RCC Uber Confessors

The Program’s Mission and Biblical Posture

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.

Studio Banter and Bible Translation Preferences

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. I am here down at the studios in Burbank, right off Buena Vista with Steve Cooley.

The Valle Con Queso Studios. Bueno, no ponga esa cara triste.

Steve, I know that you like different Bible translations. I think you were, you kind of, you know, cut your teeth proverbially on the new American standard 77.

Would that be correct? Well, I mean, my Christian teeth, yeah. That's what I mean.

Yeah, okay. And then you now teach from the ESV. Do you secretly kind of still like the NAS? Yes.

Okay. I really won't make any secrets about it. I mean, I guess that, you know, NAS 95 is fine for me. The ESV. It's got some good things. Yeah, it has some good things. And then there are some times where, you know.

Although that could be said of the NAS as well, sometimes.

Yeah, I mean, they're all kind of like, I guess what I'm waiting for, you know, is my own translation. So, which I'll just call the Steve translation. Wiest study Bible translations. No, no.

Psalm 35, Yahweh, and Eugene Peterson’s Message Paraphrase

Steve, I want to read a little bit of the ESV Psalm 35. The liner notes say, great is the Lord, great is Yahweh. And it says of David, contend, oh Yahweh, with those who contend with me. Fight against those who fight against me.

Take hold of shield and buckler and rise for my help. Draw the spear and javelin against my pursuers. Say to my soul, I am your salvation. Now those words are comforting, of course, to the Christian. And if we think in a bigger scale of the Davidic covenant and God's relationship to David, I mean, every way you look at it, I just think that's a cool Psalm.

It is.

Okay. Well, I mean, don't you want the Lord to fight your battles for you? Absolutely. Why? Because he doesn't lose, right?

He goes on in the Psalm to say in verse 10, all my bones shall say, oh Yahweh, who is like you? When your bones creak, that's bad. But when your bones say, there's nobody like you, God.

When your bones are worshiping the Lord, that's when you know you're pretty much where you ought to be, right?

It says though, in Psalm 35, the message. Something quite different. A message moment. Who sang this magic moment?

This magic moment. The drifters. Was it the drifters?

Yeah, it sounds like the drifters. Okay. Here is Eugene Peterson's message, Psalm 35. He did get a David Psalm right. He got that part right. Woo-hoo. Harass these hecklers, God. Punch these bullies in the nose.

I mean, no me gusta. To me, this is not pleasing. No, no, come on. I mean, he's talking later about what these enemies were doing. Out of sheer cussedness, they set a trap to catch me. Now, I don't know about you, but you know, the old cuss, remember how people say that?

Here is the out of sheer cussedness. You know, I never thought I'd say that on no compromise radio.

Cussedness. You know, I have to say, with all due respect to Mr. Peterson there, that really sounds like he was looking through his, what do you call it? Thesaurus? Yes, doesn't it? Come on.

Well, I think actually the Greek word, where we get the word thesaurus, means treasury. So see, it's a treasury of

I thought you were going to talk about the word, you know, the Greek word for cussedness. The cussedness, the cussadail.

Every bone in my body, laughing, singing, God, there's no one like you.

Laughing, singing. That's not quite praising, I don't think.

Well, plus if it says Yahweh, I want it to say Yahweh. Capital, you know, at least we get L-O-R-D, all caps, but just God. No, Yahweh. Anyway, those, the cussedness that they talk about, it's just sheer cussedness.

Hmm.

I mean, I guess he didn't want to say wickedness or, you know.

Uh-huh. It says later, they open their mouths in ugly grins, mocking, ha ha ha ha, thought you'd get away with it. We've caught you hands down. This magic moment.

Yeah, I'm not really digging it. No, no, no likey. Yeah, I'm not even

I would say that's a Kooks and Barneys award.

Yeah, I'm not going to countenance that with a, you know.

Just have maybe one word response. Henno.

I was going to look for one of those magical words or whatever.

Here we go. Here is a special wonder words. Wonder word, yeah. Drawn at random. Truth. Okay, Steve, tell me a little bit about what you're preaching through. I know it's the Gospel of John. What's happening in the passage you're in right now?

I'm just curious. People can always go to bbcchurch .org to listen to these sermons. But what's happening right now?

Well, what's happening is the Jews are about to surround Jesus in the colonnade, and they're asking to tell them plainly if he is the Christ. And he says, you know, I've already told you. And so, you know, there's, but you do not believe me because you're not of my sheep.

So, basically, it breaks down this way. The way I'm sort of looking at it is, you know, there are two aspects of unbelief, and then there are five blessings that come from belief and just being one of Christ's sheep.

And, excuse me, there, I mean, there shouldn't be just a, I think as you're reading this, as you're listening to that passage being preached or whatever, there ought to be just a real emptiness and a sadness and a sorrow and empathy for those who are not in Christ Jesus and a real desire to preach to them and to pray for them and to, you know, pray that the Lord would convict them of their sin.

You know, but it's just, it is a sad, sad thing to be outside of Christ Jesus. And, you know, this all comes on the heels of him healing the man born blind and all the things that come after this. And so, this is a little bit later.

This is around Hanukkah is the time of year. Yeah. So, I thought, okay, this is going to be great. I'm going to be in April preaching about Hanukkah, but that's okay.

Peter. Well, you can always preach on Hanukkah. The moniker Hanukkah. Yeah. Steve, I don't know if you know this. Sometimes, you know, you're like a day late to, you know, special kind of religious news.

But did you know Steve I'm out of the loop. Peter. According to yahoo .com Steve. Which is where I get most of my

Peter I think that's a news organization. Steve. Yeah, and I get most of my theological info from Yahoo.

Peter Pope unleashes super confessors to tackle special sins. Vatican City, AFP, dubs super confessors for one year only. They can absolve sins usually only pardoned by the Pope himself. Yahoo News. Steve Well, te absolvo.

I'm proficient in Latin.

Peter. Uh-huh. That's nice. That's nice. I think Tetzel might even say something like that. And on Wednesday, over 1000 of these missionaries of mercy handpicked by Pope Francis were sent forth to win back the hearts of those who have left the Catholic Church and open the door to repentant sinners across the world.

Steve. To win them back to Mary. Peter. You know, the Pope recently has said that we need to welcome refugees, and that would be the Christian thing. And I thought, you know what, there's lots of room.

There's lots of room for tents in St. Peter's Square. You could probably put up about 9000 tents. And I think he should lead by example.

One, I just wonder what would happen if the church was to sell off its gold and its art treasures and things like that to help the poor. I wonder what sort of impact the church could have.

Steve If 20 ,000 people a day, I could be wrong, but I thought that was the number I had read, go into the Vatican Museum at, you know, 29 bucks a pop or whatever it is, I don't know the amount. You could probably have one day of Vatican Museum ticket prices, and you could probably buy a lot of tents for that.

Peter. You probably could. Steve I heard on Easter or Good Friday, he was going to wash the feet of some refugees. Peter. How much is he charging for that? Steve. Well, foot washing has gone up significantly over the years, so I'm not sure.

But what's a super confessor? Let's talk a little bit today. I think of James chapter 5 and confessing our sins to one another, confession of sin in 1 John. Let's talk about confessing sins and do we need a mediator besides Jesus?

Pete. What other mediator is there? Is there another mediator? I'm confused because in 1 Timothy chapter 2, I see that there's one mediator between men and God, the man Christ Jesus.

Pete. There's probably another of a different kind, but not another of the same kind. See where I'm going with that?

Pete. Yeah, I do see where you're going. It sounds like a Galatians 1, 6 to 8 kind of other.

Pete 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins, I believe, I don't have my Greek text, but I want to say it's homologo is the root word. Pete I would say you're probably right. Pete. Okay. To say the same thing is that that's confession.

God says it's a sin, a transgression, and it's a blight against His holiness, it's rebellion, it's unbelief. He is faithful, that is, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. So why would I need a super confessor when it seems to me we confess to the super.

Forgiver, the uber forgiver? Pete. As you were just reading that, and I was thinking about the Catholic practice of going to a priest, you know, confessing your sins to a priest, and I just thought, or the super confessors, just imagine being one of these, I would presume men, and listening to sin after sin after sin after sin.

I would think that would be very dispiriting. And I certainly, I mean, can you imagine that? Just listening to hundreds or thousands of people or however many a week, you know, or a month or a year, and just listening to them take off all the sins that they've done, or, you know, they try to confess all their sins.

But just listening to that, listening to their sins of lust and other things and just going, what kind of mind must you have after a while? That'd be hard.

Steve, my guess is many people that go to the confessional booths give generic sins and random sins. Probably once in a while there's something really bad and they want to get off their chest and confession is good for the soul, allegedly, confessing to somebody else.

But to sit there and listen, like you said, to the cesspool of sins, I think we can make a good application for our evangelical listeners here on NoCo Radio. When you meet with somebody, another brother or sister in Christ, let's say you're a pastor or an elder, deacon, a spouse of one of those, or just a regular lay person, how much detail do you need to know, Steve, before you can help them or can help them?

In other words, I don't like to hear a lot of detail when somebody is confessing sexual sin because then it's never out of my mind.

And I, well, I can think of some specific instances. So, yeah, you're right. But, you know, how much information do you need? Listen, typically, I mean, I'm of the Al Moeller school. You know, you could tell me generically, okay, we're having marital problems.

Okay, well, let's look at Ephesians 5, you know, and let's just talk about what a husband should be doing, what a wife should be doing. I don't need to know anything else, you know, but people want to, and here's what I find interesting.

They typically don't want to air out their own laundry. They want to air out somebody else's laundry. Can I just tell you all my husband's faults? Can I just tell you what my wife doesn't do? You know, and I don't need to know any of that.

Here's what I need to know. You know, what's the generic, the topic? Okay, here's what the Bible says about it. Now, why don't you just do that? And we're done.

Jared. If someone is struggling with a sexual sin and they'd like some pastoral advice or advice from another Christian, right, because Romans 15, 14, Christians are competent to give Bible counsel. They can, I think that was the name of a book, wasn't it?

Pete. Competent to counsel. Jared. They could admonish one another and talk to other folks about it. I would say the counselor, to use that language, the Christian hearing the confession, should probably say, by the way, if you just tell me generically what your problem is, the scriptures are applicable.

So, if you just say, I'm struggling with sexual sin, that would be enough. I don't need to know where it happened, with whom necessarily. I mean, maybe we'll have to deal with that if it's some kind of adultery and we need to track people down or tell the wife or whatever.

But if you just say, I'm struggling with a sexual sin, or I did some sexual sins, what does the Bible say? Is there forgiveness found from me? Is there a plan of action for repentance and restoration?

Could you help? I don't even need to know anything else, do I? I don't need to know homosexual, heterosexual, I don't need to know frequency, time, place, or anything else, correct?

Pete. No, and you know, no. And basically, though, I think there's almost a need, some kind of urge or whatever and people urge, yeah. You know, to just kind of blurt it all out and, you know, somehow dump it on somebody else's shoulders.

But that's really not the way, I mean, when you do business, it's, you know, kind of Psalm 51, it's between you and God only. I mean, this is, there's no need for anybody else. And again, going back to 1 Timothy 2, there's one mediator, there's one who brings us together with God, who reconciles us to God in spite of our sin.

And that's the Lord. You know, that's Jesus Christ. And so, why we would turn to someone else and feel the need? Jesus knows everything, and he's still willing to step in for us, right? He did it, he does it now, and he will do it.

So, why would we need to go to somebody else?

Peter. And I know Steve believes this, because he believes the Bible, and he's only talking about one aspect of forgiveness. If we've sinned against another person, then, of course, James 5 says, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

I don't think I need to go, Steve, to you and confess all my sins that I've committed against Kim, and I need to go confess them to you. I mean, maybe if you were saying, you know what, Mike, we've got a relationship together, and I know you've asked me to hold you accountable for how you treat your wife, and how did it go this week?

I mean, I guess there are situations like that. But if you just sin against the Lord, you only ask the Lord for forgiveness. Just as Steve said, if you sin against someone else, you ask the Lord for forgiveness, because any sin is a sin against God.

And if it's against someone else, then you say to them, not I'm sorry, not I apologize, not you made me do it, not that I have a headache, not it's that time of the month, we have a plethora of excuses.

I just sinned because I was being disobedient. Do you think you have the, you know, could I please ask you to forgive me? That's all you have to do. Pete. And you know what, we do that,.

We watch it regularly with our grandchildren, right? They sin against each other. It's one thing if they bump into each other, you know, and then it's fine to say, I'm sorry. But when they actually sin against each other, one hits the other one or whatever, then we call them over, we correct them, we tell them, you know, what their sin is.

And then they need to go and ask the other person for forgiveness and they do it. You know, would you please, it's funny though, to watch, one will say to the other, would you please forgive me? And the second one will say, for what?

Right? Because they know there has to be an actual confession of the actual sin, right? And, you know, for hitting you, for not speaking kindly to you or whatever. Yes, I forgive you. And then they hug and then they just go back to playing.

And sadly, that's what doesn't often happen in our relationships, right? Where we just go back to things the way they were. That's what's.

Supposed to happen. So, can true forgiveness, could forgiveness really be granted if the person says, I forgive you. But then unlike these children, unlike these grandchildren, who forget about what's happened and they're on to the next thing, they could care less.

They just hold on to it. And they, not they the grandchildren, but this confessor, the one that's granted forgiveness,.

Rather, they just hold on to it and will not let go. No, put aside all bitterness. I mean, be done with it. And what is bitterness? Bitterness is unforgiveness, you know? And so, if you say, I forgive now, could there be, you know, in extreme cases, can there be consequences?

I mean, look, if somebody socks you and knocks you down for no reason, you know, and whatever, and then they say later on, would you please forgive me? Yes. Now there might be, I mean, you might not feel super warm towards that person for a while.

It might take a while to kind of gloss over things or whatever to really, or, you know, if there were sexual sin, you know, more serious sins, yes, there could be a while where I can forgive you as in not be angry and, you know, and absolutely be fine with things.

But I might not have that same sort of close relationship that we had before, at least not for a while. It might take me a while to.

Warm back up to you. Yeah. If somebody socks me, as you were talking about, Steve, I will forgive the person who socks me, but I also will probably call the police and file an.

Assault charge. Yeah. So, there can be consequences, right? Absolutely. Well,.

Back to this super confessor that the Pope likes to ordain. Maltese Franciscan Marcello Galando told AFP he thought giving the super confessor's authority, usually reserved for the man in white, was a symbolic gesture to show people the church is ready to wipe slates clean.

Pete. So pretty. Listen, I just like to know, we're in the Bible that says that, you know, there are some things that only the Pope can forgive. Where is that exactly? Jared Steve, I went to.

Morningstar Bookstore. That's hard to say, Morningstar Bookstore.

Pete. As evidenced by that, right?

No, I got it right when I thought of it. And to my pleased surprise, they had lots of good theology books. They had a lot of R .C. Sproul, John MacArthur, John Calvin, plenty of good books. But to my, to their chagrin, they've got a bunch of awful stuff.

I mean, Word, Faith, Deals, and then they've got a Roman Catholic section. And, you know, My First Mass and little books and little angels and stuff like that. Well, they have rosaries for sale for all the obvious reasons.

But for those that like to carry rosaries with them without the bulk, you know, because there's a lot of beads on those things. Some of the beads were rather heavy. They have a credit card sized rosary bead and with a little, what's the opposite of indentation?

A little like a bump or something? Pete. Yeah, okay. Jared. There's like a little, it's not concave, but maybe convex.

Pete. Yeah, convex, yeah. It bows out a little bit.

And it has a little dot on this little link thing. So, you can pray the rosary with what's essentially looking like a credit card and it can slip in your wallet. So, you can just, rosaries to go. So, I wasn't too happy about that.

So, I didn't buy anything.

Pete. Is there a rosary ATM where that card just kind of slides in?

Jared Well, it dispenses some indulgences. Pete Nice. Jared. Based on, you don't enter a pin number, you enter your bank account number. Pete Your sin number. Pete. Oh! Mike Havenroth, Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio.

Back to 1 Timothy. Fascinatingly, wonderfully, there's a man who's the mediator. I love it when it says there's one mediator between God and man. It doesn't say the Jew Christ Jesus. It says the man Christ Jesus.

Why? Because Jew or Gentile, he is the mediator. Isn't that good news?

Pete Yes. Yeah, but he's not a Gentile.

Jared I just want to be clear. Pete No, but he intercedes. He's the mediator for Jews and Gentiles. Jared Yes. Pete Because both Gentiles and Jews are men. Jared For the whole human race. That's right.

Pete Yes. There's only one race, right? Jared That's right. Pete Maybe he's only the mediator for people with a lot of pigment or a little pigment. Jared No. Pete A lot of, I was going to say melatonin, but that would put you to sleep.

Jared Yeah, for all that stuff. For all that chemical stuff.

Christ Jesus as the Only Mediator and Hope for Hidden Sin

Pete. What if somebody's listening today, Steve, we've got a couple minutes to go, and they've got some sin that they know about, nobody else really knows about, and it just haunts them and haunts them and haunts them.

Is there any hope for the person that has the haunting sin?

Pete. Well, absolutely. There is hope, and that hope is in a person. And that person is the man Christ Jesus. You know, could someone help you? Yes. You know, could you go to your pastor or whatever? But as we were saying earlier, I think it's just wise not to feel like you have to do a data dump explaining the entire scenario, but to generically give the category and, you know, have them walk you through what the Bible says about it and, you know, but confession needs to be between you and the Lord, which means to say the same, to view your sin as he does, to be brokenhearted over it, to have genuine regret, to want to turn away from it.

That's what repentance is, right? So, all these things kind of flow together, but the idea that, you know, you need some kind of super confessor or something like that, that is just extra biblical, it's wrong, and it is, you know, harkens back to the whole Galatians 1, 6 -8, you know, different gospel, not a gospel.

While the Roman Catholic Church is sending special uber confessors to Australia and even to Arctic Canada for Eskimo confessions, true, you don't need to have any of those super confessors. When we confess our sins and God is faithful and just to forgive them our sins, and God doesn't charge us twice because he pays for it once, the son does, and then it's over.

I'm glad for that. Amen.

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