Are You A Quaker In Disguise?

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.

Swearing, Sanctification, and a Saturday Recording

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name's Mike Abendroth. I decided to come in on a Saturday today to tape the show, and it's a pretty nice Saturday. I think last night it got down to 30-some degrees.

By the way, this is the middle of July. New England. Just kidding, it's September. And I just was reading an email. It was funny, I was asking Todd Friel over the internet if he had any things that he wanted me to talk about when I hosted Wretched Radio for a couple days.

By the way, now, this place, after I hosted the show, there's some technical difficulties and some issues with equipment to hook up to Wretched down in Atlanta, and so I don't know if it happened or not.

As of today, I haven't taped the shows, and so we'll see if I get all the connections done. But if I did, it was fun. If I didn't, we're dinged. But anyway, I said to Todd, is there anything you want me to stay away from or do or don't do, et cetera?

The first thing he said was, don't swear, this isn't Seattle. So I won't swear on Wretched Radio, and I won't swear on No Compromise Radio as well. I'm very, very thankful that when the Lord justifies and declares righteous, he begins to do the work of cleansing.

Separated from justification, but beginning at the same time, when God regenerates a person and makes them a new person in Christ Jesus, we begin instantly the process. We don't, well, let's put it from a God-centered perspective.

God begins the process of sanctifying Christians, and I was very thankful that even though I had a sewer mouth, a gutter mouth before I was a Christian, once God saved me, it's been, I don't know how many times I swore after God saved me, but it wasn't very many times.

It was pretty much instantly gone. So I'm very, very thankful for that. My only problem is sometimes I think of swear words. They don't make it out of my mouth, but I think of them, and I don't really want, I don't like that.

Mysticism, Contemplative Prayer, and the Problem of Inner Guidance

So today on No Compromise Radio, we are going to continue talking about mystical things, Christian clairvoyant things, Christian Obi-Wan Kenobis, Christian Yodas, and we've talked a little bit in the past about contemplative prayer, yum, and we have talked about labyrinths.

How do you make the sound of a labyrinth? I think some people are theologically stuck in the labyrinths of their own atheologies, their non-theologies, but that's a different subject, and today we'll talk a little bit about why this is a very bad thing to trust yourself.

Here's the issue when it comes to mysticism, and I've talked about this a lot on the radio station, but I just like to talk about it, and I'm preaching about it, so it's kind of the double dip here. You get revelation from God.

You need revelation from God, and when you think about the sky, I'm looking at the blue sky today with some clouds. The bird just flew overhead. I can see some green trees out there and the typical New England rock fences.

When you look at the sky, God is revealing himself in nature, Revelation, excuse me, Psalm 19 clearly speaks of that, and then there's another way God speaks, and that is through special revelation, and throughout the eons of biblical time, he would speak in dreams, visions, spoke to Abraham straight up, spoke through prophets, spoke through the Urim and the Thumm.

You might want to study that sometime. S. Lewis Johnson says these days, God only speaks in the Bible, and you need to use him, and the pages of the Bible, you need to use him and thumb him. If you don't listen to S. Lewis Johnson, you are theologically handicapped.

You need to get on Believer's Chapel, pull up S. period, L-E-W-I-S, Johnson, S. Lewis Johnson, and you will love listening to him. MacArthur has an iPad, iPod. Well, he has an iPad too, Phil Johnson said, but he has, when he first got an iPod, it was filled full of S. Lewis Johnson sermons, so you need to listen to those.

By the way, if you're struggling with eschatology, get on his Divine Purpose section. I think there are 32, 34 messages, and you'll get a good overview of covenant theology, dispensational theology, and pros and cons kind of of each, et cetera.

That'd be a good one to listen to. But God used to speak in a variety of different ways, and in these last days, he speaks to us no longer in visions, no longer through prophets, no longer through the Urim and the Thummim.

We have God speaking through his word, and it is an external source. It is a fixed source. It is a complete source. It is a canon. It is no longer to be an open canon. It's closed. We can't add things to it.

There's not Revelation chapter 23. There's not an extra book. There's not 67th book of the Bible. God has finished speaking, and it is our privilege, and it is our responsibility to find out what he has said, and I really think it is one of these issues where people want more, and they are dissatisfied, and they are no longer contented to have what God has said.

There's plenty to study, and in these last days, Hebrews 1, 1 to 3, we have God speaking to us from an external, outside source, propositional truth, anathetically, he gives us that truth, which is hard for the postmodern person to take.

It's hard for the emergent person to take, but that is the case. The desire to hear God from the inside, and the desire to be led by God, hear from God, God talking to you, there are problems with that.

That is mysticism, and here are the reasons why there's a problem with it, not just because it's Quakerism and inner light stuff, where you have somehow the soul implanted with God's spirit. It's not necessarily that, but it's something else.

Here's the big problem when it comes to hearing God from the inside. God talking to you, God talking to you in a still, small voice, and again, I know people are gonna say out there in no-compromise land, well, Elijah, still, small voice, and you go to a variety of different things.

You could go to the donkey case as well, God speaking through a donkey. Are we in the last days? In these last days, how does God speak to us? And I think you should read Hebrews 1, 1 -3, one more time to remember what's happening.

There's a different way that God is communicating. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us in his Son, in his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

So when it comes to God speaking, God speaks to us now through his Son. And so if you don't believe that, you don't believe in the closed canon, you don't believe that God speaks through scriptures, you are rejecting God's sufficiency of scriptures.

As Phil Johnson would say, this is a functional denial of sola scriptura. John MacArthur said, when a congregation or a person sees scripture as less than final, complete, infallible authority for life and faith, it has thrown open the door to absolute chaos, absolute chaos.

When you begin to say, I'm going to exchange what God has clearly said in his word for, well, God told me something, then it is chaos. Jim and Tammy Faye Baker's son, Jay, said, the more I follow grace, the more I'm drawn to God, the more I'm willing to stand up for people being persecuted.

This sounds so churchy, but I felt like God spoke to my heart and said, homosexuality is not a sin. That's exactly what you're going to get. That is exactly what you're going to get when you say, I've got to go to the inside because your heart is going to be the one that really is talking to you.

It's not going to be God, it's going to be you. It is going to be you. What is so wrong with all this? Well, there's a variety of different things, but what's so wrong with it is that it forgets theology.

It forgets this particular point of theology, the depravity and corruption of the human being. It forgets the fall. It forgets original sin. It forgets that we can't trust ourselves. It forgets Proverbs 28, 26.

He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but he who walks wisely will be delivered. When you have this God talking to you business, when Jack Hayford says, while alone and quiet, listen with your heart, don't strain your ears for an audible sound, the Bible describes this order of the Lord's communication with us as a still, small voice.

Further, expect his voice to cause more by impressions, that is by thoughts or ideas which begin to form as you are quiet and worshipful in his presence. Well, my problem is this. I can't trust what I'm hearing on the inside.

I don't want to trust that because I've trusted myself before and it hasn't gotten me very far. It's gotten me far down the sin path, but it hasn't gotten me far along the road to righteousness. You must be careful that you remember the fall of man.

What does Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 say? Trust in your heart with all your Lord. No, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Don't lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths.

I think the big problem these days, people want to listen to God on the inside and they don't want to study their Bibles. One of the reasons is because people are lazy. I'm lazy too. I mean, we all are, but people are lazy.

They don't want to study. So let's just have God say something to me on the inside. Another reason why people like that is because if God has said something in the Bible, homosexuality is a sin, then we want to have God tell us something on the inside to change what he has already said.

Now that is just, you look at the laws of contradiction. Something can't be and not be at the same time. Something can't be true and false at the same time. That just doesn't work. And so when people say to themselves, well, you know, here's what God told me, that's an easy way to win an argument if you think that's really true, but it's not true.

And so it's like when people say, well, God told me such and such, I just say, well, God told me the exact opposite. I mean, now where are we? Where do we go from there? The only way we can go from, only place we can go from there is what does the scripture say?

I remember J. Adams years ago said, all truth is God's truth. And so what do you do with that, J. said. You have to add another component to that. Since all truth is God's truth, and since all errors is Satan's error, we need the Bible to figure out which one is which.

And so when you say to yourself, I'm just gonna go with my gut, you are forgetting depravity. See, that's why with the inner light stuff and the Quakers and the mystics, they forgot the depravity of man.

They were thinking that somehow man is good, and there's a spark of goodness inside the human. The spark of goodness was inside a person. That's what George Fox taught as a Quaker, the teacher within.

Scripture Alone, the Sure Word, and the Folly of Signs

Now here on No Compromise Radio, let's just get to the point. Here's the point. Is there a command in the Bible to listen to God outside his word? Is there direction in the Bible to listen to God outside of his word?

What does the Bible teach often, regularly, consistently about listening to God in these days? Open your Bible and read it. That's what you are to do. And we all have that. This is not I have special inside knowledge and you don't.

We all have the scriptures. And when I was reading Phil Johnson's article on pyromaniacs, which I don't read a lot of blogs, but I think you should read, if you read Justin Taylor's Between Two Worlds and you read pyromaniacs, you can pretty much figure out what's going in evangelicalism, at least the evangelical brand that I care to associate with.

Phil Johnson said, "'Intuition is fallible. "'Therefore, it cannot be considered revelation. "'Those who think those moments of intuition "'are God speaking with a private message "'invariably become extremely superstitious.

"'They foolishly order their lives by their feelings. "'They commit the sin of trusting too much "'in their own hearts, "'and they diminish the more sure word of prophecy. "'No one who knows church history "'and no one who truly understands the concept "'of spiritual maturity can deny that Christians "'who follow the voice in their heads "'fall into those errors all the time, "'and it can be spiritually disastrous.'".

Yes, it can. It can be disastrous. Here you have the sure word of God, and we're gonna look at 2 Peter in a moment, or you have your feelings, your impressions, your intuition, your instincts, your, as I said the other day, your gizzard.

Why would you, as Jonathan Edwards said in this discussion, leave the guidance of the polar star to follow a jack-o'-lantern? If you need guidance, don't you want to look at the north star? Wouldn't you want to look at the sun that rises in the east and sets in the west and all these kind of things?

Or is it the other way around? Whichever, I don't know how to, you know, set setting in the west. Sets in the east? Okay, the other day I was listening to Todd Freeland, he didn't know how fast light was.

I think he said 183 ,000 miles per second. I think it was 186, maybe 186 and change, who knows. But why leave following the sun as a guide and you find a little jack-o'-lantern, you have a little kind of, you know, glow stick.

You ever seen those glow sticks that kids like during the Fourth of July and other times? Who wants to follow a glow stick for guidance? Phil Johnson said, I don't know, there's a lot of Johnsons out there that have pretty good theology.

Ray Johnson excluded, but we have S. Lewis Johnson who is an excellent theologian. Phil Johnson who is an excellent theologian. It's a pity there aren't more Johnsons without good theology. And here's what Phil Johnson said.

Seeking after a sign, fallen man is actually setting his own sinful and corrupted reasoning up as judge and jury. Fallen man, due to his sinful nature, would make an idol god of himself as the highest court of appeals and ultimate authority through which all information from the outside world is processed.

This massive logical failure is direct contravention to God's commands for submission and obedience to his ultimate authority. That's exactly right. So if you're guided and if you're led by your own self, I think that's red alert.

I think that's DEFCON stuff. I just learned the other day in that book, not Black Hawk Down, Rawhide Down, the assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan, which is an excellent book. DEFCON 5 is not so bad, but when you get down to one or two, let's see, that's a lot worse.

I would have figured out the other way. I say sometimes with my wife, DEFCON 5, about, you know, there's emergencies, but that's kind of normality there. So I have to change my DEFCON settings. It's inverted.

How about Ananias and Sapphira? I think they were misled by their heart. I think they followed their heart. You can read what happened to them as Satan filled their heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and God killed them as they lied to God, as they lied to God, the Holy Spirit.

Mysticism basically says this, I have an experience, therefore it's true. And this is what David Wells says, replacing theology with autobiography. Replacing theology with autobiography. This happened to me, therefore it's true.

I have a little maxim. I call this Mike's maxim. The importance of doctrine decreases as the importance of experience increases. And of course, the other way is true as well. Frederick Dale Bruner, in the theology of his Holy Spirit book, says the test is truth.

The test of anything calling itself Christian is not its significance or its success or its power, though these make the test more imperative. The test is truth. J. Gresham Machen, nothing in the world can take the place of truth.

True truth does not come from personal experience. Scripture isn't a source, it is the source. It is not a canon, it is the canon. Jesus said in John 17, 17, thy word is truth. I like Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

And you know one of my favorite things is people love to quote Spurgeon, even Armenians do. But then you read some flaming Calvinistic quotes, and then along with the article, are you sure you like Spurgeon?

And here too, in Spurgeon's Wait for Signs and Wonders sermon, October, 1869. You are acting the part of an idolater. What does an idolater do? It says, I cannot believe in an unseen God. I must have a golden calf or an image that I can see with my eyes and touch with my hand.

You say just the same. You cannot believe God's naked word. You demand something you can feel, something you can see. Sheer idolatry. Do you not see it? You make your own feelings and emotions or strange impressions to be more worthy of trust than even God himself.

You make them idols and put them into God's place. You, as far as you can, undeify the deity. And then Spurgeon said, oh, tremble at such a crime as this. If you run around saying that God speaks to you and you have impressions and you have all these other things, then how do we even deal with truth?

How do we even deal with right and wrong? How do we deal with false teachers and false prophets? Someone says, well, you know, I listened to this guy and the Lord really used him to minister to my life.

Well, what if that guy's a false teacher? Well, then I said, you know what? But I didn't have the experience. And then they say, well, you didn't have the experience. How can you say anything bad about it because you didn't experience it?

You don't have to experience bad theology to know that it's not true. This whole mystic thing with the impressions and with the feelings that it emphasizes, I really think basically here's what's happening.

Like Buddhism, like much of Hinduism, like mysticism, it bypasses the mind and goes straight to the heart, to the feelings. It's exactly what it does. It wants truth through feelings. It wants truth through something that's not rational.

Richard Foster said, our rational faculties alone are inadequate. That is one reason for the spiritual gift of tongues. It helps us to move beyond mere rational worship into a more inward communion of the Father.

Our outward mind may not know what is being said, but our inward spirit understands. Spirit, capital S, touches spirit, small s. Yikes, that's what I have to say, yikes. I think I like Luke 11 better.

On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it. Isn't that much better? Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it. It doesn't take for me very long to say, you know, when it comes to blessings in my life, the Lord Jesus Christ has blessed me.

The spirit of God has regenerated me. The Father has given me everything I needed. And he says in his word that there's a way to receive blessings now. There's a way to receive blessings. And here's the way.

Psalm 1, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night, on Torah, on God's instruction.

He's like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. And all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. On No Compromise Radio, my point today is I want to drive you to truth that's found outside of you.

Truth that is just as true before you were born, after you were born, after you die, the eternal truth of God written in his word. It is unshakable, it is undeniable, it can't be tampered with, and it doesn't matter how you experience it.

What does the Bible mean to me? No, what would the Bible mean if you didn't exist? What would the Bible mean the day before you were born? What would the Bible mean a thousand years ago? That is the question.

So don't run to mysticism, don't run to the inside. You have God's revelation. So then say, God, help me study your word. Help me understand your word. We have all that we need. Lord, help us to enjoy what you've given us.

Revelation from Without, Not from Within

Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, B .B. Warfield said, "'Revealed religion comes to man from within. "'It is imposed upon him.'". Sorry, from without, I'm tired. "'It is imposed upon him "'from a source superior to his own spirit.

"'The unrevealed religions, on the other hand, "'flow from no higher source than the human spirit itself. "'They are all, in other words, "'natural religions in contradistinction "'to the one supernatural religion which God has made, "'evangelical Christianity, "'interprets all religious experience "'by the normative revelation of God "'recorded for us by the holy scriptures, "'and guides, directs, and comforts it from those scriptures.'".

This is No Compromise Radio.

Please read your Bibles. 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 10 .15 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.