Doctrine Matters or Matters of Doctrine

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. No laugh at the very beginning, Steve. Why so serious today?

This is No Comedy Tuesday. There�s going to be zero. So, my friend

Troy was with us in Germany, and we had the, you know, big touring bus, and I sat at the front with the microphone, and I would give little updates on Staubitz or Luther or something like that,

Zwingli. And so I said, �Hey, Troy, why don�t you go up and sit down and give us a little spiel ?�

So Troy sat down. He didn�t even, I mean, he didn�t have time to process it or think about what to say, so he sits down.

He sits down, and he says, �Hi, my name�s Troy. Welcome to No Content Radio.� No Content Radio.

What�s new with you, Steve? Always vapid. Always. Always ethereal. Always, you know, you�re going to be preaching on 2

Timothy chapter 2. We did that last show, and I pulled up the message because we haven�t had any message moments for quite some time.

I really hope the sound effect guys, you know, do some justice here as you read this. You know, they should add some content to the show.

Yes, uh -huh. And the men outside digging the new septic system, that�s nice content there for volume.

Well, for the message, it�s entirely appropriate that they�re digging a septic system. Ooh. Oh, yeah.

Run away from infantile indulgence. Uh -oh. Run after mature righteousness, faith, love, peace.

Always joining those who are in honest and serious prayer before God. Refuse to get involved in inane discussions.

They always end up in fights. God�s servants must not be argumentative, but a gentle listener and a teacher who keeps cool.

What�s keeps cool or keeps us cool? I don�t know. Hey, wait a second. You have to do this in a refrigerated area? What if you�re in Zimbabwe?

A teacher who keeps� Working firmly but patiently with those who refuse to obey. You never know how or when

God might sober them up with a change of heart and a turning to the truth, enabling them to escape the devil�s trap where they are caught and held captive, forced to run his errands.

That might be the best translation work I think I�ve heard from him in, you know, pseudo -translation.

Because it�s close, you know, it�s roughly within the ballpark.

Well, I thought you were going to say something quite different, so you may be excused. Yeah, I don�t like the, you know, keeps cool.

I mean, there is that, you know, certainly you don�t want to become upset and ruffled and argumentative, but, you know,

I mean, if I were reading it to, I don�t know, second or third grade class, that might be inappropriate.

You know what, Steve? I bet we can find one, but I wonder if there�s any church in the nation where the

Pew Bible�s the message, quote, Bible, end quote. You know what?

I�m going to Google that later. Wouldn�t that be interesting? You know, but here�s my guess. A church that would probably do that doesn�t need to because they�d like to look at all the different, you know, translations, and they could put them up on the

PowerPoint anyway, and so why restrict yourself just to the goo and the�

Not only would you have the message, but the new living translation. I wonder what happened to the old living translation.

I guess that would be the dead translation. Not living so much translation.

I noticed there�s a, what�s the new Southern Baptist translation? ICB?

No, it�s the CSB, or no, Holman, Holman standard, or Christian standard.

Something that�s, it�s shorter now. It used to be Holman Christian. Yeah, now it�s just Christian standard Bible. CSB. Right, okay.

And is it any good? It�s, you know, NIV plus.

Okay. Should they change the name again, maybe to the Lifeway Study Bible? What would that give them?

I don�t know. I mean, if you think about it, Christian standard Bible pretty much sounds like that should be the authoritative, you know, what,

I mean, is there a need for a translation after the Christian standard Bible?

Yeah, because if you have New American, right, if you�re in England, that�s not going to really work out so well.

If you have New International, I guess, you know, that�s international, it can go around the world. And if you have a Christian, well, if you�re a

Christian even on the moon, you have to use that one. Yeah. I mean, and it doesn�t really matter. It shouldn�t matter what language you speak, right?

I mean, if it�s the Christian standard, I don�t care if you speak French or, you know. Southern Baptist are taking over the world.

If you had to be a Southern Baptist or a Southern Presbyterian, which one would you pick? He�s just looking at me.

He�s thinking about Dabney and Thornwell. Yeah, I mean, there�s a lot of, you know, but then

I think, you know, if you want to just talk heritage, there�s a lot of good Southern Baptist heritage too.

It�s probably only in the last, you know, 40, 50, 60 years that the

Southern Baptist kind of do this. Maybe they�re on the uptick. Let�s hope. Some of them are, yeah, some not.

But if you ask me, you know, do I have to be a Southern Baptist or a Southern Presbyterian, I just can�t get over the whole infant

Baptist thing, you know. Oh, I�m just thinking about, you know, just theology in general. Yeah. Because I can�t get over congregational rule.

Yeah, I can�t get over that either. I think that�s one of the sine qua nons of Southern Baptist life is congregational polity.

I think Southern Christian would be what I�d go for. I think, you know, Motley Hatchet, I think they were

Southern Christian. Yeah, but they were flirting with disaster. If you want to write us, info at nocompromisedradio .com.

We used to get lots of emails, not so much anymore. Really? Yeah. I think as the donations went up, the emails went down.

Well, it might have something to do with the kind of excessive spam filter. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Because, you know, some of the more vociferous complaints probably went up in the spamorama.

Well, I think if you put the subject line, �gentle correction ,� we receive those, don�t we?

Yes. Yeah. Love them. I mean, listen, when people tell me that I�m wrong, they�re usually right, you know, because I usually am.

I mean, I�m just a guy, right? That should be the name of the show, �I�m Just a

Guy.� I�m just a guy. Okay. What we�re talking about today a little bit is doctrine, and should we use doctrine.

If you read that old Machen book, �Christianity and Liberalism ,� 1923,

Erdmann�s, it talks a lot about liberalism and Christianity. Did you know that?

Yes. We�re not talking about liberalism like Barbara Boxer or something,

Senator Boxer. We�re talking about Protestant liberalism. Although she is a liberal. Yeah, that�s true. Okay. We�re talking about theological liberalism, liberalism within Protestantism.

And one of the things that Machen said is a liberal Protestant denies the supernatural, and we see how that works.

But they�re also anti -doctrinal. Today on the show, let�s talk a little bit,

Steve, about why it�s important to preach the Word with doctrine. Preach the

Word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with great patience and teaching are with doctrine, 2

Timothy chapter 4. Why is doctrine important? I think it�s pretty hard to escape it.

In other words, I don�t know�well, let�s put it this way. If you preach the gospel, or as some people want to say, share the gospel, if you share the gospel with somebody, that in and of itself cannot be done without doctrine.

When you tell somebody that they�re a sinner, well, what does that mean?

You have to define what it means. And as soon as you define what a sinner is, somebody who violates the law of God by virtue of what they do, or what they think, or what they say, well, you�ve given them doctrine.

And you can�t get away from that. You know, anybody who says, �Well, I don�t like doctrine.�

Are you saved? If you don�t like doctrine, then you must not like the doctrine of salvation, right?

So things like that are just foolish when people say, �I don�t like to study doctrine.�

Really? Steve, could this be a close analogy? I�d like to be a lawyer, but I don�t want to study case law.

And I�d like to be a medical doctor, but I don�t want to learn any Latin terms that describe anatomy.

Or, �I don�t like biology.� See, that would be my thing. I just, all through school,

I would always avoid biology. So I�m like, you know, �Yeah, I�d like to be a doctor.� You�ve never taken one biology class,

Steve. Well, I don�t see why that should stop me. Now, lawyers serve an important role.

Doctors serve an important role. But those are temporary things, that is to say, their work is done right after people die and they die.

But the truths of Christianity are important for today, and they also extend into forever, into eternity future.

Don�t you think we�d want to make sure we were exact and precise and very detailed when it comes to who

God is as He�d revealed Himself? In other words, if God reveals Himself to be not very doctrinal, then that�s how we should go about it.

But if He�s revealed Himself in very particular fashions, then I think we�re going to have to reset our modern mindset.

Here�s a word that I don�t think would define the God of the Bible, the

God who is nebulous. You know, He�s imprecise, He�s nebulous,

He�s, you know, can�t be defined by Scripture.

And I mean, all these things are just, you know, false. God has revealed Himself, right?

When He reveals Himself through the Word of God, this in itself is doctrine.

Truths about God are doctrine. When you think of Luther and he was talking about the

God who is mysterious, that is to say He knows that God exists, but what do we know about Him in particular?

I guess in nature you could say He�s wise and powerful based on the earth.

But unless God decided to reveal Himself in a specific way through the prophets and through the law, through Scripture, you wouldn�t know anything about Him besides those general things.

So if God reveals Himself as Triune, for instance, wouldn�t it be good to understand the doctrine of the

Trinity as much as it�s possible for us to understand? Yes, and don�t we have, as believers, don�t we have an obligation, you know, to at least try to learn some of these things, even if, you know,

I mean, I don�t expect every believer to spend their time studying doctrine, but I think the more we do it, the more we apprehend of God and the more we appreciate

Him, and the greater our joy, I think, in bringing Him to other people, I think as well.

Steve, you and I probably agree on so many things, but I might have to disagree with you. Maybe this is a first on No Conference Radio.

Uh -oh, uh -oh. When you said, �I don�t expect regular believers to study doctrine ,� do you mean they shouldn�t read their

Bible, or they shouldn�t read Berkhoff, or? No, I just mean I don�t expect them to, you know, sit at home and be consumed by it.

I mean, some people will be, and some people will be satisfied to have mastered maybe fundamentals of the faith.

Some people, you know, are not interested in doctrine at all, and I sort of wonder about them. You know,

I want to give them, you know, if you have no spiritual reflexes, as it were, you know, when you go into the doctor, and they hit your knee with a hammer, and your leg goes up, well, that�s a reflex.

When I start talking to you about the grace of God in the person and work of the

Lord Jesus Christ, and you either give me a quizzical look or a mad look, like, �I don�t want to talk about that ,� okay, you�re failing your reflex test, right?

You�re not, I mean, it doesn�t mean that you�re not a believer, but it�s curious to me when people who are professing believers are not interested in the

God they profess to love. And if we describe doctrine as, well, you have to have a systematic theology book or something like that,

I, too, with you, Steve, don�t expect, you know, just every Christian to have Bovink and Berkhoff and all these others.

I mean, many of them do. But if doctrine is described or defined as a truth about God, then we do want them regularly to think that way because they�re reading the

Bible, and it�s a doctrinal book that will then help them in their practical life.

Don�t you think, Steve, what we�re really after here is people want application. They don�t want, quote -unquote, �doctrine.�

When really doctrine is very applicational, I�ll give you an illustration. In the book of Hebrews, people are running, they�re getting persecuted, they�re tempted to go back to their old ways to just relieve that persecution, and what does the writer do?

He gives a lot of doctrine. I see. Yeah. Go ahead. And I think it�s betraying modern evangelicals that if we said, and we�ve talked about this many times, we�re going to have a marriage conference at the church, great, we�ve had a couple here with Dr.

Akin, and his marriage conferences are built on the Bible. But then if we said, we�re going to have a conference with a guest speaker and it�s going to be on the importance of doctrine or it�ll be on the

Trinity, one -fifth of the people will show up for that, as would they compared to the marriage class.

Because that has no import on their lives, right? It�s not going to change my life, you know, and I�m like, well, it should.

Husbands love your wives, so Christ loved the church. If you can understand Christ loving the church, I think it would help your marriage.

And that�s doctrine. Shh, don�t tell anybody. I know. What about doctrine that is so divisive,

Steve? Doctrine divides, and we need to be unified, and if we just carve off some of these particular doctrines that we hold dearly, it�d be a better place.

I�m all for unity, but unity at the expense of what? I think somebody said freedom at the expense of liberty or whatever is not helpful, and I would say unity at the expense of truth is not a unity that God would approve.

In other words, if we want to call it ecumenism or whatever we want to call it, just getting together for the sake of getting together so that we can all stand under one banner and really impress whom?

Impress each other? Impress the world? You know, or are we like sending up a smoke signal to God saying, �Look at how unified we are.�

If we can�t stand for the truth together, then we ought not to stand together at all.

Steve, this might be a hokey illustration or example. Sounds kind of hokey. But I�m from Nebraska, so I�ll admit it.

Just imagine if you are married. For me, I was dating

Kim and fell in love with her. How does that all work? You fall in love.

I don�t know, but at my age it sounds painful. You fell the other day on the driveway and slid all the way down.

Not all the way down, but just a few feet. Do you have that on video? I was asked about that, and I said, �I�ll be showing that video

Sunday night.� Oh, good, good. I�m trying to increase attendance. Nice.

Fill in the blanks. Sermon outlines also help. Yeah, those are great. And when I fell in love with Kim, when

I was in love with her, I would just notice her smile or notice her nose and notice her eyes and the color of her eyes and just different things about her or her personality or how she said something.

I mean, I was captivated by her, and so I wanted to study her. I wanted to, she was the object of my affection, and I wanted to spend time thinking about the object of my affection.

Well, that�s just a little mirror. That�s just a dim mirror of what we should be thinking about when now we,

God has saved us and we will respond with faith, and certainly there is a love there, and don�t you want to just study the object of your faith, study the object of the one who loved you?

Yeah, it�s often said, you know, if we show the kind of interest in our spouses that we show in Christ, you know, what would our spouses think?

And I think, you know, many people, that would be the end of their relationship. You know, it�s embarrassing to me how little,

I mean, I�m impressed by some people and their depth of knowledge, and then others, not so much.

And it just, it�s concerning because I can never tell somebody�s heart, but when somebody is completely uninterested in truths about Christ, you have to wonder where their heart is.

Steve, if there were someone who on Facebook said to you, �I�m getting persecuted. I�m having a hard time.

I need some help.� You could say, �I�m sorry. I�ll pray for you.

I feel your pain. God is with you, Emmanuel.� I mean, you could say a lot of different things.

But it�s fascinating to me, what does the writer of Hebrews do? Well, let me tell you about a man named

Melchizedek. I mean, for most modern Christians, �Melech who ?� I mean, who is Melchizedek, and why would it ever matter, someone like Melchizedek, this man who walks, you know, onto the pages of Genesis and then is kind of gone again, and how could that help us?

But it�s in the Bible, and it�s meant to help and encourage. And, you know, same with 1

Peter, when Peter is writing to Christians who are going to be persecuted, and he first talks about the greatness of their salvation.

But even then in chapter 2, when he starts talking about the example of Jesus Christ, how when he was, you know, wrongly tried and being led to the cross, he didn�t utter any kind of defense on his behalf.

And, you know, people are, Christians are frequently, �It�s not fair that I have to endure this, and I don�t get to say anything.�

And I�m, �Well, okay, let�s talk about fairness. Let�s talk about the most grossly unfair thing that ever happened.�

And he is our example. His conduct, this is how we�re supposed to live, right?

So that kind of encouragement, it�s just kind of in light of what Jesus has done for me and what

He�s left me and what I have to look forward to, then how should I conduct myself now?

Steve, maybe we have a little challenge for our listeners. Is there anything in the Bible that�s not doctrinal?

I mean, if you�re going to read the Bible, isn�t it doctrinal from front to back, teaching you and informing you about God and His character and how

He deals with sin? I mean, back to the book of Revelations, just kidding,

Psalms 2, the book, the revelation of Jesus Christ, that�s how it starts.

You know, John, he�s on this island, it�s basically a prison, and he says, �To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priest to his

God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him.�

This is all doctrine everywhere you go. Well, I just want to talk about love. And fine, if you want to talk about love, because you just did, you just read that about love.

To him who loves us. Yeah. When we talk about the love of God, guess what? That�s doctrine.

And the amazing thing isn�t that, you know, the depth of God�s love, which is amazing,

I mean, it is, but the more amazing thing is that He loves us at all. And you know, if you just ask yourself that question, how is it possible that God loves me?

Well, there are two answers. One is that I�m just so wonderful that He had no choice, right? And that�s the pagan answer.

The truth is, for no other reason than His own glory, God loves some.

He sets His affection on them. And it�s always, you know, just thinking about Ephesians 1, it�s in Christ Jesus.

It�s because He chose us in Christ that we might be blameless, you know.

All these promises are ours in Christ. Steve, as you�re talking, it made me think.

What we want, sadly, is let�s talk about, you know, love, but it�s my love for God.

Help me for more ways to love God more, or to love my spouse more, or to be loved by my spouse more.

And of course, the Scriptures talk about some of that, our response with love. But as you were talking,

I just flipped back over to Romans, �In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.�

It�s God�s love. And so, if you have to focus on love, we don�t mind that. We�re happy that you want to study the doctrine of love.

But as you open your Bible, you will soon find out that it�s the love of God for sinners is the priority, and then it�s our response.

It�s not going to do you any good to just figure out about how you�re going to love people without knowing God loves sinners.

Amazing love, how can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? That�s amazing love.

Steve, the good part about that is God�s love isn�t going to be fickle.

I mean, do you love God, you know, a lot today or a little, or how did you do yesterday? And His is fixed for all eternity.

It doesn�t move. It doesn�t go up or down. It�s always set on 10, right? Are you just all of a sudden, I think I�ve heard two hymn quotes, different hymn quotes in the last, like, 60 seconds.

Yeah, I�m the jukebox today. Theological jukebox featuring Steve Miller. We�ve been singing that new song, well, it�s not that new, but you know, we�re old school here.

�His Robes for Mine.� I like that a lot. Yeah, a lot of doctrine. I mean, the tune�s a little, it�s, you know, it�s not like up there with my favorite, the tune tune part of it.

But the lyrics, boy, that�s a, it�s about five or six sermons per verse, you know.

I mean, there�s a lot packed in there. I think when you have the word propitious in a song, not even propitiation, but propitious.

It�s a little unusual, right? I mean, it was written by, it�s almost like a systematic theology class.

They sat around and go, you know, let�s write a hymn, you know. I�m sorry to say that it popped in my mind, but it goes with the show, it�s not unusual to be loved by anyone.

Little Tom Jones. But it is unusual to be loved by a God who you hate. That is very unusual.

Yeah, I was reading about it, and it�s like, you know, if God waited for us to love Him, then He�d never love anyone.

His affection was before the foundations of the world. He loved us. Mike Abendroth, Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio.

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 bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.