The Blaze (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 Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Mike Abendroth at the helm here, alongside of my co -helmsman,

Steve Cooley. Aye, but I'm going to have security remove your captain. Now, Steve Cooley is affectionately known as Tuesday Guy because he's on Saturday afternoons from 5 to 8.

Replacing Dr. Laura. Steve, I do think we should start with this. We have the

No Compromise t -shirts. We should have a kind of a contest, and someone should design a

No Compromise Tuesday Guy t -shirt. Can we have a polo instead? It's your show.

Thanks. So we can put it on whatever we want, but the design can still be the same design for everything.

And they can submit, honestly, I mean this in all sincerity, info at nocompromiseradio .com.

Submit to me a No Compromise Radio Tuesday Guy shirt. And if it's good, we'll make some and we'll send you a free copy if you're the designer.

If it's not, we'll sue. Steve, I was speaking in Sacramento at my good friend

Ron Porch's ministry there, Grace Reformation Church, and I walked up to go into the building and there was a man standing outside and I said,

Hi, how are you? My name is Mike Ebendroth. And he said, Oh, my name's Jesus. And I said, Nice to meet you.

And he said, Are you the host of No Compromise Radio? I said,

I am. He said, Oh, I saw online that you're going to be here. And so I traveled from a different church to come hear you speak this morning.

I said, That is great. Glad to know there are listeners in Sacramento. And then what's the next question he asked me, do you think?

Is Tuesday Guy? That's what he said. Where's Tuesday Guy, he said.

So, Steve, I wanted to be able to at least give him a Tuesday Guy t -shirt for all his trouble, but it didn't seem to work out.

How about a Tuesday Guy polo? And, you know, Tuesday Guy, honestly, we can't go everywhere together because, you know, then the fort's undefended.

Well, that is absolutely true. And but in terms of nomenclature and monikers and stuff like that,

Tuesday Guy, I think it suits you. Thanks. I think if we analyze Tuesday, isn't that from a pagan origin?

Something like, you know, Monday like Moonday, Sunday like Sunday, Thursday like Huevos.

Tuesday. No, that's Miracles. Tuesday. I don't know where Tuesday comes from. What's Wednesday in Spanish?

Miracles? Yes. And then in German, it's something like midweek, right? Midwach or something like that. It's midweek.

Something close. Yeah. OK. All right. Well, I think that's kind of all our announcements for Tuesday Guy today.

You're listening to No Compromise Radio. Our theme is always provocative. Firstly, biblical.

Then I forgot because I've been on vacation. All right. Here's what we're going to have. Always biblical, always provocative, in that order.

Always in that order. The Message Bible. Oh, are we going to have a message? A loose translation by Eugene Peterson.

Instead of lowering my head, I feel like I should raise my head during these. Well, raise and lower repeatedly and might knock some sense into that brain.

I do have some knobs over here. Post, guest caller, phones. If you're going to be reading from the message, you're not going to be knocking any sense into my head.

I'll tell you that. What does this, what does this th space eq mean over here? That's the theological equalizer.

That's why I'm here. All right. So since you're preaching through the Gospel of John. Yes. And you just preached

John 3 the other day. I listened to the message. You must be born again. I thought it was quite good. And I was listening to the message.

And the problem with my message, I could have said it was excellent. I could have said it was great.

I could have said it was good, but I said it was only quite good. That's almost great.

But you didn't put this in here. OK. If you would have put this in here, it would have catapulted you to excellent.

Would have put it over the top. Now, I can't tell you what verse it is because the message doesn't use verses like the original.

Right. I mean, it's going back to the original. Totally. Getting rid of those things. The other day

I was reading a C .S. Lewis quote. Not that I'm a big C .S. Lewis fan, but sometimes he just has it dead on.

And he talked about the less Bible reading that people do, the more translations come out. That's pretty funny.

That's why we're seeing a flood of translations these days. Right. So early in John 3,

Jesus said, you must be born again. Nicodemus doesn't get it right. So Jesus comes at it again.

And here's what it says in the message. Jesus said, you're not listening. Let me say it again.

Unless a person submits to this original creation, the wind hovering over the water creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life.

It's not possible to enter God's kingdom. When you look at a baby, it's just that a body you can look at and touch.

But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch the spirit and becomes a living spirit.

So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be born from above out of this world, so to speak.

You know well enough how the wind blows this way. I have to tell you that at that point during their discourse,

Nicodemus probably would have grabbed Jesus by the stack and swivel and said, you've got a demon.

That is craziness. That's not even a loose translation. That's a imaginary something.

Now, I don't know where he got that original creation thing and the baptism deal, maybe from the water.

I have no idea. The spirit hovering over the water in Genesis 1, 3. But that's that's

Cooks and Barney's award today goes to the message Bible and Eugene Peterson.

That is terrible. Yeah. Shame on me for not referencing that because that's so clear. See, so, Steve, sometimes

I critique your messages and other times I just let sleeping dogs lie. And so this particular time,

I want you to know you could have gone from quite good to excellent with just one reference, with one little

Cooks and Barney. All right. Last time, last Tuesday, we were going over this article by Billy Halliwell.

Billy Holiday. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. It was quite a sad jazz song. There's a tragic end to her life.

And Billy Halliwell, maybe he's German, it's Halliwell, I don't know, Ted would know.

It's 10 cliches Christians should never use. And so this guy,

I don't think he purports to be a Christian. Does he? Well, he doesn't. He sort of alludes to that.

Let me see where. Oh, yeah. He says we Christians have a remark. Oh, wait a minute.

He's quoted somebody else, though. He's. Yeah. So maybe not.

Oh, you know what? Maybe these are all from Piat. I'm quoting Billy Halliwell. But then at the back here, it says

Piat's assessment. So you're right. So it is. You know what? Yeah. I don't know, but I don't think

I'd want to go to this guy's church. Co -founded Milagro Christian Church in Pueblo, Colorado.

OK. Milagro. Milagro. So anyway, we aren't going to redo the show, but it's under Billy Halliwell's reporting that this

Piat has these 10 things. One, everything happens for a reason. Two, you only live twice.

Oh, sorry, that's wrong. If you die today, do you know where you spend the rest of eternity? He, she's in a better place.

Can I share a little bit about my faith with you? Should you? You should come to church with me. And then last one, we want to pick up right here and expand and elaborate in our own message version of a conversation.

Have you asked Jesus into your heart? What do you think of that, Steve, for those who weren't listening last week, sadly?

Well, I think it is just about the worst because, again, you know, looking at John 3 and Nicodemus, Jesus didn't talk this way to him.

You know, ask me into your heart, which would be kind of a bizarre concept anyway, right? He's standing right before him and he goes, have you asked me into your heart?

He didn't, he wanted him to believe. But then again, you know, in context, Nicodemus really is somebody who saw the signs that Jesus performed and believed, but not savingly.

He knew that Jesus was not a fraud. He knew he wasn't a charlatan, but he didn't believe that he was the

Messiah. And it tells us in John 2 that he was not, he did not, Jesus was not entrusting himself to people like that.

And so he wasn't entrusting himself to Nicodemus. And what he really does is he challenges

Nicodemus, Nicodemus is the teacher of Israel, and he challenges him theologically. And he says, you don't, you really don't understand this because basically you're not born again, but, but, you know, this is above your pay grade, which was kind of an insult to him.

Nicodemus had been spending his whole life trying to save himself, you know, trying to be good enough to get into heaven and believe that he was by virtue of his birth, by virtue of his good works, by virtue of being seen doing all these good things.

And so the idea of, you know, have you ever asked Jesus into your heart? Never would have occurred to him. He didn't think about it, you know, he wasn't thinking about Christianity at all.

But this whole idea is just dopey. Have you asked Jesus into your heart? But it presumes that you would want to, and the truth is you wouldn't want to.

You'd be just like Nicodemus, unable to see him as Messiah or Savior or anything else. And you don't ask

Jesus into your heart, he comes into your heart by virtue of his sovereign work, his working through his spirit.

Christian Piott put together this list, and last time I thought it was just some blaze rider. But here Christian Piott says that, it says here that he's a pastor, a co -founder at least.

Maybe he's not a pastor, he just co -founds things. But I'm confounded by his co -founding, because...

I knew that was coming, but I couldn't stop it. Here's the issue. Throughout these 10 cliches, don't you feel the undercurrent,

Steve? Don't preach. It's a private thing. You know, don't talk about politics, don't talk about religion.

This is liberal Methodism where we're not supposed to talk about things like this. But in evangelicalism, we have good news that we're supposed to talk about.

And it makes it very clear in Romans chapter 10, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is

Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes.

Isn't that fascinating? We always equate the heart with emotions. And I'm not saying there are no emotions associated with the word heart in either

Hebrew or in Greek. But isn't it interesting? Excuse me, or in Greek. Sorry, Ted.

Or 45%. It says, for with the heart one believes.

How fascinating is that? You believe with your heart and is justified. And with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

For the scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. So I don't like his undercurrent where we're just not supposed to preach to people.

We are supposed to preach to each other. But it is quite faddish now to say, oh, we don't want to talk to people about it.

It's our own thing. And then come and ask me the question. Steve, what would you say if someone said, we're not supposed to go preach to people?

The biblical example is Nicodemus comes to Jesus. Then Jesus says something. So you're not supposed to tell people about Jesus unless they come to you first.

Well, the Great Commission is go. Well, that pretty much settles that. How about number seven?

I'm just reading this and this is going to drive me crazy here. Number seven, do you accept Jesus as your personal

Lord and Savior? Now listen to this. Again, this is not in the Bible anywhere. And for me, it goes against the whole

Christlike notion of the suffering servant. People tried to elevate Jesus to the status of Lord, but he rejected it.

So why do we keep trying? The whole idea of a Lord is so antiquated that it has no real relevance to our lives today.

Be more mindful of your words. They really mean what you say. So in other words, Jesus as King would be antiquated.

Mike, what would you think about that? Well, I think that guy needs to read a book.

I'm not sure about the writer of that book, but the concept is biblical. Brilliant. Yeah. King's out, so we can't use that.

Well, you know what? Actually, what's out? Sacrifice is out, right? Blood is out.

Monarchy is out. There's all kinds of concepts that are out, but it's our job to just be faithful to proclaim the text.

I love 1 Timothy 6, that Jesus is literally, in the Greek, the Lord of those lording and the

King of those kinging. Out of all those out there that are kinging, He's the King. And all those who are out there lording,

He's the Lord. People know what Lord is today. Don't lord over me. They totally know. This guy, the more

I read it, the more sad I am for the people that would attend his ministry because he does not want you to preach.

Listen to this. He's talking about Christianity rather than a lifelong practice that can never entirely be realized.

So I know he's not defining things here in a way for a test, but is

Christianity a lifelong practice that can never be realized? That gets rid of all the indicatives. That gets rid of all the gospel, of all what

Jesus did. Puts it all on what we're doing, and it's something— Sounds like pharisaical legalism.

Sounds like some whacked out emergent deal to me. So anyway, do you accept Jesus as your personal

Lord and Savior? Well, I mean, you know, again, if He's not Lord, then what is

He? Better Lord and Savior than just Savior, but probably a better question would be, does

God the Father accept you into His heart through the finished work of Jesus Christ through faith?

That'd be a better question. Has God accepted you in His heart? Amen. Okay. Number eight.

Number eight. This could be the end of days. Well, it could be the end of days for Joe Biden.

Although this is a little late. Maybe Joe would be out by the time this airs in September. We'll see.

I mean, I personally don't think he'll be gone, but that's just my political analysis. Okay. This could be the end of days.

This is one of my favorites. He said, Christians love to look for signs of the end of the world. We practically have an apocalyptic fetish.

How come I can't talk about theological words? She goes, no say. So what do you think? A fetish for the end times.

What do you think? That, what do you think? Is that a cliche? This could be the end of days. I would say that a lot of... I've never heard anybody say that.

I've never heard it either. I do know that some Christians love to look at the news and then try to transpose the

Bible onto the news or vice versa. I preached in Southern, in SLV Baptist church the week before the

Tuesday guy showed up to me. I'm looking for Tuesday guy, the guy wanting to see Tuesday guy. And a guy came up after the church and said, have you read this 9 -11 deal with this

Messianic Jew writing this book about, I don't know what it was called. And it talks about how all the newspaper articles are fleshing out really what's happening in the

Bible and Gog and Magog and everything. And I said, no, I haven't. I thought this guy's a loon. How can this guy sit and listen to preaching at this church under their pastor and listen to this?

But anyway, I don't go for that. Well, and it really, I again,

I've never heard if somebody said to me, this could be the day Jesus returned. I'd go, well, that's true. You know, any day could be that day.

But but I don't run around saying that. And I don't I mean, I pray every time before I preach,

Lord, if you're going to come back today, now would be a good time. Hey, Steve, I don't hardly ever hear

Christians that I know of say this could be the end of the days. But I do hear people say that who aren't

Christians, but they're talking about the Mayan calendar. Right. I hear pagans say this could be the end.

This could be the end. Nostradamus, Mayan calendar. This could be the end. Well, you know,

Scientology, because they have it from their what were those thetans? Theons.

Thetans. Yeah, whatever they're called. Was that a photon? Torpedo?

Thetan torpedo. Yeah. Well, yeah, I was thinking of engrams when you have engrams on yourself and you need to have the

E meter to diagnose them and get rid of them through the cash cow. It's just silly. But but anyway, the end result is looking for the end times is a waste of time.

I would say, you know, live life in light of the Lord's soon return and you'll be thinking rightly.

I think this guy just needed a 10. So he just threw that one. And that was his weakest one. I think it's pretty bad.

Number nine, Jesus died for your sins. Do you ever say that? I never do. I say that to the church on Sunday.

Yeah, I say that to Christians. Jesus or I'll say, you know, Jesus died for sins. Yes, I will say that to Christians.

He says, I know this is an all time Christian favorite, but even if you buy into the concept of even if you buy into substitutionary atonement, boy, if you don't buy into that, then

I guess you're not a Christian. The idea that God set Jesus up as a sacrifice to make good for all the bad stuff.

How lame is that? Sin. Transgression, iniquity, perversity.

This is an abysmal way to introduce your faith to someone. I didn't ask Jesus to die for me.

And if I'm not a Christian, I really have no concept of how that could be possibly be a good thing. Okay.

I mean, he's got me there. I would never walk up to an unbeliever and say Jesus died for your sins thinking that would mean anything to them.

Well, as you said, good point that he has in terms of people don't understand substitute anymore and sacrifice.

And there has to be punishment, justice. They don't even get capital punishment. So there needs to be some education there.

But this guy, you know, he shows his hand that he doesn't really like substitutionary atonement and he doesn't really like all these kind of things.

Jesus died for your sins. I don't say that to unbelievers because I don't know if they're elect or not. And Jesus only died for the sins of the elect.

So if they're not elect, Jesus didn't die for their sins, because if he did die for their sins, they'd be in heaven and they'd have nothing to account for on the

Great White Throne Judgment Day. Well, I don't know if we have any listeners in Pueblo, Colorado, but if we do and specifically anybody going to Milagro Christian Church.

Isn't that a cigar? Milagro? I don't think so. Okay. But you should probably leave that church.

I mean, I'd talk to Mr. Piat, but if he believes that the concept of substitutionary atonement is horrible, then he's not a

Christian. Well, it says here, even if you buy. So it's probably the Wiggle Weasel deal will be,

I just said that, even if. That doesn't mean I deny it. It sounds kind of that's kind of denying language.

I mean, I would never write anything like that because I would want people to know that I affirm that doctrine.

Well, plus, it says here the idea that Jesus, that God set Jesus up as a sacrifice, set him up like the son didn't willingly go.

The father didn't willingly send him. It wasn't in love that they were sent the triune

God all in one with one purpose and one mind, etc.

You know, it's just it's just all wrong. Set him up to sacrifice to make good. This reminds me of the message moment, you know, instead of my

God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It would be my God, my God, why have you set me up? Why'd you set me up to make good on all the bad stuff that people do?

This is just wrong. It's sick. All right. Number 10. Will all our visitors please stand?

Oh, well, what he's after is you want to make the visitors feel comfortable.

I like making visitors feel comfortable. We have them raise their hand and then get their wallets out.

That's that's typically what we do here at Bethlehem Bible Church. And so it seems to prove to prove itself like giving's up.

Welcome to Bethlehem Bible Church. Now empty your wallet into the offering plates before you leave. Thank you so much.

When I was a Lutheran kid, really little, we had to give an offering. We didn't have much money back in those parts.

And we'd sing the song, dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping. Hear the pennies fall. Do you know that one?

No. Every one for Jesus. He can use them all. Well, that is awesome.

That was so bad. And then on the flip side, I had in my mind a penny saved is hardly worth the trouble kind of thing.

What we do is we say, well, all the visitors stand and then we sing, stand up, stand up for Jesus. See, you could do that.

You know, I just figured Jesus could somehow take a penny, you know, of mine and make something really good out of it.

Why is that a cliche? Well, will all our visitors please stand? I mean, we don't do that anyway. And I don't

I'm trying to think if I've been in a church where that has happened, you know, please stand. That just strikes me as funny.

I mean, you know, maybe raise a hand or something like that, but not stand up.

We try to give people a welcome pack. Here's a Bible. Here's some. Hey, instead of visitor or guest, try something less loaded, like newcomer.

Oh, OK. Better yet, walk up to them, introduce yourself and say, I'm pretty new here, too.

Even if you're on staff, it'll make them feel better. Wow, that's really. Oh, he didn't say that. I was going to say, I can't find that.

Oh, better yet, walk up to them, introduce yourself and learn their name. Yeah, he did say that.

You know, I do say, Steve, regularly I'll walk up and say, hi, how are you? My name's Mike.

And they'll say, I'm so -and -so. And I'll say, oh, you know, I really love the church here.

You get past the pastor. You're really a neat group of people. And then they look at me like, oh, you're the pastor.

So today on No Compromise Radio, we pretty much, is there been one in here that we've really liked, Steve? You know, here's what

I don't like, the undercurrent of the whole thing. And basically, Christians don't know what to do.

There's a new way. I'm pretty much the old way kind of guy. Let's just go back to the old way.

And I don't want to be offensive, but the scriptures are going to offend. They're going to call people to account. When unbelievers walk into a church,

I hope what happens in 1 Corinthians 14 happens with them. Remember that passage? Steve, you're supposed to be talking.

Yes, well, I do. Yeah, I think they should be dazed and confused when they walk in.

Oh, see. OK, so I found the passage. We should have the Led Zeppelin song playing in the background, dazed and confused.

I think we did a show called Dazed and Confused. All right. Let's see. Where is that passage?

Everyone has a hymn. Every head bowed, every eye closed, says the organist plays just as I am for the 400 and 73rd time.

But if all prophesy an unbeliever, our outsider enters, he is convicted by all. He is called to account by all.

The secrets of his heart are disclosed. He is told to stand up and announce who he is to the visitors.

And so falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. Like, I really, you know,

I'm not trying to offend people purposely, but I want unbelievers. I'll never forget what S.

Lewis Johnson says. If you aren't trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, now the risen Lord, I hope you get no sleep or rest until you rest in him.

Yeah, I mean, when I come, I and actually the people that I know are not believers when they leave on Sunday morning after I preach and they said, you know, nice message.

Thanks for sharing. The death knell. Yeah. What I want is for them to go to look at me perplexed or to try to slink out the back door because I want them to understand not that I want to offend anybody, but I want them to understand that that there's something wrong with their life and they need to get right with God.

Today on No Compromise Radio, we've done the second part of the Christian Piat deal on the blaze.

If you want to write us, you can write us at info at No Compromise Radio dot com. Make sure you ask Steve the hard questions. Always.

If you say Steve or Tuesday guy, he gets the email. Yeah. So send them to Mike. 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 BBC Church dot org or by phone at five oh eight eight three five three four hundred.

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