Andy Stanley

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 here.

Glad you are listening. Glad you watched the NoCoEver .com production with Carl Truman, James White, and Phil Johnson, executive director and producer of No Compromise Radio.

Josh McDonald did the editing. Josh got a brand new little boy, so we're excited for him. He does a great job here.

What is on tap for today? Now in the past, I have been called by listeners arrogant and rude and prideful, and I think that has to do something with my discussions of things that I don't agree with.

That's what I would think. I'm sure I get under the skin of some

Roman Catholics. I want to. I want to do that. If we sat and had a coffee,

I'd probably be a little nicer, although this is radio. This is not the style I always preach with.

This is not necessarily the MO for my fathering or my husbandry, but it is

No Compromise Radio because radio is radio. When you flip it over to listen to this station,

I guess you don't do that anymore. Maybe you still tune in stations. I don't know. Remember the old cars? I have an older car, it's a 1970

K5 Blazer. What you have to do is you set the

AM, it only has an AM in it, and you set the AM station, you know, the little,

I can't talk, red little dial there, and then you pull out a tab and push it in real hard and that's the preset.

So it doesn't quite preset always perfectly. But when you're in a K5 Blazer, you don't want to listen to the radio anyway.

So this is radio and I would love any comments or questions at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

I just whistled when I was talking. And if you were a Roman Catholic, I want you to write to me and implore me to believe the real gospel.

For all the, he's a Catholic hater, I still think if you believe you're right and you're a

Roman Catholic, you're a hater if you don't try to convince me. I'm trying to convince you for the glory of God and for your soul.

So anyway, I guess if that makes me arrogant and prideful, then that makes me arrogant and prideful.

So leading into that, this will be a controversial show for some, but probably not for others.

We know that there's a man named Charles Stanley and he's a preacher in Atlanta.

I've been to that church there and he has a son named

Andy Stanley. And for such a long time, I had great respect and admiration for Andy Stanley, mainly because it's hard to stand up to your father, let alone a famous father, let alone a famous preacher father.

And so when the whole debacle in the news regarding Charles Stanley and his wife and the divorce, et cetera, et cetera, when that all hit and Charles' son

Andy left in light of that, I don't know if it was because of that, but it was around the same time,

I'm pretty sure it was because of that. But just dotting my I's here and crossing my

T's and putting some tilde's on the ends.

Mañana, my daughter's taking Spanish. And so she said to me the other day, hasta luego.

I said, let's not pronounce the H's. OK, hon? Not like I'm a linguist, that's for sure.

Right, Ted? And so Andy Stanley had a lot of respect. For him, for years, he has said some things recently and the way he's been preaching recently, the no -compromise respect meter has gone down.

And so today, unfortunately, we have to have another Kooks and Barney's award. And that award goes to Andy Stanley.

In light of his comments in the Christian Post, Andy Stanley, September 10th, 2012, your approach to preaching can hinder your message by Jeff Shapiro, Christian Post reporter.

Now, of course, your approach to preaching can hinder your message. And we'll talk about that today on No Compromise Radio.

Kooks and Barney's are people who try to go surf with expert surfers and they just get in the way.

You know, they're from inland someplace. They're from San Jose. They drive over the 17 and then they try to surf with the big boys.

I know I'm not a very good surfer. I'm getting better over the years.

And so probably some people think I'm a Kook and a Barney when it comes to surfing. I guess

I'll have to wear that moniker. My son and my wife will help me. You know, dad, stay over there.

Don't get in these people's way. That kind of thing. That's why I like surfing in Maine, because there's nobody around and I'm the expert.

Well, as long as Kim and Luke are at the beach. So the Kooks and Barney's award today goes to Andy Stanley, because in essence, here's what he's trying to say.

Let's not quote the Bible when we talk to unbelievers, because that just is going to get in the way.

And let's just say Matthew said instead of the gospel, the

Bible says. So I'm going to talk about this article a little bit, and then I'm going to show you proof positive that Andy Stanley, when it comes to this, has no idea what he's talking about.

Because we're going to see very, very clearly that Jesus said to them, have you never read the scriptures,

Matthew 21, 43, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

This was the Lord's doing and it was marvelous in our eyes. Now, most of you are going to be shocked because you think and you rightly think that good preaching should be in the style of Billy Graham.

The Bible says, the Bible says, the Bible says. When you watch the old Billy Graham videos, that's exactly what he did.

And I commend him for that. The Bible says God's word is the authority. Now, there are all kinds of synonyms for the

Bible. These days, scriptures, sacred writ, the Holy Bible.

There's a lot of different ways to talk about the scriptures. But I will admit

Jesus didn't say, the Bible says. But that's exactly what he said. He just didn't use the word

Bible. He said scriptures. It's the same thing. The scriptures say. This authoritative book says.

And I don't care about the listeners if they're unbelievers and say to me, I don't believe that book.

I don't believe a literal Adam. I don't believe in dinosaurs. You Christians should have the collective

Cooks and Barney's award. You have no idea what you're talking about. That is not my concern.

My concern is to be faithful to the God, to the God of the universe, because it is required that servants, that stewards be found faithful, trustworthy.

First Corinthians chapter four. And so I am not going to think about unbelievers and think about how their postmodern thinking now.

So I can't say any dogmatic statements that they're most modern now thinking and that I have to appeal to social gospel.

That's not how I'm going to do it. I'm going to preach the gospel. And if you want to preach the gospel in the style of Acts 17 or Acts 19, well, that just to me depends on how well people know the scriptures.

And so today on No Compromise Radio, you might say to me, well,

Mike, you don't have as many people at your church as Andy Stanley. That's true.

That's true. He has 30 ,000. I only have 20 ,000. So you'd be correct there.

Let's see the very end of this. It says, and this is not Andy saying this, this is Jeff saying it. Andy Stanley is a senior pastor of North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia, which he founded in 1995 and has since grown into five churches in the

Atlanta area and a network of more than 30 partner churches around the world. So I would say that if your truth is based on audience, well,

I don't think, I think No Compromise has maybe 1600 likes on Facebook. Does that count? How many does

Andy have? Probably 50 grand. I don't know what he has. Andy Stanley spoke to pastors and teachers at the

New Spring Leadership Conference last Thursday about the one question he's asked all the time.

How do you preach to unbelievers and Christians at the same time during worship services, during church services?

Well, when you watch Andy Stanley talk about homosexuality, for instance, he's got a way that he's trying to hedge.

He's trying to compromise. Let's just pull up messages and you can listen to him do that very thing.

Now remember, let's think theologically for a moment. Our ecclesiology, the study of the church, the doctrine of the church rather, tells us that unbelievers blaspheme and believers worship, and that when we have a worship service on Sunday, we do everything for the believer as he needs to worship

God. Everything is for God ultimately, yes. But from the horizontal perspective, this is for believers.

How do we assist the worship of believers? We do what the Bible says. We preach to them. We pray with them.

We sing with them. We take the Lord's Supper with them. We baptize them, etc.

Now, if an unbeliever walks in, great. If an unbeliever shows up on Resurrection Sunday service, great.

Lloyd -Jones on Sunday night would have evangelistic services on Sunday night. But see, that is in addition to, that is not taking away from the worship that the saints of God have.

And so right from the get -go, we're doing this seeker -sensitive business, and it's no different than Hybels or Warren or anyone else.

Let's try to figure out what the unchurched person will think. And doesn't that strike you just in such an odd way when you think about the

Bible? And I'll tell you what Andy Stanley says in a second, but let's just use his words. Doesn't that strike you as something that's far from what

Paul says? See, I'm trying not to say what the Bible says, but what Paul says.

When unbelievers enter, 1 Corinthians 14, talking about ordered worship, it says if an unbeliever outside enters, he's convicted by all.

He is called to account by all. The secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so falling on his face, he will worship

God and declare that God is really among you. That's what we're after.

That's what I want unbelievers to do. I want them to have no rest and no peace until they take their rest in Christ Jesus, and they have peace with God through the risen mediator, the

Lord Christ. That's what we want. We don't want to be mean. We give visitors

Bibles. We give visitors cookies. I try to greet them, but I want them to repent.

That's the one thing they can do. Without faith in Christ, it's what? Impossible to please

God. And so, no matter what they do, going to church is a sin for an unbeliever.

It's not as sinful as reading pornography, but it's still a sin because all the motives are wrong.

So I want them to hear the Bible preached, and I want them to be saved. And so that's really what

I'm looking for. So when he says, how do you preach to unbelievers and Christians at the same time, my answer to that is if someone asked me the question, but the

Christian post is not going to call me anytime soon. My answer would be, well,

I don't try to preach to unbelievers and Christians at the same time. Short of an outreach concert, and I give a message at Christmastime or maybe

Christmastime or Easter, since that is the time when the unbelievers come out by the hordes, or if there's another 9 -11, there's a response that I would give to those things and make sure it would be more evangelistically centered.

But day in and day out on Sundays, how do I preach to unbelievers and Christians at the same time?

I don't. I preach to the Christians, and the unbelievers can listen in.

They can gladly eavesdrop, but I don't preach to them. Now, at some time in the service,

I most likely will say, like last Sunday, I said, if you are not a Christian, it would be like Judas for you.

It would be better that if you were never born. I was talking about the gospel and Christ Jesus dying for our sins according to the scriptures, and how he was buried and then he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and then he appeared.

And we were just talking about the gravity of sin, and we need a sin bearer. He died on our behalf for our sins.

It is really your approach and not your content that determines how well you engage unchurched people, said

Stan Lee. Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul were amazing at this, he says, which is why they are profound, but also seem to be confusing at times because their message stayed the same, but their approach often changed.

Now, I'm not going to deny their approach changed, certainly to Gentiles. It was, the Bible says, no, it was creation.

He started with creation, Paul did in Acts 17. To Jewish people informed by scriptures, the Bible says, scriptures say, most preachers have inherited an approach to preaching and ministry,

Stanley says, but they must be careful not to let their approach turn off unbelieving listeners to their otherwise good message.

Now, I don't want to be offensive unduly, that's correct, I agree with that, but he's going down a road that I don't want to go down.

If we're not willing to adjust our sails and adjust our approach, you can spend your entire life telling the truth and driving people away from it at the same time.

In order to take a better approach to preaching when non -Christians are present, Stanley encouraged pastors to acknowledge from the pulpit that there are people in their church services who don't believe what is being taught.

Say what? Yeah, we've got some. First of all,

I can't please everyone. Second of all, I doubt everybody's going to believe everything I say because A, I'm not right on everything.

B, I've studied the passage for 20 hours and they've studied it for five seconds, maybe a little longer for some people.

He told pastors to choose a passage of scripture and stick with it so as not to confuse unbelievers who aren't familiar with the

Bible. Okay, I'd go for that. Don't do a lot of auto -bullying, 426, 814, 1432, a bunch of cross -references without any context.

But I do that for Christians. That's just general. It's not because I'm trying to un -confuse believers are confused believers.

While those suggestions seem easy to implement, he openly acknowledged that some of his other suggestions are more difficult to accept for some pastors and teachers.

Namely, Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. One such suggestion was his argument that pastors should intentionally give unbelievers permission not to believe and not to obey.

Those are his words in quotation marks, intentionally give unbelievers permission not to believe and not to obey.

I have no such permission. I will give no such permission. I want you to acknowledge God is in this place.

I want your heart to be disclosed with all its secrets. I want you to fall on your face and I want you to worship

God and say God is among you. You must repent. You must believe. You must obey the gospel by believing.

The obedience of faith. I'm going to require that. That's called preaching. This is not most modern, post -modern world.

This is not, how do I get them to like me because maybe I'll eventually get them. No, I believe that they're depraved and I believe that God has chosen the elect before the foundation of the world and that Christ atonement was definite.

He died for those people and said people will eventually be wooed by the spirit, compelled by the spirit, drugged by the spirit, drawn by the father, and they will believe and they will believe unto eternity.

And so I preach to honor God and he takes the gospel preached and then makes believers, 1

Corinthians 15, 11. So I reject this completely.

Stanley said, non -Christians aren't supposed to obey the Bible. No, non -Christians don't act like Christians.

I get that part. We'd love them to, but when you preach boldly, broadly, and you don't differentiate what unchurched people hear is judgment.

Hello? Hello. I look down at my time counter and said 1733 and remind me back 1733.

There is going to be judgment because Jesus was raised from the dead. That's my point. Judgment is coming.

And until you know judgment is coming and your sins have caused said judgment, Romans 3, verse 19, you don't need to run to a savior.

You might want to have a nice teacher, a good moral, ethical, religious leader, but you need a savior.

He also encouraged pastors to stop using the phrase the Bible says in sermons because it creates a house of cards that is easy to knock down.

When students go into freshman English class and they're taught that Adam and Eve are just a myth, for example, their entire view of faith could come crumbling down if their faith is dependent on the

Bible as a whole and not on the resurrection alone. Now, for some reason, maybe this reporter didn't quote

Andy correctly, but I'm just going to have to assume he did. Don't cite the Bible. Cite its authors is his approach.

The authors of the New Testament were either present or new people who were present to see Jesus killed and resurrected. And so point to their testimony and not to the scriptures as a whole.

All right, that's where I want to just stop just for a second. This is just lame.

That's what this is. This bothers me because I'm a pastor and I don't want other pastors who are in a small little town someplace in rural who knows where, and they see the glitz and the glam of Andy Stanley's rock band and all the people coming, no mature gray -haired people that I could see because they're all driven out by the music and the seeker -sensitive preaching.

Where are the old people today? The most precious possession in a sense that the church has in regards to discipleship tied us to older men and younger men and older women and younger women, but I'm on a tangent.

So let's get back to this whole of the Bible. Don't say the Bible says. Let me give you a few quotes from Jesus. And Jesus answered them,

Matthew 22, 29, you are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.

Actually, in a sense, I would apply that to Charles Stanley's son, Andy, because, and I know

I'm taking this out of context. He isn't that bad on the show. Stanley is wrong and he is not knowing the power of God inherent in the scriptures.

That's the problem. You can take the worst person ever and the smartest blasphemer ever, wrap them up into one ball, one package and have them hate

God. And when the scriptures decide, when God through the scriptures rather decides to save that person, they will be undone.

Ask Paul on the Damascus road. Matthew 26, 54, but how then should the scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so?

Matthew 26, 56, but all this has taken place that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.

Jesus said to them, Mark 12, 24, is this not the reason you are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?

Mark 14, 49, day after day, I was with you in the temple teaching and you did not seize me, but let the scriptures be fulfilled.

John 5, 39, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me.

Many, many passages that talk about Jesus, that have Jesus telling unbelievers they don't know the scriptures, read the scriptures, the scriptures say.

There's no difference then, no different saying the Bible says are the scriptures say.

If you tell your people the scriptures say and an unbeliever hears about it, then they go to some class and a literal Adam and dinosaurs and all that.

There's no difference. You know why I believe in the resurrection?

Stanley said not because of the B -I -B -L -E, because Matthew saw it, Mark talked to somebody who saw it,

Luke interviewed a whole bunch of people who saw it, John saw it, Peter saw it, James saw it. I don't know what happened to the dinosaurs and I don't know anything about Adam and Eve, but I believe

Jesus rose from the dead. And when you start believing Jesus rose from the dead, you're going to take the Old Testament a lot more seriously.

End quote, said Stanley. Now that is just abominable. That's what that is.

How do we know that the Bible, how do we know Jesus was raised from the dead?

Well, Paul would say to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 15, we know this because, by the way, church, you've received this from me, the apostle.

We know this because Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. All the Old Testament bears witness to that, that he was buried, shows the finality of that said death and the reality of that said death and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.

I don't know what he's thinking about. You don't know what happened to the dinosaurs? Now, I'll give you just a smidgen of a pass on that,

Mr. Stanley, but I don't know anything about Adam and Eve. Well, if you would read the scriptures,

Romans chapter five, there is the first Adam and there's the last Adam. And we need to have the first Adam or the last

Adam makes no sense. And so this is a big play to get these unbelievers to say, you know what, if this guy who

I'm listening to believes there's a literal Adam, first man, and dinosaurs, I'm not going to listen because that guy's lame.

Well, I'm sorry. That's what the Bible teaches. And the last Adam is Jesus. And I need to have that last

Adam because the first Adam failed and he was my covenant head and he lost it. And now I have a new covenant head,

Christ Jesus, who did everything that the father required of him. And so this is a Tim Keller ploy.

And that is, we've got to get the intellectuals and the unbelievers to like us. And if they think we believe in Genesis 1 and following as literal, then they're going to shut their ears.

But if God opens them through the preached word, then they will believe.

I'm not to accommodate the scriptures to the spirit of the age. And for Charles's son,

Andy, to get up and talk to these 2 ,300 people who this article says who are the most influential preachers at the conference,

I just feel sad. I feel sad. Preach the word in season and out of season.

Reprove, rebuke, exhort it with great patience and instruction. What are we going to do when an unbeliever walks in and we're reading someone's name a la

Matthew 18 for church discipline? Then what? So today, Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio.

The scriptures says you are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God, said

Jesus, Matthew 22, 29. 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 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbcchurch .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.