ALPHA?

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.

What the Show Is About and Why It Will Be Controversial

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. This is Mike Abendroth, and I'm your host. And in the show, during the show, for the show, we like to talk about things that are of interest for the Christian and to the Christian.

And sometimes the topics might interest you, and sometimes maybe the topics don't interest you, but I wanna talk about them in such a way that it provokes you to think, to think biblically. If I could push the envelope early on in the show today, I don't care what your pastor teaches you, I don't care what John MacArthur says, I don't care what I say, I don't care what Martin Luther said, I want to know, and this should be your theme, I, as a listener, want to know what does the Bible say?

What does Jesus say? What does Jesus' apostolic messenger, Paul, say? What did Jesus' prophet of old, Malachi, say? And so that's what we're after. We're after biblical views of society, of books, of culture, of sports, of amusements, of doctrine.

Why Alpha Is the Topic Under Review

And so today we wanna talk about a subject that is sadly around longer than I thought it was going to be around, and that is the topic of alpha. I'm not talking about the first Greek letter, alpha. Jesus did say he's the alpha and the omega, he's the first and the last.

That's not the alpha I'm talking about. I'm talking about alpha, that 10-week program that is supposed to explore the Christian faith. Just this week, I got a letter from a local church here in the Worcester area.

We're going to have an alpha program, send us your people. And I don't wanna send any people to the alpha program. I'd like to do a show on it so no one sends any people to the alpha program. It's not healthy, it's not good, and you say, well, I've got saved at alpha.

If you got saved in an alpha course, I praise the Lord. I'm thankful for that. But you didn't get saved because of alpha. You got saved because some people gave you Bible verses that talked about sin, salvation, redemption, resurrection, substitution and atonement.

You got saved because the Bible is taught at alpha. But because somebody teaches the Bible, it doesn't mean it's healthy for you. It doesn't mean it's nutritious. It doesn't mean it's good for you. And so I'd like to say today that as a pastor, I don't want my people going to learn about alpha.

I'd go further, and I'm gonna dissect alpha in just a moment. I'd go further and say this. If you're a pastor and you believe what alpha teaches, then I commend you because you're consistent. I commend you for your consistency and doctrine.

And when it comes to charismatic issues, Arminianism, open doors and open arms to the Roman Catholic Church, semi-Pelagianism, well, then at least you're consistent. But if you're an evangelical and you stand against sign gifts for today in terms of the charismatic movement, if you say the Roman Catholic Church needs to be evangelized, then I don't know why in the world, why would you promote something that promotes those things that you don't promote?

Should not our ministries line up? Let me give you another example. Your youth ministry should reflect your adult ministry. You don't have adult ministry, prayer, word, fellowship, et cetera, but youth ministry, crazy chaos, games, rope them in through free pizza and U2 songs, and then maybe slip them some Bible verses on the side and a fortune cookie.

No, there should be a consistency. And so for you, if you know better and you still say, yeah, but alpha works, alpha pragmatically gives me more people, then I have no respect for you at all. If you say, I believe in alpha, therefore I want to teach alpha and have my people go to alpha, then that's fine.

But sometimes even as host church here, I say to myself, do they really believe what alpha teaches? And so today we want to look at this course called alpha. Like most courses, I thought it would probably have run its course by now.

When you think of the prayer of Habez or prayer of Jabez, when you think of Promise Keepers, when you think of Vision New England, these places, these things, these gimmicks, these skits, these programs, they don't usually last that long.

They run their course, Experiencing God by Blackaby. I remember when I got to the church here 13 years ago, got Dobson flyers and bulletin inserts. You've got Experiencing God was everywhere. And I remember talking to John MacArthur six months into the pastorate here.

And I said, John, tell me, people here are going gaga. I didn't say they're going Lady Gaga over Experiencing God because Lady Gaga was probably five years old at the time. But anyway, I digress. I regress, digress.

A Pilgrim's Progress, you ought to read that book. And so John said, it'll just die a slow death. It'll be over before you know it. It'll be over soon. And John was right. There's not much Experiencing God stuff these days.

Oh, they try to repackage it. Oh, they try to reformat it. Experiencing God for 12-year-olds on Ritalin, that probably sells well, I'm not sure. But anyway, what about Alpha? Alpha's been around longer than I would think it would be around, but maybe because of its error.

That's what keeps it popular. I'm not sure. Here's my little program that I got in the mail the other day for the church to go do the Alpha. And there's two little things. It says Monday, Alpha, 6 p .m. to 8 .30 p .m. March 1st through May 17th, 2010.

Kickoff dinner, Christianity. Boring, untrue, irrelevant. Who is Jesus? Why did Jesus die? How can I be sure of my faith? Why and how should I read the Bible? Why and how do I pray? How can I resist evil?

And so far, you say to yourself, those sound pretty good. And they do sound pretty good. I'm impressed so far, at least with the topics, with the titles. We have something interesting on April 17th. This is going to be fascinating.

Holy Spirit Saturday. I don't know. I have no idea why that strikes me as so funny. We have Jesus Sunday. God the Father Friday and Holy Spirit Saturday. I have no idea, but this is Holy Spirit Saturday.

How does God guide us? By the way, it's all downhill from here in terms of what they're teaching. I'm sure they'll teach the divinity of Christ, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth of Christ, substitutionary atonement, resurrection.

I'm sure they'll talk about that. Bible is reliable. Prayer is talking to God. But once we get to this other stuff, that's going to be the tricky part. How does God guide us? Why and how should we tell others?

Does God heal today? What about the church? And then you've got a celebration dinner. And so I have a few questions about Alpha. What is Alpha? What's the background of Alpha? You say, well, you're against everything.

I'm not against everything. How far from it? Come look at our book table, come look at our library, and you'll see literally hundreds of different authors. I'm not against people that even have different doctrine.

That is to say, sometimes when it comes to baptism, infant baptism, immersion baptism, I can have great fellowship with R .C. Sproul and Sinclair Ferguson and wonderful Presbyterians, but there are some things where you need to draw the line.

And my question is, why would a pastor send anyone to go to another church to learn doctrine? I just don't get that. When I get this from another church in Auburn, Massachusetts, send us your people so we can teach them stuff that you don't really believe.

I'm actually, I shouldn't say offended because somebody's going to say, oh, you got offended because you got a program in the mail. You've got a thin skin. No, it's not necessarily that, but don't people know what we believe and what we teach?

Alpha’s Meaning, Audience, and Basic Structure

You say, what is Alpha anyway? Alpha. Alpha is for A, all adults interested in finding out more about the Christian faith. So far, so good. L, learning and laughter. Have fun while exploring the foundations of Christianity.

P, people meeting together. Get to know others and make new friends. H, helping one another. Small group discussions allow you to explore topics presented during the DVD presentations. A, asking questions.

No question is seen as too simple or too challenging. Well, I thought the English version of Alpha, the P was for pudding. Maybe they've changed it here. Maybe this is the Massachusetts version. I'm not sure.

What is Alpha? It's a 10-week exploration of the Christian faith. It addresses foundational questions while providing guests with an opportunity to explore the meaning of life. A DVD presentation by Nikki Gumbel followed by a small group discussion.

Kick off dinner, celebration dinner, lots of eating. I don't see any problem with that. Course is free. Send us your people. Well, I'm not gonna send our people there. I'm gonna warn my people and I'm gonna warn anybody who's listening.

Should you really decide to go to Alpha? And maybe you've already had it at your church and it's come and gone. I'm not sure, but it's been very popular. It's actually swept the world, especially the English-speaking world.

It is very, very popular. It started in Israel. I remember I was there. I heard about, did I say Israel? I looked at the word England and said Israel. Maybe I'm misreading things. England, it's been there.

It's been in Israel. And so when you see this acrostic, I see the acrostic from the original Alpha in England as P. Here it is. I knew I was right. Pasta and pudding. Maybe we have too much of that already in New England, so we've had to switch it.

What did we switch it to here, the New Englanders? People meeting together. So now we've gone from pasta and pudding to people meeting. The original Alpha said for P, eating a meal together gives people an opportunity to get to know each other.

Well, that's true. Who is Alpha for? Those wanting to investigate Christianity, new Christians, newcomers to the church, et cetera. I think it's going to give you an introduction to the Christian faith.

And that introduction to the Christian faith is going to be very similar to the program that was started and the kind of Christian faith that is promoted in the 1970s and today by Holy Trinity Brompton, HTB, one of the largest and most influential Anglican parishes, right in the middle of London.

And you'll learn week by week by week their perspective. This is the Christian faith from our perspective. I don't blame them for that. If you'd like to come to the IBS classes here at Bethlehem Bible Church, Institute for Biblical Studies here in New England, please come.

But you will know for sure that when you're here, the doctrine will be similar to the doctrine that's held in our statement of faith, that I preach, that the elders preach and believe. You would consider us consistent.

You'd say, oh, sovereignty of God and salvation. That's what's taught on No Compromise Radio. That's what's taught at BBC. That's what taught at New England Institute for Biblical Studies. And so when you go to this charismatic, semi-Pelagian, open-armed Roman Catholic church, that's what you're going to get in Alpha.

People teach what they believe. And so here's the background. 1991, Nicky Gumbel, he revised this program. He revised this pasta and pudding into people maybe. And he wanted it to be used for other churches.

So it starts in the 70s, revised, and then now it is spread like wildfire. 600 people attended the course in 1991. 1996, 250 ,000 people per year have attended this program. By 1997, 500 ,000 participants worldwide.

5 ,000 individual Alpha courses. Now, I've been pronouncing this wrongly. Sorry about that for both England and New England. Alpha, I'll never forget the time when I came here to New England from California 13 years ago, and somebody got up for scripture reading and quoted Jesus and said, I am the Alpha and Omega.

And no one laughed. No one laughed. I laughed, and then I realized it was impolite to laugh when no one else was laughing. And so the Alpha and the Omega. So we have the Alpha course here, and I don't know what the R would stand for.

The R might stand for reject it, run, don't send people. And so what was going on is this was spreading so fast and it had gone into all kinds of languages. And it was promoted by these people here in the United States.

Jack Hayford, charismatic. Robert Shuler, heretic. J .I. Packer, read the old Packer. The new Packer stuff is off base. Luis Palau, and lots of other people. Now here's the tricky part again. Everything they teach is not wrong.

So you have to be careful because it's not so easy. It's not like Robert Tilton or Benny Hinn or Joyce Meyer, somebody who's crazy theologically, who's a heretic, who's a liar, who as Paul would call them in Philippians 3, a dog.

It's not that easy because there's so many things that are taught that are correct. So let me give you a few buyer bewares. When it comes to Alpha, if you wanna go, it's a free country, you can go. If you wanna promote it at your church, it's a free country, you can promote it.

And if I wanna say I'd never promote it, I don't wanna have flyers sent to me anymore to send my people there, I'm to guard the folks, I'm to shepherd them, I'm to watch over them, and I'm not gonna give them things that they've gotta spit out big bones and things that they could be duped into believing that aren't true because they've eaten too much pasta pudding or people.

Oh, that would make it cannibalism. So sorry, we don't wanna do that. Buyer beware number one. There is a ecumenism that is in Alpha that goes way beyond proper ecumenism. What is a proper ecumenism? Just like I said before, when Presbyterians and Baptists get together and say for the cause of Christ, for his word and for his monergistic gospel, his eternal gospel, let's stand together.

I think that's good. And you see that in lots of conferences, Ligonier Conferences will have a healthy camaraderie, different backgrounds of end times, different backgrounds on ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church.

You'll see it together for the gospel when you've got Ligon Duncan, a Presbyterian PCA, you've got Mark Dever, Southern Baptist, you've got C .J. Mahaney, Sovereign Grace, and you've got, there's somebody else, Al Mohler, who's a Southern Baptist.

These men have the healthy ecumenism, and that is a good thing. But these ecumenical philosophies that permeate the doctrine in Alpha are too much for me, in good conscience, to send anybody there. Nicky Gumbel, who will be on those DVDs, stated his philosophy for ecumenical thinking this way, quote, we need to unite.

There has been some comment which is not helpful to unity. Let us drop that and get on. It is a wonderful thing, excuse me, it is wonderful that the movement of the Spirit will always bring churches together.

He is doing that right across the denominations and within the traditions. We are seeing Roman Catholics coming. Nobody is suspicious of anybody else. People are no longer labeling themselves or others.

I long for the day when we drop all these labels and just regard ourselves as Christians with a commission from Jesus. Renewal, May 1995, page 16. You say, well, we want Catholics to come because maybe they'll get saved and they'll believe in grace alone through faith alone instead of grace of faith.

Well, I would like that, I would encourage that. So my question is this, what do you do with Alpha when Roman Catholic leaders, Roman Catholic people endorse it? Frankly, that should tell you something right away.

Your Spider-Man senses, your Spidey senses should be going off when something like that happens. How can 500 ,000 people per year, maybe more, go through this? How can churches across denominational lines accept this?

And the answer is, it is doctrinally weak. It is doctrinally stunted. Oh, there's true doctrine, but it is the ABC doctrine and it is set up in such a way that Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and Baptists can all affirm what's being taught.

Listen to this. It refers to salvation, the cross, the death of Christ in such a general way that false doctrine is not refuted. It says salvation is by grace, for instance. It does not say salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, according to one man's opinion.

So what do we do? What do we do when there's not enough truth to avoid error? Well, we have to watch out for that. So I don't endorse Alpha because, number one, it's too ecumenical. Number two, the second kind of buyer beware, watch out for Alpha, and I don't support it here at this church, is because there are charismatic influences all throughout Alpha.

Ecumenism and Doctrinal Weakness in Alpha

This program, Alpha, by design, by coincidence, it started in the same timeframe as the Toronto Blessing, our Laughing Revival. Maybe they were concurrent, maybe they were concomitant. I'm just trying to think of other words that sound like that.

And so you've got these things all playing together. You've got people showing up to the Laughing Revival in Toronto, people from England like Eleanor Mumford, wife of Pastor John Mumford of Southwest London Vineyard, and she starts talking about all her experiences and what's going on.

One of these meetings that she would talk about her experiences, somebody was there at this meeting in May 1994, and that person was Nikki Gumbel, Nikki Gumbel. And I think about what's going on at Holy Trinity Brompton Church is directly influenced by Eleanor Mumford.

And she said in one of her experiences in Toronto and she'd invited the Holy Spirit to come, she didn't know wacky, wild things would start to happen like people getting thrown across the room and laying on the floor, howling like a hyena and laughing, quote, making the most incredible noise.

People stuck to the ground with the Holy Spirit glue, quote, unquote, prophesying, acting like they're drunk. Gumbel said he had an experience, quote, like massive electricity going through my body. I don't know why charismatics always talk about the electricity that goes through their body.

I think there must be a reason. Maybe to them, electricity is warm and fuzzy. I'm not exactly sure, but that's very common. What happens here is when Gumbel says, Lord, thank you so much for all you're doing and we'll pray you'll send your spirit.

And now the wild things happen again, this hyena laughing and everything else. You have to be very careful. Pray, send your spirit. I don't know why people pray that. I think the spirit has come. You've got a lady named, maybe it's not a lady, maybe it's a man, Sandy Miller, Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton.

And when they find out about the slaying in the spirits and all these other kinds of things of Gumbel, they invite Eleanor Mumford to speak at the worship service, May 29th. She gets done preaching and she says, Holy Spirit, come.

And now laughing revival breaks out here in this church. The mainline British newspapers got ahold of it. There's all kinds of things going on with the laughing revival, drunken revival, Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida.

And everything is pushed that's charismatic coming right from these leaders who are charismatic. Here's how one man described the relationship, quote, the close connection between Toronto, Brownsville and Holy Trinity Brompton is evident.

And it is this type of unscriptural subjective hunger for the miraculous approach to Christianity that is being promoted by the Alpha program. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth and I'm here at No Compromise Radio Ministry.

And I don't want people halfway through the Alpha program to conduct a Holy Spirit day, to have a Holy Spirit weekend away. Do you know why they do that? Do you know why they put the focus on the Holy Spirit and not Christ?

Do you know why the leaders take you through how to experience and receive the Holy Spirit? How to do these kind of glowing all over liquid heat, these kind of expecting the extra biblical revelation through dreams and the word of knowledge, shaking like a leaf in the wind experience.

That I don't want my people doing that. It's crazy. You go in there and they lead you through the company line. Jesus is God, Jesus is man, Jesus died on the cross for sins. He's coming back. And now let's make you into a charismatic.

The church that's hosting this in Auburn, I don't think it's a charismatic church, but they're inviting people to come learn how to be charismatics, where the scriptures are not sufficient. The canon is not closed.

I don't want any of my people walking around, glowing all over and having liquid heat. That's dangerous to me. How does God heal today? Do you think they teach from a Pentecostal charismatic perspective?

Of course they do. I believe God heals. He can heal supernaturally. He can heal through prayer. He's healed through medicine, but he doesn't heal like he did in the New Testament. He doesn't heal instantaneously, organically in front of unbelievers, verifiably.

We've done a show on that. I don't want my people to go learn how tongues can be used in worship and in prayer and intercessory prayer and have a private prayer language called tongues. I don't want that.

I don't want them to learn about this language and persevere. Gumbel said, languages take time to develop. Most of us start with a very limited vocabulary. Gradually it develops. Tongues are like that.

It takes time to develop the gift. Don't give up, end quote. Gumbel, Questions of Life, page 147. That's all I need to know. These people are gonna try to make your folks charismatics. Pastors, don't send your people.

People, don't go. Say, well, I'm just gonna go check it out and I'm smart and I'm wise. You better, why don't you go with your pastor and you can sit there and have some pudding. You can have some pasta and you can have some Pentecostal experience and you don't want that.

You don't want that. The scriptures are sufficient. And my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry and you ought to run from alpha.

Charismatic Influences, Tongues, and the Sufficiency of Scripture

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 its staff or management.