The State of Theology (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, a ministry. Pastor Steve Cooley, what�s new with you?

Um, well, I didn�t really expect that question. What�s new with me? I don�t know. There�s, you know, there�s lots of new things. New to tell? No. No, no. New to tell. I mean, there�s just new things every day, you know, I mean, family and just all kinds of things.

So, I�m always adapting and changing.

Does God Change?

Oh, which leads us into the State of Theology. Last time when Steve was here, last week, it seemed like it was just moments ago. Smooth transition. We were discussing, probably with every other podcaster, Ligonier slash Lifeways State of Theology, thestateoftheology .com, and they interviewed people that were generally Christian.

Right. And they also, you know, they contrast that by just giving a general blast to the public, the adults in the United States. So you get, you know, both. You get the, what do most Americans think, and then what do most American evangelicals think?

And the first question was, does God change? And most people said both believer and unbeliever. Not most, but half of them said yes.

Yeah. I mean, it's amazing, right, that 48 of professing evangelicals would say, yes, God changes.

What about, like, just even simply Malachi 3, �I, the Lord God, do not change. What would that mean in the Hebrew?

Well, yeah, basically it means I don't change, kind of.

Well, come on, Jesus grew in knowledge and stature for man and God.

Well, and if God doesn't change, then that would mean what? That someday we're going to change and be better than Him because we're constantly growing and learning, and poor God's just stuck there?

Well, I think His only way to change must be getting worse if He's the great one.

And that's exactly right, and that's the point. God is perfect, right? How do you improve on perfect? And the problem is we don't have this concept of perfect in our brains. We think we understand perfect because we, you know, somebody's a perfect 10 or, you know, they're...

Are you talking about me again? Well, yeah. But, you know, we have this idea, we have our own human standard of perfection. Well, God's standard of perfection is so far above anything that we can grasp that, you know, when we think about Him improving, it just shows how little we understand about God.

Original Sin and Whether Humans Are Born Innocent

I'm with you. Why don't we do number two? God learns and adapts us to different circumstances. We dealt with that. Number two, are we born innocent?

Well, you know, from a criminal standpoint, yes. I mean, I always, you know, hey, if I can slide my law enforcement background in there, I do.

Steve, for a long time, I've always... Well, sorry. For a long time, I've enjoyed your police take on things, and I think you were a little reticent years ago to include that in sermons or other things, and I tried to say I like that stuff.

And so I'm glad you finally came around to my point of view.

Well, you know, every once in a while, you're right. Yeah.

All right. Here's what it says. When God created the world, everything He made was good. Okay? So far, so good? Yeah, I'm tracking. Okay. Yet, through Adam and Eve's rebellion in the Garden of Eden, I might just have put Adams.

I mean, she did it too, but we're thinking federal headship is what I'm thinking.

Yeah, but you gotta be fair, you gotta be inclusive. Gotta include the lady, yeah.

Humankind became corrupted. The Bible teaches the concept of original sin, the original sin being Adam, which means that since the fall, every human being inherits a sin nature from the time of their conception, Psalm 51.

In other words, we are not sinners because we sin, rather sin because we're sinners. Mm-hmm. Okay, anything you'd want to clarify with that before we look at the survey says?

I mean, I could, but I think the most important thing is just to understand, and let's see if it's anywhere in there. It's not. Just the idea of depravity, I mean, since we're born with Adam's sin, the Bible says we're dead in our sins and trespasses, which means we're not born innocent.

We see babies come out and we think they're glorious and they are, what a gift from God, but they're spiritually dead even as they're given this life, right? As they come forth and really exhibit, I mean, they're given life at conception, but we see them and we just think, you know, how wonderful, how innocent, how pure, and nothing can be spiritually further from the truth.

If I were to write something like this, I probably, Steve, would include federal headship, right? I totally believe that here when it says we're not sinners because we sin, we sin because we're sinners.

So we're born sinners, but that's a consequence of Adam's sin credited to our account, and to your credit and their credit, it says Romans 5, 12 there, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned, for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law, yet death reigned from Adam to Moses.

And therefore, you know, you've got these little babies, they die. Why do babies die? Well, of course, they have Adam's sin credited to their account. So that's the question, are we born innocent? And what would you think the difference between the adult finding and the Christian finding,.

What should it be? Well, it should be a huge gap. I mean, Christians shouldn't understand that we're born sinners. They should get that. I mean, original sin is a thing, and we, generally speaking, especially evangelicals, should get that.

You know, if you're including, and we never even talked about whether Roman Catholics could affirm the four points of, whereby they define it.

Yeah, we went straight to Mormons, because it was all about you.

Well, and it typically is. I think I still have that here, but, you know, Roman Catholics understand that baptism takes care of original sin. So, but, you know, just reviewing this, the Bible is the highest authority for what I believe.

Catholics? Eh, it's a squeaker. You know, I mean, you do have a... Which Bible? Yeah, and church teaching and stuff like that. But it's very important for me to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus as their Savior.

They'll make it in the Jubilee. Okay, maybe. So, well... It said alone, there isn't alone there. Yeah, could remove... Yeah, so I don't know. Catholics might have... Catholics who know anything probably would not really affirm.

I have a technical question for you, Steve. Mormons that don't really practice, I've heard, are called Jack Mormons. Is that true? Mm, I mean...

My brother-in-law is a Jack Mormon. Yeah, it's kind of a thing, but I, you know, within the church, and I, you know, obviously I can't speak for the church today, I've been out of it for a while, but what we used to call them, we would not call them Jack Mormons, you know, unless we were kind of being crude, we'd call them inactive.

Oh, I thought you were going to say Jill Mormons. No. No, there's no Jack and Jill. See, the disobedient Mormons are the Jack Mormons. Why aren't they Jill Mormons?

They're just inactive. See, in that way, it doesn't associate them with either gender.

So why don't we call non-practicing Catholics Jack Catholics? Because their given name is John. Okay. Okay. So... Okay. So here's what's interesting to me. Everyone's born innocent in the eyes of God.

Adult findings, 71 agree, and U .S. evangelical finding, 65 agree. Now what in the world is going on? Is this a typo? No, again...

What is happening? I just think 71, 65 of evangelicals think that babies are born innocent, and what does that mean to me? That means that pastors are not teaching the Bible. Ooh. Uh-huh.

Sorry. Lo siento. I wonder if they learn this in seminary, original sin. I think the answer is most of them do, but maybe they get to the church and think, if I talk too much about sin, hell, death, condemnation, Jesus is the only way that people might not come back.

Well, I mean, if you're doing 10 ways to divorce-proof your marriage, you're probably not spending a lot of time talking about original sin or total depravity or any of those other things, or whether or not God can change, because you're focused on quote-unquote practical matters.

And, you know, if the Bible says, and it does, that God has given us everything pertaining to life and godliness, and that the Bible alone is God-breathed, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and yet we're not going to teach that, because it's not practical.

It's not what people want is the truth, right? And do people want to hear that babies are sinners from the womb? No, they do not want to hear that.

I would expect that the adult findings should be, you know, 95 percent, except they probably polled some people that with children, they realize.

Oh, I think that's probably good, right?

But, you know, all of our education system, psychology system, it seems to be built pretty much on people are good, and therefore circumstances are bad. There are some other people that might be bad and have gone to the dark side.

Therefore, how do we educate and psychologize good people, right? Most psychologists don't say, well, man's corrupt.

What are we going to do? And, you know, as a side aside, one of the things I love about the United States of America is our founders understood that man is inherently evil. I remember hearing that for the first time, not in a church, in a public school.

My American history teacher, Mr. Carr, said, man is inherently evil, and he wrote it on the board. And I just thought, what is he talking about? And then he talked about checks and balances and all these kinds of things.

And he goes, the founders understood that men, you know, that absolute power corrupts absolutely. So they put all these checks and balances into the Constitution. I was like, wow, that's wild.

It's interesting. I was just listening to, I think, Matthew Barrett on the Credo Pop podcast, and they were interviewing a couple of scholars on Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and others, and how Franklin came from this Puritan family, so he knew the Bible really, really well.

And Thomas Jefferson knew the Bible well, not as well as Franklin. But these men, unlike popular opinion, which would state they're deist, no, no, they didn't believe in deism, because they believed in providence.

They believed this hands-on, and certainly not they weren't Christians, but this God who is doing things, and he's hands-on, providentially working. And I think they were steeped in the Bible enough that if they were asked U .S. Adult Finding, they'd say 95 true, and we're gonna reflect that in our checks and balances with executive judicial legislative branches.

But for Christians to say 65 believe that everybody's born innocent, we've got a lot of work to do.

Well, it's awful, and it really, you know, I think it's reflected in a number of ways. You know, I think one of the problems in the world today is that far too many parents in our school system and everything else has determined that kids know what's best for them, right?

And I think it's the same thing here, right? If you're convinced that children are brought into this world innocent, and it's only what they learn that makes them good or bad, then you're going to treat them a lot differently.

You're going to defer to your kids and, you know, friends, parents. If you're listening to this podcast today and you're deferring to your kids, you are not parenting.

Steve, good point. You've got a theology that determines your methodology, so if your methodology's wrong, go back to your theology. Yes. In other words, what you believe about the depravity of children, and as they state in this survey that Remember Ephesians 2 says that we're children of, you know, by nature children of wrath, how do I train up a child who's been corrupted by the fall?

What do we need to do? Does that change anything? My child's born good, my child's born evil. How do I go ahead and have a methodology that reflects what I believe?

I mean, it's really just, it's frightening to think that Christian parents would think, you know, my child is born innocent. Well, let me ask you, dear Christian, what is it exactly that corrupted your child?

Was it their house? Was it the parenting? Was it homeschooling? Was it public school? How did they learn how to sin? You know, I mean, there's the question. Because if you can answer that in some other way than, you know, it was inherent in them, then you're really, you know, out on an island.

But once you say, well, they just kind of did it on their own, okay, how did they do that?

It reminds me of those psychological tests, Steve, where, I don't know the details, but it's, you know, they give a kid who's a little bit bigger 15 toys, and then they give a little smaller boy one toy, and they put him in the room and film it.

Before you know it, the kid with 15's got 16. Yes. Because he's got the power. Yes. And in addition, if we are not stressing sin in children or adults, the grace of God maybe is not as good as we really think.

It's not that amazing grace when you think that saved a pretty good innocent person like me. Yeah.

It's kind of, it's pretty good grace. You know, it's not bad grace, but it ain't amazing grace.

Whether Christians Should Join a Local Church

Mike Abendroth, Steve Cooley on No Compromise Radio. We've got the third thestateoftheology .com question. I don't know what the reason for the order is, the ordo salutis, historical salutis, the surveya salutis.

I mean, maybe it's alphabetical or something, you know, or maybe it's just the random guide question generator. Just did this thing.

Probably to throw off podcasters that are going to critique this.

Yeah. I mean, this one isn't, it's another important question, but it doesn't quite, I don't know, in my mind, rise to the same level of gravity, you know.

Question three, does church membership matter? Jesus says, Matthew 16, 18, I will build my church. And they ask a good question then, what is the church? It consists of those whom God has called out of the world and drawn to himself through Christ.

Every person, past, present, and future, whom God calls to himself as a universal church, et cetera. And then they give a statement. It's a statement 24, but it's number three for us to see they're hiding stuff from us.

Yeah. What's up with that? Every Christian has an obligation to join a local church. That's the statement under the umbrella of membership matters. They've got adult findings and they've got evangelical findings.

What do you think about that? Well. Which one do you think is going to be bigger or should be bigger?

I mean, the evangelical one, again, should be much, much bigger.

Do you think we live in a society today, Steve, that basically shuns our poo-poos or says, you know what, membership, it doesn't really matter. I don't want to have to join. I don't want to have to commit.

You know, I can join for seven days and get behind the paywall and then I'm done.

Well, let me tell you something. You're talking to somebody who knows a little something about politics in this region, right? And you know, the number one political party in Massachusetts is unenrolled.

Seriously? Yeah. I did not know that. People don't want to be, because it doesn't matter in Massachusetts, right? That's not independent. Something different. Unenrolled. Yeah. Yeah. Because you can just go to the polls and say, I'd like to vote.

You know, I'd like my Democrat, you know, or I'd like my Republican ballot and for the primary. So you don't have to be. But what if I'm independent? Can I do the same thing? No. Independent would mean that you're, that you belong to some lesser third party.

You can't just be in the, there is no independent, you know, you're either part of, you know, let's say the, uh, uh, what's another party, the constitutional party or the, the greens or whatever. And then you would vote in their primary.

Remember Ralph Nader? Sure. Yeah. He saved, uh, was it, um, George W. Bush is that, was that the election? Oh yeah.

That's interesting. Ross Perot lost it for the, for, for George Bush's dad. Yeah. I think. Yay for third parties. What if I'm a Tory?

How do I vote? Uh, you get on a plane and you go to England.

Okay. So Christians joining churches. You just show me a verse that says I have to join the church and I'll join.

Yeah. Well, there are, there are plenty, right? I mean, how do you exercise spiritual gifts? I exercise them in my home. Well, that's not what it says. It says in the body of Christ, you know what I mean?

You could just go on and on and on. Church discipline. Yes. I mean, there are, there are so many instances of it. The New Testament doesn't command you to join the church. It assumes that when you become a Christian, you will be in a local church because it, it's inconceivable to the mind of God that you would not join it.

Perfectly stated. Adult finding obligation to join a local church. If you're a Christian 36%, okay, fine. They probably think, you know what? One out of three say, yeah, if you're going to be in a church, you should be a member.

I mean, come on. You're going to be a Christian. Yeah, sure. Why not? Right. And then for US evangelicals, 68 agree. So two thirds almost, or a little over.

I should join. Yeah. Again, you know, I think, I think this falls on churches. Churches a lot, many of them, you know, certainly not our church where we have membership has its privileges. We, we have the, you know, Bethlehem Bible Express card where we have membership has better parking.

Yeah.

You can use the bathroom if you're a member. Right. Yeah. And if you're not...

Outhouse is in the back if you're a visitor. That's how we make people, you know, really the anxious bench. Am I going to make it to the outhouse? You know.

Outhouse Bible Church. Well, it's interesting to think when you turn on the water in your house now and you think this is, this is a modern day small M miracle that we have clean water, that we just turn a faucet and off we go.

Yeah. Well, there's no guarantee, you know, going down the road, but we digress. So join the church. It's important.

You have an obligation. Okay. Last question for today, Steve. That is the Bible, right? Are we up to the Bible? Okay. Okay. Okay. Statement 16. The Bible, like all sacred writings, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not really true.

Okay. Okay. Is it a sacred writing? Well, I'm going to say for adults, I'm going to say this is very high. I mean, this should be really high. And then for evangelicals, it should be really low, right?

Right. And so they changed the format here a little bit. It's made harder for podcasters like us. They've got the U .S. Adult Finding, and they've got the 2014, 16, 18, 20, and 22 percentages. And so, yeah.

So this is a trend statement. And so the trend is now from 41 in 2014, getting larger every year to 53 agreeing in 2022. So the U .S. adults say the Bible's sacred. It's got some accounts of myths, but not really true.

Right?

Golden rule. That would be good. I wonder what the other 47 say. Unenrolled. No, I believe it's the word of God. I mean, what do they say? Or declined to state? I don't know.

I think they're just guessing because they're biblically illiterate. Nobody hardly reads the Bible unless they're a Christian these days.

But I remember I had a friend way back when, when I had friends. And he would compare the Bible to Gilgamesh and things, I mean, just epic myths. And what's the Nordic one? I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But he would just come up with all these kind of goofy things and I'd look at him and I'd go, his name happened to be Steve as well.

And I remember just thinking, what is wrong with you? Where did you come from? And where are you going? But yeah, I just can't imagine that that wouldn't be higher that people would just say, yeah, it's a, you know, it's a book written by men and it's filled with Near Eastern mythology.

Steve, if we could change this around a little bit and talk to evangelical pastors at large, I think they would probably agree with a high percentage that the Bible is God's word and has 2 ,100 characters that we can learn how to do good things if we follow their character example.

And they would all say, yes, dare to be a Moses, you know, dare to be a JL, right?

Whenever I see Thor with that hammer on any kind of commercial, I just think about, it's not Thor, it's JL and the person is not some weird Marvel character. It's Sisera. And he's laying there on his little bed there and here comes Thor S.

About to get a, about to get a hammer in the head.

So we hope you're listening today and you say things like membership matters. The Bible's important. I wonder what's going to happen when they turn off all our Bibles with the eBible turn off. And then what are we going to do?

Well, we'll have to bust out those printed copies that we've stored up in the attic for lo those many years.

Did you know, dear listener, that we at Bethlehem Bible Church actually have hymnals still and pew Bibles? What? Are you kidding? I don't like to sit and listen to the Bible being preached with my phone because I'm too tempted to look at stuff.

So I don't do that. I just have a hard bound copy when I'm listening.

Well, you're more spiritual than many.

Mike Cavendroth here. Steve Cooley. Hey, did you know the new book is out, Gospel Assurance, 31 day, not devotional, but guide to assurance. I did know that. I understand. You wrote every word. I wrote every word that's not public domain.

That is the introduction. You can email us info at nocompromiseradio .com. Let's do part three next time, Steve. All right. 835 -3400.