Fight the Good Fight

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.

Conference Announcement and J. Gresham Machen Sermon Introduction

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. I'm still losing my voice. I don't know why. Why am I losing my voice? We have a conference coming up at Bethlehem Bible Church that you ought to attend. I remember when I would go to games, I think in Los Angeles, the Lakers games in the 1980s.

Remember when the Lakers won five championships that decade? Remember that? I think the Celtics won three, maybe four, who knows? But that was a good rivalry for sure, for certain. And the guy would stand there and he would say, you've got to have a program.

That was pretty good selling. That is a carnival barker, you've got to have, not I've got a program here, but you have to have a program. I'm second person imperative even. You have to have a program.

And so you've got to go to this conference. You've just got to. This conference is being held at Bethlehem Bible Church and it is being held March 30th and April 1st. And the guest speaker will also be at the church preaching April 2nd.

But Friday night, March 30th, Saturday morning, nine to 12, April 1st, and then Sunday morning, Sunday school on April 2nd, Stephen J. Nichols. You've heard Stephen J. Nichols here on No Compromise Radio before.

Professor of Bible and Theology at Lancaster Bible College. One of my favorite books that he's written is Reformation. The Reformation, How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World. He knows a lot about J. Gresham Machen and has written a book, a guided tour of his life and thought and all kinds of other books.

And so he's going to do five sessions, two on Friday night. What Would J. Gresham Machen Do? And then he's got some sessions on Saturday after Darkness Light, John Calvin and Revelation. Revelation of God, not the book of Revelation.

And he is a church historian, but he's not one of these boring, dry church historians. He's energetic, youthful, friendly, kind, biblical, not in that order. So you want to register online at bbcchurch .org and you've got a deadline, March 25th.

I see here that it is early registration, includes lunch following the Saturday sessions, children welcome, video equipment, child-friendly rooms available. And what does it say here for a price? Individual, $1 ,800.

Individual, 18. Household, 30. Student, 10. Bbcchurch .org, Stephen Nichols. All right, so what do we want to do today? Stephen Nichols likes J. Gresham Machen. I like J. Gresham Machen, and I just recently bought a bunch of Machen's books and articles and things like that.

And you remember here on the radio show, Christianian Liberalism, that 1923 book. I'm kind of on a Machen kick. And there's a sermon entitled, The Good Fight of Faith by Dr. J. Gresham Machen, that just is wonderful.

This is the last sermon he ever preached at Princeton Seminary. It started to go south, and then he moved down to Philadelphia and he would start Westminster Seminary. And this sermon's taken from the David Fuller edition of Valiant for Truth, A Treasury of Evangelical Writings.

And so this is called, The Good Fight of Faith by J. Gresham Machen, taken from two texts. Fight the good fight of faith, 1 Timothy 6, 12, and Philippians 4, 7, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

So here's a scoop. Since you've got to listen to this message, since you've got to read it, I'm not sure if I can count on you to go home and pull it up on the website. So I'm going to read it today. But I'm going to read it in such a way that I'm kind of trying to preach it.

And since I taped this once before and it didn't record, maybe this time's going to be better. So my name's Mike Ebendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

We have Stephen Nichols coming, which reminded me of Machen, and I wanted to read maybe my favorite sermon of J. Gresham Machen, who was known for standing up for the virgin birth, for substitutionary atonement, and for Christ Jesus, the Lord.

Paul the Fighter and the Church's Conflict With Paganism and Legalism

So fight the good fight of faith, J. Gresham Machen. And it's only 900 pages long, so I think I can get it done within the hour. The apostle Paul was a great fighter. His fighting was partly against external enemies, against hardships of all kinds.

Five times he was scourged by the Jews, three times by the Romans. He suffered shipwreck four times and was in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren.

And finally he came to the logical end of such a life by the headman's axe. It was hardly a peaceful life, but was rather a life of wild adventure. Lindbergh, I suppose, got a thrill when he hopped off to Paris.

And people are in search of thrills today. But if you wanted a really unbroken succession of thrills, I think you could hardly do better than try knocking around the Roman empire of the first century with the apostle Paul, who engaged in the unpopular business of turning the world upside down.

But these physical hardships were not the chief battle in which Paul was engaged. Far more trying was the battle that he fought against the enemies in his own camp. Everywhere his rear was threatened, by an all-engulfing paganism, or by a perverted Judaism that has missed the real purpose of the Old Testament law.

Read the epistles with care, and you will see Paul always in conflict. At one time he fights paganism in life, the notion that all kinds of conduct are lawful to the Christian man, a philosophy that makes Christian liberty a mere aid to pagan license.

At another time he fights paganism in thought, the sublimation of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body into the pagan doctrine of the immortality of the soul. At still another time he fights the effort of human pride to substitute man's merit as the means of salvation for divine grace.

He fights the subtle propaganda of the Judaizers with its misleading appeal to the word of God. Everywhere we see the great apostle in conflict for the preservation of the church. It is as though a mighty flood were seeking to engulf the church's life.

Damn the break at one point in the levy, and another break appears somewhere else. Everywhere paganism was seeping through. Not at one moment did Paul have peace. Always he was called upon to fight. Fortunately, he was a true fighter.

And by God's grace, he not only fought, but he won. At first sight, indeed, he may have seemed to have lost. The lofty doctrine of divine grace, the center and core of the gospel that Paul preached, did not always dominate the mind and heart of the subsequent church.

The Christianity of the apostolic fathers, of the apologist, of Irenaeus, is very different from the Christianity of Paul. The church meant to be faithful to the apostle, but the pure doctrine of the cross runs counter to natural man.

And not always, even in the church, was it fully understood. Read the epistle to the Romans first, and then read Irenaeus, and you are conscious of a mighty decline. No longer does the gospel stand out sharp and clear.

There's a large admixture of human error. And it might seem as though Christian freedom, after all, were to be entangled in the meshes of a new law. The human instruments which God uses in great triumphs of faith are no pacifists, but great fighters like Paul himself.

Little affinity for the great apostle has the whole tribe of considerers of consequences, the whole tribe of the compromisers, ancient and modern. The real companions of Paul are the great heroes of the faith.

But who are those heroes? Are they not true fighters, one and all? Tertullian fought a mighty battle against Marcian. Athanasius fought the battle against the Arians. Augustine fought against Pelagius.

And as for Luther, he fought a brave battle against kings and princes and popes for the liberty of the people of God. Luther was a great fighter, and we love him for it. So was Calvin. So were Knox and all the rest.

It is impossible to be a true soldier of Jesus Christ and not fight. God grant that you, students in the seminary, may be fighters too. Probably you have your battles even now. You have to contend against sins gross or sins refined.

You have to contend against the sin of slothfulness and inertia. You have, many of you I know very well, a mighty battle on your hands against doubt and despair. Do not think it strange if you fall thus into diverse temptations.

The Christian life is a warfare, after all. John Bunyan rightly set it forth under the allegory of a holy war. And when he set it forth in his great book, The Pilgrim's Progress, under the figure of a pilgrimage, the pilgrimage too was full of battles.

There are indeed places of refreshment on the Christian way. The house beautiful was provided by the king at the top of Hill Difficulty for the entertainment of pilgrims, and from the delectable mountains could sometimes be discerned the shining towers of the city of God.

But just after the descent from the house beautiful, there was the battle with Apollyon and the valley of humiliation. And later came the valley of the shadow of death. Yes, the Christian faces a mighty conflict in this world.

Pray God that in that conflict, you may be true men, good soldiers of Jesus Christ, not willing to compromise with your great enemy, not easily cast down and seeking ever the renewing of your strength in the word and ordinances and prayer.

The Sin of Tolerance and Compromise in the Church

If you decide to stand for Christ, you will not have an easy life in the ministry. Of course, you may try to evade the conflict. All men will speak well of you if after preaching, no matter how unpopular a gospel on Sunday, you will only vote against that gospel in the councils of the church the next day.

You will be graciously permitted to believe in supernatural Christianity all you please if you will only act as though you did not believe in it. If you will only make common of the church. A man may believe what he pleases, provided he does not believe anything strongly enough to risk his life on it and fight for it.

Tolerance is the great word. Men even ask for tolerance when they look to God in prayer. But how can any Christian possibly pray such a prayer as that? What a terrible prayer it is. How full of disloyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is a sense of course, in which tolerance is a virtue. If by it you mean tolerance on the part of the state, the forbearance of majorities toward minorities, the resolute rejection of any measures of physical compulsion and propagating either what is true or what is false, then of course the Christian ought to favor tolerance with all his might and main and ought to lament the widespread growth of intolerance in America today.

Or if you mean by tolerance, forbearance toward personal attacks upon yourself or courtesy and patience and fairness in dealing with all errors of whatever kind, then again tolerance is a virtue. But to pray for tolerance apart from such qualifications, in particular to pray for tolerance without careful definition of that of which you are to be tolerant, is just to pray for the breakdown of the Christian religion.

For the Christian religion is intolerant to the core. There lies the whole offense of the cross and also the whole power of it. Always the gospel would have been received with favor by the world if it had been presented merely as one way of salvation.

The offense came because it was presented as the only way and because it made relentless war upon other ways. God save us then from this tolerance of which we hear so much. God deliver us from the sin of making common cause with those who deny or ignore the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ.

God save us from the deadly guilt of consenting to the presence of our representatives in the church of those who lead Christ's little ones astray. God make us, whatever else we are, just faithful messengers who present without fear our favor, not our word, but the word of God.

But if you are such messengers, you will have opposition, not only of the world, but increasingly I fear of the church. I cannot tell you that your sacrifice will be light. No doubt it would be noble to care nothing whatever about the judgment of our fellow men.

But to such nobility, I confess that I, for my part, have not quite attained. And I cannot expect you to have attained to it. I confess that academic performance, easy access to libraries, the society of cultured people, and in general, the thousand advantages that come from being regarded as respectable people in a respectable world.

I confess that these things deemed to me to be in themselves good and desirable things. If the servant of Jesus Christ to an increasing extent is being obliged to give them up, certainly in making that sacrifice, we do not complain.

For we have something with which all that we have lost is not worthy to be compared. Still, it can hardly be said that any unworthy motives of self-interest can lead us to adopt a course which brings us nothing but reproach.

Where then shall we find a sufficient motive for such a course as that? Where shall we find courage to stand against the whole current of the age? Where shall we find courage for this fight of faith? I do not think that we should obtain courage by any mere lust of conflict.

In some battles, that means may perhaps suffice. Soldiers in bayonet practices were sometimes, for all I know still are, taught to give a shout for when they thrust their bayonets at imaginary enemies.

I heard them doing it even long after the armistice in France. That serves, I suppose, to overcome the natural inhibition of civilized man to develop the proper spirit of conflict. Perhaps it may be unnecessary in some kinds of war, but it will hardly serve in this Christian conflict.

In this Christian conflict, I do not think we can be good fighters simply by being resolved to fight. For this battle is a battle of love and nothing ruins a man's service in it so much as a spirit of hate.

Peace With God Through the Cross

No, if we want to learn the secret of warfare, we shall have to look deeper. And we can hardly do better than turn again to that great fighter, the Apostle Paul. What was the secret of his power in the mighty conflict?

How did he learn to fight? The answer is paradoxical, but it is very simple. Paul was a great fighter because he was at peace. He who said, fight the good fight of faith, spoke also of the peace of God which passeth all understanding.

And in that peace, the sinews of his war were found. He fought against the enemies that were without because he was at peace within. There was an inner sanctuary in his life that no enemy could disturb.

There, my friends, is the great central truth. You cannot fight successfully with beasts as Paul did at Ephesus. You cannot fight successfully against evil men or against the devil and his powers of wickedness in high places unless when you fight against those enemies, there is one with whom you are at peace.

But if you are at peace with that one, then you can care little what men may do. You can say with the apostles, we must obey God rather than men. You can say with Luther, here I stand, I can do no other.

God help me, amen. You can say with Elisha, they that be with us are more than they that be with them. You can say with Paul, it is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? Without that peace in your hearts, you will strike little terror into the enemies of the gospel of Christ.

You may amass mighty resources for the conflict. You may be great masters of ecclesiastical strategy. You may be very clever and very zealous too, but I fear that it will be of little avail. There may be a tremendous din, but when the din is over, the Lord's enemies will be in possession of the field.

No, there is no other way to be a really good fighter. You cannot fight God's battle against God's enemies unless you are at peace with Him. But how shall you be at peace with Him? Many ways have been tried.

How pathetic is the age-long effort of sinful man to become right with God? Sacrifice, lacerations, almsgiving, morality, penance, confession. But alas, it is all of no avail. Still there is that same awful gulf.

It may be temporarily concealed. Spiritual exercises may conceal it for a time. Penance or the confession of sin unto men may give a temporary and apparent relief. But the real trouble remains. The burden is still on the back.

Mount Sinai is still ready to shoot forth flames and the soul is still not at peace with God. How then shall peace be obtained? My friends, it cannot be obtained by anything in us. Oh, that that truth could be written in the hearts of every one of you.

Oh, that it could be written in letters of flame for all the world to read. Peace with God cannot be attained by good works. Neither can be attained by confession of sin. Neither can it be obtained by any psychological results of an act of faith.

We can never be at peace with God unless God first be at peace with us. But how can God be at peace with us? Can He be at peace with us by ignoring the guilt of sin? By descending from His throne? By throwing the universe into chaos?

By making wrong to be the same as right? By making a dead letter of His holy law? The soul that sinneth shall die. By treating His eternal laws as though they were the changeable laws of man? Oh, what an abyss were the universe if that were.

What a mad anarchy. What a wild demon riot. What could there be? Where could there be peace if God thus were at war with Himself? Where could there be a foundation of God's laws? We're not sure. Oh no, my friends, peace cannot be attained for man by the great modern method of dragging down God to man's level.

Peace cannot be attained by denying that right is right and wrong is wrong. And peace can nowhere be attained if the awful justice of God stand not forever sure. How then can we sinners stand before that throne?

How can there be peace for us in the presence of the justice of God? How can He be just and yet justify the ungodly? There is one answer to these questions. It is not our answer. Our wisdom could never have discovered it.

It is God's answer. It is found in the story of the cross. We deserved eternal death because of sin, the eternal Son of God because He loved us and because He was sent by the Father who loved us too, died in our stead for our sins upon that cross.

That message is despised today. Upon it, the visible church as well as the world pours out the vials of its scorn or else it does even less honor by pain at lip service and then passing it by. Men dismiss it as a theory of the atonement and fall back upon the customary commonplaces about the principle of self-sacrifice or the culmination of a universal law or a revelation of the love of God or the hallowing of suffering or the similarity between Christ's death and the death of soldiers who perished in the great war.

In the presence of such blindness, our words often seem vain. We may tell men something of what we think about the cross of Christ, but it is harder to tell them what we feel. We pour forth our tears of gratitude and love.

We open to the multitude of the depths of our souls. We celebrate a mystery so tender, so holy that we might think it would soften even a heart of stone, but all to no purpose. The cross remains foolishness to the world.

Men turn coldly away and our preaching seems but vain. And then comes the wonder of wonders. The hour comes for some poor soul, even through the simplest and poorest preaching. The message is honored, not the messenger.

There comes forth a flash of light into the soul and all is as clear as day. He loved me and gave himself for me, says the sinner at last, as he contemplates the Savior upon the cross. The burden of sin falls from the back and a soul enters into the peace of God.

Contending for the Faith Without Compromise

Have you yourselves that peace, my friends? If you have, you will not be deceived by the propaganda of any disloyal church. If you have the peace of God in your hearts, you will never shrink from that controversy.

You'll never be afraid to contend earnestly for the faith. Talk of peace in the present deadly peril of the church and you show, unless you be strangely ignorant of the conditions that exist, that you have little inkling of the true peace of God.

Those who have been at the foot of the cross will not be afraid to go forth under the banner of the cross to a holy love, a holy war of love. Where are you going to stand in that great battle which now rages in the church?

Are you going to curry favor with the world by standing aloof? Are you going to be conservative liberals or liberal conservatives or Christians who do not believe in controversy or anything else so contradictory and absurd?

Are you going to be Christians, but not Christians over much? Are you going to stand coldly aloof when God's people fight against ecclesiastical tyranny at home and abroad? Are you going to excuse yourself by pointing out personal defects in those who contend for the faith today?

Are you going to be disloyal to Christ in external testimony until you can make all well within your own soul? Be assured you will never accomplish your purpose if you adopt such a program as that. Witness bravely to the truth that you already understand and more will be given you, but make common cause with those who deny or ignore the gospel of Christ and the enemy will forever run riot in your life.

There are many hopes that I cherish for you men with whom I am united by such affections and ties. I hope that you may be gifted preachers. I hope that you may live happy lives. I hope that you may have adequate support for yourselves and for your families.

I hope that you may have good churches, but I hope something for you far more than all that. I hope above all that wherever you are and however you're preaching may be received, you may be true witnesses for the Lord Jesus.

I hope that there may be never any doubt where you stand, but that always you may stand squarely for Jesus Christ as he has offered to us, not in the experiences of men, but in the blessed word of God.

The Church's Dark Hour and the Call to Stand for Christ

Many have been swept from their moorings by the current age. A church grown worldly often tyrannizes over those who look for guidance to God's word alone. But this is not the first discouraging time in the history of the church.

Other times are just as dark and yet always God has watched over his people and the darkest hour has sometime preceded the dawn. So even now, God has not left himself without a witness. In many lands, there are those who have faced the great issue of the day and have decided it aright, who have preserved true independence of the mind and the presence of the world.

In many lands, there are groups of Christian people who face the ecclesiastical tyranny that have not been afraid to stand for Christ. God grant that you may give comfort to them as you go forth from the seminary.

God grant that you may rejoice their hearts by giving them your hand and your voice. To do so, you will need courage. For easier is it to curry favor with the world by abusing those whom the world abuses, by speaking against controversy, by taking a balcony view of the struggle in which God's servants are engaged.

But God save you from such a neutrality as that. It has been certain worldly appearances of urbanity and charity, but how cruel it is to burden souls. How heartless it is to those little ones who are looking to the church for some clear message from God.

God save you from being so heartless and so unloving and so cold. God grant instead that in all humility, but also in all boldness, in reliance upon God, you may fight the good fight of faith. Peace is indeed yours, the peace of God which passeth all understanding.

But that peace is given you, not that you may be onlookers or neutrals in love's battle, but that you may be good soldiers of Jesus Christ. J. Gresham Machen, last sermon, Princeton Seminary. What about you?

Where do you stand?

Whose side are you on? 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.