Charles Stanley

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. My name is Mike Abendroth, complete here with Pete's Coffee, P-E-E-T-S, of course. Someone once was going to order me some Pete's Coffee, P-E-A-T-S.

I guess that would taste like peat moss. It tastes very earthy. The Major Dickinson blood tastes a little earthy, but I think the peat moss version would taste more earthy. If you're listening on WVNE 760 here in the Worcester area, it looks like soon we won't be on the radio station, and so you can dial us in.

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Option four, you can get through your Droid or your iPhone the app called TuneIn Radio, and you can just type in No Compromise Radio. I think they have our last 15, 20 shows. So soon and very soon, probably by the end of the month, No Compromise Radio no longer on WVNE 760, good radio station, it's been a good run, and we're just switching to iTunes iBroadcast only.

So tell your friends, tell your enemies, maybe some of you are rejoicing, and you're saying finally we can get another half hour of Jay Sekulow, and we don't want No Compromise Radio. I think three years ago I took over from a, I think it was a financial guy, and some people wanted the financial stuff instead.

So I don't know, maybe what comes around goes around. Maybe I do really believe in karma. I don't think I do, but who knows. S. Lewis Johnson, one of my favorite preachers, I believe he died in 2004, if memory serves me.

Got to know his family a little bit, his wife Martha and his daughter Grace, and he was serious. He was a Southern gentleman. He was serious about preaching and the Word and the Lord Christ Jesus. But he usually threw in a little bit of comic relief in every message.

Sometimes it was an outright joke. Sometimes it would be a BC comic. Remember BC Comics? He loved to read the comics section in what we used to call newspapers. If you wanted to read comics now, where would you go?

Maybe there's comics online or something. I don't know. And so he was talking about rating sermons and gave this story about sermon ratings that would go in sync with movie ratings. So G, PG, PG -13, that kind of thing.

And so the story goes, according to S. Lewis, Samuel Lewis Johnson, the sermon rated G was would be one that was generally acceptable to everyone, full of inoffensive, puerile platitudes such as, go ye into all the world and smile, and what the world needs is peace and motherhood.

See that's rated G for everyone, general audiences. And this sermon, this pastor says, is usually described as wonderful or marvelous by the people. And then for the sermon rated M, that's for more mature congregations.

I don't think we have M movie ratings anymore. I think maybe there is M for video games. I was reading something the other day online and it said, what every girl dreams of is growing up and marrying a man who's addicted to video games.

Not. Sermon rated M, that's for more mature congregations. At times this sermon even makes the gospel relevant to today's issues, in subtle ways of course. It may even contain mild suggestions for change.

This sermon is often described as challenging or thought-provoking, even though no one intends to take any action or change any attitudes. So we've got the G, we've got the M. I should probably write my own for the PG and PG -13.

And then the sermon rated R, definitely restricted to those who are not upset by truth. This sermon tells it like it is. It is very threatening to the comfortable. It is most often described as disturbing or controversial and usually indicates that the preacher has an outside source of income.

That is a very fascinating fact when there is a new pastor and he's saying to himself, I want to stand for the truth. I want to preach the word in season and out of season. I want to rebuke, reprove, and exhort with great patience and instruction.

I'm the King's herald and messenger. And then you realize, especially for lots of people who run in our circles, Baptistic circles, congregational rule is very popular, you're thinking, I'm preaching to people who can vote me out, who can just gather a quorum together anytime and vote me out.

And they're used to these platitudes and these seeker-sensitive messages about we're all broken and we're all wounded and the pastor identifies with the congregation and he struggles more than anybody else and the list goes on and on and on.

And then you think these people can vote me out. I'm telling them they're sinful, of course I'm sinful too as a preacher, but my job is to herald God's word and God's word is, from beginning to end, controversial, spicy.

It has things in there that you think, can I read this in sophisticated company? So when you deal with people's sin and pride and then they can vote you out, that's pretty fascinating. All right, there's one more and the final one, No Compromise Radio, S. Lewis Johnson relates a story about sermons with movie ratings.

The final one rated NC -17, positively limited to those who can handle explosive ideas. This sermon really socks it to them. You can tell this is written probably in the 70s, some Ronan Martin's laughing, sock it to me.

It's the kind of sermon that landed Jeremiah in the well, got Amos run out of town and sets things up for the stoning of Stephen. It is always described as shocking or in poor taste. The minister who preaches this sermon had better have his suitcase packed and his life insurance paid up.

Do you know the percentages of churches that fire their pastor? What's the percentage that they'll fire the next one? Now by fire, I mean A, outright fire or B, make it so miserable on the poor guy and his wife and kids that he just resigns.

You just make things difficult, cut the pay and always complain, never help. By the way, I'm not saying all pastors are perfect and it's always the congregation's fault. Pastors sin, I sin. But I'm just speaking generally.

You have some new guy, he's 30 years old out of seminary, he comes in to start preaching and yes, he's young, but he's trying to be faithful to the Word. The Word does its work in people and it stirs them up to godliness or it stirs them up to controversy and trouble.

Contrary to the ad for vertical church, when God shows up, you need to order more chairs. What happens many, many times, I don't know the ratio, but when God shows up through the preaching of His Word through a fallible, frail, sinful messenger, though called by God, sometimes you need to put some chairs away.

You know, you put some chairs away. So for us, we have now gone from one service to two because we couldn't fit everyone and so we did take some chairs out because it just doesn't seem as full. We're not trying to manipulate anything, it just, if you have room for 50 and 49 are there, it just has a certain feel compared to you have 12 if you have space for 50.

Well anyway, that's a sub-point. Preaching the Word and then people want to get rid of you happens to most pastors. If you talk to a pastor 50, 60 years old, he'll tell you about how the rebels were after him at some time in his career.

So the problem is, you have a church and they fire one pastor. I think it was in the high 70s that they'll fire the next guy, again, fire slash make him resign. And so then you have the congregation that has too much power and then they don't like to get rid of that power.

So this is probably a good show for elder rule or elder leadership if you want to soften it a little bit, elder-led, although the text says manage a rule in 1 Timothy, so that's what I usually say. So in general, I hope you have a pastor, I hope you pray for your pastor, that he could preach sermons that are rated B probably for biblical, whatever the text says.

This is a good plug for sequential, Christ-centered, expository preaching, verse by verse by verse so that the people know, oh yeah, this 1 Corinthians 13 love chapter is really the 1 Corinthians 13, how to use your spiritual gifts in a loving fashion.

That's why it's there. Oh, there are implications for marital love, I guess you could use those verses for a wedding. But it has everything to do with the Corinthians not being loving when they were using their sign gifts at Corinth.

So today on No Compromise Radio, we just had a little introduction with Dr. S. Lewis Johnson and hopefully within a year or two or three, they'll have some S. Lewis Johnson books out there and somewhere probably in the back in very small font, it will be saying edited by Mike Abendroth, etc.

What else do I have? I'm just throwing things around right now. This whole iOS 6 iPhone thing has got me all befuddled because I can't figure out how to get all these vibration tones off. I don't want my phone to do anything.

I don't have the ringer set on, well, the ringer is set on vibrate in case my kids call. But other than that, I don't want it to know. I don't want it to tell me. So all right, I got an email the other day and this email said, oh, you know what, I'm actually going to read this.

This is like self-promotion. But Nancy said, see, we do have some ladies who listen to NOCO. I love your program and am a podcaster. Well, good thing because we're going to only be podcasting. I first became acquainted with your ministry when you hosted Wretched Radio.

Oh, there you go. I think you need to email Nancy, email Todd and say, where is Mike Abendroth? Please keep your program going as it is a valuable resource for growth in Christ. Praise the Lord. I have a question.

Did I hear you say that Dr. Charles Stanley did not believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ? Answer, yes. I cannot locate the podcast in which you and Pastor Steve were briefly discussing several prominent people on the radio show, such as Dave Ramsey and Charles Stanley, among others.

We would do that. Now Steve might. Remember, soon we're going to have the Tuesday guy, Steve, on Saturday, a special edition once he gets done with his IBS class. Can you clarify for me? I have checked this website, his website, and he appears to confirm that he believes in the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

By the way, this is a new controversy for me and I am still learning. I do believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ since his Lordship is mentioned 600 times in the New Testament. I have learned that from my church pastor.

Thanks for all you do. Well, Nancy, thank you for writing and I did pull up a few things to try to help you. Now let's talk about this in this particular manner. Charles Stanley is not in the same category as some of the other people we've gone after on this show.

I think Charles Stanley is a Christian man. I don't think he's qualified to be a pastor in light of the issues that were prominent in the newspapers in Atlanta many, many years ago. But I mainly have a problem with his book, Eternal Security.

And that book came out when I was in seminary and I still remember to this day, page 126. I thought it was page 164, but I think it's page 126, some of the strange things he says. Now, the Lordship controversy in general, of course, Lordship, anti-Lordship, and non-Lordship people would all say Jesus is Lord.

That isn't the issue at hand. And if you have a website, of course, his website would say, we believe Jesus is Lord. But there are other nuances to what we call the Lordship controversy, and you can go back and read, make sure it's a second edition MacArthur Gospel According to Jesus.

Our Faith Works is probably even a better treatment as John, learning and growing and articulating things in a more precise way. But let me just read you some of these quotes in Charles Stanley's book, and then you can just tell me if you think these things are right or if they're wrong, and we can just analyze these things from a proper biblical perspective.

Eternal Security, page 93, chapter 10, even if a believer for all practical purposes becomes an unbeliever, his salvation is not in jeopardy. I'll just read that again, even if a believer for all practical purposes becomes an unbeliever, his salvation is not in jeopardy.

What does that mean? See the non-Lordship, anti-Lordship thinking tends to go along the lines that, well, fast Jesus into my heart, believed some time, accepted him, got baptized and joined the church and made some credible profession, and therefore I'm in.

It lends itself to then quotes like this, I think of Jesus' words, and you will be hated for my sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved. I think about John's words in Revelation 21, but the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake of fire, which burns with brimstone and fire, which is the second death.

Charles Stanley, Eternal Security, quote 2, page 94, and last, believers who lose or abandon their faith will retain their salvation, for God remains faithful. Now see, I don't make this up. I had no intention about talking about Charles Stanley.

To me, he's pretty much a non-entity in the theological world. I know some people like to listen to him. He's a good speaker. He is not a heretic, unless you think anti-Lordship is heretical teaching, but I wouldn't say he's heretical.

He believes in death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, soon return. But this is just, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't be writing books either. Maybe pastors should stick to pastoring and leave the theologians of the world, scholastic theologians.

I guess I'm supposed to be a theologian, right? That's what I taught you, no compromise. It's just this Dallas Seminary, Southern Baptist deal. Page 94, Christ will not deny an unbelieving Christian his or her salvation, because to do so would be to deny himself.

Page 94, he won't deny an unbelieving Christian. What do you mean an unbelieving Christian? See, I don't even have a category for that. Not everyone who says to me, Jesus said in Matthew 7, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

See, when people say they believe, well, we don't know if they really do or not, but if they leave the faith, we realize that they never were part of the Christian faith, because Christians persevere because God has them persevere.

He preserves them. First John 2 .19, the implication from the false teachers can be applied to people like Charles Stanley is talking about. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.

But they went out that they might be made manifest that none of them were of us. Well, do I need to give any other quotes? Page 190, I guess that means yes. You and I are not saved because we have enduring faith.

We are saved because at a moment in time we express faith in our Lord, page 190. If God grants you faith, he grants you the faith that does endure. Faith isn't a work. Faith isn't something we come up with.

Enduring faith is not meritorious. It is a gift from God. And if God in eternity past has chosen you, if the Father has chosen you, then the Son died for you, and the Spirit of God sealed you to the day of redemption, and you will be a believer.

Will there be struggles? Will there be ups and downs? Well, I'm not saying there won't be. But if you're a believer, you will be a believer. And you can't say we are saved at a moment of time if we express faith in our Lord and then back up to page 94 and say, you know, unbelieving Christians are going to make it.

That's like grape nuts. It's not grape, and it's not nuts. See, I thought MacArthur came up with that, but that's from S. Lewis Johnson. Discipleship has nothing to do with whether you will go to heaven or not, page 505.

Oh, sorry, page 190 and 505. That's not from his book, Eternal Security. That's from his book, Handbook for Christian Living. I was going to say I didn't think the book had that many pages. So Handbook for Christian Living, Charles Stanley, page 505.

Discipleship has nothing to do with whether you'll go to heaven or not. See, Charles doesn't get because the non-lordship, anti-lordship folks have a problem with this discipleship. But disciple can be used three different ways in the New Testament, as far as I know.

Option one, someone who is a learner. He's already a Christian. He's already a believer, rather, and he's following Christ. Two, it could be a false disciple, and some of his disciples followed him no more.

Gospel of John. But it also could mean make disciples, right? Go therefore making or make disciples, right, by baptism, teaching, etc. This is a great commission, and there it is used as a synonym for Christians, for believers.

In his book, Handbook for Christian Living, Charles Stanley said, it is possible to be a child of God and never a disciple of Christ. I have no words. We can live the Christian life with the assurance of heaven as our ultimate destiny, but miss the process of maturing as a disciple.

You don't make Jesus Lord. Jesus is Lord. And so you need to live in light of who Jesus is. And if you live in light of just He's the Savior for fire insurance, that isn't the Jesus of the Bible. Page 126 of Eternal Security.

This is the one that got me riled up in seminary. The first verse of this parable, talking about Matthew 25, is so severe that many commentators assume it is a description of hell. It is not. Page 124.

Now page 126. Where is this place represented by the outer darkness in Jesus' parable? To be in outer darkness is to be in the kingdom of God, but outside the circle of men and women whose faithfulness on earth earned them a special rank or position of authority.

So we've got the two-tiered heaven deal. Remember Jesus said, cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness, Matthew 25, 30. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The Son of Man will send His angels and they will gather out of His kingdom all causes of sin and lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace.

In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And these will go away into eternal punishment. So Matthew 25, Matthew 13. Now back to Matthew 25 again. Outer darkness. So now Stanley, let me reread that again.

It's not hell. Where is this final place represented by outer darkness in Jesus' parable? To be in outer darkness is to be in the kingdom of God, but outside the circle of men and women whose faithfulness on this earth earned them a special rank or position of authority.

So here's what Stanley has to do. Since he's got a non-lordship position, anti-lordship position, I think actually, you have people who say they believe and then never really keep believing. But they get to go to heaven because they said they believed at a point in time, and God's got to honor that.

See other quotes in his book. So where do we put them? Well, we don't put them in hell because we want them in heaven, but we don't want to give them the same privileges as somebody who really followed the Lord in a Hebrews 11 way.

So now they're in this outer ring, kind of like Saturn on the ring. You're not really on the planet, but you're on the ring. So see how this faulty theology then makes you impose said theology onto the text instead of just letting the text speak.

So when Charles Stanley comes to the Worcester Convention Center, DCU, I just don't happen to go. If somebody goes, I don't correct them. But when people ask me, what do you think? I just say, well, how about good, better, best?

That would solve the problem too. There are other people that you can listen to instead. So Nancy, thanks for writing No Compromise Radio. Thanks for being a good marine and studying. And do I have anything else here?

If you'd like to go to Greece with us, we're going to Greece. It's about $3 ,400 depending on how many people sign up. It's in April of next year. You're going to need to send in a $200 deposit by the end of November, I think is the time.

11-day tour with No Compromise Radio and Bethlehem Bible Church, April 17th through the 27th. We would love to have you. You can email me at info at nocompromiseradio .com and say, send me a brochure.

The flights and the times and the prices are all from Boston. I think everything is covered except a few lunches, and we would love to have you go. Once again, if you'd like to listen to us on the radio, soon that will be over, but you can always listen to us on nocompromiseradio .com, iTunes No Compromise Radio, our Facebook No Compromise Radio, our TuneIn Radio app.

This is Mike Abendroth, info at nocompromiseradio .com. 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.

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