Give Green a Chance

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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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
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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.'"
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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.
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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.
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Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. We are on today, we are live, we are caffeined up, and we are welcoming
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Pastor Steve Cooley. It's sunny 85 degrees in sunny Southern California.
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Steve, I've got a new thing that I do around here in No Compromise Radio. I say, in real time, it's at the end of July and it's snowy out and kind of icky.
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But No Compromise time, this is, I think this is the second Tuesday in February. Okay. So.
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How could it be? Real time and No Compromise time. You said July. It's kind of snowy. Did I say
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July? I meant January, excuse me. Okay, I was gonna say, it's snowy and icky in July. Sorry, this is, we're especially recording the show in Alaska today,
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Antarctica. I wonder if there are any Antarctican listeners, maybe
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Norway, maybe Greenland. I'm sure. If you're from Greenland, we wanna know, or Iceland, that's what
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I'm looking for, Rejovecians or something like that. Hey, there was a great chess match there once.
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Wasn't there some band from Iceland? And they're kind of funky, she's wearing that swan outfit or something.
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Yeah, I wanna say the icicles, but it'll come. Popsicles, sugar cubes. Yeah, that's it. Sugar cubes.
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Okay, well today we're talking about something. And they were terrible, by the way. I didn't like them.
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No. No, had nothing to do with the swan outfit either. They might be the only band in history that couldn't sing that you didn't like.
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Bjork. Yeah, Bjork, that was their name. I bet you we have one listener in Iceland, and if you are listening in Iceland, it's too expensive to send you a free book, but it's in our heart.
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Send us an email and defend the sugar cubes. Yeah. The Green Bible, Steve.
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I don't know if you know Mark Christopher in South Africa. I have a Green Bible at home. You do? It has a green cover on it.
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Oh, nice, nice. Do you know Mark Christopher? Mark Christopher, is he any relation to, probably not.
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Who was the guitarist who Mark somebody Knopfler? Mark Knopfler, yeah, he's a great guitar player.
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Okay, well Mark Christopher, he was one of my fellow students when I was at the
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Master's Seminary. Uh -oh. It wasn't just Master's Seminary, it was the Master's Seminary.
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T -M -S. The definite article. I probably did not know what a definite article was until I went to the
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Master's Seminary, though. Really? I don't think I did. I knew what a the was, and a the and a the, but I didn't know what an a or an and was.
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Really, indefinite? No, I don't think I knew that. What kind of school did you go to? Nebraska Public School.
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All right. That solves that. And he, let me just give you his website, because I think he's got a lot of good stuff to say.
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Radicalwatchman .blogspot .com. Once again, the number to call is BR549. Radicalwatchman .blogspot
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.com. Watchman Knee. .com, yeah. Yeah, if you listen to Watchman Knee or read Watchman Lee, you ought not to do that anymore.
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Anything with a Watchman in it, you don't have to do. Yeah, except for Radical Watchman. Except Radical Watchman. Mark Christopher, Living Hope Bible Church, Cape Town, South Africa.
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And just a quick story about Mark Christoforo. Mark Christopher.
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He's also known as Run and Rev. He rides bicycles too. And Steve, I know you used to be a roadie.
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And so I wanted to go bike riding with him in South Africa because I was on this teaching tour and everything.
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And he said, okay, borrow my bicycle. But the wife gave the look like, don't let him go on your own.
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So we rode together and then he told me the story about bikejacking and how the insurance for bikejacking is more expensive than carjacking in South Africa.
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I saw this thing on the internet yesterday, as a matter of fact, on how to defend yourself against carjacking in South Africa.
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Seriously? Yeah, and it was an actual car that came out. In fact, Clint Archer, it was
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Clint Archer's site. Yes, I read that on Cripplegate. And how the flames come out of the side of the car.
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And I thought, yeah, that'd be great on a bike. Flames, probably not. I guess it would add to some of the weight.
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Well, it would certainly give you a little suntan on you. So there's a green Bible that's out now. And Steve, I just want you to know that it's constructed with eco -friendly materials, the green
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Bible. As are all my Bibles. If they won't deconstruct, or what do you call that?
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De, de, if they don't fall apart after I bury them. Yeah, it's not dematerialize, and it's not deconstruct.
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It's de -disintegrate. Disintegrate, that's it. Is that it? Yeah, you've got it. Decompose is what
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I was looking for. Oh, decompose as well. Do you know some kind of inks are bad for the environment? With the green Bible, there's special water -based inks,
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I'd like you to know. Soy -based ink. Well, you know what I always say, if I can't put my ink in my salad, then
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I don't want it. He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he. Mm, I'm gonna have some red ink on my salad, thanks.
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Now, Steve, one of the features of this green Bible, and it's a real Bible, is that you can go to it to help you find eco -friendly verses which are easily identified, no longer the clunky red -letter edition finding the words of Jesus.
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If a verse has something to do with the environment, it gets a green print. Awesome, I really need one of those.
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My question is, I do know that John 3 .16 is in green ink, soy -based, but that's also red -lettered, so when you mix the colors red and green, what might you get?
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Brown. For God so loved the world, the planet, this planet.
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In fact, I think the green Bible should be retranslated. For God so loved this particular planet, he didn't love the other planets, he chose this planet out of, you know, that would be what some kind of limited planetary design.
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Steve, I think that has to do with something like Matthew 28 with the great emission.
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Okay, so we've got the thousand passages that have the verdant green hues on them, and Christopher says, "'Many green passages that are actually prophetic "'in nature relate to God's judgment on Israel "'due to their disobedience as his direct commands "'for them as a people and a nation.'"
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Deuteronomy 28. And, you know, their contribution to global warming, that would be the other, the flip side of that.
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Steve, I think you like the things that are in the back of your Bible. I know when the MacArthur Topical Index came out for the
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MacArthur Study Bible, that was a big plus for you, and some of the maps and everything. Loved it, absolutely loved it.
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It didn't have a real concordance in the original MacArthur Study Bible, but it did have a thing about baptism there. Infant baptism under the topical index, remember?
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Yeah, yeah. What was it, all the verses supporting infant baptism, and then it was just blank?
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No, I think it said, it said... Oh, Deuteronomy 20, or do not add, or what?
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Yeah, Proverbs 30, do not add to his words lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar. So when
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MacArthur was in town, I was talking to him about that, and he didn't like it because someone, probably Phil Johnson or somebody who wanted to be like Phil, added that into the
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MacArthur Study Bible. But in the Green Bible, back on topic, the Green Bible has a concordance in the back,
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Steve. It's like a green concordance almost, and it's got something called the Green Trail Guide so that you can go have your own
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Bible study and know exactly what to do so you can center the Bible study around even environmental issues.
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Wow. So, you know, like how to make sure that your carbon footprint is reduced and things like that?
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What verses talk about our carbon footprint? I think that was when Ehud stabbed
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Eglon in the stomach for he was a very fat man. He had a very large carbon footprint.
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Yes, yes. So the Lord brought him down. God's gonna cut you down, Eglon. Now, there's also some guidelines on how to be a deep green family.
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What if you just like light green? What about green peace? Yeah, I'm more partial to kind of an aquamarine, not really a dark green, you know?
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Okay. Steve, did you know there was a foreword in the Green Bible? Any guesses on who might have written the foreword to the
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Green Bible? Some great theologian, I'm sure. Maybe Charles Hodge?
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Well, maybe Zane Hodges? No, just kidding. Archbishop of the
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Anglican Church in South Africa, Desmond Tutu. Yes, Desmond Tutu.
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You know, it's no big deal, I guess, for the Green Bible people. Desmond Tutu denies the deity of Christ and the inerrancy of Scripture, but he does like to quote the
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Bible. And Desmond Tutu quotes John chapter 12, verse 32, for the
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Green Bible, forward. And I, if I will be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.
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And then he goes on to say it refers to, like, what? The universe, drawing everybody. It's all encompassed in the entire world.
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All of God's creation's going to be reconciled. Wow. That's cosmic. Now that, that's cosmic.
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Now here, Steve doesn't know I'm going to ask him this. Isn't there some kind of song that you can give me for that? Some song about family, our love, our togetherness?
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We are family or something. Oh, yeah. I've got all my sisters and Tutu with me. Yeah, you know, that whole disco thing just kind of sped by me.
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You know, we are family. Yeah. I think that's, I think that's what? Is that Earth, Wind, and Fire?
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No, it's not. Earth, Wind, and Fire was much better than that. No, it wasn't the Poynter sisters. No, Loretta sisters.
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We are family. Loretta Lynn sisters. No, let me think about that for a second. We are family.
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Yeah, I don't know. No, it wasn't Earth, Wind, and Fire. Actually, they were very good.
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All right, well, there's a bunch of articles right after Tutu's forward, and one of them is by N .T.
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Wright, and his article is entitled Jesus is Coming. Dash, what would you say after that?
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You know Jesus is coming. And he's bringing his garden tools. Plant a tree. Now, I mean, come on.
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Isn't that bad? Just how bad is that, Steve? Well, I just like, you know, the MacArthur line, which was, if you think it's bad, what man's doing to the planet right now, just what do you see what
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God does to it? Totally. Steve, there are 50 practical tips to get started for Action Ideas Earth Day Rally.
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What do we do at Bethlehem Bible Church for Earth Day? Oh, well, we have an early morning breakfast where we gather together, and everybody, we don't wanna soil the planet by using paper plates and stuff like that, so we serve the food in everybody's hands.
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They just, they get a scoop of food in their hands, and that's how they eat.
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That's how we remind ourselves that we don't wanna destroy the planet. I'm trying to find songs on my iTunes for We Are Family, and the only thing
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I come up with are We Are the Champions. Which is a way better song. I'd rather listen to that one.
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We Will Rock You. We Are Family.
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All right, let's see. Page 1237, the Green Bible says, consider vegetarian alternatives, which cause less pollution.
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Now, tell me how that fits in with Genesis 9, verse 3 about it's okay to eat meat. You got the mandate to eat meat.
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Well, you know, and when Peter gets the dream, you know, rise, kill, and eat. How does that fit in exactly?
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What, kill an ear of corn? But see, why stop with animals? That's what I wanna know.
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You know, if you're gonna be anti -animal, you don't wanna eat meat because you wanna be kind to them or something.
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But what about these poor soy plants? Don't they have feelings? I think they do. I watch
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VeggieTales. Don't they have a little soy plant there next to the cucumber and Charlie the pickle? If I could walk with the vegetables, talk with the vegetables, eat and drink and, oh, sorry, lost my mind.
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Well, that would be like what, the next Dr. Dolittle will, you know, movie would probably have something to do with plants and stuff like that.
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Now, could we make a takeoff or no compromise regarding Dolittle? I think we could. Okay. All right, let's ask you the question,
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Steve. When we think of the earth, should we as Christians consider the earth a what and how should we take care of it?
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And should we pollute? How's the best way to think of this? Well, it's a stewardship. I mean, I would never say that we should not care, but here's the question.
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Do we care more about people or do we care more about trees and birds and plants?
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And you know what, these nutcase, I'll just call them what they are, kind of people who are so concerned about the environment, they would rather, you know, preserve a tree, even if it means people have to die.
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Well, then, you know, people are bad anyway. And that's kind of the message of environmentalism.
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People are the problem, everything else is good. And the truth is all of the earth, every part of it is cursed by sin.
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So theologically, it's just false. Steve, it sounds like to me the movie that was released about a year and a half ago,
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Planet of the Apes or Beyond the Planet of the Apes were the people of the problem. They're the ones beating up the apes, Caesar.
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Or like I used to say about Metallica's music, you know, the message of their music was very simple.
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People are terrible. The world would be a better place without people. Who's the guy, is that Attenborough?
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He just said that. The guy who does the soundtrack stuff for some of the shows over in England, Richard Attenborough.
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I think he said something like that. Did he, that people are the problem? Yeah, something like that. Well, it doesn't really surprise me if you look around the world today.
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Isn't that the message? People are the problem. And so let's have, you know, the whole idea, I've even read people who've said, look, if you want your country to be rich, have fewer children.
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Because the fewer children you have, the richer you will be. Well, that's really not true. For a short period of time as a nation, maybe you'll benefit because you won't, all the people will be able to spend willy nilly.
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They won't have to worry about anything. But eventually what happens, your population gets older, they can no longer work, and there are no kids to take care of them.
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And that's going on all over Europe. But, you know, the message of the environmental lobby for decades has been, we need fewer people.
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The planet, I mean, they were talking about this in the 60s, that the planet was going to implode, that we couldn't, we were overpopulated.
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There was no way we could feed everyone. We were all gonna starve. Steve, there's another article here in the
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Green Bible. By the way, I don't know why the Green Bible is not made with hemp as a cover.
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Why wouldn't they want to use hemp? I don't know. My question would be, why did they print it? I mean, you...
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Well, you know what, Steve? The thing is, there's that old slogan. I don't know if Spurgeon coined it or someone else. You know, if you meet someone with a
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Bible who's fallen apart, their life probably isn't. Right. So you just buy this cheaply made hemp
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Bible. It's not bonded leather. It's not genuine leather. It's not the two -tone, poly -tone, duo -tone.
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It's hemp leather. It's the hemp Bible. I think that's pretty good.
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There's an article by... Roe Young. There's an article by Brian McLaren. And he's in there?
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Yeah, he's in there. He's very pro people. Yeah. And then there's another article,
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Steve, that I thought you would really love by Gordon Eichelman, and it's called Loving the Earth is Loving the
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Poor. So see, we're supposed to love other people. We're supposed to love the poor. That poor woman, she gave that one little mine or mite or whatever it was, and all she had.
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All I know is all of a sudden, I want to sing. We are the world. We are the children. We are the ones who make a better place.
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Now, who were some of the people who sang that back in the day? Well, Bruce Springsteen. Yeah, was
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Bono in there? Steve Perry. See, I think he was. I think Bono was in there.
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The guy from Canada, he was really good. Adams, Brian Adams. Now, I want you to know that Mark Christopher.
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Huey Lewis. He likes to kind of pull back a little bit in non -no compromise style, but we like him anyway.
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So you're saying he's a pansy? He says, sadly, the proponents of the
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Green Bible fall right in line with all the climate change drama queens of the day. Believing all the pseudoscience that masquerades as fact.
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Where is their faith? Is it in God or man? Where is their authority? The Bible or some research project that finds its grant funds dependent upon proving man is responsible for climate change?
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Well, you know, it's really not what it's about anyway. I mean, let's say that climate change was correct.
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Do we really believe that mankind is so significant that it can single -handedly, through exhaust fumes, destroy the planet?
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You know, if scientists really believe that this thing has been around for billions and billions, hundreds of billions of years, they think that we're going to bring an end to life just by virtue of what we're doing now?
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I don't think so. Steve, but I think you've missed the fundamental linchpin argument to this.
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The fundamentalist linchpin argument? Is I think you've missed out that it's the quality of the translation, the
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New Revised Standard Version. It writes all the wrongs of some of these reformed, fundamentalist, not -gay, patriarchal,
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ESV, NAS. You know, whether it's 2001 ESV, 2007, 2011.
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See, it just cuts to the quick. What about the second 2011 version? What about that one?
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The second. Steve, all right, this is an honest question. Now, when
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I was growing up and I was not saved, and up until the point where I was saved, for those first 29 years,
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I didn't really think much about the environment. I knew not to pollute, you know, give a hoot, don't pollute.
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Was that the slogan in Nebraska? Yeah, yeah. I think it was. When you get dressed, don't make a mess.
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They had a little owl there or something like that. Yeah, give a hoot, don't pollute. Actually, when my father grew up, when they would drive over to Iowa, the speed limit signs on the country roads in Iowa, they didn't have a number, and it just said safe and sane.
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So you were to drive safely and sanely, all at the subjective whim of the police officers in Iowa.
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Nice. I think they called them Smokies. And the road was called Der Adelbaum.
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Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And so, what's the deal now?
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We get saved, and then we want to really help the environment? I didn't. If you get saved and then become so enlightened that you're supposed to help out the environment,
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I'm wondering why that didn't happen to me. You just didn't get the message. You didn't get the vibe.
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You didn't get the emanation that's coming from the source of the universe. Steve, I don't like pollution. I don't like paint poured in my water.
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I don't like grimy foreheads that you get after being in downtown LA for the summer or something.
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Oh, man, look. In the 80s, wasn't that horrible? Yeah, I mean, you're talking to somebody who grew up in Southern California where there were days, you know how close we are to the mountains there.
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You couldn't see the mountains. You know, 20 miles, and the mountains are towering, and you couldn't even see them.
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There were days where you would go out, and you'd run for a few minutes, and you just had phlegm coming up out of your lungs.
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But you know what? Here's something that's amazing. The air quality today in Southern California is way better than it was when
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I was a kid. It was. I remember being in the 80s, driving down the 134, looking north, and I could not see the mountains right there in Pasadena.
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There's no way I could see them. So, you know, for me, I want a clean environment.
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I want a clean earth and all that, but Steve, Pastor MacArthur is right. Jesus is going to come back one day, and what's going to happen to this earth?
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Well, the earth is so bad now because of people who are on the earth and because of sin and how the earth has been corrupted by the fall.
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Has the earth been corrupted by the fall, by the way? Yes, it has, every part of it. And I mean, we ought to view things as a stewardship, but I think always we need to, as I said earlier,
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I think we just need to put people come first. People have a soul. You know, the soul is eternal.
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All these things that are around us are not eternal. It says that the day of the
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Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
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I think that's Earth Day, too. I think Earth Day one was called the flood. Earth Day, we celebrate it on, what is that,
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April, whatever it is. Yeah, I mean, if God judged the world through a flood, and in the future, he's going to judge it by a fire, and we're all concerned about little,
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I mean, it's not, again, it's a stewardship. We shouldn't damage the earth intentionally, but what's going on these days is just foolishness as exhibited by this green
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Bible. The major problem in the world today is not that man is polluting the earth, and the earth can no longer sustain growth rates at this level.
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The main problem is because of the fall, men and women are sinful, and they need redemption from their sins.
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They don't need to have cans redeemed at the local five -and -dime. Do they have five -and -dimes anymore?
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No, they don't, but they have recycling centers, and the main point, though, is it's fine to care about the environment.
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It is fine to recycle. It's fine to be green as you wanna be, but that's not gonna save a single soul.
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Only the gospel can save the Bible itself and not some corruption, and, you know,
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I don't want a Bible with Kermit the Frog on the cover. I want the
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Bible that is God's revealed truth. I don't want some nonsense, is what I'm saying.
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Steve, I'd rather have Kermit the Frog, I think they used to call him Kermit the Frog, than some of these articles,
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The Power of the Green God by J. Matthew Sleeth. By J. Matthew Sleeth.
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Yeah, remember the Sleestaks in Land of the Lost? Yeah, the Sleestaks, they were against the earth.
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They were big promoters of that. The other one that's, the wicked one, really, in all honesty, Calvin DeWitt, reading the
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Bible through a green lens, and so let me teach you how to do the hermeneutic of green. Now, that's just as bad as it gets.
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I mean, some people's hermeneutics are egalitarian hermeneutics, feministic hermeneutics. Now we have the green hermeneutic.
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Which, you know, the objective is to distort the Bible. When you have to put on a different set of hermeneutical glasses, as it were, when you have to use different rules in order to get the desired outcome, you're not reading
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God's Word anymore. You're just, you're making it up as you go along.
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You're not properly handling the Word. I don't know, Steve. Psalm 24, the earth is the Lord's in all it contains.
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Which is true. That is true. Now, I'd like to know what the green Bible says about there.
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You know, the earth is the Lord's, therefore, you must. For God so loved the world.
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I mean, I thought we lived in evangelicalism long enough with the Arminians for them to say the world is each and every person, and now we have to deal with this as the actual globe globe.
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It's each and every plant. So this is Mike Ebendroth. I'm here with Steve Cooley. Welcome. Welcome, yeah,
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Tuesday guy at NoCompromiseRadio .com. Our info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. Or Tuesday guy, our info.
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