Demons and Lawnmowers

The Gospel and Mission of No Compromise Radio

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.

Mail, Book Promotion, and Upcoming Events

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I just looked outside, and it�s kind of gray, but there is the solar pope, and his hand is just waving. Everything is going to be okay.

If you want to write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com. Glad to see your letters and emails. We get a few letters. I got a letter the other day, it was from an angry Roman Catholic, maybe not angry, just disagreeing and making sure that I would understand some about apparitions of Mary.

Anyway, you can write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com. If you want to order the book, Sexual Fidelity, No Compromise, I think it�s especially a good book for some men�s groups, men�s discipleship groups, men�s Bible study.

If you want to order 8, 9, 10, 20 copies, instead of going to the website, just email me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com, and we�ll work out something that if you order multiple copies, we won�t charge you for shipping.

Shipping and handling, you can just email me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com. The other day I thought, �You know, the book�s not selling anymore. We sold a bunch in the beginning. Now it�s kind of not selling so much.

And then I think I sold 15 the other day. So there you go. It is what it is. Next time, I don�t know, the next book that�s coming out probably later in the fall, I might do the Amazon publishing where you have Amazon print as they go, so then I don�t have to have all these boxes in my garage.

If you are going to be in Branson, I look forward to seeing you. We�ll have some books there on sale for the Worldview Weekend time. Jesse Johnson�s going to be there, Mike Gendron, and some other speakers with Brannon, and then we will be in Branson, Missouri.

Looking forward to that. Missouri, the show-me state, isn�t that it? I think they had a big flood there earlier in the year. Anyway, Sexual Fidelity, No Compromise. The other thing is I have a bunch of things that go bump in the night, things that go bump in the church.

Isn�t that the title? And we have those at pretty much blowout discount sale prices. If you want to order those, I think they�re two for 12 bucks, so that�s pretty good shipping, including two for $12, but you�ve got to go to Mike at No Compromise Radio and we can order it that way.

There�ll be something on the website soon enough. I got something in the mail the other day. I received something, and it is entitled these are these little postcards, so you buy their stuff DeliveranceUSA .org, and go to DeliveranceUSA .org today to find out more.

It�s got a bunch of fire, and it�s got a bunch of dragons, some dragon-looking thing there. Demons, what do you know about them? I guess they�re asking me a question. 37 of Jesus�s ministry dealt with the evil, unclean spirits.

Ephesians 6 .12, for our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

And then now there�s some more information here. Are there things that are hindering you? Are there things hindering your congregation? For 30-plus years, this ministry has helped to set people at liberty in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Visit our website for free training and information that will set you free and will empower you and your congregation to walk in the liberty of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Fulfill the Great Commission of Mark 16 .15.

Never mind that verse isn�t in the original, but we�ll just use it anyway. There is a Great Commission in the Scripture, so I don�t want to blame too much on them for that. I don�t know. There�s a lot of demons going on out there, and here�s the problem.

I guess you can either on one side say there are no such things, or you can say my struggle with let�s see, what am I struggling with today? I�m struggling with it is a Saturday morning, it�s about noon here in central Massachusetts, and I�m about out of calories for the day.

My iFitness pal, pad, app, I�m pretty much out of those. I had some oatmeal this morning. My wife made some scrambled eggs. She made them just the way I like them, not too scrambled. Just has to be a little it kind of has to be I don�t know, is running a word?

There�s all kinds of people pulling up here to the church. Who knows who they are? They�re going to start knocking on the door, but I�m doing a show. I do have a rule. If you�re bleeding, I�ll stop the show.

If not, the proverbial show must go on. Maybe there�s a demon of having too many calories. I just had a kind bar or something too, so I think I�m out of calories pretty much. I need more calories. I have the demon of wanting to eat too much.

I really wasn�t wanting to eat too much, but if you�re on the, as Steve calls it, the Auschwitz diet, it makes it very difficult. But in all seriousness, the flesh takes care of ourselves. Takes care of ourselves?

No, that would not be the right way to do it. I was trying to find a Bible verse. I don�t think Satan has to deal with a lot of these issues because our flesh is still having the hangover, the sinful hangover.

Temptation, Sin, and the Flesh

What does the text say in James? Why can�t I find this verse? �Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

That�s a wonderful verse. That�s not what I�m after. That�s at the end here. Here it says, �Let no one say when he is tempted, �I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one.

But each person� here we go �is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. Does Satan exist?

Yes. Is he equal and opposite to God? Well, he is in opposition to God, but he is not equal to God because Satan is a created being. Satan was not eternal, is not eternal, and Satan will be judged by God, as the book of Revelation says.

Satan is alive and he�s active and he�s roaring and prowling around like a roaring lion seeking someone he may devour, 1 Peter 5. I believe that. I believe there are demons. I believe there are principalities, and they are in opposition to God.

Of course they are. But I think when we say to ourselves, �I have a problem with lust, I have a problem with greed, I have a problem with overeating, I have a problem with alcohol you do not have a demon of alcohol.

You don�t have a demon of wanting to eat too many calories. Demons don�t need to spend time dealing with those things because our own flesh, our own tainted bodies I�m not doing any kind of neoplatonic dualism, I�m not going there.

Jesus and the Gerasene Demoniac in Mark 5

But anyway, it reminds me of the time when Jesus, in Mark chapter 5, as a matter of fact, I think that�s where I�m going to go, Mark chapter 5. Why do I listen to No Compromise Radio? Because see, I never know where I�m going to be going.

It says, and I want to find out, �They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerizim, and when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.

I think there was a particular assault, an aggravated assault against Jesus while he was on the earth. Are there demon activities now? Yes, but I think especially when the Son of Man was on the earth, all the hordes of hell were unleashed to try to attack Jesus.

Well, I know some were still in a special prison, but the ones that were able to, I�m sure were trying to attack Jesus. He lived among the tombs, this particular man did with the unclean spirit, Mark 5 says, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains.

But he wrenched the chains apart, wasn�t that like the power team, would they be doing that? And he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.

And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him, and crying out with a loud voice, he said, �What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God Now, I wanted to say that louder, but there are people here in the hallway now, and I don�t want them to know I�m in here, because they�re probably going to knock and ask me where the water fountain is or how do you turn on the dishwasher in the kitchen.

I adjure you by God, do not torment me. For he was saying to the man, �Come out of the man, you unclean spirit. And Jesus said, �What is your name And he replied, �My name is Legion, for we are many.

And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, �Send us to the pigs, let us enter them. So he gave them permission, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned in the sea.

I�ve taught that passage lots of times, and it is great to see that Jesus is the Son of God. He�s the Son of Man. He is the Messiah. He�s the Christ who has power over the demons. When you read Luke and you say Jesus heals the blind, heals the lepers, when he heals people, oh, isn�t that amazing?

Shouldn�t we be thankful in our own life when we�re healed? Well, I guess that could be an application, but the point is, you�ll know the Messiah according to the Old Testament when he can heal randomly, at will, totally, organically, everybody.

He�s sovereign, that�s what I mean by randomly. Jesus is the one who fulfills all the credentials of the Messiah, and even when Jesus is in the synagogue and he reads Isaiah 61 and says, �This is about me the people�s mouths fall open, but they drop even farther when they see Jesus do these miracles.

Only the Messiah, only God himself incarnate could heal like Jesus does. What are these people saying in the hallway? They�re probably saying, �His chair is broken and he doesn�t even know it. The chair remains broken.

I know. We�re going to get a new one. We�re going to get a new one. Like I said, we never ask for money on No Compromise Radio, but I�m about to ask for a chair. No, we don�t need any money for a chair.

We�ve got money in the budget for the chair, but I just need to pull the trigger to get that. Squeeze the trigger. Remember our new deal for giving to the radio show. If you�re a millionaire or billionaire, you can go ahead and give.

Give away. It�s that time of year, things are tight, got bills to be paid, a lot of staff. Do we have staff? Mark chapter 5. Can you imagine when you were there and you were the apostles watching all this?

Jesus� disciples seeing this crazed man, depending on what account, a couple men, but at least this crazed man, singled out for his ferocity maybe, coming up to Jesus and probably be scared. I have been around people who probably are not demon-possessed, but they are a little bit out there, maybe homeless, maybe a little crazy.

It makes you wonder. I remember once I took the children to the geriatric psych ward because they needed to be admitted. No, we needed to go visit someone in the hospital who was having some problems and they were admitted to the geriatric psych ward.

I coached the children, all four of them, and I said, �I�m going to go love these people. They�re locked up in this floor. They will let us out. The nurses will be nice. You�re going to be safe. You stay by daddy.

You ask people questions. You smile. You greet them. And it is a little scary, you know, wondering what�s going to happen that particular second. Once I had a man in my study here and he was very perturbed and he said he had Tourette�s so he was swearing a bunch of times.

That�s a different subject for a different day. I did tell him, �Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth. And he was going to be judged for that and he ended up stop swearing. It�s funny how syndromes and syndromes can all coalesce.

I was thinking he�s going to take my monitor, you know, the monitors that are about three foot deep in the old days, and he�s going to smash that thing on the ground. I was a little worried. Anyway, nothing really happened there.

Demon Possession Versus Ordinary Sin and Cultural Confusion

But here Jesus is around this demon-possessed man and there�s a legion in him and it�s going to get bad. It could get really bad real soon. And Jesus is in control. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is sovereign.

We don�t have to worry about anything when Jesus is around, when they�re crazy. No, not just crazy, but there�s a demon-possessed naked man running around. This is quite different than people having the demon of postnasal drip, the demon of I don�t have enough calories, the demon of caffeine, the demon of whatever they�ve got problems with.

I mean, isn�t this what we want to do? And at the root of it, I would imagine, in my opinion, it is of many transgender people and they�ve got problems in their life. I mean, don�t we all? And what do they do?

Well, they think that if their desire to be the opposite sex that maybe they had since they were a kid, if that�s fulfilled, then all the problems will go away. I remember one account reading where there was a man who wanted to be transgender.

This was 60 years ago, but they did not have the medical technology to do the operation. And so he remained he even though he took estrogen and dressed like a lady, et cetera. He said he was very glad that they did not have the capabilities surgically to change his body, mutilate his body, because he realized that was not the core of his problem.

Isn�t that fascinating? You think this is going to help. I mean, we�re no different, are we, Christians, where you�re feeling blue and if you just have some, I don�t know, some ice cream, you�ll feel better.

And then afterwards, you just feel worse because you ate all these calories. Oh, no, I wouldn�t be. This is not biography. This is not an autobiography either. Is it now? I can still hear these people.

You know what it is? It�s Easter Sunday tomorrow, Resurrection Sunday. They�re here getting all the breakfast stuff together and they�re in there making stuff. So that�s what�s going on. Okay. What you didn�t know is I just paused this and then went over there and said, could you please stop making so much noise?

You have the demon of making noise. They said, how much longer are you going to be recording? I said 28 minutes, this show and the next. But now I�m looking at it, I think it�s actually more like 32 minutes.

Anyway, we have a problem and that problem, our flesh, our sinful hangover. Some people call it sinful nature, old nature. I don�t think I�d call it that. Demons might exacerbate things, but they don�t cause things.

We can�t say to ourselves, well, you know what, I�ve got the demon of transgenderism. Let�s take care of that demon and I�m fine. No, God has given us the remedy and the remedy happens to be, thankfully, something we can accomplish because we�re in Christ Jesus.

What if it was a demon? How do you get rid of the demon? I mean, cast them out to Burbank, then what about the poor people in Burbank? I remember going to see someone�s Tibetan prayer flags at their house, not a member of the church here.

It�s a member of that other church and the Tibetan prayer flags. What do these do? Well, these kind of keep the demons away from their house and I said, you know, to go to your neighbor�s house? You know, now you�re going to push all the demons over there.

Inconsistency of where the logic will take us, that is very important. Well, demon guys possessed, running up to you naked, all dirty, slitting their arms and blood everywhere and the dried black blood.

That�s a weird look. The closest I ever came to something like that, it�s not equal, not a one-to-one correspondence, but it was at my house in California. Well, that was the bank�s house and I lived on Carpenter Street.

It was kind of nice, you know, biblical. Actually, there was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle actor who lived right down the street. How about that? That was fun. Trick or treat. One day, I went to my neighbor�s house.

He lived next door. His name was Walt and I was a new homeowner. Kim and I were newly married and I went over there to borrow the lawnmower and I would mow his lawn and my lawn. That was the deal and then I would fill it up with gas.

Well, I was going to have some people over. Kim and I were going to have some people over from the church. We wanted to get everything nice. She was taking care of the inside, so I was going to take care of the outside and I�m going to mow.

It�s getting dark and I just go all the way across my yard and his yard over the driveway back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I saw this guy who was living down the street and he ran down to the middle of the street and started dancing, a Grateful Dead dance.

Well, now I�m mowing the other way, so I can�t really see him. Well, by the time I turn around and mow the right way so I could see him with a direct angle of vision, he now has his shirt off. Well, then I turn around and mow the opposite way, don�t see him, turn around the other way and now he has his jeans off.

Mow the other way, come back and forth and now I see him on the return trip with the mower and he has his underwear off, but he still has his socks on, so he�s not completely naked. Go back the other way, turn around the other way, he has one sock off and the other one kind of hanging on there and he�s doing these dances in the middle of the street.

And I thought, �Well, you know what? Hmm, I think I feel pretty safe right about now. I don�t know about the kids in the neighborhood if they�re going to be safe, but I feel safe because I have a mower.

He has a sock. I pretty much wouldn�t attack a guy with a mower, but maybe he was that crazy. He had the demon possession, extra energy guy. Well, I thought to myself, �If I go tell my wife don�t look outside, what do you think she�s going to want to do

What would I want to do? So, I went to our neighbor�s house, the ones who had loaned me the mower. I said, �Would you please call the police Because, you know, naked dancing, grateful dead man in the middle of the street, not that big a deal, but then he would run up to people�s windows and knock.

So, I thought, �I�ve got to do something. So, let�s let the police do it. This was right after the Rodney King incident and the LA riots and the police force had a community let�s be nice to people approach.

I don�t know what that technically was called. So, the police come. He�s got his pants halfway on by now because the police are there. He�s running around. He runs to his house. He was letting a room, renting a room out.

And he got the hose and turned it on and the hose had one of those spray handles to concentrate the pressure to spray. And he was kneeling down like a man who was shooting a rifle to steady his arms, steady his hands, steady the gun hose and was spraying the police.

Anyway, the police came to the hose, tackled him. That�s the closest I get to the naked demon man in the garrisons. You know, you need good illustrations. I was reading the Steve Lawson book on Martin Lloyd-Jones and the preaching of Martin Lloyd-Jones and there are some illustrations.

I think Lloyd-Jones said something like an illustration book was like an abomination. You just need to think of your own illustrations and if you take a walk or if you look around your office or study or desk or home or kitchen or you go to Starbucks.

We don�t go to Starbucks much. The other day, I went to Starbucks. It was so dirty, so dirty. I just thought the idea 20 years ago of trying to create a place to go not work and not home but this comfortable place to go.

I don�t particularly, unless I�m in a third world country and I don�t even like it then but I accept it. I don�t really like dirt and trash everywhere. I mean somebody cleaned this floor, will you? They keep it clean at Pete�s.

Every time I go to Pete�s, I shouldn�t say every time but when I go to Pete�s Coffee, I regularly say, I mentioned Pete�s Coffee on the radio all the time. Sometimes my listeners send me some Pete�s Coffee and I want them to go, really?

You advertise on the radio? Then here�s a free cup of coffee. So far, nothing. But we�re anti-Starbucks for lots of reasons now. One is because I had a gold card and I had 11 stars on it. The 12th star, you get something free.

They changed everything around. They made me go back to zero stars. I thought, it�s finished. It�s over. Forget it. We�re done. When I was in Scotts Valley, California after the Shepherd�s Conference and went to Pete�s Coffee, man, that was good.

That was really good. Anyway, my name is Mike Avendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. If you want to write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com. Thank you for listening. With all kidding aside regarding money, you don�t need to send us money.

If you just tell your friends, hey, listen to No Compromise Radio, you will be benefited. That would be great. Jesus is the Lord of demons. He�s the Lord of lords and the King of kings. If you have a personal struggle that you�re dealing with, you don�t need to do a bunch of demon warfare and cast demons out and all these kind of things.

They�re not going to listen to you. I think they�re going to just laugh. But you do have everything you need in Christ as you read the epistles to deal with sin in your life and have God honoring you of that.

Mike Avendroth, No Compromise Radio. Always biblical. Always provocative.

Always in that order. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Avendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God�s Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

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

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