Books in your library that you ought to burn!

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.

We're here to take your calls as well. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

The Show Format and the Gospel of Free Grace

Welcome to No Compromise Radio. This is your host, Mike Abendroth. Today is Wednesday, September 2nd. It's our third show at WVNE 760 AM. If you go to the website, nocompromiseradio .com, you can pull up the old podcasts.

We'll have some special offers coming up soon. Maybe you want to email a question or listen to some sermons. Find a link for the church just north of Worcester Bethlehem Bible Church, or you can just peruse and check out the website.

I think it's a pretty neat website. Josh did a great job. Typically, our format is this on No Compromise Radio. Mondays, there'll be a taped sermon of a sermon I preached in the pulpit of Bethlehem Bible Church.

Tuesdays, call in. Had a good time yesterday with Pastor Steve Cooley looking for how do you pick a good church by using the negative foil, in a way, looking at things from a different perspective. We'll look at part two of that next week or the week after when we have Steve back in the studio.

Wednesdays, books, book reviews, all things books. Paul's in jail, and he says, don't forget, I'd love to have a coat, a cloak. It's cold in here, and bring my books, too. Bring the parchments. So Wednesday's called Bring the Parchments, and we'll look today about books that you might wanna get out of your library.

Thursday tomorrow, we'll look at current issues in evangelicalism, and then Friday, it's a mystery Friday, surprise Friday. Anything goes, maybe live call in. Who knows what we'll do? This is No Compromise Radio, and basically, the theme is this.

As Paul said in Galatians 2, verse five, we are against things, and we are for things. We are against anything that somehow invades and permeates the gospel of free grace. Any kind of work, any kind of self-righteousness, any kind of merit or wage or some kind of O language, obligation language, we don't want that involved in the gospel, and so we say, we won't compromise.

No to those things, we say, and then we'll say positively, because we're standing for the gospel, we are pro-gospel. We wanna make sure with Paul that we're against things, but we're also for things.

Paul said in Galatians 2, five, we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you, and so today, we're going to look at books, and so sometimes, we'll do a top 10 list.

Sometimes, we'll talk to authors. I have emailed a variety of the publishers, and the free books are coming in, so we'll look at good books, bad books, all kinds of books. I hope you're a reader if you're a Christian.

I hope you just don't sit in front of the TV and watch show after show after show. Some people say, well, it's just the Bible. I only have the Bible. I don't read any other books. Well, friend, did you know that Ephesians 4, God, the Holy Spirit, purchased by Christ, people purchased by Christ have been given spiritual gifts like teaching?

Some of them are old and dead, but we can still get contributions from them as they have books that are old and some Reformed books and other things, but also, there are some people who are alive that write books, and we can learn from those things, and so you should read books that help you understand the Bible better.

You should read biographies about Christians that make you understand the sovereign grace of God better, His tender mercies, His loving kindness, His faithfulness in the midst of other people's lives, but there are a lot of books out there today that are strictly bad, and here's the problem.

They're bad not because of everything in them's bad, but because of what they don't say. In other words, sometimes you can read a book and say, yes, but there was a few redeeming things in there. There's some verses that are right.

There's some biblical views that are right, but it's what the books don't say, and so today we're gonna look at the top 10 books that if you have in your library, I think you should get some kerosene, get some kind of lighter fluid, go outside to some kind of Coleman furnace, Coleman grill, whatever the thermolite grill, I don't know what they're even called, the fire pit, open it up a little bit, pour some of that kerosene over there on it, and then have the kids get away, make sure you use fire safety codes, and then burn that book, and your kids will never forget the day Daddy burned that book, and then you can tell them, do you know the Bible commends discernment, like the Bereans in Acts 17?

Do you know, kids, that the Bible commands discernment? First Thessalonians 5, we're to examine everything carefully. People just go to a local Christian bookstore, and they say, oh, look at the really neat cover.

Look at the picture. Oh, look at the font. Look at how wonderful it is. It's on sale, and they unwittingly buy books that frankly, I think you ought to burn. Those books serve good, they serve a purpose, but that purpose would be for kindling, and for an illustration of what not to do.

And so I'm sure today I'm going to step on some toes. I'm sure some of you will say, some of those books that you just listed, God has used those in my life. And what I'd say to you is, well, maybe God used the verses that are true in those books for your life, but just because you've experienced something or something pragmatic has happened to you, that does not validate anything.

Truth is not validated by your experience. The gospel word is not somehow validated by subjective feelings. Because you've got autobiography happening, that doesn't make something right. It's always the other way around.

So if you could come up with a list of books that you think you should burn, or you know what I do? You don't even have to burn all these books. If you go to my library, I have certain books that I turn backwards.

So if someone walks in and they look, and I'll just throw one out that's not on my list, but should be. Charles Finney, Systematic Theology. That's in my library, but I use it because I need to look up some bad theology once in a while.

It's a resource of bad theology, kind of like Phil Johnson's bad theology section on his website that you should check out. But what happens is, I turn it backwards so you can't see the binding. So it just looks like some paper.

And so I guess it could help me in lots of ways. Maybe if there's some kind of grenade that goes off in the church, I could get behind it and it would prevent the shrapnel from obliterating me, or something like that.

Somebody's in the studio today watching me going, I can't believe you just said that. So books have good purpose. I'd hate to have you lose your money, even if it's some kind of cheap book that you get, because it was cheap, because it's bad.

I wonder what would be on your top 10 list. Books that you ought to burn. Let me tell you one other thing before we get to the list. We only have so much time in this life. Why waste your time on bad?

Why waste your time on less than excellent? Wouldn't you rather say there are 50 classic Christian books that God has seen fit to bless in the lives of his people? And let's read those. Let's just start now.

Let's read two a year. Let's read three a year. Let's just take care of those books now and work on those classic books. Why read bad all the time? I kind of feel dirty and icky when I read some bad book, and I think I got to get refreshed.

I've got to read something good. So I think we have to make the right choice. And so I want to make sure you don't choose because you like the publisher, because it's easy to read. It's, you know, everybody else is reading it.

And so we'll go to the top of the list. I don't think there's any particular order, although this one will probably step on the most toes. Sorry, no calls today, but we'll take calls another day. The first book in your library, and 25 million of you people out there have this book in your library.

The number one best-selling book of all time is of course the Bible. Second used to be Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. By the way, my next show, when I finish the bad books, I'm going to give you the good books to read.

So we'll go negative and then we'll go positive. But today's the negative side, books that you ought not to have. And the first book that you ought not to have and you ought to put kerosene, kerosene-driven books, The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren.

And you say, I'm offended. How could you say that? Friends, The Purpose-Driven Life has sold 25 million copies. It does have some Bible verses in it, but the problem with The Purpose-Driven Life is this, it's what is not in that book.

People say, well, I read the book, you know, that kidnapping story, whatever. I kidnapped the person and I read the book and got saved and let the person go. Nobody ever read The Purpose-Driven Life and got saved.

How do I know that? Well, because it doesn't have the gospel. Now, maybe they heard the gospel someplace else, they've listened to some cassettes or some tapes, they got some CDs of the gospel, and then they read this and they read a verse and then God used that verse to save them.

But no one has ever gotten saved by reading a book that does not include sin, does not include repentance, does not include the substitutionary atoning death of Jesus on the cross, and does not include the resurrection.

So why are people mad? Why would people be mad? If I told you, now, pastorally speaking, I want to warn the church, would you please stay away from a particular book that has no sin, no repentance, no cross, and no resurrection?

You'd say, thanks for telling me, pastor. But somehow we're touching the new Protestant Pope and Rick Warren, you can't say that. The closest he gets to saying anything about repentance is when he says something like this, page 25, we discover that meaning and purpose only when we make God the reference point of our lives.

Well, what does that mean? That's some kind of mystical Roman Catholic gobbledygook. I have no idea what that means. I've got another problem with the book, that should be enough to have you put kerosene on it.

I had somebody at church get mad at me, well, how can you criticize that book? So what I ended up doing is I criticized the book and I said, let me give you a book instead to read. And we'll do that, giving you the good books next Wednesday.

But one of the things that Rick Warren does is he uses horrible Bible translations that aren't even translations. They are distorted psychological translations that are basically paraphrases that are not accurate and precise to the original Greek and Hebrew.

Show me a book that doesn't translate the Bible well, and I'll show you a book that doesn't have the Bible hardly in it. When you use the message, there's a big problem. Listen to Rick Warren, most conflict is rooted in unmet needs, page 154.

You take a psychology driven Bible called the message, and then you talk about this kind of psychology and what do you need to be saved from? Some kind of bad feelings, it turns into a self-help book with Catholic mysticism, quotes twice to Mother Teresa, Bernard Shaw, St. John of the Cross, all kinds of other mystical people.

I think this is a book that you ought to say to yourself, I read it four years ago and I really thought it was good, but I've been learning, I've been growing in Christ, here's my wager. If you read that book today, you'll say, I can't believe I used to think this is a good book.

Show me somebody that thinks it's a good book, I'll show you someone that's either driven by subjective feelings or somehow is so concerned about criticizing other people because they wanna be loving.

Friends, the most loving thing I could do is tell you, pick a different book instead of that. I'll give you the good books later, but why don't you pick Pilgrim's Progress and read that by John Bunyan.

You will be encouraged, you will be convicted, you will remember who Christ Jesus is and you'll be thankful that you can call yourself a forgiven Christian. Remember, the purpose-driven life is not bad because of what it says necessarily, although I don't like the psychology and the Roman Catholic mystics, et cetera, but it is problematic by what it does not say, does not have the gospel.

And so if you're going to kind of have a life renewed as an unbeliever, do you think you need the gospel? I'd go so far to say that if you wanna have a renewed life as a Christian, what do you need to hear again more than anything else?

Answer, the gospel. Christians need the gospel too. Jerry Bridges is smart when he says, you should preach the gospel to yourself every single day. Top of the book-burning list, The Purpose-Driven Life, and if you wanna criticize that or you wanna call on somebody, that's fine, or you can write info at nocompromisedradio .com and tell me what you think.

The Purpose-Driven Life and the Need for the Gospel

Second book that I think if you have, I think you should light a match to, kindling book number two, The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. I don't know why, I guess I do know the reasons why, but why have Protestants so bought into Roman Catholic theology?

I don't hate Catholics and I don't hate Protestants, but both can't be right. They might both be wrong, but they have opposing views of Jesus, the cross, the gospel, Christ's sacrifice, the word of God, and the list goes on and on and on and on.

So I think if you're a Protestant, you're protesting something, you're not saying, oh, I'm gonna buy The Ragamuffin Gospel. By the way, the author was a Roman Catholic priest. He left the priesthood to marry.

Since he married his wife, he has recently been divorced. Why would Michael Smith, Rich Mullins, Max Likado, Eugene Peterson, and Philip Yancey all say this is such a good book? He's got all kinds of weird philosophy stuff in there from Carl Jung to Norman Mailer.

He's hardly got any Bible verses in there at all. He's got this understanding of the way we love sinners is to accept them in their sin, page 33. How about his pop psychology that I think you should run from?

He talks about accepting self, page 49, self-intimacy, page 49. I have no idea what self-intimacy is. I think I'm pretty intimate with myself, but I don't know if that's a virtue. A virtue, loving ourselves, page 50 and 168.

By the way, there's only two great commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. It's a given. We love ourselves so much, love our neighbor like that.

Inner child discussion, page 64. If Pastor Steve was in the studio, he would love inner child talk. Just a joke. Forgive yourself, page 15. Healthy self-image, page 147. Self-worth, page 148. He is open-minded about truth.

He is closed-minded about biblical truth. He says, God is not man's enemy. As I have my Bible right here, and I would say to you that when the Bible... A book explicitly contradicts the Bible. Do you wanna hold that up and say it's revolutionary?

It's changed my life? I think the Bible is clear when it says in Romans 5, verse six, for while we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man, someone would dare even to die.

But God demonstrates, makes conspicuous His own love towards us. Then while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. For if while we were, drum roll, enemies, while we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

And so I think that book is full of poison. I think that book is full of spiritual arsenic. And I think I would be a bad pastor if I told you, attaboy, good job for reading it. I'm just glad you're reading.

I'm just glad you got something good out of that. Friends, bad books are bad, not only because they say bad things, but because they don't say the good things. And so Ragamuffin strikes out on both of those.

And if you tell me again, I've been blessed by that book, that doesn't tell me that the book is good. That tells me that I want you to grow in the knowledge and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's not a positive for the book.

That's an indictment on you. And I want you to say, you know what, I'm so mad at that guy on the radio. I'm gonna read that book again. I'm gonna prove him wrong. You know, you would not be the first person in the world who tried to prove somebody wrong.

And then God used that determination to help you. And so that's what I want you to do. I want you to understand the real gospel. And the real gospel has nothing to do with the Ragamuffin gospel. It has to do with God of the universe who created us out of nothing, who created the world out of nothing, is not just a creator, but he's a judge and he calls the shots.

It's his universe. He does whatever he pleases. And we are lawbreakers. We are treasonous. We are rebellious because of Adam and because of our own sin. And we need a savior. So God's not just a creator and a judge, but he's also a savior.

And he sent his son to die in the place of sinners and he raised him from the dead. That focus, that cross is what Paul said in Galatians 6 that he glories in. He glories in the cross, which assumes sin.

He doesn't glory in some kind of self image. You know, it's the same kind of people that go around saying, well, God don't die for no junk. Oh, really? He dies for the helpless. I just read to you in Romans 5.

He dies for the ungodly. I read to you in Romans 5. He dies for the enemies. I read to you in Romans 5. And he dies for sinners. I read to you in Romans 5. I don't know if you like those home makeover shows.

They pick bad houses to tear down and then build good ones. Then everybody says, wow, those guys on Sunday night really know how to build well. They don't say, well, that's a really horrible house and now it's a great house.

And look at the house. Same thing with home makeover. Facials. They don't pick pretty people for makeovers. Those artists who do makeup and cosmetics and hair, they pick, frankly, can I say the word on live radio?

They pick ugly people. They pick kind of people that maybe you don't think are that pretty. Then after they are pretty and they're made up and they have makeup and they have their teeth flossed or whatever they get done at the show, then you say, wow, they're pretty.

But it doesn't end there. You say they're pretty because of. They are wonderful to look at because of the work of the artist. That's the same thing with God. God died for us while we were still sinners.

So the grace that he has shown us is magnified. It's made manifest to us because he did the great work in us. It has nothing to do with us. Frankly, we are secondary to the glory of God in the triune salvation.

Wild at Heart and False Masculinity

All right, I don't know how much time I have left, but that's never been an issue and never been a problem from the pulpit or on the radio show. So we just keep going. The third book I think you should burn.

And here we go. I think there's going to be some callers on this one as well, but that's okay. If you've got this book in your library or just between us girls, if your husband has this book in his library, you need to burn this book.

I probably would ask your husband before you burn it though. Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. Wild at Heart. This is the 2002 Gold Medallion Book Award winner. This is the Family Christian Bookstores 2002 Book of the Year.

One of my, I can't, I don't even want to say his name to shame him, said that this was the best, most insightful book he has read in the last five years. I don't even want to tell you who said that because I like the guy.

That's not John MacArthur, by the way. It's not Steve Cooley either. Sold over 3 million copies. People love this book. Now I think the book understood something. I think it understood that we live in a kind of a feminine Christianity.

And again, like I said before, I don't mind femininity as long as you're not in a man's body. But I do mind people that run around and say, I've got an unbiblical solution to a church problem. And that's, I think, exactly what Eldredge has.

You might want to watch Gladiator movies. You might want to watch Braveheart movies. You might say, those have really helped me and you've got to be a man. That's all good. I think he's got that part right, at least being a man in your family.

But what he doesn't have right is how we go about that. What do the scriptures say? And so a lot of times you could just pull up online, Wild at Heart, John Eldredge review or critique and you can see what other people have said about it as well.

I did find it very interesting. I think you will as well. Did you know Christianity Today gave it a negative review? Now Christianity Today, which I usually call Christianity astray, or I could say it is Christianity Today because it is so liberal, it is so ecumenical, it is so kind of undiscerning.

When it gives it a negative review, it kind of makes me stop and listen. Here's what Christianity Today said about Wild at Heart. The therapeutic virtues of the book, however, do not outweigh its theological and cultural vices, end quote.

Gary Gilley said, you know you've got a loser on your hands when Christianity Today even knows it has vices. And so you might be turning in and said, all this guy does is slam everybody. Oh, I think you should listen to the podcast on Monday.

There's a reason why we warn people about things and then teach them the right things. So today is the warning part of the show, Wednesday, September 2nd. Then next week or the week after that when we do a few of these warning shows, then we'll look at the good stuff.

I've already told you that if you'd like to read a great book, you need to read Pilgrim's Progress. Why more people have not read that book? Why more people have not read John Fox's Martyrdom book? Fox's Book of Martyrs?

I don't know. But this stuff is like candy. It's like fluff. This is fluff. When I moved to New England 12 years ago, I had no idea what fluff was. Fluff and utter. And what's a fluff and utter? And I thought, you know, fluff is a wonderful illustration of churches these days.

Tastes good, but then all of a sudden you realize it's not good for me. You know, there's only so long you can live on fluff and then something has to give. Even if you like the strawberry red kind of fluff, it's the same thing.

This is fluff. This is, you know, I'd like to be a man, but I don't really know how to go about doing it. And my wife wears the pants in the family. She's the one serving at church. She's the one going to prayer group.

She's the one that teaches the kids the Bible. And I want to be a man. It's time to man up, as the Red Sox used to say. Cowboy up. But Eldridge just doesn't know what to do. He doesn't help people with real sanctification.

The way to sanctification is found through the cross. Here's who Jesus is. Here's what he's done. In light of that, because of that, now that you're able to do, able to respond, here is how you respond.

It's Romans chapter six. So at no radio, noradio .com, nocompromisedradio .com, we do strange things to get you to think. And here's what we do. We say there's some books that ought to be burned. And we're going to have some books that ought to be enshrined in the heart and minds of your soul soon enough.

And we'll look at those at another day. If you'd like to write us, it's info at nocompromisedradio .com. Info at nocompromisedradio .com. Maybe you want to send me some other books you think ought to be on this list.

They just keep coming out. As fast as the plagues kept multiplying in Egypt, so are bad books just multiplying as well. They're like rabbits in the springtime. And so I guess there's always a show like this to do.

Sadly. Get a good book. Get a classic book. Get a book that God has used to change the lives of his people in a biblical way and read that book. I think you'll be blessed. Nocompromisedradio .com. Tomorrow, Thursday, we'll look at current issues in evangelicalism.

Sound like today's show almost, but we'll have a new topic tomorrow. Current issues in evangelicalism. You'd like some homework? Here's your homework for today. Before we go, read Romans chapter five and you'll realize how great God is because he loves sinners like us.

God bless you.

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 in staff or management.