How not to Choose a Church (Part 3)

760 AM WVME. 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. It is great to be back in the studio here live at WVME, NoCompromiseRadio .com. I went to the football game yesterday, the Patriots game, and there was all kinds of people, in a sense, worshiping.

Idolatry at the Patriots Game and Acts 17

And my friend said, this is like Acts 17. Paul said, For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I found an altar with this inscription, To an unknown God. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

We are worshiping people, and people will worship something eventually, whether that's Patriots or the Red Sox or something else, maybe even themselves. My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio.

And as always, as the Lord wills, Tuesdays we have Steve Cooley, Pastor, Sheriff, soon to be author, Pastor Steve Cooley in the studio. Good to have you, Steve. Good to be here. You can't get rid of me.

Well, say that again. I don't think I heard that. Good to be here. There. You just can't seem to get rid of me. Oh, that's right. Well, we were going to change topics today, but we had so much fun last time we thought we better do part three on how not to choose a church.

I walked in today and Dave, the producer, looked at me and he said, It's time to get edgy. So I guess that is what we must do. No Compromise Radio. We want to stand for the truth, which means we stand against error.

And that's just the way propositional truth goes. Sadly, with postmodernism and touchy-feely subjective mysticism, people don't want to say, This is truth, and I will stand on that. Too often people want to be like Neville Chamberlain and want to negotiate everything.

And we believe at this radio station and at the church, Bethlehem Bible Church, and No Compromise Radio, we don't negotiate with the truth. We believe it. We declare it. And so today we want to look at issues in the local church, how not to choose a church.

Steve, why'd you come up with this topic? Because you told me to. Well, that's pretty good. All right. I like that. All right. We've had a lot of things that we've talked about before, but we want, at the end of the day, we want you to pick a church for biblical reasons.

That's what we're after. If you're a Christian, you need to be in a local church. This home church, TV church, internet church, just won't do. You need to be in a place where you're using your gifts, having good local leadership, opportunities to minister and be ministered to, preaching the Word of God, and a variety of things that we've talked about before.

Although you may love to listen to John Piper in your iPod, John MacArthur in your iPod, if you live here in Worcester, those men are not your pastors. They can't be. And so you need to be in a local church where you can do the one another's.

And that's what we're talking about here at the show. We want you to be in a local church, a Bible teaching church, and we want you to examine your church. Is your church biblical? If so, great. I hope you go thank your pastor for having the nerve to be biblical in this day of change.

And if it's not a biblical church, then you'll either do what you can to change it, or you need to find a biblical church. So Steve, give us the next on the list. We don't have a number, but the next on the list of why you should not choose a local church.

Well, to be fair, you know, when we were talking about this topic, I think we decided to, or I decided to formulate it in a negative sense so we could have a little bit more fun with it. An edgy. Yeah.

Biblical yet edgy. So here's the reason, or here's the next reason why, or how you should, the next way you should not choose a church. A man says, I won't choose a church unless my wife approves it first.

Am I allowed to laugh this much?

No, no fun allowed. Nofunradio .com. Listen, do we want to be kind to our wives? Obviously. Do we want to be patient? Do we want to have loving leadership? Yes. We don't want to lord it over them. Elders ought not to lord, and neither ought husbands to lord it over.

But we want to make sure we don't say, God, we know you gave us as men leadership functions, according to the Bible, but we won't do those. We won't exercise those. We'll let our wife decide. And so that's an advocation of leadership.

That's not leadership. And we see lots of people who, maybe the husband likes Bible teaching church, but the wife doesn't really know. Maybe she doesn't feel like it's for her yet. Maybe she hasn't had the Lord speak to her, quote unquote, or have a confirmation.

And we want to make sure that that woman should know biblically that if God has spoken to the husband in the word, this is the right kind of church, according to the Bible, it matches up. She doesn't have to have a burning in her bosom, does she?

No, she doesn't. And it really is a matter of so many husbands. I mean, I don't want to make it sound like it's a pandemic, but many husbands just have this sense that they're willing to be spiritual leaders, and they'll lead wherever the wife wants to go.

Is that a country song? Well, what happens is, and we're all guilty of this, we sometimes don't lead well. We follow our wives, or we lead too aggressively, and we're lording it over. And so it's difficult because of the fall.

And I found that if a husband needs to make a tough decision, and it's a good decision, they've prayed about things, they've consulted other people, they've discussed it, and he's not making a rash decision.

He's not treating her like some kind of cavewoman. But he makes a decision that the wife disagrees with. By the way, submission is, I disagree, but I'll go along anyway. Agreement is, I agree, we both agree.

So when the wife, according to Ephesians 5, submits, she disagrees, but she goes along anyway, even if she's mad for a few days, I think that woman, if she's godly, will respect the husband in days to come, even if she doesn't really like the decision.

Women want a leader.

That's right. And I think wives tend to understand that if there's this kind of disagreement and the husband is willing to make a decision, she will, maybe not overwhelmingly in the beginning, but in the long run, she's going to respect him more than if he's just a yes man.

No woman wants to be married to a wet dishrag. Amen to that. I don't know what the verse is for that, but...

What happens is people say to themselves, well, I just want to make sure there's harmony in my family and there's not dissension, and this is going to cause trouble. Well, actually, I don't think it has to do that at all.

Let me read the text, Ephesians 5, verse 25. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water of the word.

He says in verse 28, so husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. And then it says at the very end, verse 31, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

That kind of loving husband is much easier for a wife to submit to, don't you think? Absolutely.

I mean, I frequently say in my Sunday school class, I think the hardest commandment is in all of Scripture to obey is that of a wife to submit to her husband, but it's made so much easier if the husband is loving in a sacrificial way, loving as Christ loved the church.

But that does not mean by loving your wife, you have to say, you make the final call. You decide.

No, especially not, I'm sorry, Mike, but especially not in this matter, because it is a spiritual matter, one that the husband is ultimately going to be held responsible for.

And so we say to the ladies, if you follow your husband to the church that he wants to take you and it's the wrong decision, then my only message to you is duck. When God is going to chasing your husband, he's not going to be chasing you.

The Bible teaches clearly that men and women are equal. We are both image bearers before the fall and even after the fall. But there is a different function. Men and women are different. Our bodies are different.

Our hormones are different. The way we look at the world is different. Everything about us is intentionally different because we have a Creator who has made us differently. And so what we do is we say we're equal, but we're different.

There's nothing wrong with that. And so God has said, children, you're not in charge of the family. Employees, you're not in charge of employers. And women are not in charge of their husbands. It's the other way around.

Well, yeah. And even in Genesis 3, when God's putting the curse on Adam and Eve, he specifically says that her desire is going to be to rule over her husband for her husband. But the implication is that she's going to want control over the husband.

That's correct. Now, while I'm thinking about it, 508 -831 -9863 for our phone calls. I don't have anybody online here, but I think Dave has given me someone. All right. There's someone online. Let's talk to Steve on Line 1.

I'm going to click on this here, Dave, but I don't know if Steve is on. Steve, are you on Line 1? I am on Line 1.

Great. What's your question today? My question is based on Matthew 24 -36. You've probably been asked this before. The context is Jesus, you know, talking about end times, and he says that of that day, his return, nobody knows, not even the Son, only the Father.

Now, I was at Bible study, and that came up, and I said, well, now that Jesus is seated again at the right hand of the Father, since he's fully God and fully man, doesn't he now know that day and hour?

Wasn't he speaking in the context of, you know, his humanity and reliance on the Holy Spirit in Matthew 24 -36?

Okay. So, A, what's your question, and B, how does this relate to what not to look for in a local church?

Well, it's totally out of context of your discussion. I missed the early part of your program, so I didn't really know what the context of that was, but the question is, does Jesus now know the date of his return?

Okay, great. The answer is, of course Jesus knows the day of his return, because Jesus is omniscient. It is very difficult when we look at some of the incarnational language in Scripture as he is deferring, as he somehow says he doesn't know, and we have a very difficult time.

How can the infinite God cloak himself in finite humanity? Does he unknow? Does he not know? And so, lots of scholars struggle with this, but we have to understand now at least the answer is very easy.

Jesus now knows when he's coming back, because he is God, along with the Father and the Spirit. They are co-equal in essence and in nature and in knowledge and in power, and so they have created this program and this plan, this glorious consummation before time began, and certainly the Son and the Spirit and the Father would all agree on the Son's return.

Follow-up, that means, in keeping with what you just said, that he now is everywhere present, he knows everything, and he's all-powerful. Again, co-equal with the Father was your word. Correct. Okay, that answers my question very nicely.

Okay, it almost seems like anticlimactic, but have a good day. Thank you. You're welcome. All right, well, if you'd like to call 508 -831 -9863, Steve, to his credit, didn't hear what we were talking about, but if you now know what we're talking about, what not to look for in a church, we'd love to have you call.

Theology Matters More Than Feel-Good Christianity

All right, let's move on to number two on our list today. We want to make sure that husbands and wives, in recap, pray, think, walk through. The husband doesn't want to ram anything down the wife's throat, but at the end of the day, the husband needs to lead the family, and I think a godly wife would love to follow that kind of leader.

That's right. All right, our next issue is a person says, I don't want a church that gets lost in the theological thicket, gets lost in the weeds. We all love Jesus, and we ought to stop worrying about every little picky thing.

Okay, well, that's a mouthful. I don't know who wrote that sentence, but I want to talk to them after the show. I think we're riding home together. Okay. People somehow have made theology a bad word. We don't want to talk about theology much, and so when someone says that, here's what they're basically saying, unknown to them.

Well, when I go to church, I want a church that doesn't talk about God very much. Right? That's what they're saying. I want to talk about me and my needs and my finances and my relationships and my feelings, and I like gladiator movies, and they can show me some of those clips there.

And so theology matters. Jesus could have said, you know, the Old Testament, all that stuff about the holiness of God, His justice, His righteousness, what God said out of the bush to Moses, all those details.

Just get this theme. God really loves you. And when He saw you, He had a big smile on His face, and everything's cool. Why do we have this book, though, 66 books in one book, the Bible, because it is all about God and how He relates to people.

Why do you think, Steve, so many people just want to have no doctrine at all?

Because—well, we'll hear this too—doctrine divides. You know, it's really not that important. Well, of course it's important. As you just said, if it wasn't important, God wouldn't give it to us. But it also enhances the more—theology is nothing more—let's break it down—it is the study of God.

Theo, including the word for God, and then ology, the study of. It's a study of God. And when we know more about God, we worship Him better. We praise Him better. We think about Him rightly, and we think about ourselves rightly.

Theology is critical, and you cannot teach the Bible without teaching theology.

Everybody has a theology. Sometimes it's just not a very good theology. That's right. And we want them to have the right view of God. And Jesus needed to come, and He needed to clarify things. He was given a forerunner named John the Baptist.

And Jesus comes, and He declares more revealed words from God. I was reading the Al Mohler book the other day, and I was telling Steve out in the car, how great is it that our God is a living God, invisible, but He speaks?

Pagan gods you can see, you can touch, but they don't speak. And so when God speaks about Himself—I can say it this way. If God says anything about Himself, wouldn't you be interested in that? Absolutely.

And so we need to know what God says about Himself as He interacts with sinful people, how He redeems them, how He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem sinners by Christ's substitutionary death and resurrection.

All that should interest us. If it does not, then the problem isn't with the preacher, with the Church, with the Bible. The problem is with the person. And I'd like to say, if you're not just captured by the Word of God and what it says about God, you should ask yourself the question, could I be called a Christian?

Well, let me phrase it another way. Can you imagine telling your husband or wife, you know, I really love you, but I don't want to know anything about you? And so the whole idea that, oh, I love Jesus, but I don't want to know anything about Him.

When you go out with your wife, or you first are dating, your fiancé, then your wife—and I remember going to coffee shops with Kim, or going to some kind of yogurt shop, and we could just sit there and look at each other for hours, talking, getting to know each other.

I wanted to know all the details. I wanted to get to know this object of my affection. And she didn't say to me, I can't believe you want to get caught up in the details of my life and family and how I look, and quit staring at me.

We have to stop worrying about every little picky thing. We just need to love each other.

Absolutely ridiculous. I mean, it's absurd, but some people think that that's the essence of Christianity.

To quote Joey Rohn, D-U-M-B. Next. Okay, next.

Commitment to One Local Church and Accountability

I don't want to get tied down to one church. I like to visit a lot of churches so that I keep a good spiritual balance.

Well, translation, I don't want to be held accountable to the local elders, because I like to do my own thing. Translation, I like my wife to submit to me, but I don't like to submit to my elders. Show me someone who says this.

And one of their problems, I think, Pastor Steve, is that they don't want to be held accountable.

Right. And I think we also, we live in an age of, you know, no commitment. You know, I mean, this is like the guy who says he's in his thirties, he's single. Why aren't you married? Well, you know, I have a girlfriend, but I, you know, I date other women sometimes.

I mean, this whole notion is, it sort of reminds me of the book Stop Dating the Church, you know, where we're going to try out various things and we pick up different aspects from here and there. But you're right.

I mean, there is a lack of accountability, certainly, but there's also something in this sort of a believer that just does not want to serve, because if you're in that kind of mode where you're just moving from church to church, you will never have to serve.

You'll never have the opportunity to serve.

Now, there are always exceptions to the rule, but many times I've noticed that when people come and I ask them about their past churches and they list four or five in the last couple of years, I tend to think, well, we're just going to be next on the list and they'll probably be off to the next church.

When things get difficult, when the fire starts coming from God's word in a verse-by-verse fashion, they just want to go on to the next church. If I change this to a marriage situation, I don't want to get tied down to one wife.

I like to visit a lot of different women so that I keep a good spiritual balance.

Yeah. I mean, I guess another way to put this would be people have church crushes, you know, and once the crush passes, they just sort of move on.

Well, everybody seems to look nice on Sunday, and then when you really get to know the people, you realize they're sinners, and they let you down, and they offend you, and they don't do what they say.

But Jesus died for these kind of people. Jesus loves them, and if Jesus loves them and says, like, I laid down my life in an active way, 1 John says, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Preach it.

Okay.

Diversity, Repentance, and Church Membership

All right, next. Let me move on to the next one. I can't go to a church that doesn't value diversity. We need to have lots of different races, backgrounds, and even sexual orientations.

Well, that sounds like right out of the Boston Globe or someplace. Of course, we want a church that represents the kind of people Jesus died for. Simply, sinners. Sinners who are black and white and red, old, young, rich, poor, man, woman, the list goes on and on and on.

I like churches that have diversity because I think the potluck providences are a lot better. I like spicy food, and so I like that. If you go to an inner city church and there's no one there from the inner city and they're all from the suburbs, there's probably a problem.

But what you said there at the end, Steve, even sexual orientations, that's where, as you know, I have got a big problem. And so we want to make sure that this church is for sinners, but it is for, yes, adulterers, yes, for fornicators, yes, for homosexuals.

But when Paul talked to them in 1 Corinthians 6, he said,. And such were some of you. You should feel convicted if you're that kind of person at a local church, because the Bible is calling out for people to repent.

You can't live like that and honor a holy God. So we value diversity, but that diversity is based on Christ's death for a variety of different kinds of sinners who now have repented by the grace of God.

Christine is on line one. Let's take a call from Christine.

Hi, Christine. Hi, I have a question. I have my brother's a Christian and he's got some friends, you know, they're all Christians, they've been hanging out a long time, and one guy in his circle of friends isn't attending church anymore, and it's that kind of a thing where, you know, I guess he likes to drink a little and he's been to churches where they've condemned that, so his solution now is just he doesn't sin and he doesn't go to church.

I'm wondering, you know, it breaks my heart when I found this out, because, you know, he's been a Christian for a long time and, you know, just he's kind of a lone ranger now. What do you recommend we do to help someone like that?

Is there, you know, a book he can read or, you know, like my brother's talked to him,.

But... Is he a member of a local church?

No, no, he, you know, he moved to another state. My brother, you know, visits with him and talks on the phone and stuff, but he just doesn't even go to, you know, a new church, because he just, you know, just dropped out of it, because basically he says he likes, you know, to drink alcohol a little bit, and he gets condemned from local churches for that.

He doesn't feel like he fits in. He's kind of this illusion because he's single and he has a wife at a church, and.

Well, I'm glad he didn't find a wife at a church, because then that poor Christian woman would be married to an unrepentant drunk, right? So in one sense, we wouldn't want that on one of our other Christian sisters.

So here's what I would say. I'm glad that the churches he has attended have preached the Bible so that he would feel conviction. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 10, that drunkards do not inherit the kingdom of God.

So what I would do if I were you, Christine, is I would be able to talk to him, especially if it's over the phone, it's going to be a little easier, and just say, I'm sorry you're a disillusioned with church, but as you freely admit, you are not going to church because you don't want to be convicted by sin, so you don't need a Savior.

Do yourself a favor. If you live like this, don't somehow think you're going to heaven when you die, because you're not, based on your own testimony. So I'm worried for you, not because of your situation with church, but you don't want to be talking about sin and God's holiness, and so I'm going to pray that God will save you.

So I'd remind him that he's not a Christian. That's the short answer.

I don't think he gets drunk. I don't know him that well, but you know, from what my brother saw, it doesn't seem like he gets drunk. He just likes to relax with alcohol, and he has been condemned for that.

He's just kind of got like a chip on his shoulder.

Maybe next show, we're going to have to cut you off. I'm sorry about that. We'll talk about drinking alcohol, how many Christians think it's a sin. Drinking is never a sin. It is only a sin when you're drunk or you make somebody else stumble.

So read 1 Corinthians 6, Christine, and talk to your friend and see what you can do about trying to get him to go back to that local church. Okay. All right. God bless you. Okay, thanks. Well, this is No Compromise Radio.

We're wrapping up another show on how not to pick a local church. I think that was actually a good call, Steve, in the sense that at least the pastors are confronting them about sin. Absolutely.

It's encouraging. I mean, it's something that you have to be aware of. You have to be cautious about.

Good. Welcome to No Compromise Radio. We'll see you tomorrow. 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.

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