Dazed and Confused (Part 1)

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. Steve, I feel like I've got some kind of allergies or something.

Am I allergic to you at all? I hope so. You hope so.

Steve, what is new with you? People from around the world, what's Tuesday guy doing?

What's he like to do? Who is he? Who is that masked man? You know, I've been thinking about opening a Twitter account so people could know what the

Tuesday guy is up to. Would that be Oida or Gnosko? I think it's

Gnosko, but you know. All right, I want to just give a shout out to Pam Schwartzell, because if you send free things to us, we mention your name on the radio.

That's easy. It's a black shirt. No, nothing to do with the Nebraska black shirts.

It's a black shirt, and on the front it says, Arminianism, and then it says in quotation marks,

I chose this shirt, which is kind of funny. And on the back of the shirt, it says

Calvinism. This shirt chose me. So I wear that to the conference this weekend?

I don't advise it. Okay, excellent shirt. I like the sentiments. What's that, something like the story when the

Arminian fell down the steps? Something about being in an accident, but the Calvinist said,

I'm just glad you got that over with. How's that joke go? I really don't know. I know very few jokes.

All right, well, today on No Compromise Radio, on Tuesday, Steve, let's talk about T .D. Jakes first, and then maybe some of these worship songs.

Okay. T .D. Jakes. Now, if you're like Mark Driscoll, maybe you can learn from T .D. Jakes, but in a positive way, according to Driscoll.

But for us, we learn from T .D. Jakes in the contrary way. And so,

T .D. Jakes has a new book coming out. Oh, I can hardly wait to not read it. And the

Christian Post has an article called T .D. Jakes, We are

Born Forgiving in Nature, Unforgiveness is Learned. And that's the name of the article by Michelle Vu.

And the title of his new book, coming out on sale March 27th, so it's already out, let it go, forgive so you can be forgiven.

Wow, that's so great. You know, that is awesome. You know,

I'm looking forward to the sequel. You may not be familiar with it. We are Born Saved, Unsalvation is

Learned. Oh, yes, that's right. There's a pedagogical approach to unsalvation, a forgiveness.

Contrary to popular opinion, forgiveness is innate. And unforgiveness is learned from our environment, says

T .D. Jakes, pastor to 30 ,000 -member Potter's House in Dallas, and New York Times best -selling author.

Well, there you go. It's true, because he has 30 ,000 people there. Well, yeah, he's got a bigger platform than we do, so who are we to say?

Yeah, I mean, judge not. Maybe there's been one person who's listened to 30 ,000 no -co shows, but short of that.

Well, I mean, this is just so silly. I often say to people, I go, where do you think children learn to be selfish?

In other words, you put two one -year -olds in a room and you put a ball in between them, and what happens? You know, does somebody have to teach them, maybe one's a little young, but does somebody have to teach them that they want to have the ball?

Nobody has to teach them that. They know that. Steve, I think it's the Smeagol inside of all of us. Me wants it.

Smeagol. Steve, here is what T .D. Jakes says. And by the way,

I'm sorry that Driscoll and McDonald and the rest of the group at the elephant room, too, aren't wise enough to figure out

T .D. Jakes just because T .D. Jakes can affirm some dopey comment about Trinitarianism, which he doesn't really affirm anyway, but he's smart enough to know better.

Here we have, he's got the wrong view of man. He's got the wrong view of Jesus, the wrong view of man.

And if you've got the wrong view of man and Jesus, you've got the wrong view of sin, atonement, and forgiveness. He doesn't even know about forgiveness.

Wrong view of scripture. You know, I mean, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. He doesn't think scripture is sufficient or he wouldn't be teaching a lot of the things that he does.

And you just go right down the list. He's got wrong views of everything. And they go, well, you know, he might be a brother. Uh -huh.

Okay. Mormons might be brothers, too. And, you know, we have all kinds of brothers who might be brothers. He ain't heavy.

He's my brother. I'm actually from Omaha, where they have the boys town. Oh, Steve. Oh, sorry.

Did I say that? Steve, I don't have my cough edit button here handy.

We develop our propensity, said Jakes. I almost said Dakes, but the Dakes Study Bible has just as many mistakes in it as T .D.

Jakes does, to forgive and not to forgive by what we see illustrated at the early ages of our development. We don't come here unforgiving.

Children are not unforgiving. You can punish them, and they will hug you in a few minutes. They can have an altercation with another child and want to go outside and play by lunchtime.

So that means they're unforgiving. So let's get rid of Genesis 6, 5,

Ephesians 4, 17 to 19, Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 to 3. Let's get rid of all those kind of icky depravity passages.

Dump it, because when we see kids, we see kids that are forgiving, that are loving, that all this unforgiveness is learned.

Now, this isn't how bad this is. Why? We don't come here pre -wired to bear this kind of acrimonious type of lifestyle.

We don't come here like that. Get rid of Romans 5, too, while you're at it. Did you get rid of that already? We don't have

Adam's sin, right? Oh, I wonder if he's an imputationalist. Well, I mean, just look at that.

Totally. Obviously, he's not. We don't come here like that. We don't come here. We come here with a certain propensity to be open, loving, accepting, and trusting.

We learn to be unforgiving, doubtful, suspicious, guilt -ridden, and anxious. So this is the guy we're going to say is a

Christian brother at the elephant room, too. So we land on this earth, God -loving,

God -fearing people, and we learn how to—I mean, this is what it sounds like, right? I mean, if we look at the fruits of the

Spirit, he's basically saying that we're born with the fruits of the Holy Spirit, and then we lose them as we get older. This is entirely backwards and upside down.

Ooh, sounds more like fruit -of -the -loom theology to me. It sounds like fruit -of -the -poisonous -tree to me.

I mean, this is just upside down. Crazy. We are not trivializing the difficulty of forgiving to a flip of a switch and have the world bloom in animated technicolor.

Jake states that forgiveness is a choice. Hmm. Wow. Okay. That part's true.

Forgiveness is a choice. I just have one comment, Steve. Yeah, go ahead. Woman, thou art loosed. Well, I mean, forgiveness is a choice, right?

People say, I just can't—well, I can't forgive— I won't forgive. That's exactly right.

All right. So today on No Compromise Radio, we're going to enter a new series here, and it's going to be called

Dazed and Confused. Dazed and Confused. Who wrote Dazed and Confused? I don't know, but it was a

Zeppelin tune. And you know how I feel about Zeppelin. Most overrated band of all time.

Wow. As Donald Trump would say, that's a strong statement. It is strong. That is strong.

But I ran it by Donald before I came on the air. Oh, you did? Okay. Yeah, I feel pretty good about it. So, Steve, let's talk about songs that we sing to God on Sundays.

Let's not talk about some of these other songs that you're such an expert at, in terms of Elvis Costello and The Attractions and Nick Lowe and Rock Pile.

And The Carpenters. And The Carpenters. I was thinking about their Now and Then album the other night.

It made me laugh. You know what I thought about? I think about The Carpenters as often as I think about bread. Well, see,

I think about The Carpenters because the first album I ever bought was $3 .88 at Thrifty Drugstore, and we've only just been close to you by The Carpenters.

Seriously, the first two records I bought were both 45s. I bought them at Kmart and the lady, in, you know, the cash register lady.

What do you call those people? The cashier. The cashier. That's right. Oh, I knew the

Greek word. It's a very technical - Classical Greek word. Plutarch, I knew what he said about that.

But once Eusebius came along, I couldn't figure it out anymore. I bought D .O .A. by Blood Rock, Dead on Arrival.

It was about this guy and this girl getting in an accident and they were D .O .A. And she gave me the look like, son, do you have parents?

And then I bought Chicka Boom. Chicka Boom. Well, the one thing we know, because this is true because Kim says it, and so therefore it has to be true, is what you primarily value more than anything else is that the people not be able to sing.

That's what you want out of your music. Yeah, it's the attitude. Yeah. Oh, I was reading the other day, there's a new conference and it's called

Clash, The Clash. And it goes for $200 and you can go there and hear the latest kind of emergent speakers probably.

I don't really remember who was speaking. Maybe there's some good guys. But you know, Collide, The Clash, these cool names.

And my brother, Pat, said he paid $60 and saw

The Clash with Joe Strummer, or you can pay $200 and just see The Clash without Joe Strummer.

No McJones, no Joe Strummer, no nothing, right? Totally. So today in our new series called

Dazed and Confused, Steve, why don't you tell our listeners why we're going to call it Dazed and Confused?

Well, because I think, frankly, a lot of church services, if the Lord himself showed up, he'd be like, wait a minute, excuse me, who's this service about?

I thought you guys were here to worship me. I thought that was the point. Wasn't there a YouTube knockoff commercial on this, a parody, it's all about me?

Yeah, where all the worship songs are about me, myself, and I. And really, when we look at a lot of church services, you want, what do you want?

Practical preaching, you know, people say the worship. By worship, they mean the music.

The music was, they'll use buzz phrases like it was anointed or whatever. You know, the guitar player was anointed.

And what that means is he was playing with his teeth or, you know, the guitar strings with his teeth and, or playing behind his neck or, you know, some extended solo.

They'll say the drummer was, you know, really energized or, you know, whatever kind of nonsense.

But it basically, it is a church service about me and what I want, what entertains me, how

I think I should, how church should sort of cater to me.

And I think if people were to ask themselves, what would happen if the Lord were to show up at our church service?

What would he think? I think dazed and confused is probably a pretty good title.

I think if I thought the canon was still open, there'd be the eighth letter in the book of Revelation in the letters to the churches that Jesus would address the churches as they would sing songs.

The good news, I think, about songs, Steve, is if the preaching is Christ -centered and expositional, sequential, if it's the right kind of preaching, even with a church that has bad music, maybe bad quality, bad literary form, bad genres, bad lyrics, don't you think the lyrics and the songs will eventually catch up to the preaching?

It starts off with the preaching. If I was gonna change a church, it would start in the pulpit. It wouldn't be, well, let's have insipid sermons, but let's make sure we sing rock of ages.

Absolutely, and today, what is sermons? If they're not kind of the proverbial 15 ways to be a better neighbor or 12 ways to green your lawn or whatever, then they're, because we want our sermons to be practical, and if they're not like that, then they really are kind of feel good, like God loves you,

God's rooting for you, God's on your side. Jesus, sure, he died for your sins, but he really just wants to be your pal.

Those are the kind of messages that have become so popular because people don't, they don't like to hear about, and I say people generically, but I think

Christians ought to wanna hear about a transcendent God who has revealed himself through his word, and pastors today take shortcuts by not going through a book and preaching through verse by verse.

Because if you can cherry pick through scripture, every week can be something really cool and dynamic and really kind of grab you by the heart.

Steve, that was epic. Thank you. Snap. An epic blast. Steve, I did hear from the church curmudgeon, and he said, worship leader repeats chorus 30 times equals adulation.

I repeat myself once, getting senile. Are you losing it,

Mike? Well, Steve, in our series, we're gonna talk about contemporary songs, contemporary praise choruses, contemporary hymns, older hymns.

Wouldn't you say from the outset, Steve, that we have some newer contemporary hymns, I'll call them, that are excellent, maybe

Getty Townsend -like, and we have some older hymns that are really bad. It came upon a midnight clear and joyful, joyful, we adore them.

Yeah, and I mean, I would think that, throw Sovereign Grace into the mix, too. I mean, some of their songs are just really magnificent, so I really like a lot of the stuff that they've been putting out.

Is that a redundancy, Steve, Sovereign Grace? I think it was John Gershner who said, it's a redundancy, but it's a blessed, it's a blessed redundancy.

All grace is sovereign. Or it's not grace. That's right. I like to use the term that I have stolen from Samuel Lewis Johnson Jr.,

commonly known as Lewis, S. Lewis Johnson. He calls it distinguishing grace. But I can't really do the

Southern accent as well as I can do the, don't forget, you're an enemy, seeking the God you'd kill if you could, if you could get your hands on him.

Where are my camels without filters? So today, hymns, songs, spiritual songs, psalms, et cetera.

Steve, I read a book by T. David Gordon called, Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns, a

PNR book. T. David Gordon, Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns. And I loved that book because he deals with a lot of this.

And so let's start off this way because I think you're gonna look up a couple of hymns for us that will slide right into this conversation perfectly.

Here's what Gordon said. I suggest to my students, for instance, that one of the tests of a hymn is whether it would exist as Christian verse if it were not put to music.

And so many of these are just, the answer is no. I mean, you would never, I mean, even this title, let me just give you this title and just think if you opened up, let's turn to Psalm 151 today.

By the way, there are only 150 psalms, in case you're wondering. I think there's a group out there that likes tradition and I think they've got the 151st.

Do they? I think they've got the corner on that one. All right, well, 150 second song. Can you imagine opening it and reading, in my heart there rings a melody?

I mean, would that be? And see, here's the bad news is, and I'll freely admit this. I like the song.

The tune is great. Because the tune rolls around and rolls off your tongue and you're just like, dun, dun, dun, dun.

It's kind of upy. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. You know, and you just, I associate it with sitting outside in the redwoods at Mount Hermon, listening to Chuck Swindoll.

And I just kind of like it. But when you just read some of the lyrics, keep reading. I have a song that Jesus gave me.

It was sent from heaven above. There never was a sweeter melody, tis a melody of love.

I remember that melody of, my melody of love, wasn't that, that was a 70s song. Who was that?

Bobby Vinton. Really, I actually was a camp counselor for overweight children in Los Angeles at Whittier College.

And I wasn't overweight, but I was a camp counselor for the overweight. And we had Bobby Vinton's son in our group.

Robbie Vinton. Rob Jr. S. Louis Vinton Jr. Oh, go ahead.

No, I was just going to say, didn't you sing that song back in the Mormon church? No, this is the one we sang.

But you could have though. Yes, we could have. Is this generic, sappy, dopey love? Why don't we have some listener out there?

Maybe Nate Milne would get some new lyrics to that tune. That's a way to rescue the tune.

In my heart there rings melody. Yeah, I mean, even if there's some occasional decent lyrics in a word, the question, again, is, is this really worshiping

Christ? Does this take us to a transcendent place of contemplating the finished work of the cross?

You know, when I think of this song, do I think, I can't believe how much God sacrificed on my behalf.

I can't believe that God would send his son to take on a body of flesh and blood and live a perfect life, die a sacrificial death, be raised on the third day.

Does this song make me think that way? And here was another one. This is one that we actually did sing in the

Mormon church. In fact, it was one of my favorite songs. It's 4 .99 in our hymnal, sadly.

It's called Sunshine in My Soul. I've got sunshine. There is sunshine in my soul today, more glorious and bright than clouds in any earthly sky, for Jesus is my light.

Oh, there's sunshine, blessed sunshine, when the peaceful, happy moments roll. When Jesus shows his smiling face, there is sunshine in my soul.

What does that mean? What Bible verse does that remind me of? Well, you know what, I just did the whole,

I just opened up the Bible randomly and just picked for something. He who made the Pleiades and the

Orion and turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens the day into night. Which is way better than this song.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, if we just think about the creator who, you know, all the stars, the constellations up in the heavens, we think he put them all there.

He knows them all. You know, he knows where everything is, the orbits of everything, all these kind of, if we think about that, that is so much better than this verse.

Listen again to the second verse. There's music in my soul today, a carol to my king, and Jesus listening can hear the songs

I cannot sing. And then the chorus again. Oh, there's sunshine, blessed sunshine, with a peaceful, happy moments roll.

And my question is, what about when the peaceful, happy moments aren't rolling? You know, when it's sad times, how does this song make me think about a

God who sticks closer than a brother, who loves me more than anyone else? Steve, I didn't know Carole King was a

Christian. I didn't know she was in that song either. A carol to my king. Carole King.

Well, I think it is quite fascinating to look at the corpus of evangelical songs today and we don't have that many laments.

Can you imagine the people that walk into a Christian service and we sing now Sacred Head, Sacred Head Now Wounded, and people go, you know what, these minor keys and just kind of like a dirge.

But when you look at the psalms, some are very, at least by their words, are uplifting.

I don't want to say peppy because that almost sounds irreverent. But they're full of joy and exaltation.

Does that sound better, Steve? Much better. And then some other ones are very full of laments.

By the way, Steve, where are our imprecatory hymns?

Is there a section? You know, at the top it says Jesus Christ, life in Christ, abiding in Christ, resurrection of Christ, imprecatory.

Yeah, we don't have that. Lord, smite mine enemies. Let's all sing acapella.

Well, that's one good thing about singing through the psalm books because you get to do the smitings.

Like one big communal prayer to smite mine enemies. So before we go any further,

Steve, Amos chapter five is an excellent reminder that if your heart isn't right,

God doesn't want your music. So thinking bigger picture for a moment, when the heart has been made born again and redeemed and God has saved you, body, soul, mind, strength, heart, will, emotions, and you're a new creature in Christ Jesus, now you sing with a different motive and God likes that.

And so Israel was going against God. And then he says, God does, I hate,

I despise your feast and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them. Take away from me the noise of your songs to the melody of your harps,

I will not listen, but let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

So what would you say to our listeners about our heart attitude when it comes to singing before the Lord? At least we as Christians can sing.

Well, as a bit of an aside, have you ever listened to someone who is singing a -

I know where you're going. A worldly song and you just go, you know what, there was no conviction in that at all. I just,

I felt no connection between that performance and the lyrics. I don't think that person believed what they were singing in the same way.

I just think, you know, I look around at our church services sometimes and I see people, their faces are bored.

They're just kind of mumbling and stumbling and fumbling their way through the singing. And I'm just like, okay, if you are thinking rightly, if you are thinking about the great

God who saved you, who rescued you from the pit, who didn't just overlook your sin, but died for it, died and suffered a miserable death for it.

And now you're gonna sit there like you're bored, like you don't wanna sing. Brother, sister, you ought to be shouting at the top of your lungs because you can't believe what the creator of this universe did for you.

That's how we ought to approach this. I mean, you ought not, at every church service, I don't care how small your church is, you ought not to be able to hear yourself sing because, not because you're mumbling, but because everybody else is shouting so loudly.

Steve, that made me think of something else. When a superstar sings Amazing Grace, but we know by their lifestyle that they're not

Christians and maybe by their own lack of profession of faith, they're not Christians. And they've got the tune, they're belting it out.

Maybe it's a Whitney Houston singing an old gospel song. I would much rather come to Bethlehem Bible Church and see someone who has just had chemotherapy, she's wearing a wig,

I think you know the person I'm talking about, and just singing with all her heart to the

Lord for his goodness in spite of these things. Now, that's what I would much rather hear. Yeah, I'll never be able to get the picture out of my head of singing

Children of the Living God, just as a congregation and just thinking about this woman, it was her favorite song, and she went to be with the

Lord and you just think, you know, it's not, sometimes it's not even the songs with the deepest lyrics, although I prefer those, but those that just keep us focused on Christ and what he's done for us, those can reveal so much about how we view our circumstances in life.

So today on No Compromise Radio, we just have put our proverbial toe in the deep waters of evangelical hymnody.

I thought you were gonna say pond scum. No, I'm the positive side of the show.

Steve's the half empty. Our toes in the proverbial pond scum. If you have a song that you think is wonderful, would you send it to info at nocompromiseradio .com?

And we'll shred it. And we'll shred it for you, we'll teach you a lesson not to mess with us. And if you have a song that you really think is bad, it's muy mal, it's really bad, and you want us to pile on it, dog pile, pig pile in New England, then send that to us too at info .com.

Info at No Compromise Radio. Extremely bad hymnody. And then we all do this series, an ongoing series, and if you don't send anything in, then we're just gonna keep going on and on and on, dissecting hymn after hymn after hymn.

Until you beg us to stop. After hymn, that's right. Write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

To God be the glory. Great things he has done. 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 six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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