

And then it has to get passed back to me. So when they got back to me, they said there was a few little tiny cups and I requested one of those like I was sick or something. Did you do the common cup? Here's a good question.

At the church you pastor, is it a common cup?

So in the past we did a common cup. We would have a couple of them, you know, like a couple of big cups to go around. And as the church grew by God's grace, you know, like you want to be sensitive, you want to be careful, you want to be like, you know, compassionate.

Different people have different reasons. And so we switched even before COVID to those cups and then it was more handy to have them.

During COVID. I would prefer personally to have real wine in communion. And I know some people think, well, they could be a drink away or a sip away and they've got alcohol problems and alcohol has caused a lot of problems in a lot of people's homes, including my parents' home.

But too bad the incarnate Jesus isn't there because I think if he was bodily and he handed you some wine and say, do this in remembrance of me, I bet we'd all do it. But it's just theoretical. So you meet, as we learned in the last show, in a disco hall and they're selling it.

And so you didn't ask me to do this, but I'm doing it since I'm the king of the show here. This is my domain. You need some money for a building, that building to buy it. And so tell me what your thinking is.

And by the way, if you're listening today and you want to support Roddick financially as a missionary or contribute to the building fund over there in the Czech Republic, you just write me and I'll make sure I get him the information.

Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com and that you can be sure that it'll be 5013C and you'll get a receipt and all that stuff. But I'll hook you up with him.

But tell us about the building. Yeah. So the context is that by God's grace, we were able to start a church plant. Well, we started working in our town 20 years ago because there was no Bible teaching church and there were people hungry for the Word.

So, you know, we started teaching Bible to some students, to some teenagers. And the hope was that through them we'll get to their parents and we'll reach the town for Jesus Christ. Thirteen, fourteen years ago, we outgrew the places that we were kind of like meeting in and we were able to rent a place in our town, which, you know, was an old disco or dancing hall.

And God blessed it. And we had people, you know, coming in, coming in, coming in. And for the last couple of months or a year or something like that, we are praying with our people in our church that God would give us wisdom, you know, what to do as far as space because we kind of like outgrew the space.

And it's funny, but it's sad because like often on Sundays we come home with my wife, you know, and we're like, oh, I'm glad this family wasn't there and I'm glad that family wasn't there because if they would, we would have, you know, even like we would not be able to see them.

So it's a nice problem. So long story short, we've been praying and recently the owners of the building, you know, so it's a standalone building and we rent part of it. The second part is a pub. And then above us there is some like a dormitories or some like a hostel, hotel kind of a thing.

And a couple, you know, a couple of months ago the owners came and they said, you know what, like we would like to sell the building. We like you. You've been here. You asked us in the past, you know, if we'll ever sell it, you know, can you sell it to us?

So they came, they gave us offer. We told them, hey, we don't have any money. And they said, we know because you told us that in the past. So they gave us approximately a year to try to raise money for the building.

So that's what we started to do a couple of weeks ago, you know.

A Church Building for Worship, Housing, and Ministry Expansion

And if you can't raise the money, my guess is somebody new would buy the building and you would hope that you could rent that out. But ultimately you'd like to be able to have a place that holds everyone.

And it sounds like you could get rid of the pub side. You might need the wine still over in the pub because you need communion wine.

No, yes, exactly. You know, so, so obviously like we might be renting for another 150 years, but it seems that we are in a point for the church where it will be really a huge blessing to have our own place instead of paying rent every month to have our own place.

And we have, we have, you know, in these days we have like tons of people also from Ukraine because ever since the war started, we have like 40 people in our church from Ukraine and we can use the building partially for them, help them to be housed there.

There are other people from our church that are looking for housing in our town. We have people come in every Sunday, like two and a half hours one way. Some other people come in like hour and a half.

There are people who would love to move to our town, be part of our church, but they cannot because our town is expensive. The rents are expensive. To buy something is expensive. So, so the building, you know, Lord willing, if we will be able to purchase it, it has a huge potential.

It would allow us to grow the church, to give us more space for Sunday worship. It would give us a potential space for like a Christian kindergarten, you know, because we have some people in our church that it's on their heart to start ministering to kids like that.

It would give us an opportunity to house people either from Ukraine or from our own church. And so the building is right in the center. It has a huge potential, and we are praying. And if you can be praying for us, that would be great.

If God will put it on your heart to support us, we would be super thankful.

It almost sounds like if people are driving two and a half hours on a Sunday morning, they could drive Saturday night, stay up in the hostel area, dorm area.

Well, you know, this specific family right now, they're actually coming from Slovakia, and it's super encouraging. And they are thinking about relocating. They are thinking about moving, you know. So we'll see what's going to happen.

And this family, actually, their weekends, when they come a day or two earlier, and they stay with us, and they stay in the area, and they come to other events. So it's super encouraging. And, you know, then when you have times like COVID, right, like we've all been through COVID, and we were super thankful that we can be renting from a private sector, because we have some churches that we work with, and they are renting from government, you know, like maybe a school or maybe like a little room in a shadow in a castle somewhere in a town.

And they were not able to meet for like two years or more than two years, because if you rent from the government, if you rent from the town, and something like COVID happens, it's just that there's no way, you know.

So we were thankful that we were able to rent from private, that allowed us to do things differently. And, you know, it's just, I would assume that what happened with COVID is not the last thing like that, that ever happens, you know.

So just, I think it would be a good thing to be ready for.

Reading, Preaching in Maine, and Supporting the Czech Ministry

Amen. And Mike Evendroth with Rodik today at No Compromise Radio. I don't know, my voice seems weak today. So we'll just let Rodik do all the talking. What are you reading these days? Anything good?

What am I reading? So I finished, well, I don't do much reading. I do like audiobooks. So when I walk or when I drive. So in English, it would be called The Rare Jewel of Contentment. It's Thomas, it's one of the Puritans.

Jeremiah Burroughs. Yes. And I had to read it because I was not happy with it. Not content. Not content. So I was like, oh, that would be a good book to read. So that, you know, reading that. Recently I read again J .C. Rowe, The Thoughts for Young Men.

And it's a short book, but it's a good book. And I read it in the past. My wife recently read it. My son recently read it. I thought I might read it again. So that was super encouraging. Jerry Bridges, you know, like anything you can pick up from Jerry Bridges.

Love him. It's always very encouraging, very practical, very Christ-centered.

So when you come back to the United States, since your wife is from Maine, do you get to preach up in Maine once in a while? And if so, where do you preach?

Yeah, so we have a church. So there's a church, FBC, First Baptist Church of Waldenboro in Maine. And that's kind of like our home church, sending church. And we're super, super, super thankful for them.

So when I was here last time, I preached there three Sundays. Out of the four Sundays I was here. And their church did a church plant in a twin village. So it's in Denver, Scotland, and Newcastle. And they call it the Twin Village Church.

Pastor Phil Niswonger. So I'm going to actually preach there this Sunday. So those are two faithful churches that love the Lord, preach the gospel. And if you're in Maine and you're looking for a good church on a Sunday,.

Those would be two good churches to go to. In the show description, if Roderick remembers to send me those links of those churches so you can hear him preach in English, and then send me the church link in the Czech Republic so people could snoop around.

Maybe we have some Czech speakers. Send me those, and I'll put them in the links. Okay, thank you. The Russian-Ukraine war has sent a lot of Ukrainians to Poland and other places. How did they make it to the Czech Republic?

How does that all work? They're just running any direction they can?

Exactly. So obviously on the beginning of the war, it was a little easier. Everybody was headed west, right? So from Ukraine through Slovakia to Czech or to Poland. You look at a map, and then the borders were shut.

So we actually have people in our church who had to go through Russia. Somehow they had to go through Russia, through other countries to make it to Czech. So we have people that they had it like, quote-unquote, easy because they hopped on a bus.

They spent only like 12 hours in a bus going through Ukraine, and then we picked them up at Polish-Ukraine borders with cars. That's what a lot of people were doing, a lot of churches, a lot of even non-Christian organizations, you know, coming to the borders, picking them up, and then helping them to move along in Europe.

So we did that for some. And then, you know, like anyway, but you have people like three days on a train, and you're talking about like grandmas, or you're talking about like elderly people, and obviously they would not let you go with your husband, right?

So you would have a lot of moms with children because the guys had to stay back in Ukraine. So I think the rule was in the beginning of the war, unless you have three and more children, you cannot leave as a man, you know.

Because they needed to be soldiers. Because you need to be ready, because we might call you tomorrow to pick up a gun and go fight with us, you know. So there was a lot of women with a lot of children leaving.

And then I think if you were over 60 or something, you could leave. You know, if you are below 18, you could leave. Or if you are between 18 and 16, you have three and more kids, you can leave. So, yeah.

So very sad situation. But you know what? It gave us opportunity, and it gave opportunity to many other churches, you know, to minister to our brothers and sisters. And I think it gave them opportunity to hear, you know, the Bible preached in a little bit different way.

In the Ukraine, there's a lot of like charismatic churches kind of a thing. And we love our brothers and sisters in these circles, you know. But when they came to our church, one of the things they said is like, Oh, you are the Baptist, huh?

And we're like, Yeah. And they're like, Oh, so it means you love the Bible. So in the Ukraine, that's the reputation that Baptists have. Well, that's good. The people that love the Bible. And, you know, I have to say to the glory of God is, you know, at least the group that is in our church, they are super helpful.

They are super, super loving, super helpful. They love the Lord. They love to study the Scriptures. They never experienced like preaching like you and I do, you know, verse by verse through the books of the Bible.

That's kind of like a mind blowing for them. And God is using it in their lives. Some of them become members in our church. We are doing, you know, we're going through foundations of faith with them. And then some of them became members.

So it's super encouraging, super encouraging.

Language, National Identity, and the Legacy of Czechoslovakia

Wonderful opportunity in the midst of chaos and calamity and war. Good things happen out of it. How close is Ukraine language to Czech language? Are they just both Slavic and that's as close as you get or neither or what?

You know what?

So I cannot talk to them. I would not understand. Like I would pick up a word here and a word there. But I need to have somebody who translates. My wife, she's American. She's fluent in Czech. She does better for some kind of a reason.

She understands more. I think it's because she's smarter and more like language oriented. But you still need a translator to make sure. You know, so in our church for the first year, you know, like at a conference, like you mentioned, like I translated for you at a conference.

So you say three sentences, I translate them. So that's what we decided to do in our church when they first came. We wanted to minister to them. We wanted them to be part of our church. So I would say three sentences in Czech and then somebody would translate them into Russian.

And we would do that for a year. And now they have like a little earpiece. And we have this device that we have a person who translates for them, you know, on a site somewhere. And it goes through the wavelengths and they listen to the translation.

Simultaneously. So the language of Ukraine is Russian.

So when you're in Ukraine, you either speak Ukrainian or you speak Russian, depending on which part of Ukraine you are from. So the people we have in our church, they would speak Russian because they would be in like an area of Ukraine where they would speak a lot of Russian.

How long ago did Yugoslavia split into two countries? Yes. Czechoslovakia splits into Czech and Slovakia. When did that happen?

So 1989 was something that we call Velvet Revolution. That's when the communism ended in Czechoslovakia. And I think it was like three years later that Czech and Slovak separated. So why did they? Depending on who you ask.

I'm trying to think who from Slovakia is going to listen to this. No. So in my opinion, you know, like you have Czechoslovakia, right? And Prague, which is in Czech, probably gets all the money, gets all the fame.

That's where the government is. And Slovakia is kind of like a second fiddle. So my guess, but I haven't, you know, I would probably have to research that more. That had to do something with it. Like we are Slovaks.

We don't want all the money and all the power in Prague, which is in Czech. You know, let's split and we'll have our own government. We'll have our own money, you know. So that would be my guess, but I don't know.

Providence, the ER, and a Near-Death Experience in Brno

Makes sense.

Well, we need to wrap up the show. And I've said this before when we've gotten together years ago, Radek. I never thought I was almost going to die in Czech. In the city I can't pronounce. B-N-R-O.

At your house. So I'm at Radek's house. We finished the conference. It's kind of a celebration afterwards. And there's all this food everywhere. We're happy. The Lord blesses the conference. And there was a bowl of nuts.

And I'm like, oh, I don't think I've ever just had hazelnuts like you would eat salted peanuts or anything. Just put my hand in there. And, you know, you almost kind of shake your hand a little bit to keep the salt from coming.

And, oh, these taste pretty good. I think I'll have some more. I think I'll have some more. And we're talking, right, and everything else. And I thought, you know, I think I've got kind of one of these stuck in my throat.

Hairball. Yeah. And so I go to drink some water. It's still stuck. And so I go in. And my throat gets my esophagus is small anyway, so I choke all the time. Anyway, I go to the bathroom and I see my eyes are puffing.

And then before you know it, I'm online. Because, you know, they actually have Wi-Fi in the Czech Republic at your house. So that was nice. Yes, yes. And I see my face and I'm like, I got to get to the hospital.

So I think it had been a little bit later and you had just gone to bed.

Yes, I went to bed and you walked almost to our bedroom. And I was like, I like you, but stop right there. And then I turned on the lights and I saw your face. And I was like, you want to call ambulance or should we hop in a car?

And I think you said hop in a car, which we did.

And it's interesting because I couldn't swallow anything. Couldn't even like get the water down. You couldn't even talk. You got some Benadryl or something. And we're in the car and you're like, you need to eat this.

And Rodik is very well-mannered and kind. And, you know, I'm certainly not better than Rodik, but I had been his professor and teacher. And so you have the student relationship with the professor. And he's like, normally you would say, oh, here, try this.

And you said, you swallow that. I said, I can't swallow. You're like, you're going to swallow that thing. And so I did. I got it down. And then I thought, do I text my wife or don't I? And I'm like, I think I should text my wife, you know.

And then I had it all ready. And do I send it to her? And we're driving and we pull up to the hospital. And I'm thinking America. ER, turn in here. Nurses come running out, you know. And we have to go through all these corridors.

I'm glad you were there because I couldn't read anything. And so we finally make it into the area where to be seen. And the nurses right away knew what I looked like and what I had. It was some anaphylactic experience.

And I named the nurses Helga and Svetlana. But I think that's more Russian. And one of them said, pull down your pants and lay down.

I was wondering if you were going to mention this part of the story.

And so in one bottom cheek, they gave me steroids. And the other bottom cheek, they gave me epinephrine. And they said, you know, you're going to have to relax for us to give you the shot. And I'm like, relax?

You're like jamming this thing in with all your power. Your delts are huge. And then they're like, well, in India, you pay first. And here they said, through you, the translator, I think they said that'll be 37 euros.

And I'm like, that's nothing. I'd pay that, no problem. And then I said, through you, am I supposed to go to like a waiting area or what? No, no, you can go. Just go home. Leave our boat here. So we went out to the parking lot.

We're like, well, what are we going to do? And I think I'd been on a diet and having no carbs and sugar and all that. And I thought, if I'm going to die, I might as well have some Haagen-Dazs ice cream.

So let's go up to that petrol station, that benzene station and got a couple Haagen-Dazs. And plus, it was good for my throat. And we made it. You made it. My God's grace. Thank you very much that I didn't have to die.

Well, I'm here to finish this. No, I'm just kidding. And here is a praise to the Lord and how he answers prayer. I, before the show was showing Roddick, my grandson, Amos, how wonderful it is to be a grandfather.

In four years, you'll experience that Roddick. Anyway, I did finally send my text to my wife. I love you. I'm having a hard time breathing. I'm going to the hospital, etc. She received that text and she was walking around the track at a local high school to get some exercise.

And she received that as she was praying that the Lord would let us be old enough to be grandparents. Praise God. That's nice. And I thought, wow. And so I made it to be a grandpa. And then the people in Poland are like, can you come up and teach?

What do you mean? So I think Tomek came down and put me in the car and I look like, I don't know, like 50 bumblebees got in my face or something. So we went up there and finished the job. So thank you.

I owe you almost my death and then my life. Praise God. Roddick, thanks for being on the show today. If you want to know more about the ministry that the Lord has given him, email me, mike at no compromise radio dot com.

And I'll make sure I forward that. You could probably see in the links a few of the sermons he's preached here in America and then also the link for the Czech Republic Church. Don't forget it. I'm sure he could always use support personally for the ministry, but also for the building.

Lord, may you give enough funds to that building that people broke ground thinking it was going to be a disco hall where the gospel of Christ and him crucified goes out.